#gonna do political economy sadly

[starryflix]

I have no motivation to do my uni work but even though we’re only two weeks in I really can’t afford to lag behind and I am starting to get sick and somehow creativity for MULTIPLE BIG PROJECTS is all hitting me at once

[thinkingaboutyoungroyals]

Falling For You But You Are Worlds Away: Chapter 2

A/N: So, I'm not Latino but I do come from an immigrant family so I may end up basing Simon's experience moving to a whole new country with my own experiences. I also consulted Hispanic friends on the language and culture I used here but forgive me if I get anything wrong. Please feel free to suggest or correct me on anything.

AO3

Simon had never been on a plane before. In fact, he had never traveled before.

It wasn’t like his family had copious amounts of money to spare for a fancy vacation. The most they probably did was spend a weekend in Stockholm, sightseeing and doing tourist-y stuff during one of his mother’s birthdays.

So, to say that he was overwhelmed by the process of traveling by plane, internationally, and as a minor, was an understatement. He was utterly terrified and anxious.

When his mother and Sara had dropped him off at the international airport in Stockholm (that place, alone, was overwhelming to see, even if he had looked at the pictures online beforehand), their hugs were long and teary. His mother barely let him go and Sara clung to his arm, crying silent tears into his jacket. They made sure he had enough snacks to fill him up on the 8-hour flight and his mother must have lectured the airport official tasked to escort him (because he was a minor) for so long that the woman had to gently tell her that Simon would miss his flight if they dallied any longer.

So, reluctantly, he said goodbye to his family.

Simon was given a badge to wear that indicated he was an unaccompanied minor and the stewardess seated him towards the front of the Economy class next to the window. She asked him if there was anything else he needed before leaving him to tend to other duties. No one was seated next to him yet so Simon took his time looking at all the knobs and buttons, familiarizing himself with them. He spotted magazines tucked into the little pocket in front of him so he took one out.

Just his luck, Wille’s face stared back at him. It was one of those tabloids and, fortunately, this one didn’t have Simon on it. The words on the cover spoke about the Royal Family’s Christmas celebrations.

Unable to help himself, Simon ran a gentle finger over the image of Wille. He missed him. He missed him so much. He missed his smiles. His hugs. The way he made noises when he was embarrassed. The way he tried to sing but was always off-key. Damnit, Simon really missed him.

When Wille first denied it was him in the video and Simon decided to break up with him, he was angry. So damn angry. Wille had promised him that they were in it together, that Simon wasn’t going to be alone. And he broke it.

But, now that he had time to think things through and see the situation from Wille’s position, he understood. Sort of. Maybe not completely. The Royal family’s need to stick to tradition and rules in a modern world that had no room for it would always baffle him. But, there wasn’t anything Wille could do. And coming out was such a personal and terrifying thing, Simon could speak from experience.

He wished he could tell Wille where he was going – he knew the prince would worry if he didn’t see Simon at Hillerska. But, Simon promised his mother to keep his whereabouts quiet from others aside from them, Ayub, and Rosh.

His best friends had been upset to find out that Simon was leaving the country. They had tried to appeal to his mother but when she made a decision, she was determined to see it through. Not even her soft spot and affection for Simon’s best friends could sway her.

Thus, here he was. On a plane. To New York.

Someone shuffled to the empty seat next to him, an older man who acknowledged him with a nod. Simon gave him a small, polite smile and tucked the magazine back into the pocket. Then, he took out his headphones and put them on as he waited for the plane to fill up and take off.

During the flight, Simon realized traveling by plane wasn’t too bad. It was probably one of the most luxurious things he had ever experienced. There were movies and snacks and interesting meals. He watched 3 movies, all in English, and snacked on the provided bags of pretzels and sodas. When he had finished those, he dug into his own backpack for the snacks his mother packed. He also napped for about an hour, leaning against the cold surface of the window. He took pictures of the clouds on his phone.

The stewardesses checked on him every once in a while. Then, when the plane was almost to New York, they were given little papers to fill in for immigration. The man next to him, clearly a veteran of flights and traveling, kindly helped clarify the places that confused him.

Then, when they landed at JFK Airport, while everyone else shuffled out of the plane, Simon had to wait for someone to get him. An airport official eventually arrived, a man who greeted Simon in Swedish and led him out of the plane. The official got him through immigration, Baggage Claim to collect his bags, and to the Arrivals area.

Simon scanned the crowd, looking for his aunt.

“Simon! Over here!”

A woman with dark curly hair, wearing a plain white shirt and jeans, waved at him, excitedly. His Tia Elena.

Feeling himself smile, Simon dragged his suitcases behind him as he hurried over to her. She fought through the crowd to get to him.

“Tia!” He was enveloped in her arms, immediately, the hug as tight and warm as his mother’s.

“Oh, look at you, mijo!” She pulled back to look up at him – he was at least an inch taller than her. “You’re so tall now! And so handsome! Look at those beautiful curls!”

Simon laughed. “Gracias, Tia. It’s good to see you, too. Thank you for having me.”

She placed a gentle hand on his cheek. “Of course. You’re family.”

She patted his cheek affectionately before turning to the airport official who had escorted Simon. After confirming who she was and her relation to Simon, they were finally allowed to leave the airport.

His aunt drove them in a red Toyota sedan, chattering and pointing out the window at buildings and signs, explaining what they were or where they led to. Simon nodded along, politely, watching New York pass him by. Being here, it finally sunk in – he was no longer home in Sweden. He was no longer going to see his mother, his sister, and his friends for a long while. He wasn’t going to see Wilhelm.

The longing made his heart grow heavy but he kept his face neutral, not wanting to worry his aunt.

At a red light, Tia Elena picked up her phone and unlocked it before handing it over to him.

“Why don’t you video call your mama?” she said. “Let her know you’ve arrived safely.”

Simon took the phone and scrolled through the contacts, looking for his mother’s name. It was probably late there now, as Sweden is 6 hours ahead of New York, but maybe they were still awake.

“Elena?” His mother picked up, immediately.

“Hi, mama. It’s me!”

“Mi amor!” She beamed. “I’m glad you got there safe! How was your flight?”

“Good! Mama, did you know they give you food on the plane? It was really good. Nothing like your cooking though.” Simon bit his lip. “I miss you and Sara, already.”

“We miss you, too, mi amor. Sara! Come here, it’s your brother! Where’s your Tia?”

Simon moved to show his aunt on camera.

His aunt waved at the phone. “Hi, Linda! Simon is here with all his limbs attached, don’t worry.”

Simon’s mother laughed. “I’m glad to hear that. How are you, Elena?”

His mother and aunt chatted for a bit, with Simon holding the phone. At some point, Sara showed up to say “hi” and announce the news that her grant from Hillerska had been approved. She was going to be a resident when the term started.

And, suffice to say, Simon was happy for his sister but was also a little bummed that he couldn’t be there for her. But, he also knew she was in safe hands with Felice and Madison.

“Who’s gonna feed my fish then? That was your job!”

“Mama will, duh!”

“I’ll take good care of them, Simon, don’t worry.”

Simon smiled. “Thanks, mama.” He bit his lip, feeling the longing stir in his chest again. “I… I miss you.”

His mother returned the smile, sadly. “We miss you, too, Simon. Take care, okay? I’ll call as often as I can.”

“Okay, mama.”

“Bye, Elena. Take care of Simon!”

“No need to tell me twice, Linda.”

Goodbyes took another minute or so and finally, Simon ended the video call. He could feel his right eye watering. He turned to look out the window again, not wanting his aunt to see. But, she must have those instincts all mothers had as he felt her pat his shoulder, gently.

The rest of the ride was mostly silent with only the radio and his aunt occasionally pointing out a store or a restaurant that she and his cousin, Ana, would frequent. He assumed he would be doing the same, at some point. But, right at that moment, he didn’t really care. He had only been in New York for an hour and he already wanted to go home.

They soon arrived at the home where his aunt lived with her only daughter. It was painted yellow, one story, and a few steps led up to the front door. A few potted plants and some large bushes decorated the lawn as well as patches of ice and snow.

As soon as Simon entered with his suitcases and backpack in tow, he was greeted by a shriek and arms wrapped around his neck.

“I can’t believe you’re finally here, Simon! Welcome to New York!”

The arms retreated and Simon looked down in surprise. His cousin, Ana, a year older than him and whom he remembered often led him around by holding his hand, was shorter than he was. She must have noticed it, too, as she scoffed.

“Ugh, why are you so tall now?!” she whined.

“Simon probably eats his vegetables and you don’t,” said his aunt, gently bumping her daughter in the head.

Simon laughed, shaking his head as he pulled his cousin back for another hug. He had forgotten how much he had missed her.

Ana, Sara, and he were thick as thieves and the best of friends when they were younger. They grew up together. That was, until Simon turned 11 and Ana and Sara, 12, that Tia Elena’s then-husband and Ana’s father, Ricardo, decided he wanted to try his luck in America and moved his entire family there. Two years later, he left them for another woman. But, that didn’t matter. He left his family but Tia Elena managed to keep the business that she worked hard to put up and grow.

“Take your cousin to his room and let him rest. I’ll start on dinner.”

Before Simon could protest, Ana grabbed his backpack and one of the suitcases before making her way through the house. Sheepishly, Simon followed behind her, eyes roaming around to take in the furniture and knick-knacks.

They walked through the living room with a sofa and armchair, T.V., and a collection of DVDs. A couple of photos on the walls of Ana and Tia Elena (none of Ricardo, of course). He surprisingly found one of his mom with him and Sara wearing their Hillerska uniforms. They had taken that on the first day of school back in September.

They passed by the dining room and he spotted the kitchen through a beaded curtain.

“That’s the bathroom.” Ana pointed to a small door at the end of the hallway. “Master’s bedroom is Mama’s room.” She pointed to a door on the opposite side. “She has her own bathroom so you and I will share. Mine is this one.” She pointed at the door they just passed that had a pink butterfly made from wire and what looked to be stockings stuck to its surface. “And you get this room.”

She opened the door and stepped aside to let him through first.

Pulling his suitcase behind him, Simon cautiously entered the room, still feeling like a stranger in what was supposed to be his home in the next couple of months. Or longer.

There was a bed, a little larger than his own at home, covered in green sheets and four pillows. A window with open blinds was above it (Simon itched to close it). There was a closet on the wall and next to it, a chest of drawers. There was also a desk with a wheeled chair and a lamp as well as an AC with another window with blinds above it.

“The AC is unplugged right now since it’s winter,” said Ana, entering after him and closing the door. She set his backpack on top of the chair and his second suitcase next to it. “There’s a heater but if you still get cold, let us know. We can get you an electric heater. I have one in my room, too.”

Simon sat on the bed. It felt nice. Soft. The sheets smell freshly washed.

“Thanks, Ana,” he said smiling up at her.

She returned the smile and sat next to him. For a moment, they were both quiet. Simon wasn’t quite sure what to say to her and clearly, neither did Ana. The excitement of seeing each other had worn off and the years of their separation finally settled. He wondered what she was like now. It wasn’t like they didn’t talk – they kept in touch through social media. But, it wasn’t the same as before.

“How are you, Simon?” Ana suddenly asked, sounding hesitant. “We heard about… you know… that.”

Heat filled his face and he immediately dropped his head into his hands. “Ana… please don’t tell me you watched it.”

She snorted. “Of course not! I wouldn’t do that to you! Plus, it’s weird! You’re my cousin!” She nudged him. “But… was it really the prince?”

He groaned.

“I mean… you don’t have to tell me or anything. But, I just want you to know that… whoever did that to you, guys, is really shitty. And, I hope they step on a pile of legos.”

The unexpected joke coaxed a giggle out of Simon. Ana was funny. He wondered when she developed this weird sense of humor, but he kind of liked it.

He raised his head to look at her. “Thanks, prima.”

“Anytime, primo.” She nudged him again. “You know that I’m always on your side. I even joined my school’s GSA Club in solidarity! And lemme tell you, we have lots of cute guys for you to meet!”

Simon groaned again. “Ana, I’m not really looking to… date.”

Or be with anyone ever again. Wilhelm had ruined him for anyone else.

“You don’t have to date them. Just meet them. Make new friends. Learn things about yourself.” She nudged his foot with her own. “I mean, I learned a lot about myself there.”

Simon turned to look at her, confused. “Like what?”

Ana couldn’t look him in the eye but she took a giant deep breath. “GSA doesn’t just have cute guys, you know. There’s also… cute girls.”

Oh… OH.

Simon wrapped an arm around her back, squeezing her to his side, like he often did with Sara.

“Does Tia know?” he asked softly.

Ana bit her lip and shook her head.

“Why not? You know she’ll be supportive. She supported me when I came out.”

“That’s different. You know it’s always different when it’s other people’s kids but when it comes to your own kids…” She scoffed. “I love her and I know that she loves me. But, I just don’t know how she’ll take it if I tell her that I don’t just like guys… I like girls, too. I mean, how can you not? They’re so pretty!”

He shot her a look.

“Right, you can’t relate.” She chuckled and then sighed. “It’s just… different. I don’t know how you did that. But, I wish I could, too.”

Simon understood. It was scary when he decided to come out to his mom and Sara when he was 13. He thought they would stop loving him. He thought things would be different after he did. But, nothing much changed, really. His mother and sister simply told him that they still loved him. Now, instead of teasing him about girls, they teased him about boys. He had never been so grateful to have had such a loving and accepting family.

He knew Ana was scared right now. So, if he could be a friend and comfort, he would. They were family, after all.

“You’re on my side so I’m on yours, okay?” he said, smiling, kindly.

She laid her head on his shoulder. “Thanks, Simon. And, I'm not even exaggerating. I’m really excited to have you here.” She patted his knee and stood up. “So… I’ll let you rest now. Mama probably needs help with dinner. It will take a while so you can nap or something. We’ll catch up more later?”

“Yeah, thanks, Ana. And I’m really happy to see you, too.”

She grinned at him before opening the door and closing it behind her.

The sound echoed in the room.

Simon looked around the room – his room – that was full of so many things for him yet felt so empty.

There was no fish tank for him to spend mindless minutes talking to his fish. No second-hand desktop with his Xbox connected to play games with Ayub and Rosh. He did bring his laptop and his game systems but he could no longer make their Friday game nights.

Not for the first time since he boarded the plane to New York, Simon felt all alone.

After taking off his jacket and shoes, he curled up on top of the covers and closed his eyes. Within minutes, he was asleep.

He dreamt of Sweden and all he left behind.

.............

The sky outside was gray. Winter was cold and cruel and it seemed like even the sun refused to come out and grace them with its warmth. Wilhelm thought it matched his mood, perfectly

“Your Royal Highness… Prince Wilhelm…”

Wilhelm tore his gaze away from the window and stared up at the face of his concerned-looking Math teacher. Mr. Englund raised an eyebrow at him.

“Your answer?”

Wilhelm looked at the board. There was an equation on it that he didn’t bother to try and answer.

He shrugged. “I don’t know, sir.”

Mr. Englund sighed at him. “See me after class, please.” He moved on. “Frederika, what is your answer?”

Wilhelm tuned out his classmate’s response, choosing to look back out the window again. He had no energy for school anymore.

After class, Wilhelm stayed behind. He stood in front of Mr. Englund’s desk and waited as his classmates filed out. When the last of them was gone, Mr. Englund finally turned to him.

“You’ve been distracted, lately, your Royal Highness. Is everything alright?”

Wilhelm shrugged again.

Mr. Englund cleared his throat. “If you need extra tutoring-.”

Wilhelm’s eyes flashed and his hands shook as he finally spoke, “I don’t need to bribe you to get a good grade in this class, sir.”

Clearly caught off-guard by this, Mr. Englund’s mouth opened and closed and opened again.

“That’s not what I-.”

“It’s illegal, you know,” Wilhelm continued. “To give special treatment to those who can pay when you should be treating all your students, equally. Not everyone has the means to bribe their way to the top.”

Wilhelm was running his mouth, he knew. He wasn’t exactly sure if it was illegal (he should probably look it up) but he knew it was wrong. He knew what the need to get a passing grade in this class did to Simon. He would be damned to let it slide.

He was the Crown Prince, damnit, so he might as well own it in some way.

“I won’t speak of this to the headmistress,” he continued as Mr. Englund continued to stare at him, mouth agape like a fish. “Though I suspect that she’s already aware of your little side business. But, I won’t be a part of it. Good afternoon, sir.”

