#but my main account over there i created in the summer of 2017 right before i went into my freshman year of hs

[ohmytiredheart]

I love how while everyone is talking about the Reddit and Twitter migrations, there are the people like me sneaking in from Instagram pretending we know what's going on

[thesunnyshow]

Name: Juliet

Writing Blog URL(s): @wonderlustlucas

Nationality: American

Languages: English, beginner level French, teeny tiny bit of Korean

Star Sign: Virgo

MBTI: ISFJ-T

Favorite color: Pastel yellow

Favorite food: My mom’s Sunday gravy

Favorite movie: Howl’s Moving Castle (The Lion King is a close second though)

Favorite ice cream flavor: Specifically Turkey Hill’s Double Dunker (get it— it’s so good)

Favorite animal: Humpback whale

Go-to karaoke song: She’s Kinda Hot by 5 Seconds of Summer

Dream job (whether you have a job or not): Neurosurgeon! Or a Twitch streamer HAHA

Coffee or tea? What are you ordering?  Ahhh probably coffee, I love tea but I need my coffee </3

If you could have one superpower, what would you choose? Shapeshifting! Clearly the superior superpower I don’t take constructive criticism.

If you could visit a historical era, which would you choose? This is weirdly specific, but I would love to be in Scotland during the 1700’s. Alternatively, the 1980’s.

If you could restart your life, knowing what you do now, would you? 100%. I know everything happens for a reason but getting a redo and being able to fix all the big mistakes I made would be pretty nice.

Would you rather fight 100 chicken-sized horses or one horse-sized chicken? One horse-sized chicken! 100 tiny horses would be crazy tiring.

If you were a trope in a teen high school movie, what would you have been? I would probably be the gay side character that gives good emotional advice but is hella lonely LMAO

Do you believe in aliens/supernatural creatures? Yes, both!

What are some small things that make your day better? Driving with the windows down and music blasting, picking up coffee, playing video games, & talking to my internet friends on Discord.

Fun fact about yourself that not everyone would know? I discovered my love for writing through Warrior Cats roleplay😭

What fandom(s) do you write for? Right now, only Kpop, but I wouldn’t mind writing for 5SOS or some of my other fandoms!

When did you post your first piece? On WattPad, December 2015. On Tumblr, April 2018 :)

Do you write fluff/angst/crack/general/smut, combo, etc? Why? I write everything! Fluff/smut/crack is my favorite and slight angst (usually just slow burn though cus I’m soft).

Do you write OCs, X Readers, Ships...etc? Again, I write anything and everything! Currently, second or third person reader inserts are my main style, but I also do ships and would love to write more OCs.

Why did you decide to write for Tumblr? Before Tumblr, I was on WattPad for different fandoms but eventually fell off. Then, when I got into Kpop in 2017, I found that urge to write again and decided to move to Tumblr since WattPad was becoming… weird. Plus Tumblr was a better fit for me!

What inspires you to write? To be completely honest, it’s the little things throughout the day that inspire me. For example, “Honey” was inspired by me not being able to open my locker in high school. “I Hemoglobin You” was based off my friend giving me a head rub while I was donating blood. Kpop idols just so happen to be my muses that I like to put into random moments of inspiration!

What genres/AUs do you enjoy writing the most? High school or college AUs are my favorite, along with some good ol’ friends to lovers slow burn. Angst isn’t my forte so I usually just stick to fluff, smut, and some crack. I haven’t written any but fantasy AUs are some of my favorites too! (RIP to my League of Legends AU that I started and haven’t touched in months.)

What do you hope your readers take away from your work? Just like other fanfiction authors inspire me, I hope some of my work inspires others. Considering fanfiction is free, there is so much out there to read and when I find a good story that inspires ME to write better, I’d love for my writing to do the same.

What do you do when you hit a rough spot creatively? 3 options: 1) Skip that scene and jump ahead to one I’m excited to write; 2) Erase what part I’m on and completely redo it; or 3) Drop it. The majority of my works usually take a few months to write as I will completely stop working on it until I find the right inspiration again. 

What is your favorite work and why? Your most successful? “Four” is definitely my favorite work. It’s one of my longer pieces and there was a lot of raw emotion in there on my end. I love the relationship between Hyunjin and the reader and especially love the ending. “Greatest Gift” for Chanyeol is my most successful, and one of my other favorites!

Who is your favorite person to write about? Easily Hwang Hyunjin. It’s so easy to place him in any of my works, and sometimes it’s a struggle to NOT write him. It sounds stupid but sometimes I really feel like I “know” him so being able to describe him physically and mentally is easy for me.