With his head held high, Wilhelm walked out of the room.

As soon as he was far enough away, he stopped and leaned against the wall. His heart was pounding so fast, he wondered if he was getting a heart attack at the young age of 16.

“Your Royal Highness?”

He looked up to a concerned Malin hovering over him.

He managed a reassuring smile at her. “I’m fine. Sorry. Just… I need a minute.”

She nodded and stepped back.

He knew he was already late for his next class but, nonetheless, Wilhelm dug through his pocket and took out his phone. He dialed the already familiar number, not willing to forget this one thing, just in case. And, just like any other time, the call went straight to voicemail.

“Yo, this is Simon. I’m not available right now. Leave a message and I’ll try to call you back. Bye.”

“Simon,” Wilhelm said in a low voice. “Hey. Um… It’s me. Uh… I did something today. I think you’d be proud. I think. I hope.” He took a shaky breath. “Please call me back. I need to talk to you. Please. I…”

He meant to say, “I still love you. I never stopped. I don’t think I’ll ever love anyone else the way I love you.”

Instead, he said, “I miss you.”

Wilhelm hung up and thumped his head against the wall. It hurt a bit but not as much as his heart right now.

[oumaheroes]

WIP Extract- Breathe

This comes from my fic Reset, which is long and large and something that is most certainly impossible to read in a day.

The fic itself mainly focuses on England and France with FrUK as the relationship, but I enjoyed writing this interaction between Scotland and England and wanted to share. Context wise, England has been shot in the shoulder and has got himself into a bit of a political pickle- Scotland was called in to help dig him out of the very self-inflicted hole.

-----------

Scotland did most of the talking. England was far too tired to argue or to properly conceptualise any next steps that were needed and the only emotion he found distinguishable from bone aching tiredness was deep gratitude. Now that everything was being handled by someone else, and someone else who England trusted to be competent, there was no panic or worry to keep him alert and he was finding it increasingly difficult to stay conscious, let alone remain focused on conversations enough to be able to provide intelligent input.

France was very much the same. He hadn't spoken much more since the motorhome, not even when North had laughed at him for his ridiculously baggy stolen clothes. The location of France's own things was a mystery- perhaps they had been abandoned at the care home or chucked out of the window as they'd driven here- who knew. Technically they were England's clothes anyway, so France wasn't too bothered.

The most France had done was rummage through Scotland's luggage before they set off and triumphantly pull one of Wales’ jumpers out from his suitcase to take for his own.

'If I ever insult the lovely Wales' fashion choices again, please remind me of this moment.'

It was a horribly garish thing, mottled with splashes of bright red and blue. It was entirely the sort of thing Scotland would also eye up and steal. Terrible looking though they may be, Wales' jumpers were, somehow, always the most comfortable and he was frequently annoyed with his siblings for taking them if he left them anywhere for too long, which he often did.

'We all know that as soon as you get back to your own clothes you will conveniently forget this conversation.'

France ignored England in favour of pulling the jumper over his head and giving a long sigh of contentment.

'Go on, hurry up,' Scotland pushed past him to the driver's door, causing him to stumble forwards, 'chuck England something to cover the blood and get in the car already. I'm leaving with or without you in five minutes.'

Although they now had the backing of the embassy to explain any erratic and untoward behaviour concerning the general public, England did look particularly horrific and it probably wouldn't end well if they waltzed in looking as they did. There was a high chance someone would panic and phone an ambulance which was the last thing anyone wanted- hospitals were always risky for their kind and drawing more attention to themselves at the moment wouldn't be wise.

Because of this, England before too long thankfully found himself in a hotel lobby wearing an extremely large green monstrosity he was most certainly not going to give back later.

Someone, probably not Scotland because the place was far too comfortable looking and Scotland was always the most careful (England preferred the word stingy) with money out of all of them, had arranged a hotel for them in Le Mans. It wasn't anywhere too extravagant or fancy but it was a bed each and that was honestly all England wanted right now. It wasn’t even that late in the evening but all he could think about was going to sleep somewhere and being left very much alone.

Sadly, he wasn't given that luxury. As soon as they'd checked in and avoided the suspicious eyes of the hotel staff, Scotland had bullied him into his room and through to the bathroom. He'd requested that the embassy bring additional medical supplies when they arrived for their nations to use and whilst England was pulling off the top most layers of clothing he unpacked them on his bed, picking out what he thought they'd need.

'It's not too bad,' England called out to him from the bathroom, giving up on his top completely and cackhandedly cutting his way free with a pair of medical scissors. In the room next door, he could hear the sound of a shower turning on- France must have jumped straight in, 'it'll be fine with a wash.'

Scotland returned with some bandages and antiseptic solution and placed them down on the counter, 'Sure.'

'Honestly.'

'Okay.'

'There's no point fussing, I can do it myself.'

England made a grab for the antiseptic but Scotland moved it back and away, out of easy reach, 'Christ, would you stop?'

'Just give it here, you go check on France or North.'

'No, England sit.'

There was a wooden chair in the bathroom and Scotland pulled it over and tried to push England into it. Too tired to properly fight him England sat, but reached over to the counter to grab for the gauze.

Scotland slapped his hand away and stood in front of them, blocking him.

'Scotland. Let me-'

'Bollocks to that, look,'

Scotland crouched down in front of him and England bristled immediately at the offense, 'Don't treat me like a child.' He wasn’t dying.

'I'm not, just,' Scotland made an exasperated noise, 'calm the fuck down.'

'I am calm, you are what is currently stressing me out.' England grit his teeth and forced himself to sound level-headed and somewhat close to polite. He really couldn't be arsed to deal with any more grief today and his tolerance for his brothers' particular flavour of annoyance was always low.

'No, hear me out for a minute,' Scotland put a large hand on England's good shoulder and let it rest there, heavy, and England tensed at the contact, 'breathe, for just one bloody second. Even before France came back you weren't feeling great and you've had a shit few days. Just breathe, and stop trying to take control of every damn thing.'

Scotland's eyes looked far too serious and, dare he say, concerned and England tried to shrug him off, 'I'm fine, I only got caught in the shoulder- it's nothing any of us haven't had before. There's no need for all of this,' England gestured with his head to the neat rolls of bandages and the bottle of antiseptic. They were modern luxuries to them; effective and modern medical supplies were only things that were easily to hand in the last century. England had received far worse injuries before, hell, had received far worse injuries from Scotland before- this truly was nothing worthy of any particular extra care or attention.

What he wanted was for Scotland to leave him alone and go and check on North, to make sure he was okay and let England pick at his shoulder how he wanted. Scotland wasn't usually one to provide any form of tender affection or coddling, whilst England had been growing up Scotland's method of child rearing at been a firm, rough bluntness that he now found oddly comforting and expected. This sort of behaviour usually came from Wales, so to see it from Scotland was incredibly unnerving.

'I'm not talking about the shoulder,' Scotland only tightened his hold and England tipped his head back against the wall in frustration, 'I can feel you better now that I'm close and you're putting me on edge.'

There were benefits to being in a political union. The UK was made up of four separate countries, four independent states with long, messy histories that intertwined yes, but were still very separate beings. However, under the United Kingdom they formed one nation, one political entity and that caused a strange blurring of self, sometimes. It gave them all a sort of fuzzy idea as to how the other members of the union were doing- how the English banks were faring, how the Welsh harvest was coming along, how much the tourism in Northern Ireland had swelled and boosted the local economy and how much the fishing industry was suffering in Scotland.

It was handy; it was extremely useful when it came to planning and understanding how to best move forward as one nation of 4 people, and it was also a pain.

It was a pain because England couldn't hide himself as much as he wanted to around his brothers these days, couldn't put on an entirely impenetrable mask of indifference as he would like because if there was something wrong then the other members of the United Kingdom would know about it, regardless of how much he tried to cover it up. He was used to this feeling of intimacy with Wales, who had been bound to him since 1301, but Scotland still felt somewhat new. They hadn't always had a peaceful relationship, their people had often been at very bloody war with each other, and at times it still felt odd for Scotland to read him so well, even after three hundred odd years together. Especially in moments when England wanted to come across differently to how he really felt.

It sometimes felt even stranger for Scotland to act upon England's vulnerability with kindness rather than take advantage, although England knew that he was being unfair to think that. He hadn't always given his eldest brother the opportunity to demonstrate anything other than what England had come to expect and a lot of that he knew in hindsight was self-inflicted.

As for right now...

England forced himself to meet Scotland’s eye, 'I'll be fine. I just need to sleep and eat something and get home.'

'Aye, I know,' Scotland gave his shoulder a brief pat before letting go, standing up to pick up the supplies on the counter, 'but you feel like you're gonna have a heart attack so until then, let someone else do something for a change. You don't have to do it all on your own.'

England closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the tap as Scotland washed his hands. Scotland was calm and healthy, his banks were strong, his people were happy and he felt steady and familiar- an old ancient lullaby and a well-trodden path to home.

Despite what he said, and even though he wouldn't never admit this even to himself, having Scotland nearby felt good and England had to concede that maybe his brother was right. He took a deep breath in and held it for a moment before letting it go, feeling the tension that he hadn't realised was there lift from his shoulders and jaw.

Scotland made a noise of approval and stepped closer, a calloused hand on England's arm to warn him about the incoming stinging sensation, 'everything is being handled. After this I'll go grab us something to eat, drag North in the shower, and you can go to bed.'

Belatedly, England realised that their entire conversation was being held in Brythonic and although a small part of himself was unamused that Scotland could trick and lull him into passivity so easily, he was mostly grateful for it. A shared history, a collective notion of stability, peace and default comfort wasn't something to take for granted. England couldn't quite bring himself to express this in words, but he hoped that his appreciation for it came across well enough by keeping his eyes shut and doing as he was told.

[biyealstano]

I kinda want to debate with people in the internet about my political views but sadly I do not have the time to do so.

It is bad how everyone in the 'pink group' is like ' lives matter and equality and all that stuff' but they're also the ones who are putting people into 'categories'. Like imagine sharing your thoughts about something and who you are gonna vote and they just straight out called you ' Marcos apologizers' or ' DDS' or 'pinkers(idk what they're called but it has something to do with pink)'.

I used to like pink, ironically. It started out with me buying a link pen for the irony when I was in highschool, I do not know ehat that evolve to. Anyways, thanks to them, I kinda cringe whenever I see pink now. Sadly though, there is pink everywhere these days; tricycles, TVs and my newsfeed. Now pink is just super popular because of this one politician.

I dislike her, I really do. It is good that she is not letting anyone degrade as a woman but- if we are talking about the country's economy, I can not see her being successful at it. This is all my opinion by the way, do not go after me. I am not 16 anymore, I do not have the time to argue with people. I really can not see her leading the country and make our economy better or... be strong enough to make decisions for our country that will not get us into a horrible feud with another powerful country.

Again, this is all my opinion, I'm just sharing my views and what I currently believe now. I might be wrong and I might lack a few details, but that does not make me less of a person or an apathetic individual. It is just kind of sad seeing how most of the people in my country are divided with their own views and fighting each other about it. And worst of all, Miss saturated pink here almost seems like she is supporting the division by antagonizing her fellow presidential candidate. Like, is this really what the politicians want ? For us to be divided as a country and be in a DDS, pinky pink pink or marcos apologizers and fight other groups? That's just... Aaaa.

Something.

Ok, daz all I wanna say, peace peeps 🤙.

[blackevermore]

x Secrets of The Lake: The Company of Misery and Pain

{ Chapter 5 }

Summary: Vladimir Masters’ family tree has always been tainted by secrets swept under the rug. From generation to generation there have been countless reasons the Masters’ family had seemed to keep private from the public. Even to this day, Vladimir was no exception. But what was one to do when a restless spirit from the settlement years finally breaks free from restraints and demands you answer for your ancestor’s crimes? Vladimir doesn’t know. However, Clockworks does.

Notes: We just having fun, rewriting some of the canon, new adventure new characters. I will apologize now for any grammar, spelling, weird sentence structuring in advance. My brain writes faster than my fingers and even when I go back through to reread it I still miss things. Sorry about that!

Word Count: 3063

It wasn’t that it was hard to pinpoint where things began to fall apart for the Masters family. Rather it was who was to blame when all of it happened all at once. Could it have been the people they married or was it the family itself that had the bad luck? Either way, the Masters family had a very long list of unfortunate events that seemed to flock like birds to a nest. Vlad sat at his computer scanning through the digital archives of his family. He never truly sat down and looked through all of this, when he was younger it was more like being shown a picture and being asked to guess how far apart they were in life and death. His father did it often trying to brag about how headstrong all the men in the family were.

So many names, so much trading property or what seemed like stealing others. Not that Vlad was surprised at all by that, how else do you think he got where he was in life, it was just the game of business. Not having many divorces and remarrying, now that was surprising, he would have thought the men in his family would have had the least of the draw, or he was just shamefully projecting. Of course the latter could be farther from the truth when Vlad went through two stepmothers. Both his and his first stepmother died of unknown causes which left the last one living the longest. Luckily they were both lovely and the sweetest of women, but maybe would have been better off not in the family. At last Mrs Helena was alive, he hoped.

Vlad had scrolled to the very beginning of the files which started in the mid 16th century. The family name had just been respelt to the changing Germanic language and someone named Alger had married and inherited land in southern modern Germany; he died of an infection in the mouth at 32. From there they had seven children but only two survived due to the plague. From the two, only one was a boy and he carried the family name and expanded the family east. After that was a long line of names that either was married in, inherit, how they died, and weird scribbled notes off to the side Vlad couldn’t read. As the 16th century files ended the 17th century file started and was a lot more organized than the former. Vlad could actually read what jobs the males in his family had and where they actually ended up near the end of their life. The Masters family had once again gone through a name respelling and this time they were established merchants.

As he combed through the notes and names, Vlad had this weird ‘yes’ ‘no’ feeling, so far everyone had been a ‘no’ and his gut told him he was getting closer. Closer to what? Not sure, but he followed it anyway hoping to reach the end. But when he came across blank records, he was closer to the mid  17 century. The last family was the house of Anya with three dependents, a wife named Yolan and two sons, Vladan and Luther. In the notes it said that Anya served the ruler as a travelling merchant and was paid wealthy for it; he died of poison. The family lived in the furthest part of the eastern Germanic states which meant they would have been closer to migrating towards Slavic area. But after that there was nothing but empty rows. That was 50 years missing and that didn’t sit right with Vlad. Surely there had to be something or someone during that time. With how detailed the records were so far there had to be something- anything.

Vlad scrolled down to the beginning of the 18th century and that’s where the names picked back up with Vladan being the head of the house. There was an asterisk next to Vladan's name that read ‘only surviving heir’. Vlad sighed, of course, the family had died and was only survived by a single son. He could only imagine the tragedy that could have happened to the rest of the family.

‘Yes’

Vlad’s gut pulled as he read over the name again and the notes beside it. This man went through four wives whose names weren’t listed other than ‘wife 1… wife 2...’  and only had a daughter.

“Seems like misery was your only friend,” Vlad mumbled as he looked on and saw that the daughter took over for her father once he died of heart issues, and moved the family due to marriage. She didn’t change her name nor give up belongings and had five sons but only two of them had her last name. It seemed that it was on purpose for the lack of arguing on who got what when she died. The husband on the other hand disappeared early into their marriage, “You were truly a Wollstonecraft it seems, Miss Ursula Masters.” Sadly tragedy struck her down as well as she died of horse trampling. After Ursula the next four families had lost all the old money they once sat on due to wars and the collapsing economies. They did however maintain their pride and kept building themselves back up. By the end of the 18th century, the Masters family was in Russia and had branched off.

‘No’

Vlad knotted his brows as his gut once again pulled at him as a sign of the wrong direction. Rolling his eyes tired from looking at small prints and shitty handwriting he scrolled back up to the empty space.

“So you’re from right here it seems,” Vlad rubbed his chin and groaned. “What in the world happened and how did you get here?” As Vlad tried to think of another way to figure out the gap, the phone at his desk began to ring and broke him away from his trance. Deciding that that was enough for the day, Vlad closed his laptop and picked up the phone. Vlad had been so invested in his ghostly business he nearly forgot about his human one. Vlad pulled the phone away from his ear and rolled his neck as he tried to put on his Vlad Co. facade. Vlad pulled the phone back in when he heard a question and he politely asked the woman on the other side to repeat herself.

“I asked if you will still be holding the theme banquet this coming Wednesday.” Sha! Vlad had forgotten all about the company banquet. As a boss he felt it was important to give your employees a ‘thank you’, especially if there was company corruptness being swept under the rug. So as a treat every so often Vlad would announce he would host a banquet and give everyone the day off. Vlad felt his eye twitch as he thought over whether or not he should cancel it. Wednesday was in three days and he hadn’t even told his ghostly staff about it.

As his mind thought it over the words came out by themselves, “Yes.” Yes? Yes?! He had no time to play host when he had a ghost to deal with and any other madness being thrown his way. Why in the world would he say yes?

“That’s wonderful! Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s the theme?” The woman said, eagerly.

“Well I do mind, that’s my little secret. Surely you wouldn’t want to take the surprise away from yourself, now would you.” Vlad gagged as he sweetly replied and heard the woman become flustered.

“You’re right,” Of course I am . “ Well I can’t wait to see what you put together, Sir. You never cease to amaze us.”

“Hmm, yes, now if you excuse me, Miss Wright, I have some emails to look over before prepping.”

“Very well, Sir good-” Vlad didn’t wait for the woman’s goodbye and hung up, he dropped his face into his hands and held his breath as he tried to mentally organize himself.

Clockwork? Check.

Vengeful spirit out to kill him? Check.

Nearly being torn apart? Check.

Waking up three days later? Check?

Prepping for a banquet he forgot all about? Wonderful .

Vlad stood up from his desk chair and stretched his back, he needed to get out of the house for fresh air. Maybe go for a walk or if he was feeling up to it, a quick flight, then come back and start on what was being served at the banquet and what the theme was. As he walked around his desk and reached out a hand to draw the handle he heard the low rumble of bickering outside his door. He used his ghost sense to hone in on it and only shook his head in disappointment.

“Yeah well I could have been there for backup if you had let me go with you. How come he got to go with you?” Dani crossed her arms angrily and shot Danny the meanest eyes she could muster.

“I didn’t bring him along, he showed up by himself, he was supposed to be on his way to pick you up, remember.” Danny retorted as she and he rounded the corner to Vlad’s office. “Besides I told you it was dangerous and you would have only gotten hurt.”

“No way I’m like super badass!” Dani yelled.

“Language, especially in this house, Danielle.” Vlad opened the door and looked on towards the children. Dani turned away and grumbled as Danny sighed and gave a quick wave.

“Either she was gonna fly here and pester you by herself or I would at least try to stop her, as you can see I didn’t do much.” Danny motioned towards his clone and she stuck out a tongue.

“Well at least you showed up at the right time, I have news I think you will like to hear.” Vlad rubbed the bridge of his nose and gestured for Danny to come inside. Guess the walk would have to wait.

“Boy would I!” Dani stepped out in front of Danny and Vlad quickly stuck a hand out.

“Miss Masters, you have other things to do. This problem has nothing to do with you and I would much prefer it if you stop trying to be a part of it.” Vlad put on his father voice and it saw how it made Dani upset. She looked back at Danny for help only for the older teen narrowed his eyes and looked away. Vlad gave her the all knowing look of ‘you are out ruled’ and Dani stomped her foot. She had been told no so much in the last few days of wanting to help.

“I swear you two still treat me like some weak baby. I have control over myself and my powers, stop doing that!” The hurt in Dani’s voice almost made the others cave but Vlad stood by his words and shook his head.

“I know you’re not a baby, far from, but this isn’t your fight. Now run along.” Dani's face nearly turned red and she flew off through the walls to god knows where.

“Maybe it wouldn’t have hurt to let her listen,” Danny rubbed his arm, feeling very much like a villain. Vlad on the other hand deadpanned him and turned to walk into his office.

“You should know what happens to those that become too curious, they only get in trouble.” Vlad’s monotone voice irked Danny, the jab was unnecessary considering they both ended up as they were due to curiosity. Once they were seated in their respective chairs Vlad opened his laptop again. Danny watched him scroll through files before turning the computer around for him to look at. Danny had no idea how to read any of this, cocking an eyebrow he shook his head.

“Explain,” Danny said.

“As I looked through everything, I noticed that my family record suddenly stopped between the late 1650s to the 1700s.” Vlad began pointing towards the screen. “This may sound odd but I had a feeling this might be where Tayonna is from. However, it doesn’t make sense because there is no mention of coming to America. This name, Vladan, is the only surviving member of his family and he stayed in the empire and got married. He was one of the sons of the family before the gap.” Vlad turned the computer back around and stared heavily at the name trying to make something of it.

“Is there any way for you to throw money on this and figure out what happened in those 50 years?” Danny asked with a shrug, surely, Vlad had that power considering he was a billionaire. Vlad did not have that power. Vlad blinked a few times and shook his head.

“If only it was that easy, however, I have no idea where to look nor do I have time to fly out to one of the thirteen colonies and check.”

“Get an assistant to do it, you have plenty of those and I know it, Miss Kate is a really cool lady.” Danny smirked, he had the honours of meeting a few of Vlad’s assistants who sometimes had very nasty things to say about him. Which Danny promised not to repeat back and enjoyed listening to. Truly, what man has a random sweet tooth at 3am and demands a strawberry shortcake?

“I doubt any of them would wish to take a random trip at the moment.” Vlad thought over his few underhands and couldn’t think of a single one he could trust with this. They all had their pros and cons and yet Vlad found himself cancelling all of them.

“When did you become considerate of anyone but yourself?” Danny asked with a cocked brow and pressed lips. Vlad was a bit taken back by the question but knew where Danny was coming from.

“When I decided to stop playing childish games with a child. My company is not a playpen and my workers are not playmates I can throw away.” Vlad answered with a hiss on his lips and Danny mumbled a ‘whatever’ before throwing his hands up and standing to his feet.

“I still say send one of them out to Ellis Island to find something.”

“Ellis Island was built in the late 1800s not the 16oos, Daniel.” Danny opened his mouth then quickly closed it.

“I knew that… I knew that.”

“Of course,” Vlad wore his annoying amused smirk that he always gave Danny when he messed up. “But I will take your suggestion into consideration since it’s something rather than nothing.”

“That’s the spirit. Get it?” Danny shot Vlad finger guns and a wink and the man snickered and walked around his desk to head towards the door.

“Besides, it's not like we can ask Tayonna herself.” Vlad added as he opened the door and allowed Danny to head out first.

“Dude, I think the last person she wants to see is you or me.” Danny snorted. Vlad only hummed and they walked towards the stairs to bring them to the first floor. Danny B-lined his way to the kitchen and quickly found home in Vlad’s frig. Vlad joined him and made himself a cup of coffee for his midday crisis. “Besides, the last place I left her was at the bottom of the pond as I drug your lifeless body away.” Danny shoved a gogurt in his mouth and raised his eyebrows. Vlad huffed and looked over the top of his cup.

“Don’t remind me. Those are Dani’s.”

“She’ll understand, her gogurts are going towards a great cause. And I know how much Masters love donating towards “ good causes ”.” Danny wiggled his brows and ghosted another hand into the frig to pull out another snack to shove into his pocket.

“Don’t say anything to me when she finds out. I’ve seen nothing.” Vlad chuckled behind his drink and playfully turned the other way.

“Oh ha ha.” Danny finished his first snack and threw it away. He pulled out the next and started in on it, he made an about face and gave Vlad a concerned expression.

“We gotta make it up to her, she really wanted to help, but this is hella dangerous and she could get hurt. Tayonna isn’t gone, she’s still in the ghost zone and we both have to go back in there to deal with her.” Danny voicing his worries for not only Dani’s feelings but the threat she kept trying to chase made Vlad feel like a drained parent. He always thought of Danny as a distant son, more so now than before. So when he made Danielle and then rekindled a relationship with her he really did feel like a single father. The last thing he wanted at the moment was to cause another rift in their relationship. Having a happy Dani around the house made Vlad feel way less lonely.

“I know and that’s why I’ll ask her to aid me in planning the company banquet for Wednesday.” Vlad finished his drink and placed it in the dishwasher before snapping his fingers to turn it on.

“You’re seriously having a banquet while we’re in the middle of this?” Danny's expression quickly dropped and Vlad shooed him away.

“Correction, this is happening while I was planning the banquet. Ghosts seem to have no consideration for my very busy life. But the show must go on.” Danny could only facepalm as he listened to Vlad.

“You are such a fruitloop, ya know.”

“Yes, yes, I’m well aware.” Vlad chuckled and walked out of the kitchen. Danny was about to follow him until he stepped out and nearly slipped. He looked down and saw that where Vlad once stood was now a puddle of water with a few smaller puddles heading the way Vlad did. Danny’s first thought was danger and panic but the beeping sound of the dishwasher snapped him out of it. Besides, if she would have gotten in, not only would Vlad’s ghost security alert him, but his own ghost sense would have told him. Danny hadn’t felt any weird energy nor had his senses go off the whole time he was here. Danny calmed down and told himself it was just a leak in the dishwasher he would have to tell Vlad about.

[go-redgirl]

Exclusive — Jesse Jensen: ‘If You Fire Nancy Pelosi,’ U.S. Is ‘Back to a Better Way of Life’

Jesse Jensen, a former Army Ranger, is currently looking to unseat radical Democrat Rep. Kim Schrier (WA) in the midterms, told SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Saturday this weekend that he will flip Washington’s Eighth Congressional District to Republican in the upcoming midterms and fight Schrier and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

Jensen previously ran against Schrier, coming within a few percentage points of winning the district last year. Earlier this month, he announced his candidacy to run again against Schrier, hoping to unseat her and take back the majority in the House to fight Pelosi.

Host Matthew Boyle, Breitbart News’s Washington Political Editor, asked Jensen about his service and how the former Army Ranger completed the training with a fracture which unfortunately led to a broken leg. Jensen jokingly mentioned that he was a strong ranger and not a smart ranger. However, he said joining special forces put him on the trajectory to be deployed to Afghanistan four times, where he received two bronze stars for his service.

Jensen said that alone shows the major differences between Schrier and himself. He said, during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, Schrier “refused to go to D.C. during Covid, she invoked her proxy vote, she gave her proxy votes to Nancy Pelosi and didn’t vote in person for the payroll protection program.” He said if you wanted to equate that to himself, that would be like “going in front of my troops and saying, ‘Hey guys, I want you to go out inside America’s wars, I’m gonna stay here, and I’ll give my proxy votes to the platoon sergeant.'” Jensen said he was always the first person out of the helicopter and the one running towards the fight, not away from it.

Boyle asked Jensen to talk more about his life growing up and becoming the first in his family to graduate from college, being able to afford college due to his grandfather co-signing on his student loans, and later joining the military. Boyle asked why he decided to enlist in the army later in life after college and after joining the work force instead of before.

“I was actually working on Capitol Hill, and I was driving a U.S. senator to Walter Reed, and we met a young man who had stepped on an IED and sadly lost both his legs and was catastrophically burned,” Jensen explained. The wounded soldier “looked the Senator and myself in the eye said, ‘Gentleman, the only thing I wanna do is go back to Iraq and be with my guys.’” Jensen called that a gut punch and a wakeup call, explaining that three months later he was in South Carolina for basic training.

Jensen said growing up, he was on the edge of working-class poverty. “I grew up on the working of the edge of working-class poverty. The way that my dad got through the day was from venison, from deer meat, that was donated by his congregation. And this is the American dream. You can pull yourself up, and you’ve got the Democrats that are raising inflation, raising your taxes. My opponent reports a Washington state income tax, and you bet she’s gonna increase your taxes in Washington, DC.”

He said running is like a call to service, and he hears that call again. He said, “This is actually my second time running. The last time we came within seven thousand votes of winning the entire thing, and the reason for that was we talked about service and leadership. We talked about getting stuff done, and I was out-raised five to one out-spent ten to one. It’s gonna be different this time.”

Boyle mentioned that the district he’s running in is where the defund of the police movement started as it is the home to the CHAZ/CHOP zone, and Schrier, his opponent, is a radical, lawless leftist.

“Not only has she defunded the police,” he explained. “She actually cut millions of dollars from the COPS grant last year, both, so she literally voted at the federal level to defund the police, but then, she voted for $1.9 million more for increased security for herself at the Capitol. It’s insane.” Jensen dubbed it his opponent’s “rules for thee, not for me” mentality. Jensen again mentioned that during the Chinese coronavirus, she voted by proxy but wants everyone else to do their jobs.

When talking about the CHAZ/CHOP zone, Jensen said he toured the area and talked to people inside. “I talked to a guy who was armed, wearing this crazy Halloween costume, and he was claiming to be a security force” to protect the people inside. When asked if they were willing to shoot and kill police who try and enter, Jensen said the guy would not comment. However, Jensen said that the left hates the border wall, checking IDs, and guns, but when he went inside this zone, they checked IDs, had a border wall, and all held guns.

He said it is incredible that his opponent is trying to make everywhere less safe by defunding the police. Jensen mentioned that Schrier went on a ride-along with the local police to “try and increase her image” and asked them, “What’s all this with the qualified immunity and use of force.” Jensen said the she had no idea removing qualified immunity “would require police officers to essentially get malpractice insurance” and would cause huge exits from the force, which are already happening.

Boyle asked what the difference will be for Washington’s Eighth Congressional District and the country if the Republicans take the House and Pelosi is out of the speakership.

“Well, your taxes won’t go up, for one. Inflation will go down and Critical Race Theory won’t be taught in your classrooms. The list goes on and on, we’ll have the economy be better, we’ll have a more secure border, and law and order will be essentially established,” Jensen said. He also mentioned that his local grocery store has its deli shut down because the store is unable to find anyone to work. He said that even a local trucking company has “200 applications for dock workers, four people actually showed up.”

Jensen told Boyle that it is “Amazing people are gaming in the system, they’re applying for these jobs so that they can keep the generous unemployment that’s paying them more than minimum wage to stay home so that they don’t have to work. These are the kind of policies that hurt small businesses. These are the kinds of policies that hurt workers. These are the kinds of policies that make us less safe, and it’s all thanks to the Democrats. If you fire Nancy Pelosi… we’re back to a better way of life.”

Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. Eastern.

[zhuilingyizhen]

Ideas on genderbend? Saw you asking for people to ask and now I want to know EVERYTHING.

Sorry for the late reply! There’s a bit of info here, but lemme go into more detail about plot. (Also if anyone wants to write or co-write this message me!! As I mentioned in an earlier post, I wrote a couple scenes of it, but it’s probably not gonna be done anytime soon.)

So. It’s a JL-centric au (I swear I can’t write following anyone else but him and it is a problem.) that basically explores his troubles in becoming recognized as a sect leader, but also he’s a she. I know that the Lan sect had a female sect leader, but Jin Ling being female is definitely going to affect how people see her in a political context. Plus, I expect that Jin and Lan views are quite different...

In this au, (names are the same bc i’m not creative) Jin Ling spent most of her childhood (1-5) at Lotus Pier. It took Jiang Cheng much longer to convince the Jin elders that Jin Ling was the rightful heir, bc they were very opposed to a young girl from another sect being their leader. The elders also thought it was some political scheme so that JC would have control over the Jin sect. 

But since JC is very scary and very powerful, he gets his way. He even gets to (mostly) raise Jin Ling at Lotus Pier bc he doesn’t trust the Jins with his child niece. He treats her about the same as in canon, maybe just a little softer bc jl takes more after her mother (even though she has a personality of a young mistress, because she is a young mistress). 

Growing up, jl is a bit on the tomboyish side, which worries the Jins because they were kinda expecting a soft, sweet young mistress, not this foul-mouthed, bratty mini-jc. 

She’s about as good at JC at diplomacy, but a young mistress is much less threatening than a very scary sect leader w/ Zidian, so the Jins really have to train her in the art of not attacking people to get what she wants. 

A lot of the Jin disciples are terrified of her, but also bully her because she’s an orphan. She eventually befriends someone who isn’t Fairy, one Ouyang Zizhen.

Everyone is somewhat okay with that, because Zizhen is actually great at politics. She doesn’t like it, but she’s quite good at it, so everyone hopes that she’s gonna rub off on a Ling. 

Zizhen technically isn’t the heir despite being second oldest, but neither is her older sister. Her older sister is out travelling and refuses to consider being a sect leader, and Zizhen doesn’t want to do it either, so either their much-younger brother takes the mantle, or their younger sister if she decides she wants to.