Do you think there’s a difference between writing fanfiction vs. completely original prose? Yes and no. Yes, because most of the time, fanfiction is totally original as well and requires just as much thought as a 400,000 word novel. No, because fanfiction uses a specific person as a muse.

What do you think makes a good story? Detail and realistic dialogue! Of course, everyone has their own style of writing, but detail is especially important to me. Sure, you can have a great plot, but having concise, detailed writing to get immersed into makes a story so much better. I also find realistic dialogue to be a big deal— I hate when teenage characters are speaking in deep analogies because, if we’re being honest, my daily language is 95% just “Bruh.” If you’re like me, I’d actually prefer realistic dialogue over anything else.

What is your writing process like? Process… yikes. Sometimes… I have a random thought and then I’m like… hell yeah let’s write that. I actually have no process. I don’t outline, I just start writing and keep writing until I’m finished. Then I’ll read it all over to make edits, then I’ll use the Read Aloud feature to catch any mistakes I missed, then I’ll run it through Grammarly before posting!

Would you ever repurpose a fic into a completely original story? Hm, maybe? In the future, possibly, but as of right now I wouldn’t use any of my fics to do so.

What tropes do you love, and what tropes can’t you stand? Oh, gosh, tropes. Gotta love them. Friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, stuck together (AKA forced to share a bed), and fake relationships are my favorites. They may be corny, but I also love truth or dare or 7 minutes in heaven games in fics cus… they’re just classics. Also love fics with a popular x shy pairing. I can’t say I dislike many tropes, but I definitely have a love/hate relationship with vampire and werewolf tropes because of how romanticized they are.

How much would you say audience feedback/engagement means to you? Hm, to be completely honest, only a little bit? I mainly write for myself, it’s like a guilty pleasure to just get all my thoughts and desires out, and then I just so happen to make it public on Tumblr. Nevertheless, receiving comments and asks actually make my day, and sometimes I still struggle to wrap my mind around people enjoying my writing! So, thank you to everyone who has ever left me a kind message, I truly appreciate it ♥

What has been one of the biggest factors of your success (of any size)? Getting involved! I think one of the best ways to grow is to join networks, which not only gives you the opportunity to share your work on a greater scale, but also allows you to make connections. Like real life, making connections and making friendships with other writers can play a huge role in growing as a writer and growing your account.

Do you think fanfic writers get unfairly judged? Yes :( As someone who’s involved with other fandoms, I’ve heard the way some people think of fanfiction and it’s really sad. People do not know how much goes into writing and just see it as cringey and disgusting when it’s just… not.

Do you think art can be a medium for change? Yes! In all its forms, art is something a creator can use to influence their audience (in a good way, hopefully).

Do you ever feel there are times when you’re writing for others, rather than yourself? Like I said in #40, I mainly write for myself. Even when I’m writing a request, chances are if I like the request enough I’m going to create a story out of it that fits my personal desires the most.

Do you ever feel like people have misunderstood you or your writing at times?  No! However, I’d still consider myself a small account and do not have TOO many works posted. But so far, I don’t think I’ve faced this problem :)

Do your offline friends/loved ones know you write for Tumblr? Only a few! My best friend Maggie is on Tumblr with me and only 2 of my other pals know I write fanfiction.

What is one thing you wish you could tell your followers? How much I love each and every one of them for supporting me and sticking around even when I won’t post for months🥺❤️

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers who might be too scared to put themselves out there? Don’t psych yourself out! In the time I’ve spent on Tumblr, I’ve never received any substantial hate. My main advice is don’t write fanfiction to get popular on the app, write fanfiction because you love to write and love your muses!

Are there any times when you regret joining Tumblr? No, as much as Tumblr can be annoying at times, I love the people I’ve met and the content I’ve found and wouldn’t have wanted to use any other platform.

Do you have any mutuals who have been particularly formative/supportive in your Tumblr journey? @pinktea99 — Mo, you’ve been around since the beginning honestly, and without you I wouldn’t have been able to come out of my shell! Thank you for all your love & support & for being my SF9 buddy❤️

Pick a quote to end your interview with: 

“Like mate, stop procrastinating.” — 3RACHA

BONUS ROUND: K-POP CONFIDENTIAL 

[i-dont-want-your-hysteria]

PSA- How It All Went Down On February 10th

Today is the one year anniversary of when I got into Def Leppard, and how everything on this blog came to be becuase of today. Below is the entire story of how I came across Leppard, and how this blog came about. 

Happy one year!

Let me get one thing clear- I definitely grew up on Def Leppard in one way or another.

My dad’s been a huge fan since ‘83, so of course, I heard their music growing up. However, I didn’t exactly know it was them that I was hearing- I just always heard their name from my dad. I kept my own taste in music, and never paid attention to them (since I didn’t exactly know who they were).