Zizhen isn’t a cultivator, but she is much more involved in the political side of things to help out a Ling during her adventures through diplomacy (and her dad & sister, who is a cultivator taught her to defend herself). Zizhen is also very much a pacifist, and she uses her status to promote a lot of things that she supports.

Eventually, they send Jin Ling to the Cloud Recesses in hopes that it’ll straighten her out. Sadly for her, Jin Chan also happens to be there studying. It’s very tense between them (and I think the au in which Jin Chan has a crush on her is more viable here).

I want Zizhen to also attend, but since she isn’t a cultivator it’s hard to explain why she would be there. She is a representative of the Ouyang sect though, so she could be there on the pretense of establishing a marriage or something.

So the two friends go to the Cloud Recesses and meet two other female disciples: Lan Jingyi and Lan Sizhui. Sizhui’s backstory stays mostly the same, but I gave Jingyi a different one.

Her mother worked at the Cloud Recesses as a maid or something (she married a Lan cultivator who passed away and left her with child) so the Lans took care of them and let her stay there. Jingyi wanted to become a cultivator like her father, but Qiren was very skeptical. Eventually, after seeing her train by herself, he allowed her to join. 

Sizhui depends more on guqin playing/dizi playing (she knows both) for cultivation than sword fighting, though she can certainly hold her own in a fight. She just prefers the musical aspect of cultivation (and probably gets along with Zizhen bc pacifism).

Jingyi on the other hand tries her hand at vocal cultivation. It’s a work in progress, but Lan Qiren is very proud of her and treats her kinda like a daughter. Even though she gives him a massive headache. Her mother doesn’t have a very active role in Jingyi’s life, but they are on good terms with each other.

The first time a Ling meets the Lans, she was probably in a fight with Jin Chan and Sizhui forcibly separated them. Fairy (sadly) isn’t here, but neither are the other Jin juniors. A couple other are also there, but those are the ones not-with Jin Chan.

There’s a crowd watching the Young Mistress of and heir to the Jin sect brawl with another one of the Jin sect disciples. It’s very intense, but Jin Chan likely still underestimates her, which leads to his loss.

From there, I hope Sizhui attempts to befriend Jin Ling, but Jin Ling being Jin Ling, is kinda prickly. But, she’s also a bit intrigued because she’s heard a lot about the perfect Lan disciple (Zizhen probably lowkey crushes on Sizhui bc who hasn’t gone through a phase where they crush on Sizhui? I think Jingyi never left that phase.), daughter of the second Twin Jade.

So they arrange to have tea or something the next day, and a Ling leaves, more enigmatic than ever.

Jingyi kinda doesn’t like Ling, but then the two of them hear Jin Chan talking about her very rudely. Jingyi’s inclined to believe him, but Sizhui scolds him for gossiping inside the Cloud Recesses (& bc the two of them had some sort of genuine hatred for each other + you shouldn’t be bad-mouthing your sect leader). Jin Chan is silenced, and leaves.

He’s probably gonna go through a crushing-on-Sizhui phase like every other junior has, but Jingyi beats it out of him quickly enough. The next day, while Sizhui & Ling have their not-a-date tea party, Jingyi meets Zizhen by accident when Zizhen wanders at the edge of the forest to look at the flora.

Jingyi happens to bump into her and lowkey falls in love at first sight (bc Zizhen is quite literally the personification of her type. In Jingyi’s defense: she’s a useless gay & falls in love way too quickly.

The two become fast friends. Jingyi is very smitten bc Zizhen is very cute and ahhh she looks adorable when she’s gushing about her family or flowers she likes or the hairpieces that female sect leaders used to wear when they were actually a l i v e.

Somehow, no mention of a Ling is brought up, though Jingyi probably mentions Sizhui a couple times, who Zizhen lowkey idolizes as the useless lesbian she is. So Jingyi asks what she’s doing here if she’s not a cultivator, and Zizhen explained that she came with a friend.

After they talk for a while, Jingyi offers to take Zizhen out to town next time she has a break. Zizhen accepts. They make plans and stuff, and probably part ways.

Sizhui & a Ling continue to quietly have tea and Sizhui manages to befriend Ling with her extreme niceness and as someone who is also the next heir to a sect if Xichen doesn’t produce a heir & Wangji gives up the mantle, Sizhui is somewhat involved in politics. So Ling & Sizhui kinda just talk about politics a bit (it’s good practice for a Ling).

It’s quite calm for a while, and the four of them eventually meet and somehow become friends?? woah. They do stuff together, as like the only four female disciples there.

Oooh, bUt, since this is about Jin Ling being accepted as a sect leader, something hAppeNs.

That something is that someone attacks the Jin Carp Tower, most likely going for Jin Ling. No one politically important was severely injured, but a couple of the servants and junior disciples got attacked/died. Jin Ling, is rightfully pissed off. So she does what anyone wouldn’t do in this situation: she recklessly runs away from the Cloud Recesses. Obviously she realizes that this could be her chance to prove herself (and avenge everyone who died).

No one is quite sure what’s going on, bc all they know is that the Jin sect just got attacked and the Young Mistress is missing.

She returns to the Carp Tower and demands to know wtf happened. At first, the Elders refuse to give her any information, but an upset JL is a scary JL, if she wants to be.

They tell her that she should be at the Cloud Reccesses but since this will eventually be your sect, they do give some information. Two servants died, and four disciples. Determined to figure out who did it, JL takes her bow & arrows & sword and runs away again.

JC is probably freaking out at this point bc where the hell is his child niece??

Meanwhile, Zizhen is very worried and she and the Lans decide to leave the Cloud Reccesses population of female disciples at none.

They know a Ling well enough to assume that she’s somewhere around the Carp Tower, so they rush to get there and extensively search for her bc yOu cAn’t jUst aBandOn thE jUniOr qUarTet!!

Meanwhile, JL is examining the newspapers and trying to figure out who could have done this. Sure, the Jin sect has enemies, but none of em are stupid to attack them... actually, it did make sense to attack them at that time, to kill the heir before she was of age & leave them in chaos. Several of the smaller sects could have launched an attack, but they wouldn’t risk it. They were all in the same area, and the Jin sect’s money was very important for the economy. A terrorist organization? It was the most likely option.

But a Ling has no idea where to start, until he gets a lead: apparently, the sect leader of the Meishan Yu sect was around Lanling the day before the attack. It leads Ling to believe that they may have seen something, or perhaps were another target. So he travels all the way over to Meishan.

When the other juniors finally arrive, they get news that someone was asking for directions to Meishan and others talking about how there was a rumor that the Sect Leader Yu had been there around the time of the attack. They put two and two together and hightail it to Meishan. Friendship.

Lan Wangji is distressed at the disappearance of his son. Lan Qiren is freaking out. Jiang Cheng is about to kill a bitch.

A Ling arrives, and finds out that his great-aunt, or Madame Yu’s sister, is the current sect leader. He gets himself an audience by explaining this relation, and Sect Leader Yu is intrigued. She doesn’t wish to help the Jin sect (she knows that they took away her sister’s girlfriend), but after seeing how desperate a Ling is to prove herself and avenge her sect, she agrees on the condition that a Ling visit her great-aunt & the sect more often.

Jin Ling agrees, and gets info.

COUGHTHAT’SALLIHAVECOUGHI’MSORRY

The newspapers hail the four stupidly indescribably chaotic junior disciples who somehow took down a terrorist group. WWX is very proud.

I haven’t completely figured out the plot (I usually do that as I write lol) & this au isn’t very canon compliant either, so anyone is welcome to contribute to the au or add in stuff!! I gotta update my masterlist soon...

[blog-cosmosuniverse1]

Joseph R. Biden was just inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States yesterday. I have nothing further to say about this historical event attended primarily by 26,000 National Guard Troops, FBI, NSA, CIA Operatives.

What Have We Done? By E.P. Unum January 21, 2021

Joseph R. Biden was just inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States yesterday. I have nothing further to say about this historical event attended primarily by 26,000 National Guard Troops, FBI, NSA, CIA Operatives. That fact alone is a very telling story. Apparently, additional security was deemed necessary for a President-Elect who received allegedly 80 million votes, more than any other person in the history of our country. All of the “peaceful riots” throughout the summer and Fall, where stores and businesses were looted and destroyed, monuments toppled and police and citizens were killed, did not require the assistance of armed troops to quell these “activities”. I also will not comment on the 17 Executive Actions signed by our new President on his first afternoon in office. None of these offer any hope or unity nor are they of any benefit to the American people or to America. Indeed, they will drive us further downward. But here are some lessons we can learn from the new change in leadership to the America we know: Perhaps now you understand why there was never any action against the Clintons or Obama, how they destroyed emails and evidence and phones and servers, how they spied and wiretapped, how they lied to the FISA Court, had conversations on the tarmac, sent emails to cover their rears after key meetings, how Comey and Brennan and Clapper never were brought to any justice, how the FBI and CIA lied, how the Steele Dossier, paid for by Hillary Clinton, was passed along, how phones got factory reset, how leak after leak to an accomplice corrupt media went unchecked, why George Soros is always in the shadows, why Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and George Bush and John McCain were all involved, why they screamed Russia and pushed a sham impeachment, why no one ever goes to jail, why no one is ever charged, why nothing ever happens.

Perhaps now you know why there was no wrongdoing in the falsification of the FISA Warrants, why the Durham Report was delayed, why Hunter Biden has not been charged, why the FBI sat on his laptop for almost a year while Trump was being impeached on fictitious charges, why the Bidens' connection to China was overlooked as was unleashed the perfect weapon, a virus that was weaponized politically to bring down the greatest ever economy known to man and at the same time usher in an unverifiable and unnecessary system of mail-in voting that corrupted the very foundation of our democracy. Maybe now you can understand why the media is 24/7 propaganda and lies, why up is down and down is up, right is wrong and wrong is right, why social media can now silence the First Amendment and speak over the President of the United States. This has been the plan by the Deep State all along. They didn’t expect Trump to win in 2016. He messed up their plans, and delayed them a little….four years to be exact. They weren’t about to let it happen again. Covid was like manna from heaven for democrats and the socialist left, it was a tool to inject fear into all Americans and it was weaponized Governors who shut down their states and crumbled their economies out of fear. The media, never to let a good crisis go to waste, helped shame and kill the economy, and the super lucky unverifiable mail-in ballots were just the trick to make sure the 47-year career politician, allegedly with hands in Chinese payrolls, the man that couldn’t finish a sentence or collect a crowd, miraculously became the most popular vote recipient of all time. You have just witnessed a silent, bloodless coup, the overthrow of the US free election system, the end of our Constitutional Republic, and the beginning of the downward slide of capitalism and the free enterprise system into the abyss of socialism and communism. What a remarkable achievement! We have sacrificed the greatest engine of freedom, growth, and prosperity known to man on the altar of ignorance and totalitarianism. What will happen next?  Well, here's a brief list: ·     Expect the borders to open up. Increased immigration. ·     Expect agencies like CBP and INS and Homeland Security to be muzzled or even deleted. ·     Law enforcement will see continued defunding. ·     Elimination of the electoral college will be attempted. ·     History as we know it will be erased. Our children will no longer study the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War I, II, Korea or Vietnam. These will be replaced with classes on “white priviledge”, “how American racism stole lands from native Indians” and the “need for racial equity” because America is a terrible nation. ·     The Supreme Court will be packed with liberal judges. ·     Your 2nd Amendment will be attacked and there may be a gun confiscation or gun buyback programs enacted and you will find it difficult to own a weapon…and ammunition of any kind. ·     If you have a manufacturing job or oil industry job, get ready to be unemployed. ·     If you own and run a business, brace for the impact of higher taxes and more governmental regulations. ·     Maybe you’ll be on the hook for slavery reparations, or have your suburbs turned into Section 8 housing. ·     Your taxes are going to increase dramatically and businesses will pay more. ·     We will be paying more for gasoline at the pump and we will soon find ourselves once again dependent on foreign oil.

President Trump made us energy independent. For the first time in our history, the USA became an oil-exporting nation. Biden’s illogical and corrupt dismantling of the Keystone Pipeline not only displaced 42,000 high-paying union jobs but now Canada will sell the oil in Alberta BC to China while we search for new supplies at higher prices. Well done Joe! In a couple of years, we will see the onslaught of inflation, high unemployment, less productivity as more and more people become dependent on the government for subsistence, all of which is the natural course of socialist economies The dollar will no longer be the world’s reserve currency and America will no longer be the bastion of freedom it once was. America will be overtaken by China as the largest economy in the world and, because we have become so complacent, we will find ourselves in the middle of great turmoil and upheaval with lots of civil strife that will make 2020 look like a walk in the park. I could go on and on. There is no real recovery from this. The national elections from here on will be decided by New York City, Chicago, and California. The Constitutional Republic we created will be dead. Mob rule and appeasement will run rampant. The candidate who offers the most from the Treasury will get the most votes. But the votes cast won’t matter, just the ones received and counted. That precedent has been set. Benjamin Franklin was walking out of Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when someone shouted out, “Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?’” Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Ladies and gentlemen, we have now lost the Republic our forefathers bequeathed to us, the Republic we fought and bled for these past two hundred and forty-five years.  Some of you are wondering how this came to pass. The answers are indeed quite simple. We did it to ourselves: ·     We turned from God. We erased God from our halls of Justice and the Town Square. ·     We turned from family. ·     We turned from our country, our Flag, our Monuments to our leaders who paved the way. We denigrated all of these with revisionist history and the tearing down of monuments to our civilization and way of life. ·     We replaced achievement and recognition by embracing “participation trophies” so that our children can all feel a sense of accomplishment even when there was none. ·     We embraced degeneracy culture, inviting pornography into our laptops and living rooms. ·     We became some infatuated with technology that we lost the human touch…we found it easier to send emails or Facebook or twitter posts to a friend or co-worker ten feet away from us rather than walking over to chat with them. We have, in essence, become too high tech and low touch. It sort of begs the question…what does it matter if we wire the entire world if we lose our immortal souls? ·     We celebrated and looked to fools as our heroes, comedians whose idea of a joke is holding up a bloody head of our President. That’s not funny. It’s sad. ·     We worshipped ourselves selfishly and took for granted what brave men and women fought and died to give us. Their sacrifices are no longer valued, replaced instead with scorn because they may have committed “transgressions measured by today’s standards, not theirs”.

We disregarded history and all it teaches. On our watch, America just died a little. It’s likely she’ll never be the same again. Not until the 74 million Americans who voted for President Trump stand up and shout “we will no longer tolerate this and we want our country back” and do something about it

For starters, get off Twitter and Facebook and refuse to be a part of their efforts to disrespect the First Amendment. I did. And I don’t miss it at all. If companies want to insult all the people who supported President Trump by denying them jobs, fight back. Don’t buy their products. Shun them. Until we take those steps, they will continue to wield their power, but the ultimate power is in your hands…the power of the consumer. We did this to ourselves. We made our bed, now we have to sleep in it….until we get off our asses and remake it. Some of you have no idea what you’ve done. You know now. It is time to do something about it. Sadly, some of you do know what you have done. To them, I say…if you kick a dog long enough, pretty soon he’s gonna bite. I am tired of being kicked and insulted and disregarded as if I don’t matter. We do matter. We are Americans

[transgenderhelicopter-blog]

Let me down

I used to be afraid of Darkness, I would wake up screaming in my bed, trying to find the nearest light. I could not breathe, the Darkness took me for many nights. I learned to embrace it...

I am a good for nothing, which literally means what it says, good-for-nothing.

I am the product of a broken economy, unemployment and most of all,  procrastination.

Somewhere along the way I lost the spark that lights our passions and it was replaced by the hole of despair. I am not willing to change things anymore, I just want to-

This is a work of fiction, but for me it means more than that, this is my only way to express what I truly feel, I don’t expect this to make sense, I just need to let it all out and maybe this will reach someone who will resonate with my words. I am afraid of putting my true feelings on paper, I am scared to be judged, to put the costume away and let all to see what lies beneath. 

Yet it is something I must do.

Sometimes to feel the light we need to take our masks out. This is my bare Self.

“When was the last time I left my house?”

I would ask myself this many times throughout the week, I could never remember.

The trash was starting to pile up in the kitchen, the food was running out and the stink of my armpits was becoming unbearable, but none of that mattered to me anymore. I had nothing, nothing to lose as well, I just had to pay rent and utilities and that meant 30 more days with a roof, simple and efficient-

No. It doesn’t feel right. Let me try again.