So, the road to my current state of Leppard-loving actually began at the beginning of my sophomore year (fall 2016). For some reason I "rediscovered" Sugar (as in I never knew the title or the artist of it but always heard it as a kid) and started listening to it a lot. A lot.

During my sophomore year, I transitioned my music taste into classic rock. I don’t remember how this happened, but it was for the best.

 At the end of my sophomore year, I "rediscovered" Animal (same scenario) and started listening to it a lot, but never listened to any other song by them voluntarily. 

In the summer following this (summer 2017), whenever we burned a fire on our deck, we would always play Weird Al/ Electric Amish (stuff like that) when we were out there late at night. Eventually, one night in July, I was out of ideas of what to play so I asked my dad (a huge DL fan) what I should put on and of course he simply says "Def Leppard." I asked him what song and said to just pick one, so I thought, “oh god I don't really know any of their songs and I don’t know what he likes, what should I pick? Okay, I’ll pick one I don’t know. Let's just pick the first one that comes up that I don't know" and it just so happens that that one was Hysteria, and I put it on and immediately my dad goes "Ahh.. you had to pick this one...” and tilts his head back, looking up at the sky.

He then told me the story of the first time it was played for the rest of the band (which isn’t 100% true, but this is just what he knew) he said that one of the guitarists (it was actually Phil and Sav) played what they had so far for the rest of the band around a campfire like we were doing (which turned out to be some of Sav and Phil's Irish friends).

But it felt really cool being out there with this song playing, and it was the first time I had ever heard it, too. Hysteria was my favorite song within a week. But, still, I could probably only name 3 or 4 DL songs at this point (I apparently did know more, but none by name). Those 3 or 4 DL songs kinda defined that summer for me, funny enough.

October of 2017: I don't exactly know how it happened, (I think I heard it on the radio) but I rediscovered Photograph (I actually knew this one by name) and became OBSESSED WITH IT FOR ALL OF NOVEMBER. Making music videos in my head, writing it into my NaNoWriMo novel, listening to it whenever I could, just wow- I love it. That's when it became my favorite song of all time (and it still is- tied with Hysteria).

It's January of 2018 now, and I'm still cooing over Photograph and Sugar and Hysteria and Animal, then January 14th, 2018 comes around- I almost meet Rick by accident, then a week or so later I'm watching the Metal Mayhem block on MTVC...

A video ends, it fades to black, and then suddenly I hear that "pck......" pluck of a string that echoes away and my heart jumps- “IT'S PHOTOGRAPH OHMYGODOHMYGOD...!!” 

It occurred to me right then and there that I had never seen the music video before (or even considered that there may have been one)

It had ALSO occurred to me that I had never once actually looked at a picture of the band. I'd never seen their faces. 

So I’ve got a favorite song I’ve been obsessed with for a solid two months, I discover its music video, and look at the band who sings it for the first time- and who starts singing my absolute favorite song of all time but an absolutely daSHING young man in a Union Jack tank top and a white scarf.

And then he hit me out of nowhere and I actually said to myself "God... the lead singer's actually kinda cute... like... really cute..." followed by an "oh no" shortly after because I knew I'd eventually fall madly in love with this simply adorable man who sings my favorite song, and I’d remember that that is what started it all (but that's not what started it all. It was simply an “I’ve been down this road before and this is typically how it starts.” I was more shocked than anything that my dad’s favorite band had a pretty cute lead singer- like how was that possible?) I was now, however, teetering on the edge of falling into an obsession... anything could set me off. 

And it finally did- on February 10th, 2018. My dad was taking me to a drama club rehearsal, and Bringin On the Heartbreak came on the radio. My dad turned it up and went "Yes! Old Leppard!" and at the chorus I went "WHAT'S THIS SONG CALLED I THINK I'VE HEARD IT BEFORE"

It was just the chorus I remembered, not exact words, but it just sounded all familiar, the melody of their forces, the screaming of the words, I'm pretty sure I heard it a really long time ago. And thus, it had begun. I went home, I found it on our iCloud and downloaded it.

Then I remembered my dad saying something when he was drunk about how "I nEED ROCK. LIKE ROCK. I'M TALKING LIKE- PYROMANIA. TWICE."

So I thought "I really really like a small handfull of Def Leppard’s songs. I think I should listen to them more. I'll listen to Pyromania- twice." (I’d heard of the album beforehand but never listened to it- or had I?). So I did one day. I listened to it. Twice. And BOOM; there were at least 4 songs on there right off the bat I most definitely recognized. Turns out I did know a ton of songs by Def Leppard- I just didn’t know it was them.

And of course I looked into them a bit more, hearing about all their popular stuff, listening to all of Hysteria, FINALLY looking up that handsome son of a bitch's name (Joe), finding out that one of the main composers of my favorite song went and died before I was born (Steve), and finding their more popular songs, and listening to all albums soon enough. 

I kept going back to tumblr to find pics of them and such, but there weren’t a lot. There wasn’t much on here at all about them. Whatever I did find, though, I reblogged. I was straight up obsessed within days. That week was crazy for my old tumblr. 

However, at the end of the week, on Feb 18th, only a week after it all began, I accidentally deleted my tumblr account (long story, don’t ask). I was honestly devastated because I had it for almost 4 years and all that history was now gone in the blink of an eye. Within the hour, I restarted and created a new tumblr account. I was lost on here and didn’t know where to begin, or get back on my feet. For one thing, I got my old url back ( @mccoys-killer-queen ) and immediately made my background the same pic of the guys as it was before to kind of trick myself into thinking nothing had changed.

I was wrong, and that was a good thing.

I got back into a fresh new blog, and started going around to people and asking them to spread the word on what happened and to hopefully get most of my followers back.

To this day I don’t remember all of them, and that’s been a good thing so far.

While I was doing this, I started talking to @raised-on-radio (whom I had only become mutuals with about a week earlier), 

“thinking about legit starting a def leppard blog tho” I said in the tags of a post I reblogged. She sent it back to me saying that I totally should (thanks, by the way!). And while I wasn’t totally serious about it at the time, I thanked her for the support so early on.

The next day- literally- the next day (Feb 19th), I messaged her and said that I couldn’t help myself, and made a DL blog (you’re looking at it right now). I’d never had a sideblog before, but within a week, I really enjoyed it (and obviously, I still do). Upon looking at this dead/sleeping fandom on tumblr, I realized right away it needed some sort of revival- to become like other fandoms in the modern day. There was no fanfic (on tumblr at least), there were no memes (oh heLL NO there was not), there wasn’t much circulation of posts, and it just felt dead- which I KNEW it wasn’t. It was very far from it.

Over the next month or so, it seemed now that I was involved with the fandom, it was starting to awaken in some ways. There were people actually posting content, more people were making blogs, memes got involved (I’m taking the credit for that, lmao, it seemed no one else posted memes except me and @stupidpicturesofdefleppard ). I don’t want to say I caused this awakening, but it just seems that it happened around the time I got involved with everything. A divine coincidence.

The year that followed was amazing in so many different ways. In a year, I went from not even looking at a photo of the guys and not even knowing their names, to interacting/having one of them and their official twitter interact with me on Twitter a few times, to meeting one of them in person (and putting my arm around him and having him call me ‘darling’), to having a year long obsession that’s still going strong, to knowing much more songs by them than any other artist, to knowing more facts and history about them than anything else, to being able to recognize them if given the slightest detail, and to being absolutely in love with every member and everything Def Leppard has done (not in that order!)

One year later, here we are! The past 365 days since I first heard Bringin’ On The Heartbreak in my dad’s car has been one hell of a story that’s taken me months to completely type out, and I can’t thank everyone enough for somehow making me gain 364 followers in the past year for something I never thought would get off the ground! If I told myself a year ago that I’d be where I am now, I don’t know what I’d think of it. I’d think it absolutely crazy- which it is!

But I wouldn’t change a thing about the last 365 days, that’s for damn sure. 

Rock on, guys!

[proverbs3321]

My Testimony

For those of you who have been following me for a while, you’ll know that I was baptized on January 8th, 2017. Below is the testimony I shared (and cried the entire way through,) because I think it may be an encouragement to some of you...

I’ve been a Christian my whole life. I was blessed with wonderful parents who encouraged me to seek God, and I was quite young when I openly decided to “ask Jesus into my heart.” I never intended to change my mind, or leave my faith, and yet, for the longest time I didn’t intend to get baptized, either.

I put off baptism for so long, and there are a number of fear-drenched reasons why. When I told my mother I hadn’t been called to it yet, she told me that, “Actually, [I] have,” and that exchange made me feel guilty for not being ready. The first inkling I had that maybe, just maybe baptism could be right for me was on July 3rd, 2015. I was at Living Springs Bible Camp, and it was campfire time, and I remember looking out on to the lake and just feeling overwhelmed. “God,” I thought. “I could just drown in you.” I was so taken aback by the glory of my creator that I wanted nothing more than to just be enveloped in all he is forever. And so, I wrote this thought down on my bible case so that I could remember the exact moment. However, a friend of mine read it in passing, and her response was, “That’s not good.” I didn’t have it in me to explain to her the poetry of that thought, and I ended up feeling discouraged, and turning away from baptism again. And now, my third fear is realized, and that is saying all this to you. Fortunate for me, I’m a writer at heart, and as I write this the words come easily. However, speaking them,  and sharing my heart out loud is and always has been incredibly daunting to me. This may surprise some of you, as theatre comes fairly naturally to me, but I hate to be the centre of attention, and I always knew that when I chose to get baptized this moment would come. Still, it needed to be done.