Ok I’m back I just had some rice.

 Eating that rice made me think about one quote from Lao tzu, I am not going to quote it but basically talks about water, how water gives life to everything in the planet yet it claims no ownership on any of the creatures it gives life to, you can step on water yet it will not react in any manner, water is everywhere. This really enlightened my conception of God (This just real I know). Growing up I was always told God loved me and had a plan for. How he was everywhere and loved everyone. As a kid I took that as a fact coming from my mom but not only until I entered my twenties I started to really look into it and give that blurred idea of God more definition. 

My conclusion? Well I don’t have one, but I got something better, a core idea of God (just to clarify this is my perception and yours is as valid as mine, something which I will explain later.)

Drum rolls please! (Now you imagine the cool drum roll noise, thank you)

GOD IS BOTH GOOD AND BAD. 

Say what? But I thought God was a source of eternal love and he had a place in heaven for me?

Well yes, but no. By that I mean God does love you, but also he doesn’t. Confusing right? Well I have an imaginary doctor that looks like Einstein that will explain this with fancy words, Doc if you might?

“Why of course my dear colleague, allow me to clarify the previous statement. What my dear friend means is that technically good and evil are not really true concepts, to illustrate this I will ask you dear reader to think about temperature.

Many would say the opposite of cold is… Hot! 

But it is not as simple as that, in my colleague’s perception hot and cold are just a lack and abundance of temperature, they both belong to the temperature realm, they are not opposites, they are quantities of temperature. You wouldn't say a kilo of rice is the opposite of twenty kilos of rice would you? Well the same can be applied to actions to some extent. Now this is not to be taken as an excuse to become a murderous machine shielding your actions with this idea, only a fool would do such a thing, this is why “technically” is such a keyword. 

Societies do have good and evil, and depending on your society you may have slightly or even quite different conceptions of them. You have a moral compass, which will make you feel bad when you do something “evil” and good when something “good” has been done. But these are just human representation or more accurately, creation. Now back to my colleague thank you for listening to this old man’s rumbling”

Wow that was boring. Anyways back to what I was saying, again this might not make sense at all but honestly and too deep to stop now and I am having a blast doing this. 

So if God is everything why is he not associated with the bad stuff? I asked my friends one simple question, what is evil? Their answer?

“Imagine that God is a candle, the closer you are to the candle the more light and warm there is, but if you go far away you won’t feel that right? Evil is the absence of God.”

Clap, clap,clap.

That was good man, I liked that response quite a lot. But that's just a pretty response, I am at the same point before asking the question. God is everything right? So how can there be any absence of everything? See what I mean? My answer?

 God is. 

That’s it. Do with it what you want.

Next!

Let’s talk about love (Yay!) more specifically unconditional love (ugh).

My take on this is I don’t believe in unconditional love, we love things or people because of the things they do or have that benefit us. 

“Bu-But my girl is like the most loyal and she loves me no matter what and I asked if she would leave me for George Clooney and she said she won’t!”

Good for you mate!

Anyways I had a weird upbringing which led to me being a weird person. (Who would have thought right!?) 

And that’s it for the love section! Brief and underwhelming just like me in bed!

Now that the bed joke is finally taken out of the way let’s continue shall we?

Now on a more serious note, many of us feel It, I call it It because I don’t know how to call it, and in all honesty It sounds hella cool. But yeah, it happens, you relapse, things fall apart and everything lose meaning, you go to social media and are bombarded with smiles and people having the time of their life, what I am saying is not new, heck many of you might have heard the same thing on social media, which is so ironic but whatever. I am not gonna tell you things are gonna get better or worse, because I don’t know shit, but I can tell you that the only constant in life is change for the good and the bad, so if you are in at the bottom of the hill know that it won’t be forever and if you are on top of the mountain the same applies. That is. 

NOW IS TIME TO TALK ABOUT ME YAY!

Ohh I love talking about myself, don’t we all? I could talk hours upon hours about myself and never get tired!

I have so many fuck yous to say but not enough time sadly so we’ll skip that!

I was raised by a single mother (Can I get a round of applause for them?)

In a country with a broken economy but an amazing quality of life, I still haven’t met my father and I don’t know if I’ll ever will, I wrote him but he left me on read (fuck him).

I have a half sister, her Dad ain’t mine but I took his last name, the guy was loaded and a drunk with psycho issues, so a lot of screaming at home which I am pretty sure messed me up because every time someone screams at me weird shit happens.

And that’s it for now, I don’t want to bore you guys but know that I have a lot to tell!

Next!

POLITICAL VIEWS

This is gonna get spicy!

So what am I? Am I a republican? An anarchist? A democrat?

Honestly dude, I am just me, do I have opinions on how a country should be run?

Of course!

Am I educated enough to convince people on how a country should be run?

I’ll let you answer that one! (the answer starts with an N and ends with an O though)

Do I think the people educated enough are doing a good job? Well just look at the news and it is quite clear.

My views? Equity, equal opportunity, racism is a no no. (Pretty basic huh? Well it’s only three things but we haven’t achieved a single one in thousands of years so you tell me)

AND NOW THE CLOSING PARAGRAPH OF PART ONE

This started as a cry for help, a hole in the balloon filled with despair and honestly, the balloon is gone, I feel so much better. So thank you Untitled Document and slowed down music compilation.

And yeah maybe I’ll continue this in more detail or maybe I won’t but for now this will remain a short story, with that said, See ya later alligator!

[sikereviewdotcom]

strawberry shortcake s2 ep1 - horse of a different color

this one was suggested by someone who couldnt keep their mouth shut and not sing the strawberry shortcake intro theme in the middle of our economy class

no one wanted to hear that, but they  went ahead and then i actually followed up on that train of thoughts i remembered about the fucking cartoons and i knew it pronto: its a must-see shit its like slightly above the level of magical school bus series, but the final rating is for the fin not the beginning so lets begin this horseshit:

were reviewing “horse of a different color”, it focuses indeed on strawberrys horse, honey pie pony (its her entire damn name, how sweet right? like all of them, i got diabete from this review but its the cost of maintaining this blog anyway, the kids are playing together on a that tree having fun jumping around like chimpanzees hooba hooba but sadly our filly quickly realizes she cant play king kong with them and keep falling on her ass,

yet since theyre all retarded or young (id say its a fifty-fifty case for them kinda normal ig, i mean they ARE literal 6yo) they try several ways of getting her up on that tree, not thinking how to get her down if they ever were to succeed (good for them: aint happening) its child labor too btw, from an horse still same deal what if honey pie fell down on them? crushing them corpses with her mighty pounds? the findus company would be delighted to hear such news, im sure its some quality (sweet ass) horse meat

once it all fails she understands a horse isnt meant to climb a tree, too big too fat its four legged, not even entertaining the relationship giraffes have with trees

but it aint over, then (after a talk with herself) hp hears the laughters of a bunch of kids which catches her attention, it always does who can ignore that sorta noise? although she aint annoyed by it shes just into the idea of riding a bike now, shes even gonna get a go at it oh yea thats it we finally found her human hobby gogdamn shes a backward furry

of course it fails aswell since she has no hand for the handle and shes heavy so i guess its the reason why she rides into w/e and cant stop? because otherwise she couldve also just.. actually it makes no sense does it? i mean she couldve easily stopped the ride actually how is that kid bike even holding her? ive never tried putting a pony on a bike for 6 y/o but i doubt about its capacity in not being crushed aswell as i doubt in the kids bones not being severely damaged after a visit under honey pies horsy buttcheeks

but all of that really makes her sad: she cant play with her human friends and shes the only horse around strawberry land or whatever see me tearing it for her, theres so much emotions in this episode especially after that filly trynna get kids to get into some horseplay horseshit like dude theyre only 6, lets go easy on them, might have a problem with the parents of the kids watching this episode no one even thought how fucked up this one part is? sure horseplay isnt only sexual or w/e but it still is the visual of 6yos on all four jumping around and neighing together with their ass a little bit too exposed wow im going on a dangerous road here? aint i? not gonna sue the writers im sure it was their subconscious speaking probably got issues from their childhood, eventually got them sorted out since 2004 what do i know? aside from me not caring

back on track : after seeing horsey being so sad the kiddos decide to get her a horse friend but where the fuck? they got no idea, they are proud nonetheless and go tell honey the good new until they are like “wait but we have no idea where to find horses!” ofc we get a big reveal, some serious strawberry shortcake lore: actually all the horses, ALL OF THEM FROM THE ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET are on one (1) single island: ice cream themed to diversify it all they are just chilling over there in ponyland and for some reason this one here got lost or idk guys she took the boat and checked the rest of the world out as an even younger filly, found strawberry and her friends and decided now she was a centaur  slash humanrry furry human, idk you get it but shes their friend and so on to introduce the concept of an AWESOME island full of equestrian activity and ofc ice cream but its kinda lame because who cares? everythings already made out of food, also why isnt the ice cream melting? its one water? nevermind for the introduction as i was saying, hp sings an horrendous sounding song it deteriorated my ear drums they got pierced or something  or maybe im exagerrating? either case horses cant sing:

so to the ice cream land they go, huh

of course it wouldnt be a big adventure without an almost broken bridge oh no whatever shall we do? could we possibly cross it safely? lets try it out  guys: yay it worked good for us little stress and suspense it was wack how they got honey pie out of the hole her big ass hoove made im mesmerized by the power of friendship and sugar at this point, just in full awe for the rest of the episode probably over dosed on all the ice cream flavoured horseshit, i got some all over my mouth its dripping on my desk i gotta clean that later

next thing we know: horses its all this episode is about (aside from labor) but you see, so far hp would switch between normal human language and neighing well turns out her other fellow equines can only neigh and so they just neigh together while our english well-spoken mammal translates to the moronic kids who just smile smuggly

of course the animals are having a welcome party then, dancing around while the morons are just bored, harsh one being a cartoon character isnt it guys? w/e theyre gonna ask for honey pie to come back home now, convinced that her natural habit isnt her place and she loves them too much to just leave them and never come back and break any plans they ever had together- oh shit looks like shes leaving forever huh? what a plot twist mark that on the bitch quota for today

the first one to leave is the little boy btw, important thing to note: hes the biggest pussy he cant even face reality: oh no, no more pony back time before sleep thats quite a bummer, downer and man how are they going to survive now they got no animal to watch over them? jesus theyre soon, on the boat (idk where they got it from idk why suddenly theyre on a boat because then theyre once again gonna cross that bridge but ok) anyway yea theyre having a relationship crisis during that ship trip yada yada ah and the bridge, because (see i do not call them morons for now reasons obviously they deserve this title not only because theyre 6 but also because they are just daft:) they proceed, once in the middle of the bridge all 4 of them, to stop and wonder

“will the bridge be able to hold all of us? wont it break? damn i wonder if it will crack” and they talks without moving until vlam: a tree comes and breaks it (dont ask) so now theyre in trouble:

back to ponyland: bitch pie realizes how much she misses her actual friends and that she can speak english which her other horse friends cant do so she is special and probably abnormal, shes a big outcat of the pony society and has no other reason but to escape her incoming death sentence for fraternizing with the humans of course none of the second part is true, she just wants to see the kids again so she says asta la vista baby to the neigher team and runs away see, she hasnt taken the boat and yet also arrive to the bridge? why a boat sequence then? i will skip this for now but it WILL play in the rating, imagine im the parent of the youngster watching this crap and i have to endure it

if it sucks this bad and is this illogical i might just get bored and change the channel, idc my progeny aint gonna be watching this in either case, ill make them watch political debates then interrogate them on what they learned after what but it wasnt actual political debates just random furry youtuber venting with their fursona sprites animated and thats how you make your kids retarded, the kick of this joke is that i aint planning on getting any kids but totally gonna make them watch classics too such as the attack of the killer donuts as soon as they reach 6 so they wont be dumb and probably not getting diabete or w/e in their adulthood

then honey pie saves the kids btw all of them, heavy shit

and they all go back to strawberryland, happily after a big “wow i missed you sm, you are my real friends w/e if you dont look like me i aint speciest guys really!” theyre all vegan too btw so this works for them i havent watched enough strawberry shortcake episodes to know if they ever eat meat but i have doubts seeing how theyre into a very cannibalistic diet which include eating dessert when obviously thats what they are at least half part, this cartoon raises a lot of political questions it may have a deeper value than i first attributed to it

the end: another terrible song plays about horseshit and how tasty it is

thats all folks

so the rating: big 6/10, so you know 5/10 if its a decent kid show where im highly eager to click on the x and get back making jams but nah

surprisingly enough, i only wanted to stop watching half of the episode and not the entirity of it so credits for thats since im an adult and not a kid, imagining kids enjoyed this sweet childish cartooness or w/e now why +1? its because of how many political questions it raised, how it made me think about our society and cakes yknow its more than kids having a conflict with an horse it talks about veganism, specism, handicap, cannibalism, the management of the limited ressources were exploiting and so on yea really makes you think, its subliminal messages to make kids smarter: they watch their dessert-imbecile counterparts doing bs and then get it right irl: good  ah- it also makes it better for you when youre watching this with your kid, you suddenly transcend to another level of spirituality, existential crisis activated or at least reasoning mode or w/e youre willing to name this the point is you arent bored still despite all of this i rated it quite low for such a serious kid cartoon what couldve possibly made me tic? 1) kids are morons and cant understand all of this, not clear enough for the targeted public 2) projection onto the characters/dialogues from the writers of their childhood traumas (the horse play event didnt go unnoticed, karren brown) 3) my little pony ripoff 4) its controversial, our society, especially in 2004 couldnt understand the depth of this shit and finally 5) i got so much ice cream flavoured horseshit all over my desk god help me this is so filthy what a fucking mess i would totally recommand it to anyone who feels like being blown away by the statements made in this work of art 6/10 but really we all know in the future, itll be a 9/10, some ahead-of-its-time-crap

tg, out

[seawitchkaraoke]

So in germany a few days ago a youtuber called Rezo made a video called “Die Zerstörung der CDU” (The destruction of the CDU). Now the CDU is our biggest political party, the party Angela Merkel is from, pretty conservative.

And well as you can guess from the title, he took them apart. With facts. He had about 50 sources and made arguments about what they’ve done or not done for the economy, climate change, their general incomopetence and the fact that germany has helped or at the very least not stopped the USA from killing innocent people with drones. All while the CDU has been in power. He also roasted the SPD which claims to be the social-democratic party but recently hasn’t been all that, has also been in power for much of the past years and is therefore equally to blame, doesn’t keep their promises and in the end too often caves in to what the CDU wants. Also general incompetence. That seems to be a theme.

Now the video was pretty well researched, again he had a lot of sources, of course not all of his arguments were airtight, but he made some very good points. You’d think the CDU could use that to y’know start a dialoge, make their own arguments, or say “yes some of that is right, we’ll try to do better”. Instead they threw a fit, got really mad, made some disparaging commments about Rezo and youtubers in general. (they also released a 12 page open letter, that i haven’t read except for a few quotes (that disparage youtubers and claim that the CDU deals in trust.... right)

Anyway today was the european election and the CDU lost quite a bit. Especially among voters under 30 (SPD lost a lot too). And I’d hope that they take that as a sign that they should change what they’re doing, because when the main people who vote for you are people older than 70, you’re eventually gonna have a problem. But I can already see them claiming that Rezo used his fame to influence poor young voters who would otherwise surely have voted CDU. Because that’s absolutely what happened.

I think what Rezo did, was maybe convince some more people to actually go vote. And maybe some kids <18 to tell their parents to not vote CDU. But his video didn’t suddenly make young people hate them. We already did that before Rezo, he just summed up all the reasons we do.

The hashtag #niemehrcdu (never again cdu) was already trending before Rezo. It trended every time a CDU politican claimed that all the mails he got about article 13 were bots, every time they said the friday for future kids should protest after school, not miss school for it, every time they said that the kids didn’t know what they were talking about, that they were instrumentalised or that the thousands of young people on the streets had been payed to be there or that they should leave this kind of thing to the professionals (no wait. that was Christian Lindner from the FDP.... well we don’t exactly like him either).

The CDU ignored us and pretended everything we do doesn’t count, isn’t true, isn’t right or is just fake news (yes. they used #fakenews to talk about Rezo’s video... did i mention the 50 sources?).

They will blame Rezo for this. They will keep infantilising young voters and soon to be voters, keep pretending that we were instrumentalised, that we can’t think for ourselves. That we don’t count.