It was this past July when I felt myself called inarguably to be baptized, once again at Living Springs. I could swear the lessons this year were written especially for me. I was drowning in fear about what I was going to do with my life now that I’ve finished high school. I was feeling guilty about not going, or even wanting to go to college when I have so much potential, and I felt anxious about not being called to anything and thus not knowing what to pursue. I was unbelievably lost until this summer at camp. The speaker spoke a lot about following God and deciding where to go in life, and overall the lesson that hit me was this: God will take you where you need to go. Don’t worry about where you’ll end up, just keep going. Keep walking. Keep praying. Keep living. Let me tell you, I wanted to stop. I wanted to panic. I wanted to take a moment to look at a map, pick a destination, and not move until I had a clear plan of action, and that desire was crippling. It never occurred to me to just continue on, taking this all one step at a time. Sure, I knew God had a plan, but I was so concerned about figuring it out that I never thought to just trust him and take it as it came. Life keeps coming, and I still have no idea where it’s taking me, but I’m having the time of my life along the way.

As important as that was to my testimony, it sort of went off on a tangent, away from my decision to get baptized. That decision was sparked by another thing the camp speaker discussed: putting your stake in the ground. Now, this thought brought challenges all its own. I wanted it so badly: “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back.” Yet I was beyond terrified of making this commitment and failing. So terrified that I started crying. I was scared of failure, and the one thing I didn’t take into account during this moment was that Jesus already died for these failures, and I had no need to fear them anymore. Despite this fear, that was the moment I decided I wanted to “put my stake in the ground.” No turning back, no turning back. The baptism part came up later, when it was announced that they would be baptizing those that wanted in the lake on our last day. I went to the baptism crash course class they held, but circumstances prevented me from getting baptized there and then. Probably for the better, since, aside from how disgusting that lake is, and the fact that open water is another fear of mine, all my friends and family are here.

Oh, also, had I been baptized at camp, my testimony would have been lacking this delightful anecdote which I will call the Jones Soda Story. Bear with me. The thing is, once the baptism had been announced, I was intrigued. I felt whole-heartedly that I was being called to it, but I was also trying very hard to deny it. And so, it was free time and I was sitting on the deck with a Jones Soda and a chocolate bar, pondering baptism and what crows eat, when the most ridiculous thought occurred to me: maybe God had conveniently hid my answer inside the lid! You know the way Jones Soda bottle caps feature a little fortune, proverb, or suggestion on the inside? Well, I don’t know what I expected, but I remember thinking that there was no reason God couldn’t have planned my whole life down to the detail of this precise soda bottle. I don’t think I truly believed it, in fact, I was probably laughing at myself, but when I turned the lid over I really hoped it would hold my answer… “Donate old clothing,” it said. So I laughed and reminded myself that Jones Soda bottles aren’t likely God’s preferred method of speaking to his people. Besides, at this point I was already pretty certain I was supposed to get baptized, and me praying for an answer was just an attempt to delay the inevitable. But what I didn’t expect is that a couple weeks later I would buy some Jones Sodas because they were on sale, and my answer was waiting inside the lid of my root beer after all: “Now is the time to set priorities.” By then my heart was already set. I knew I needed to get baptized, and I knew I wanted to. But still, God gave me that answer I had sought in a ridiculous place, at a ridiculous time, and I will always find it funny that though I was originally given no physical answer at all, just a few weeks later I was reminded in the exact same way I had hoped for that now was the time. The time to make God my priority. The time to die to myself. And while I know this must be nonsense to some of you, or perhaps most of you, it will always mean something to me.

Anyhow, that’s the story of why I decided to get baptized. The why, the how, the when, the where… but if I could, I’d like to tell one more story that sort of sums up the “who” aspect of it. It’s kind of a sad story. In fact, you might even call it a tragedy, but it is so unbelievably important to me and my experience with God. This story takes place on July 12th, 2015.