Well our green party got around 21% and is the new second biggest party (SPD fell to around 15) The only reason green isn’t above even the CDU is that old voters outnumber young voters in germany. They will die though. And the CDU will die with them.

Sadly by that time it’s probably gonna be too late for our planet.

[wakraya]

Epilogue Content Warnings

So as I said! Let me just. Pull these up real quick and talk about what each of them may mean for the Epilogue as a whole.

SPOILER WARNING FOR THE EPILOGUE BENEATH!

And let’s start with the characters actually!

John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider, Jade Harley, Jane Crocker, Roxy Lalonde, Jake English, Dirk Strider, Karkat Vantas, Kanaya Maryam, Terezi Pyrope, Calliope, Caliborn, Lord English: Obviously they would be here. 

Aradia Megido, Tavros Nitram, Sollux Captor, Vriska Serket, Gamzee Makara, Eridan Ampora, Feferi Peixes: Also likely to be either mentioned or to have Ghost Shenanigans. It’s quite the Troll the Meowrails aren’t around though- Equius is not around I guess because he IS a Heir of Void after all. Nepeta not being there though, come on Hussie. that is just you Trolling us with another Dead Nepeta joke.

Aranea Serket, Meenah Peixes: Makes me think we’re not going to see the Dancestors at all. They’re the two more prominent ones, and part of the whole plan to defeat LE, so they would easily be mentioned.

Davepetasprite^2: Please come back, Birbcat.

Barack Obama: This is almost DEFINITELY Dave rapping.

Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s): Likely to be any new resident of Earth C. Honestly, just the Salamanders and Carapaces already fill this.

So now let’s go for the warnings! It should be noted, while all of these do appear, a lot of them are juxtaposed to be humorous with the more heavy-seeming ones, so let’s get into it.

Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Alternate Universe, Death, Incestuous Undertones, Meta, Manipulation, Rapping, Furry, Anthropomorphic Characters, Power Imbalances, Blood, Trickster Mode, Interspecies Relationships, Guns, Murder, Black Romance, Existential Crisis, Xenophilia, Daddy Issues, Robots, Gore, Aliens, Assassination,  Theft, Ghosts, Mind Control, Teenagers, Possession, Kidnapping: This is just Homestuck 101.

Eating, Food, Clown Dynamics, Fridging, Feet, Early 20th Century Dance Movements, Clown, Honk, Faygo: These seem largely peppered in for the fun factor, and to break the... Concerning nature of some of the other ones.

The Economy, World War, Political Intrigue, Genocide, Political Rebellion, Fascism, Religion, Capitalism, Reality Television, Propaganda, Super PACs, Prison Camps, Gerrymandering, Revolutionary Rhetoric: This in general seems like it’s gonna be societal commentary talking about either Alternian or Earth Society, and perhaps some talk of stuff that’s happened in the past of Earth-C. With how messed up Alternia is and the stuff Condy did... Yeah it all checks in.

Xenophobia, Speciesism: The Snapchat Updates hinted at the possibility of anti-Human Trolls, and likely of anti-Troll Humans in the same vein, for literal Xenophobia and Speciesism, or grouped with the prior category for... You know. Sadly truthful commentary on social issues.

Misogyny, Sexism, Transphobia, Misgendering, Gender Transition, Nonbinary Character(s), Identity Questioning, Detransitioning: These are likely some of the ones that people are the most worried about- Specially regarding the one about ‘Detransitioning’. However... Honestly my two bets here are that, John is going to bump into Davepeta and have a brief moment of misgendering them before being corrected and some talk about gender identity, and that Dave may give John a big talk regarding identity and fucked up societal stuff.

Sexual Abuse, Rape, Non-Con, Dubious Consent, Slut Shaming: These may easily tie in with the previous one too, as V mentioned, these aren’t things we’re going to see at all, but they are going to get briefly discussed. So no one’s going to get coerced into anything. Bad themes but, stuff to talk about.

Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Abuse, Unhealthy Relationships, Domestic Abuse, Bad Parenting, Toxic Masculinity: I’m going to be honest. This. This just sounds like Dave’s gonna talk about Bro again.

Body Horror: This could be MANY things. Some awful wound described in full detail, it is gonna tie in with ‘Gore’ for certain. Maybe talking about Gamzee being split in half.

Alcohol Use, Drugging, Drug Use, Chronic Illness, Vomit, Addiction: The drug mentions already happened with Rose, and she’s medicating herself. Thankfully I trust she’s not falling in any sort of addiction, but the ‘Vomit’ tag could imply it’s gonna get worse before it gets better. Or maybe it’s entirely unrelated and Gamzee just barfs blood again.

Mental Illness, Depression: Someone get all of these Kids to a Therapist. Honestly.

Starvation, Suicide, Funerals: These are the ones I’m the most... Worried about. Suicide there could be talk of their Immortality, hell maybe it’s even a morbid but still joking thing that’s not serious, but I’m kind of concerned it may be more. Starvation though, I can’t... Think of anyone who could Starve, except perhaps Terezi having been outside searching for Vriska for so long, and I worry... And Funerals, please just talk about Mutie’s and Rose’s Funerals, please no one die. :I I mean except John, which I’m assuming may die, but I’ll talk about that later.

Poisoning, Pica: Another possible alternative for the ‘Vomit’ warning? It may also tie into some assassination attempt. There’s no ‘overdose’ tag, so I am ruling out the idea that Rose IS gonna start going too far. Like straight up. Pica is also a disorder in which someone eats non-edible stuffs, which could cause poisoning and vomit? But. Honestly? I think... Pica is just going to be Terezi eating chalk.

Friends to Lovers, Polyamory, Infidelity, Marriage, Cuckolding: Now BEFORE any of you crucify me for putting Polyamory and Infidelity together. I know. I’m not implying anything. BUT while it’s possible that like. Rose or Kanaya had some talk about their marriage. I think it could be quite hilarious if John saw Jade, Dave and Karkat like. Making out amongst themselves at different points and assume that they’re cheating on each other, or worse, that they tease him for having that come to mind immediately. ‘wow karkat i cant believe youre cucking me with jade im hurt’ ‘SHUT THE FUCK UP STRIDER, OH MY GOD-’

Pregnancy, Breastfeeding, Breastmilk, Diapers, Children, Babies, Milking: I know everyone’s IMMEDIATE thoughts is that someone’s gonna get pregnant. But honestly it could just be pregnancy talk and... Breastfeeding and Milking that’s just. That’s just gonna be ARquius isn’t it.

Eggs, Alien Biology, Ovipositioning: No! Stop! There’s not going to be any weird Troll Stuff! Shame on all of us. This is most likely regarding the Mother Grub, although I wouldn’t mind hearing more about Canon Troll Anatomy.

Cannibalism, Vore: I am. I am going to go ahead and think this is because of the drawing of Roxy eating a baby??? Honestly who even KNOWS at this point. Is Caliborn going to try to VORE anyone like a god damn snake? Good lord.

Mind Break, Rough Sex, Light BDSM: Remember that there’s NO sexual content in the Epilogue. Confirmed. So uh... Yeah. Okay I added ‘Mind Break’ here for humorous effect but honestly it may be better suited for some of the messed up warnings above, maybe alongside Mind Control? Oof. Rough Sex... I can imagine someone joking about it? Maybe someone gets really shameless with the innuendos. And Light BDSM I’m just going to say we’re going to see Clover. Or... Gamzee DID get tied up. Does that count?

Bimboification: This fucking one. This one is the one that throws me out for a limb the most. It may be relating to the Trickster Mode? It may also be related to Caliborn and him like. Objectifying the characters or something, but that isn’t as ‘ification’. Another thing that’s got me wondering is ‘Bimboification’. As FAR as I understand this term to go, the correct way of saying it is ‘Bimbofication’? So either it’s a typo, OR ‘Bomboification can apparently be used some times for specifically males? What I’m saying is, I can’t believe Lord English really is a Himbo.

Redemption: V... Vriska? Maybe. But also I kinda hope not. I’m really wishing ‘Redemption’ comes from everyone working their shit out together and being a big bunch of friends again.

Canon Compliant, Canon Divergent, Self-Sacrifice: Finally! The last ones! This is both Canon Compliant and Canon Divergent, which should be easy enough to parse through the Meat-Candy choice (And what I believe will be a split-path with the next update). Self-Sacrifice... Yeah that is what’s going to happen with John isn’t it? At least in the ‘Meat’ path. But I’ve talked already too much and gotten too Spoilery, ssssh!

So hey! These warnings don’t look so intimidating when you realize 90% were already things that happen in Homestuck proper, and the rest can be discussed in an adult manner without having awful things happen to people.

I’m mostly worried about people dying and getting hurt.

[pilferingapples]

Beeble Mis 5b : Who Gave You A Gun?!?

PREVIOUSLY on BBC Les Mis: it was Barricade Time, babey!

 I’m trusting people better with geographical/layout descriptions than me will take this one. But other points:

- I give Wardrobe hell in this show and I do not take it back, but also let me say they’re doing a solid job on lower-class clothing. I especially like the poor woman in the march whose outfit is almost complete but her overblouse is too small and shows the lacing of her corset at her waist-- not sexy at all, it looks exactly like what it is, not being able to make/afford a top that really fits.

- ... A Riot Occurs! And okay yeah, listen, I’ve been trying really hard to evaluate this show as This Show, just an adaptation of the book, as Davies emphasized it was. But this is a very 2012 way to film the chaos as the riot erupts. I’m not saying it’s bad! I actually think it works! I just also think it’s Very Samey, and there are other ways to film chaotic sequences.

- The worker from The Something Cafe earlier (who I think may have been the one Enjolras saved earlier too?) comes up as they’re starting to build the barricade and is all WELCOME COMRADE and they are obviously really solid with each other and why Why WHY isn’t this worker just Feuilly?!? Enjolras has a canonical Worker Activist Bestie! It would have been a fine thing to go with! 

...Were they afraid of mispronouncing “Feuilly”? because. I could understand that.  

- “There’s only one line of attack!” says Enjolras and okay this is the kind of thing that people in genre shows say before being attacked from behind but it’s also like the whole deal with the Corinthe barricade so

- there’s a flag that I *think* has the date of the July Revolution on it?  Not sure? Can anyone confirm? 

- Grantaire grabs HALF A STOOL yes very good Grantaire 

- Matelote is here! With a cockade in her hair! Slapping Grantaire in the face AS HE RICHLY DESERVES 

- I am loving this HISTORICALLY ACCURATE multiracial and multigender crowd! Thank you!

- And now it’s time for COMEDY JAVERT!!!  He is going to the barricades in his STEALTH CAP because he cannot  TRUST anyone else to apprehend Jean Valjean! Who will definitely be IN THE VERY CENTER of the rioting! At...a  small barricade..on an obscure street... with only 40-50 defenders...

you know if the IRL Official Intel had been this Hot and Happenin’, Charles Jeanne and Co. might have won:P

-BACK TO THE BARRICADE BUILDING, Gavroche steals the Mean Barber’s Plaster Head and Wig for and brings it along? for reasons?? , and then encounters Mabeuf 

--okay Mabeuf being here is a Great Example of the way this series so often brings in canon details but gutted of the context that really makes them matter. We’ve seen nothing of his slide into poverty, his struggle, his desperation; there’s no reason to think there’s anything to him showing up (with tricolor sash!) except a genuine determination to Do His Part. I’m not sorry he’s here; I’m sorry it doesn’t tie in with anything else more. 

- ...if Feuilly were here they’d be building a better barricade 

- JAVERT IS HERE! ON THE CASE! TRACKING DOWN THE NOTORIOUS REBEL JEAN VALJEAN I’m sorry this is forever hilarious ACTUAL DIALOGUE:

Javert, Super Casual: Is a man named Jean Valjean with us?  Quinnjolras, who very realistically has no idea who tf JVJ is:  Not that I know of  Javert, Super Smoothlike And Very Casual: He’ll be in the thick of it,MARK MY WORDS

Sadly then we of course cut to : Jean Valjean! or rather Cosette, trying to sneak out past Jean Valjean. And Marius! Sneaking into the Garden House! 

And it’s all very nicely paralleled with them both being quiet and Marius is looking in a window and Cosette has her hands on the doorknob to step outside 

and VALJEAN ATTACKS HER FROM BEHIND LIKE A HORROR MOVIE MONSTER 

HOLY SHIT 

she screams and begs to be let go, and he just! won’t ! he keeps Ever So Calm as he physically restrains her, calmly telling her that oh, it’s dangerous Out There, as opposed to in HERE, with a frigging superhuman keeping her restrained 

he finally lets her escape back up the stairs and she yells I HATE YOU which is honestly seeming less Spunky Teen and more TOTALLY JUSTIFIED ACT OF BRAVE DEFIANCE  holy shit 

holy shit 

I hate this Valjean so much y’all, this is so bad  

the camera pulls away and shows us he is A Sad but !! I don’t care! Don’t PHYSICALLY RESTRAIN YOUR TEENAGER AND LOCK HER IN THE HOUSE 

at this point in the recap I actually had to take a break and get some tea because holy shit  

but okay. Okay. I’m back. 

--and the scene is MERCIFULLY back to the House With Gardens In, where Marius is having an Existential Crisis and Eponine...is trying to convince him to live? and hook up with her?  But she Name Drops the Chanvrerie Barricade apparently by mistake, here because this is the Les Mis where Women Aren’t Given Much to Thinking, and so Marius goes off to Die , as Marii do

then it’s back to the barricade! Where Courfeyrac , Mabeuf and Gavroche arrive at the head of a bunch of new recruits! Through the alley....into the barricade with only One Line of Attack...hhhhyeahhh. I . I get where like you couldn’t do a MASSED charge from that alley but it would be REAL easy to do a smaller distraction sortie? I think? 

eh, I’m not Battle Tactics Blogger , back to the plot. 

Gavroche spots Javert and immediately rumbles him; Enjolras and Courfeyrac and Not!Feuilly etc seize him and take him hostage. Go Team! 

And then it’s evening,and all across Paris the lights are...doing things and people are singing!

But There is No Joy in Corinth, Except For Me! because Javert is tied to a post! and HILARIOUSLY YELLING ABOUT JEAN VALJEAN.

Actual Dialogue: WHERE IS HE! YOUR LEADER! JEAN VALJEAN!

I’m glad Quinnjolras thinks this is as funny as I do 

Javert, to a group of armed revolutionaries: You’re mistaken, my friend! You’ve ALL BEEN LED ASTRAY. 

Javert, my guy, I hate this Valjean too, but I don’t think he’s behind POLITICAL ISSUES IN PARIS. 

Quinnjolras gets a We’re Not Assassins line when Gav makes to shoot Javert; I am pleased!

Meanwhile Not!Feuilly and Friends are outside watching the barricade; they call that the first charge is coming. 

The first charge goes pretty well, Dramatic Fight Scene wise! Quinnjolras gets the barricade to use Good Bullet Economy, and is convincing as a combat leader, at least in this moment. Courfeyrac...gives the impression of being someone totally new to this, but getting the hang of it. Gavroche is Super Pumped and kills someone with Javert’s musket I think? (WHO GAVE HIM A GUN). (Bossuet I am pretty sure is killed.) And Grantaire, who has a gun somehow (WHO GAVE YOU A GUN)...gets an actual look at violence and shuts down. For any of the others,I’d be deeply annoyed by this, but it’s a good way of showing the basic Issue here: Grantaire has no real violence in him. He can be a jerk , but he doesn’t have the conviction to carry himself over the horrors of dealing real harm or real death--or seeing it come to others. War is genuinely awful! and he’s really not capable of this.  It’s a good moment, and fits with the new way they’re doing his arc so far. 

...and then as I’m appreciating this, and as the barricade is celebrating, it’s time to Raise the Flag! And Mabeuf volunteers! And Quinnjolras is like”hahah no grampa it’s fine” and Mabeuf says “I said I’ll do it”, and climbs up the barricade all awkward. And Not!Feuilly looks over at Enjolras like ??? and Enjolras does that shrug that means ‘Hey I Tried But Grampa Won’t Stop’ and Mabeuf puts up the flag and everyone goes YAAAAAY and Marius sneaks onto the barricade and Mabeuf gets shot. 