We skipped church that day. My grandparents from BC were in town for the day, and we thought we’d lie low. The night before my sisters and I had watched a movie I liked. That morning we were taking care of my Auntie’s dog. All was well. I could have sworn everything was all right when my Grandma Anne and Auntie came in after church. It all seemed perfectly ordinary, but then my grandma started crying. The Axelsens had been in an accident, you see. And Colin was dead. I didn’t respond right away. I couldn’t tell how I felt at first, but soon I started to cry. I locked myself in the bathroom and that’s where it happened. On the floor of the main floor bathroom, a quiet thought came to me. “Come to me and I will give you solace.” I knew it was God immediately. It was not that I hadn’t heard the verse Matthew 11:28; “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” There’s no explaining it, really. But this calm thought directing me to God was in such contrast to my own chaotic thoughts that there was no way it was a product of my own mind, and it offered me exactly what I needed; not a break from crying, or a change of activity. Peace. Comfort. Solace.

And that is the story of the time God spoke to me. The reason I cannot doubt that he is God; master, creator, provider, healer, counsellor, and father. It’s the reason that I know that not only did God create worlds and galaxies and oceans bigger than I can fathom, but that despite these great and wondrous things, He can still see me. He can still hear my cries. And He loves me. I hope that as you listen to my testimony, you also remember this: God is a covenant keeper. When I turned to God, not only did he take my grief. He took my fear. The fear that kept me sick through most of High School. The fear of the future. The fear of the world. And, truthfully, I still do feel afraid sometimes, but it does not control me anymore, because God loves me, and He is my peace.

And that brings me to here. This moment. The moment I turn away from all that paralyzed me and choose Love, hope, peace, and the Cross. The moment I choose to die to myself and to live with Christ. I’m only sorry it took me so long to get here.

And now, because I cannot resist a good Narnia reference, “Let us go on, and take the adventure that shall fall to us.”

[arlingtonpark]

The Story of L’Affaire Russe Part 6

Part VI. The Indictment of Paul Manfort to the Present/It’s a Dumb, Dumb, Dumb, Dumb World.

Thus continues my now six part epic saga to document what is currently the biggest political scandal since Iran-Contra over 30 years ago: L’Affaire Russe, Russia’s attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election and the Trump campaign’s attempted complicity in it.

After a weekend of suspense, the announcement was made that, to no one’s surprise, Paul Manafort was the one who was indicted, along with his right hand man Rick Gates.

The charges allege that Manafort and Gates collectively laundered over $75,000,000 over the course of several years through undisclosed foreign and domestic entities, including bank accounts. It is further alleged that they failed to disclose their work as agents of the Ukrainian government and its then-President, Victor Yanukovych. Finally, it is alleged that they made various false statements related to the above two allegations. Manafort and Gates surrendered themselves to FBI custody.

Mueller’s plan, it seems, is to put pressure on Manafort to flip on Trump and cooperate. Bringing these charges against him accomplishes this because now Manafort can enter in to a plea deal where he offers information in exchange for leniency. Whether or not he does so remains to be seen.

To some extent, this was all expected, which is why it was so shocking when Mueller somehow managed to work in a plot twist: he revealed that he managed to secure the cooperation of George Papadopoulos.

George Papadopoulos had previously played a bit part in the story of the 2016 election, so much so that I did not mention him since he seemed like one of those characters in a sitcom who are prominent for an episode because they interact with the main characters in a funny way, and then they go away never to be seen again. Turns out, he was one of those characters who interact with the main characters in a funny way, and then go away, but come back later because they’re actually very important. This is why people liken the larger Trump presidency to a badly written sitcom.

Papadopoulos’ prior role: during the Summer of 2016, it became obvious that the Trump campaign did not have anyone advising them on foreign policy. Desperate to save face, the campaign half-assedly threw together a list of people who would advise them on FP issues; Papadopoulos was one of the people whose name appeared on that list. Papadopoulos in particular received attention, but for all the wrong reasons. He had listed his participation in the model UN on his LinkedIn resume, a laughable thing to include when you’re supposedly as distinguished in the realm of FP as to be advising a serious contender for the American Presidency.

But it turns out to be even more laughable than that. He actually lied about attending the model UN! So not only did he think that model UN was a high enough distinction for a Presidential foreign policy advisor to put on his resume, he thought it was such a coveted position that he saw fit to lie about it!

Everyone laughed this joker off as a clown, except he turned out to actually be important. That’s right. Model UN guy (model UN guy!) is a key player in the Trump-Russia imbroglio! What the hell!

What happened was that Papadopoulos met Joseph Mifsud, a university professor who was also a spy for the Russian Government. Papadopoulos’s confession can be read here. It details how he came to learn of the existence of the hacked Clinton emails and his attempts to obtain them.