And I just...it’s Shocking and it’s Sad  in a Hey An Old Man Died sort of way, but it’s All Wrong for tone and context. The raising of the flag is supposed to be an obviously dangerous, essentially suicidal  act of courage, that requires stepping into the line of open fire ; something even Enjolras hesitates to do.  Mabeuf’s courage terrifies  everyone , terrifies Enjolras ; Mabeuf inspires them all by his willing sacrifice, and becomes to the barricade a reminder of the courage of the Grand Revolution. 

Here, putting up the flag is A Bit of A Chore; no one seems very tense about it; everyone’s watching calmly and laughing and cheering as it goes. Mabeuf’s death is Shocking, a Reminder that There Is Danger , not a foregone conclusion (and of course  there’s no mention of the original Revolution as a positive inspiration). We, the viewer, don’t know about Mabeuf’s downward spiral in life, so we can’t link it to this decision, can’t see this as an act of protest and despair.  Courfeyrac doesn’t know Mabeuf, so he doesn’t correct Enjolras on Mabeuf’s politics; he just seems shaken and lost by this Unexpected Death.

Mabeuf’s death is, essentially, reframed, from being a conscious, heroic , inspiring sacrifice to group of fighters who felt their courage wavering, to a Sad Loss That Awakens Everyone to The Horror Of Battle. Someone might like this choice of approach more; but it IS a choice, and a heavy one in terms of symbolism (even as it loses the commentary on symbolism!).

Anyway. Next wave of combat happens, Grantaire Nopes Out into the Corinthe (WHO GAVE YOU A BOOZE), Gavroche heads back into combat with a pistol (WHO GAVE YOU YET ANOTHER GUN)  Marius RAUUUUGHS up and into Battle with the Gunpowder. It’s good! Kind of hilarious but good! The Barricade Is Saved and also happy about it  instead of scolding him! GOOD ! 

and then Marius has a whole “it’s EASY when you DON’T VALUE YOUR LIFE” bit and Quinnjolras is like “Ungroovy , Comrade Buddy” and Marius walks down to the street level and a guard is Still Alive!1!1, and shoots at him! and hogad, Eponine sort of . Hurls herself across screen and falls in a heap RIGHT AT THE FOOT OF THE MAIN PASSAGE ON THE BARRICADE and Enjolras shoots the guard and is like “see some of us still value your life you drama llama” and i just 

are they gonna move her or 

--anyway , her Death Scene is very good until the odd change in final line; the shift from “I believe I was a little bit in love with you” to “I really did love you” is actually! a pretty major shift! but whatever  ; Erin Kellyman did a wonderful job with the whole scene and for once I believe this Marius is truly sad at the passing of a life

The next bit with the letter is really cool! Let me give credit for that!  Marius reads the letter Eponine gave him, while Valjean discovers Cosette’s blotter and reads it in a reflective plate-- a nice bit of symmetry and a cool way to use a book detail to unite the branches of the story! Valjean realizes Cosette is already lost to him-- “in her heart she’s gone” -- and I could not care less for the grief of Shouty Dragsalot, but it’s well acted for the person this Valjean is. 

...and then Gavroche shows up with Cosette’s letter, and we get THIS 

as Valjean JUMPS AT AND GRABS A CHILD and rips the note from his hand, and then growls at him to “hop it” until Gavroche does, in what is a really nasty echo of the Petit Gervais scene 

and of course he reads Cosette’s letter and grabs a knife (WHO GAVE YOU A KNIFE), and heads to the barricade, where Javert lifts his head, alert, as his Valjean sense activates again.

...y’all I’m making as many jokes as I can but I am grieving for how horrible this Valjean is and how much more Cosette has to endure because of it?? this is grim.  And while I know of course this series will stick to the plot of the book, it really would feel the most consistent for this Valjean to just flat out commit some good ol’ muderin’. 

Well maybe JAVERT, SUPER POLICE PRESENCE will stop him!   And save the poor barricade fighters from his malign influence! and then everyone can go get some cake with Cosette and Eponine and Mabeuf will make a Miraculous Recovery!  That’s probably how it will go. No need to worry! 

[bowsetter]

Activist Larken Rose Weighs In on Bitcoin, Anarchy, and the Importance of Permissionless Cash

Though his latest project with partner and fellow activist Amanda Rose, Candles in the Dark, is a program helping people escape authoritarian programming through non-confrontational dialogue, there’s nothing meek and mild about Larken Rose’s stance when it comes to government. News.Bitcoin.com recently connected with the outspoken anarchist via Skype to talk about Bitcoin, the IRS, and the importance of permissionless money.

Also Read: Bitcoin and Voluntaryism – Where Libertarian Philosophy Meets Crypto

Bumping Into Crypto

News.Bitcoin.com (BC): How did you get into the crypto space?

Larken Rose (LR): I only accidentally crashed sideways into crypto stuff just because so many people who are into freedom and self-ownership got into it when it came along, realizing it could be a really useful tool to resist centralized control. I’m by no means any sort of expert on it. I was just sort of dragged along for the ride, because at this point it’s kind of hard to not be hearing about it and involved with it if you’re into freedom, because it’s such a useful tool for that.

BC: Do you remember when that was?

LR: It was a number of years ago, and I remember I heard the term a bunch of times before I had the foggiest idea what it meant, and what it referred to. It may have been at Porcfest in New Hampshire, where some of the guys promoting it early on actually gave me some of the physical Bitcoins, back when they were worth like a dollar each, and I think they gave me 20 of them.

And, I sold them at a sadly low rate, well before it went up. I accidentally held onto one of them, without knowing I still had it, but I eventually gave that one to my daughter and she ended up getting a car out of it, so I’m happy about that. But it was a number of years later before I really understood the beauty and the power of the concept of blockchain and decentralized, uncontrollable mediums of exchange.

Bitcoin and Voluntaryism

BC: You’re a voluntaryist. More people are learning what that word means lately, but most still don’t know. What’s it all about?

LR: In short, to be a voluntaryist means you advocate that all human interaction be voluntary, rather than by way of violence and coercion. And when you describe it that way, almost everybody initially reacts by saying, ‘Oh yeah, that’s me; I totally agree; that’s what I want too.’

But they don’t recognize that, even if they live that way in their daily lives — when it comes to politics, almost everybody has been taught that there’s an exception for the people who call themselves ‘government,’ and that it’s okay if they threaten violence and rob you by threats of force and boss you around and control you. A voluntaryist is basically somebody who realizes that the whole ‘live and let live’ and ‘do unto others as you would have done unto you,’ there’s not an exception for government.

BC: You’ve touched on this a little already, but where do you see crypto and voluntaryism intersecting?

LR: To me there are two very important pieces that have to go together to actually get a large number of people being able to be free, and eventually society being free. One is the mentality, and that’s what my main focus is on: having people stop believing that they’re obligated to obey a ruling class. But after that, then you need the tools necessary to be ungovernable. And some of those tools are, for example, guns. If you’re gonna resist oppression, if they have guns, it’s convenient if you do too.

But when it comes to currency and all the frauds and the tricks that governments have done by way of fiat currency and central banks and all that garbage, crypto is just a very powerful tool for those who are mentally ready to escape the controls of a ruling class, to be able to trade and basically have a complex international economy that doesn’t have the tentacles of the ruling class in it anywhere. And that’s huge.

BC: What would your response be to those people who say, ‘Yeah, these rules suck, the government’s terrible, but without it, it would be chaos’?

LR: People have been trained by the ruling class to imagine that, without the ruling class, we’d be these stupid, violent animals. And it’s already the case that the average person, all the things in his life that work, aren’t because he personally figured them out. The average person who buys a car doesn’t know how to build a car. The average person who goes grocery shopping doesn’t know how to grow all that food, and they don’t need to.

The order and the complexity and the cooperation and the productivity already comes from voluntary interaction. But it’s easy for politicians to scare most people into thinking, ‘Well if nobody’s in charge, if there isn’t a government bossing everyone around, then it will be this chaotic free-for-all.’ There’s no reason to actually believe that.

If you go to a supermarket—it’s one of my favorite examples of anarchy in action—yeah, it has government tentacles in there getting in the way and robbing people, but nobody’s forced to be involved, and you get an amazing level of complexity and organization and cooperation, and nobody’s being forced to do anything—not the people who work there and not the customers who go and buy stuff there.

IRS, Anarchy and Activism

BC: Speaking of governments and money, you had a run-in—well, a run-in is kind of a mild way to put it—but you had some trouble with the IRS. Could you tell us just a little bit about that, and what happened there?”

LR: My adventures with the federal extortion racket are something I don’t usually talk very much about these days, because it takes so much time and effort for people to actually get into it and to learn it. If anybody wants the full story for free, I now give away my book, Kicking the Dragon (Confessions of a Tax Heretic), for free as an e-book.

BC: Could you tell us about your activism? I know Candles in the Dark is going online on Thanksgiving, and you’re speaking at Anarchapulco again this year.

LR: Yep. Well I have a number of books, The Most Dangerous Superstition being the main one, and I’ve given a bunch of talks and I still do here and there. I don’t like to preach to the choir, so usually when I give talks it’s with the intention of it being recorded and ending up on YouTube or something, to talk to the rest of the world. I also just started doing my daily podcast again. But the two main things I’m working on now—one is the Candles in the Dark seminar, and the full online version will be up and running by Thanksgiving and we’re already taking pre-orders now.

What that does, for people who are already voluntaryists, is teach them a drastically more effective method of communicating with the rest of the world, that doesn’t just result in the usual stress and emotions and arguments and frustration, that normal debates almost always end in. It’s not at all what I do in public. When I publicly debate I’m blunt and totally in people’s faces, and that’s for a totally different purpose.

And then the other major—the biggest project I’m working on; probably the biggest project I will do in my whole life—is called The Mirror, which is basically an interactive program that does the whole process for us. So voluntaryists don’t even need to know how to do it; The Mirror will do it for them, all by itself.

BC: So just strap on the VR goggles and set them free from statism.

LR: Pretty much, because it does the conversation by itself. It asks them what they believe about things and their answers determine where it goes next. And that’s a monstrous project which is still many months away from being completed. But ultimately that will make it so we don’t even have to be good at communication, because it will do it for us. So hopefully I won’t get suicided before that’s done.

The Future of Crypto Freedom

BC: It seems like there’s a split in the cryptocurrency community at large, where you’ve got the more libertarian-minded crowd that’s saying, ‘We’ve got to use this privately, between ourselves, as peer-to-peer permissionless cash,’ and you’ve got this other group saying, ‘Well, it’s gotta be regulated, and we’ve gotta get the government in on this thing.’

LR: I want the government involved in absolutely nothing. It shouldn’t freaking exist. I’m kind of on that side of the spectrum.

BC: Yeah, I kind of figured.

LR: But what I love about the concept of blockchain and the concept of cryptocurrencies is that the ruling class can try with varying degrees of success to try to stick its nose into different kinds of trading and different cryptos, and it can try to regulate this and that and the other thing, but the thing it can’t ever do away with is the idea.

Now that the ideas of blockchain and cryptocurrencies are out there, there is nothing that will keep it down forever. It’s not like there’s some centralized place where, if they go and shut down that thing, it’s gone forever. Even if there was some magic button that would make Bitcoin disappear—and it doesn’t work that way—another one would appear. And then a hundred more would appear. The ideas are, to me, what is most powerful. It’s the evolution of ideas and technology and understanding that can’t be undone, and that can’t be regulated out of existence. That doesn’t mean they won’t try it, but in the long run they are doomed; they have no chance of squelching this permanently.

What do you think about Rose’s ideas on crypto freedom? Let us know in the comments section below.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Avens.me, fair use.

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The post Activist Larken Rose Weighs In on Bitcoin, Anarchy, and the Importance of Permissionless Cash appeared first on Bitcoin News.

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[a-wandering-fool]

Sanders: I Will Do a Better Job ‘Explaining What We Mean by Socialism – Democratic Socialism’

“I think what we have to do, and I will be doing it, is to do a better job maybe in explaining what we mean by socialism — democratic socialism. Obviously, my right-wing colleagues here want to paint that as authoritarianism and communism and Venezuela, and that’s nonsense.

“What I mean by democratic socialism is that I want a vibrant democracy. I find it interesting that people who criticize me are busy actively involved in voter suppression trying to keep people of color or low-income people from voting, because they don’t want a vibrant democracy. I do.

“Second of all, what it means, Rachel, is that in the wealthiest country in the history of the world we can provide a decent standard of living for all about people. That’s just the reality. That’s not Utopian dreaming; that is a reality. Health care for all can be done and we can save money in doing it. We can have a minimum wage which is a living wage, and I’m delighted to see that you know, right now, five states already passed fifteen dollars an hour minimum wage. The House of Representatives is gonna do it. We have got to do that.”

The problem with “democratic” Socialism is something the Left in this country should be able to intuit–but sadly don’t: sometimes you’re the party who wins the argument. And sometimes the other folks vote in President Donald Trump.

So when economic institutions are run by consensus rather than economic institutions being forced to cater to fickle customers–there will always be a large minority of customers who are as unhappy as the Left is today with our Democratically elected President.

It also never ceases to amaze me how someone on the Left who is a Bernie Supporter or who supports “Socialism” will then post endless diatribes againstthe Government for doing something stupid. Like cops arresting the wrong man. Like a local zoning commission leveling a bunch of homes for a Foxconn factory. Like the government taking cash from an innocent couple.

Our government is already “democratic”–yet this doesn’t stop our government from doing incredibly stupid things. And we’re supposed to turn over the entire economy to this same government?

The reason why Socialism fails is not because it’s not sufficiently “democratic” enough. Socialism fails because it creates a single point of failure: centralized command and control of the economy.

Through a free market, price signaling (which is a way of signaling what customers want) allows multiple suppliers to make individual decisions about the products they plan to offer and how they plan to make those products. But when decision making is pushed up to a central authority–such as a government oversight bureau–price signaling falls to the wayside. Instead of giving customers what they want, governments tell corporations what to give to customers. And like the Left who is unhappy about the 2016 Presidential Elections, some customers don’t get what they want.

Instead they get what the government tells them the should have.

If you don’t think this description–that the Government should tell us what we can consume, rather than having corporations guess what we want by providing a variety of products–doesn’t apply to Bernie Sanders, remember his famous, but rather telling quote:

You can’t just continue growth for the sake of growth in a world in which we are struggling with climate change and all kinds of environmental problems. All right? You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country.

But there is a rather natural result of companies (made up of and employing thousands of people) competing for your dollars.

And when they do: when companies are forced to compete for your dollars, by appealing to your desires and to your convenience, this is the natural result:

The thing is, though, one of the attacks against Capitalism by “Democratic Socialists” of all breeds, is this very excess. What many of us see as a feature, Socialists see as a bug: all that bread, just sitting there, waiting to be consumed, is somehow “proof” of either Capitalism’s waste, the excesses which are destroying our planet, or it’s proof of Capitalism’s “excesses”–the fact that the bread just sits there, when there are people who are going hungry.

These arguments was just used by an editoralist in the Guardian to argue we must end capitalism:

We need to fundamentally re-evaluate our relationship to ownership, work and capital.

The sad part, however, is that for most socialists, while they see the excess bread waiting at the store for someone to buy it as a sign of failure–they can’t envision a world where they themselves don’t have access to such a large selection of bread.

Which is what the Party leaders of the former Soviet Union did: they created two classes of stores–one for themselves and other Party leaders where there were plentiful supplies for the Party elite, and one where there were constant shortages as various 5 year plans were being “tweaked” to properly account for supply and demand constraints whose signals had been destroyed by decades of central planning.

Of course, Socialists of all stripes believe “fixing” the problem of oversupply (but perhaps limiting oversupply to an important few, ‘natch) will help the planet. Because we don’t need 23 different brands of underarm deodorant and 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are going hungry and the planet is on the brink of collapse, right?

And if a few people wind up with a temporary shortage–well, next year, with computers, we’ll somehow do better…

I remarked once elsewhere that I believed that people who call themselves “Socailists” are stupid and they hate people.

This was not just a vapid ad-hominem attack.

I believe self-described “Socialists” of all striped are willfully ignorant because they deny all this reality: they deny that the fundamental problem with “Socialism” is that it centralizes decision-making power to a handful of people who make production decisions through political, rather than economic, decision making tools. And by denying economic signals, they ultimately destroy the feedback loops that make the economy stable.

This is why things failed in Venezuela, by the way. Not because Venezuela was authoritarian (though it takes a degree of authoritarianism to tell farmers what to grow and at what price to sell their goods, and it takes a degree of authoritarianism to tell store keepers what price to charge and how much to stock).