This is another example of the Trump campaign trying to collude with Russia, but never actually succeeding, the first example being the Veselnitskaya meeting at Trump Tower. It’s at this point that I should say that it is entirely possible that Trump and his campaign are not guilty of anything. Incredible as this may sound, it’s conceivable that the Trump campaign merely tried to coordinate with Russia, but ultimately failed to do so.

The various investigations by the House and Senate continued apace. Throughout the Autumn of 2017, Carter Page, Michael Cohn, Rinat Akhmetshin, Jeff Sessions, and various leading figures in Fusion GPS, the firm that contracted Steele, all testified before the House Intel Committee.

Trump’s long time bodyguard, Keith Schiller, was called to testify before the House Intel Committee as well, and during this testimony Schiller dropped a very telling revelation: recall that the Steele Dossier alleges that Trump had a group of Russian hookers piss over the bed in his Moscow hotel room, the same hotel room that Obama had stayed at years earlier. In his testimony, Schiller CONFIRMS that a group of hookers were offered to Trump, but maintains that they were turned down.

So as far as I’m concerned, the pee tape is real, Putin’s got it, and he’s probably using it to blackmail the Leader of the Free World right now. Great.

Information regarding contact between the Trump campaign and Wikileaks, one of the groups involved in disseminating the hacked Clinton emails, came to light in November. Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm that worked for the Trump campaign, apparently tried to make contact with Wikileaks after they began working for the Trump campaign.

Not only that, but Wikileaks also sent various Twitter DMs to Trump, Jr. Wikileaks asked for various things. They floated the idea of Wikileaks head Julian Assange being appointed Ambassador to Australia. They encouraged the Trump campaign to contest the outcome of the election if they lost. They even asked for Trump’s tax returns. Jr. did not always respond to these messages, but he did at times. Most notably, Wikileaks sent Jr. a link with the recommendation that they publicize it since using the link would take you to a compendium of Wikileaks emails. Trump himself gave the link a shout out just 15 minutes later. Jr. also gave the link a shout out on his Twitter page two days later.

Tangentially, we were also treated to something of a side show courtesy of Michael Flynn and his dealings with the Turkish government. Recall that Robert Mueller’s mandate is to investigate Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election and any crimes uncovered over the course of that investigation. Flynn could be sitting on useful information involving possible Trump collusion with Russia, so Mueller is trying to nail Flynn on unrelated crimes in order to flip him. Not only that, but Mueller is apparently also targeting Flynn’s son too, since he was apparently also involved in the same shady activities as his father. Mueller’s calculation is that Flynn loves his son enough that he’d be willing to surrender to the investigation in return for leniency for his son. (He was right)

With that said, oooh boy, has Flynn and co. been up to some nefarious, and quite frankly incredible, s!@t.

In 2016, a coup was launched against the rule of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan is a dictator; for years now, he has worked to undermine democracy in Turkey and consolidate his own power. The coup was led by Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric who apparently masterminded the coup from his mountain top fortress in the Poconos. (Yes, that Poconos) The coup not only failed, it backfired. Erdogan survived and used it as an excuse to accelerate his consolidation of power.

This is where Flynn comes in. Flynn had previously worked as a lobbyist for the Turkish government, and it has been reported that he and his son were offered $15 million by the government of Turkey to use his power as the then-National Security Advisor to facilitate Gulen’s extradition to Turkey. Either that, or the offer was $15 million to flat out kidnap him!

Unfortunately for Flynn, that’s not the end of the problems for him. Remember what I said earlier about Flynn doing lobbying work for the Turkish government? Well, it turns out he didn’t notify the US government of his lobbying work, which he is legally required to do. He’s also been found to have made various false statements to the FBI.

It should come as no surprise then that Flynn entered in to a plea deal with Mueller, both for his own sake and for the sake of his son. Flynn is now cooperating with the investigation.

Recall that after the Obama administration announced sanctions against Russia for interfering in the election, Russia did not escalate the situation by retaliating. Flynn admits to having been the one who told Ambassador Kislyak to tell Putin to not retaliate. This confirms the reporting of the Washington Post, which reported, based on leaks from the Intelligence Community, that Flynn had done just that. Flynn also admits to having discussed the issue of what to tell Kislyak with other senior officials in Trump’s orbit, but it is not known if Trump himself knew of this.

In other words, Flynn, on behalf of the Trump team, worked to undermine US foreign policy towards Russia.

The next item on the agenda here is a raft of revelations regarding the Steele Dossier, AKA the Pee Tape Dossier.

During this time, important details about how the dossier was compiled came to light. It was already known that the dossier was compiled by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, who was hired by Fusion GPS, an opposition research company. Fusion GPS, in turn, was hired by an anonymous GOP donor to perform oppo research during the 2016 GOP primary.

That last part about Fusion GPS being paid by a GOP donor, which turned out to be the libertarian leaning online news website the Washington Free Beacon, is actually irrelevant. Steele was only brought on board to create the dossier after the Free Beacon stopped funding Fusion GPS. But someone did pay Fusion GPS to do their oppo research on Trump, so who was it?

It was none other than Hillary Clinton!

DUN DUN DUU-

(Indirectly)

…

This is what actually happened: after being dumped by the Free Beacon, Fusion was hired by Perkins Coie, the law firm of Marc Elias, a very well connected Democratic Party-aligned campaign lawyer. Fusion, in turn, subcontracted the research work out to Steele, who has many contacts and sources in Russia and so was considered to be well positioned to do this sort of work.

Perkins Coie was acting on behalf of the Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, which ultimately paid for the dossier’s creation. Note, though, that Clinton herself was unaware of the details of Fusion or Steele’s work.

The fact that the dossier’s creation was paid for by Clinton led to many conservative commentators to raise a stink about the validity of Bob Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Everyone in the propaganda-sphere from Sean Hannity to even members of Congress was attempting to spin this yarn about how the dossier’s being paid for by Clinton money made the entire Russia investigation illegitimate because, in their telling, the dossier was the reason the investigation was started in the first place.

This is all nonsense.

The Dossier was not the investigation’s catalyst. The investigation actually got started when, and I swear I’m not making this up, George Papadopoulos got drunk at a bar in London and spilled to Australia’s ambassador to the UK that the Trump campaign was seeking to obtain the emails the Russian government pilfered from Clinton.

But in spite of the admittedly too-stupid-to-believe reason for the investigation was out there and public, Trump-aligned forces still pushed the narrative that the Dossier was politically biased and that this somehow made the investigation illegitimate, even though it had resulted in multiple indictments and even a couple guilty pleas by that point.

Chief among them was Devin Nunes, a Republican representative from Fresno, California.

You may remember Nunes from part 3, in which he obtained intel in a secret midnight rendezvous with a contact from within the federal government like a character in a f!@#ing spy movie (and on the White House lawn no less!) and potentially spilled classified information live on national tv, all in the hopes of clearing Trump’s name, which he failed to do because he had no idea what he was doing.

Well, in early 2018, the prodigal son returned.

In that time period, Nunes began talking up a memo he had his staff prepare. He claimed that this memo would prove that there was a deep state conspiracy to undermine President Trump.

The FBI had been spying on Carter page for months, Carter Page being a Trump campaign advisor who, according to Trump himself, was not a Trump campaign advisor. Devin Nunes claimed his memo (which, he kept telling everyone, would be a Big Deal upon release) would show that the FBI started its Trump-Russia investigation with their surveillance of Page. This surveillance was done on authority granted by a warrant issued by the FISA Court. To obtain the warrant, the FBI had to submit an application to the Court detailing the evidence that there was criminal wrongdoing.

Nunes claimed his Big Deal Memo would show that the evidence the FBI relied on to get the warrant was from the Steele Dossier and that the FBI did not disclose to the FISA Court that the Dossier was created by politically biased people. Thus, the FBI withheld pertinent information in the name of getting their warrant and this proves they have it in for Trump.

Nunes said, flat out, that his Big Deal Memo (which apparently turned anything it rested upon into gold) would single-handedly expose the biggest government conspiracy since Watergate.

Even before the memo was released to the public, Trump defenders the world over latched on to this to attack the credibility of the Mueller investigation. (The Mueller investigation is just a continuation of the FBI’s investigation.)

They were outraged (outraged, I tells ya!) that the FBI would act so underhandedly and spy on a high-ranking Trump advisor. (Who was somehow simultaneously not a Trump advisor)

Fact check: even if the Dossier was the basis for the investigation’s start, the bias of its creators wouldn’t have mattered. The FBI relies on biased sources for evidence all the time in its applications to the FISA Court. This is well known and the judges know to account for this.

But wait! It gets even dumber then that! Nunes finally pulled his Big Deal Memo out of his ass and presented it to the public.

It literally refutes itself. I’m not even kidding. The memo lays out the case Nunes was arguing for this whole time, (the investigation is biased because it has its roots in a biased document) and then in literally the last paragraph it says that the biased document (the Dossier) was not the root of the investigation!

Big Deal!

And to top it off, Nunes claimed throughout this whole mess that the FBI didn’t disclose the Dossier’s biases. But as Nunes himself would later be forced to admit, they did! The disclosure was made in a footnote to the main body of the application, which Nunes argued was still an obvious attempt at deceitfulness.

Because footnotes apparently don’t exist to be read. Or something.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5