But because Venezuela made it impossible for farmers and store keepers to do their job in an efficient manner.

And had Venezuela been run by a strongman dictator, a central committee of economists, an democratically elected board of governors, or by an on-line nation-wide plebiscite where everyone got to participate and vote–the results would have been exactly the same. Because the decision making process in all of those cases was removed from the economic forces which should motivate those decisions.

As an aside, if you’ve been following along, the smarter of you should be saying “yeah, but doesn’t this happen with large corporations?”

And you’d be exactly right. Large corporations often become inefficient because a central suite of corporate leaders decide what products to produce and at what price point to sell them at. Corporate leaders then can become fixated on providing the same products in the same way–even when market tastes or market forces demand they change–as Circuit City did, denying the rise of on-line retail of electronics, right up to the point of bankruptcy when hundreds of stores closed nation-wide.

Which is why it’s imperative that corporations which become inefficient be allowed to go bankrupt rather than limping along on government life support, such as Obama’s bailing out of General Motors. The resources General Motors would have lost in a bankruptcy hearing don’t get burned to the ground; they get purchased by other corporations who may be able to put them to better use.

Imagine the world today if Tesla had picked up a couple of functioning GM car factory plants back in 2008. It’s not unreasonable to assume we’d be farther along towards the all-electric utopia the Left keep asking for, had a Leftist President not interfered with the economy.

For a free market to function, you need two things: things governments often try to prevent. You need robust competition, such as the rise of Amazon destroying Circuit City’s business model. And you need to allow old, outdated companies to fail.

The answer to a rich billionaire is a thousand entrepreneurs pecking away at that billionaire’s business.

I also said that Socialist “hate people.”

The reason for that goes right to the heart of the “you don’t need 23 different kinds of deodorant and 18 different kinds of sneakers” remark, without considering why these things exist.

Each of these different products are, in a sense, like the bread waiting for customers: each brand, each variation, are all attempts to constantly figure out what consumers want. And we don’t all want the same thing. Me: I want a roll-on deodorant (rather than an aerosol), because my armpits don’t get that sweaty. And I want an unscented brand, because I’m sensitive to perfumes.

But if we were to decide by some sort of central committee the one brand that is allowed to be in the marketplace–because supposedly all that time and effort thousands of workers are engaged in trying to come up with a different brand that may appeal to consumers is better spent elsewhere–which brand should we have? Bernie Sander’s favorite brand? Will it be an aerosol antiperspirant which can dry out my arm pits, leading them to hurt? Will it be an “Old Spice” scented deodorant which can make me physically nauseous?

You may not want any one of the other 22 brands of deodorant in the store. But someone does. And when you eliminate them, aren’t you taking away someone else’s choice?

Are you ignoring their desires?

Isn’t that a little hateful?

So go ahead, Bernie Sanders.

Let’s have a conversation about Socialism.

Let’s allow you to get frustrated because you think–as policy makers in the past have thought countless times before–that the reason why the American public is rejecting your ideas is because somehow we’re stupid and we need those policy decisions explained to us in simpler words. Convince yourselves that Conservatives are genetically inferior, more susceptible in believing lies, and are just outright stupid. Never mind that conservatives actually do better on an ideological ‘Touring test’, meaning conservatives (and not liberals) are better at discussing oppositional beliefs without exaggerating them or resorting to negative stereotypes.

And never mind that conservatives actually understand liberal ideology better than liberals understand conservative ideology. Which is a trivially obvious conclusion, when you realize that left-wing ideology is taught in our schools and parroted on our television shows and news programs, in a country where “Das Kapital” is more likely to be read in college than “The Conservative Mind.” For most thoughtful conservatives (really, classical liberals subscribing to a brand of liberalism before “progressives” stole the term), we had to find our own way out of the weeds, guided by some references to Adam Smith and John Locke half-remembered in passing from a class on American History in high school.

I’d love to have that honest debate about socialism, not a one-way “conversation” where we are lectured to by our betters, and told by those with an agenda how their definition of “Socialism” has never been tried before because of some slippery definition that is full of double-speak and gobbledygook.

Let’s have that honest discussion, with people who know the difference between Milton Friedman and John Keynes, who understand what David Hume was trying to do and why Adam Smith’s “The Welfare of Nations” is more a book about morality than it is a primer on economics. Let’s talk about John Mill’s ideas about the use of forceable action against others.

And let’s have an honest debate over if economic decisions are better made by economic forces or by political forces.

Let’s have this discussion, as Phil Donahue did with Milton Friedman, several times.

But don’t be surprised if voters reject your ideas.

It’s not that we don’t understand them.

It’s that we understand them extremely well.

=====================

[drumpfwatch]

State of the Union 2019 Commentary

It’s been a week and some change. Let’s talk State of the Union.

First off, I’d like to make a comment on the overall speech theme. Trump spoke of unity and everyone coming together, but that very morning he went to yell at how obstructionist and obnoxious the Democrats were being for not giving him his baby bottle wall. This man, who speaks of himself as the best deal maker in the world, and bragged he’d be able to get everyone to get together and make friends, sort out their differences, when he has done nothing but make demand after demand and concede no ground.

A compromise, Mr. Trump, is two people coming together and agreeing on something they’re both willing to do while conceding parts of what they want. It’s called a surrender if someone gives you everything they want while getting nothing. Dummkopf.

So with that, let’s begin at the beginning. I warn you right now I don’t want to go over every single point he made, but I’ll cover as many of them as I can and comment as needed. There are other commentaries out there, some as soon as the day after, and those are more than cool to have hanging around. I’m sure between all of those you can come up with a total summary of what he said, based on every single word. With that, let’s begin.

As per his theme, he started the speech by calling for unity and cooperation. All well and good for anyone else. We should avoid revenge politics - which is fucking rich coming from him, but whatever. Specifically, he calls congress to concern themselves “with the agenda of the American people” but…

Well, we’ll get to that.

He thanks some WW2 vets and then talks about how he’s interested in “America First.” People have on more than one occasion pointed out that given his actions, he seems to mean “America Only” when he says that, and that should be a premise that is upsetting to everyone but I have no doubt there is a large portion of the population of the American population who are more than happy to ignore the rest of the world. They already do, after all.

He then introduces Buzz Aldrin, saying that we’ll be going to space on American rockets again. And he’s actually, sadly, right there. Back in 2011, the Space Shuttle program was retired, and we’ve been relying on the Russian Soyuz capsule to get us into the space ever since. The successor to the Space Shuttle Program, the Space Launch System, has been slow coming for numerous reasons. It is, however, finally going to be ready to go in 2019 and will perform its first mission in 2020 - sending a craft to Mars. They wanted a rocket that could get a crew to Mars eventually, and the Senate…

Well, let’s just say congress stuck it’s fingers into the Space Launch System so much that it has been derisively called the Senate Launch System, and a lot of astronauts and NASA Engineers are concerned that it is basically a horrible, efficient money sink. Still, as an avid space fanatic, I’m glad we’re making efforts, at least. Though I’d point out that those efforts have been in motion long before he ever got there to direct them. This is, after all, the man that believed we could go to Mars before his first term was out.

He next goes on to talk about the economy, claiming that our middle class is bigger and more prosperous than ever before. This is untrue. While it seems to be complicated, the general consensus is that while the Middle Class has been stable in size, they tend to have less and less, especially in comparison to the upper class. That is where the real problem is, as well. The absolutely ridiculous wealth disparity. Though I get the feeling that removing taxes from private jets is totally gonna help with that. She says, sarcasm frothing in her mouth in a mixture of rage and bitterness.

He then claimed responsibility for the parts of the economic boom that have been happening. First of all, the economy is...not exactly booming. But there are good things happening in it. It’s sort of a whirlygig of insanity, if I’m honest. Now, you’ll hear me say this again a few other times, but I am not all that educated when it comes to economics. Economics is a chaos system and I much prefer stable ones with easy to predict results. Is a thing right or wrong, is this method an effective way of accomplishing the intended goal. Things like that.

That said, I do know a few things, and one of them is that a lot of people who do know a thing or two about economics point out that this economic boom began in 2016, which means it's entirely possible that this is a result of Obama’s policies were responsible, we don’t really know. Maybe Trump did have something to do with it, but it’s often not accurate to blame the problems or successes of an economy on a single thing. So this claim gets a big ol’ stamp of “UNVERIFIABLE” from me.

I can say that wages are not rising, or at least as much as he thinks. The Federal Minimum Wage was not changed since 2009, and lost about 9.6% of its purchasing power because of inflation. While some states have made major strides towards livable minimum wages have been made in places like New York and California, I’d be willing to bet dollars to donuts that if you removed the massive amount of wealth that people like Jeff Bezos make, you’d find that they are stagnant, or even lowering.

There’s a thought for a math rant sometime.

Anyway, he then praises the 5 million people who got off of food stamps. First of all, the number is 3.5 million. Second of all, it’s a bit more complicated than that. To summarize, while the decrease in unemployment is helping, there’s another little niggling thing. There was a provision in the law that basically said you could turn off some of the safety nets if employment rates rose, and a lot of states decided not to pay for those benefits. I won’t argue whether or not that was a right or wrong decision, but I will say you don’t get to wave around the number of people who are off a program as a victory when the reason they’re off it isn’t because they don’t need it, but because they were kicked off it.

We’re the hottest economy in the world, he says! And he’s wrong. I mentioned before that we’re in a weird sort of “Good Things, Bad Things” phase, but I don’t think I need to tell anyone that the stock market has been all over the place, falling and rising considerably at random. Meanwhile, S&P has downgraded America’s credit score. I think we’ve got a problem, and I know we’re not the hottest economy.

He then goes onto say that the unemployment rate for people of color is the lowest it’s ever been. And shockingly, he’s right on this one. Sort of. The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the rate of unemployment for hispanic people and black people actually went down, and was at one point the lowest it’s ever been. Asian unemployment has sorta been all over the place. What makes it strange, however, is that each of these groups had a random and sudden spike since November/December of last year, while for whites it’s been pretty stagnant. Last hired, first fired, I guess.

He also talks about the same with disabled people and that is blatantly untrue. While it seems the number of people who qualify for disability also is going up, they’re not getting employed any faster.

I should also mention that even if we could point to one specific thing as responsible for these changes, I doubt it would be the fault of the man who himself wouldn’t house or hire black people.

He also celebrated getting rid of the estate tax. Which yes, he did. That is not necessarily a good thing. He acts like it applies to small businesses and farmers, but it doesn’t. One person said on the matter “If you don’t feel comfortable calling what you own an estate, then you probably aren’t affected by the estate tax.” You and your guilded crotch spawn and protected up to 10 million dollars. Only after that is your wealthy taxed on death, and only to prevent the the existence of a permanent landed gentry. The only people benefiting from the end of the estate tax are literal millionaires, who can afford to give some of that dosh to the community.

He then talks about Obamacare, and how he get rid of the Individual Mandate. He claims this was the most unpopular part of the law, and he’s right, but analysts point out that it’s more complicated then Thing Bad So Get Rid Of. Without the Individual Mandate to get people motivated to apply for coverage, a lot of people simply won’t get insured. Further, the whole point was that forcing the younger people to pay for insurance when they’re less likely to need it helped to add money to the pool that could be used to help cover the people with pre-existing conditions or complications. That said, it’s also a good thing not having people pay for coverage they can’t afford, so...it’s complicated.

Trump then bragged about cutting the most regulations of any President ever, and I won’t deny that he has. I will, however, point out that this is a horrible thing that should concern and frighten all of you. While some of those regulations may seem arbitrary, literally every one of them was written in the blood of some innocent person who died so a corporation could make an extra buck. We’ve already seen an increase in food poisoning and infections and the increase in food recalls since 2013 has been kind of horrifying. Trump has been eagerly cutting regulations to “Pre-1960s” levels. You know, before we had seatbelts. It’s very harmful to cut those regulations, and it needs to stop.

He then says that America has corporations coming back in record numbers. On this, he is also not wrong. The Jobs report was very good, and we should all be happy about that. That said, whether or not he is the one to thank for that is a bit more complicated, as usual. It turns out that some of these gears were set into motion when Obama was in office. Some of them are just the effects of a slow recovery process since the 2009 Recession. That said, they did take a sharp rise in 2017. So yay for him, I guess.

Except, again, if deregulation is how you’re doing this, then you’re doing it wrong. We should not be sacrificing the blood of American people so that a few already stupid wealthy people can get even more stupid wealthy. The reward is not worth the cost.

He then goes on about how we’re the number one producer of oil in the world. This claim is untrue. There has, however, been a boom in oil and natural gas production due to things like the invention of fracking and loosening of regulations that goes all the way back to the Bush Era. The rate is increasing such that by sometime into the 2020s, we will be the greatest producer of oil and natural gas, at least privately. Considering those materials are murdering our planet this is also not good news, but since Global Warming is, of course, a conspiracy cooked up by the Chinese to steal American Jobs, that doesn’t matter. We are also not a net exporter of energy, by the way, but are on are way to becoming one.

Then things get...weird. Everyone starts chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” in this really low and creepy tone that I was frankly a bit creeped out by. It was like these people thought they were at a football game and not a session of Congress. Then again, this is my first time really sitting down and paying attention to the State of the Union, so this may be normal. I just didn’t like it.

What should, however, terrify everyone is his next babbling remark. He spends five minutes or so going on a rant about how “If there is going to be peace in legislation, there cannot be war and investigation.” Which, frankly, reminded me of a mafia frontman. “Lovely country you got here, shame if somethin’ were to happen to it. You noisy folks stink’ yah nose into my bosses business makes it real hard for him to keep wild guys like Big Jim ova deya under control. I can’t promise you won’t upset him wid all this.”

Sorry, trumby. You don’t get to talk about the need to stop our adversaries when you may well have been put in office by one.

Ughk, I hate using that word. Adversaries. It makes it sound like we have a boat load of enemies, when in reality we have like, 3 or 4, and otherwise a series of complex political relationships. Like we can’t work together with those people for a better future if we all just calmed the fuck down.

Like they’re not people.

Whatever. There are more important things to worry about.

Like how he goes on to mock the democrats for not approving his nominations. Even though a whole boatload of them are sketchy as fuck, should have never even been approved at all, or were just never filled by Trump in the first place.

Also can I just say that it’s fucking rich hearing aa man like Trump complain about not getting a nominee approved after what his party pulled with the Supreme Court? We call that hypocrisy.

He then goes on to talk about making life easier for prisoners and punishing people who abuse our veterans. Now, I could point out that prison reform was actually Barack Obama’s whole big thing and he passed a lot of laws in that regard, and Trump has not, and Former President Obama also passed VA reform in 2014 that allowed for people who mistreated veterans to be harshly punished. That said, Trump has been making further strides on those initiatives, and in fact his most approved and liked legislation is the First Step Act. These are the sorts of policies that really can make life better for people, and it’s nice to see everyone getting behind them. Ofcoursewecouldfurtherthesegreatstridesbyclosingdownforprofitprisons, andotherthingsthatimcertaindontappealtoarepublicanmindset, but that’s for another day. What I’m saying here is that as much as I don’t like it, I have to admit Trump has done a good. I don’t care who past them, how they developed, they were good things that happened. Yay! Good job Trump, you get a big shiny gold star.

We then move on to the Racist section of the speech. He starts by talking about the Migrant Caravan and I am shocked at how wrong and full of hatred this man is. He claims these refugees are an “onslaught” of illegal aliens when they’re all coming to America to seek asylum. You know, something that’s completely and totally legal. But no, this is an INVADING FORCE of ILLEGAL ALIENS that need to be stopped with 3,750 more Soldiers with GUNS. They managed to make it all the way to the American border with only one small kerfuffle with the Mexican border police, before arriving at the American border not to see Lady Liberty’s open arms welcoming the hopeless and downtrodden, the weary and poor, but instead heavily armed and barricaded troops who would then go on to use tear gas on them. Is that the America we want to show to the world?

Now, to his credit, Trump admits that Immigrants enrich our society - which is entirely true. Yes, there’s a bit of stress on lower-wage jobs when they first arrive, but that’s minimal in comparison to the benefits. Not that saying that to someone who got laid off and replaced with a migrant is no consolation, I fully understand, but there are ways to help these problems. Also, side note, if he believes immigrants are so awesome and enriching to our society, then he would be more than happy to have them enter the country. But the immigration system here is a convoluted mess of insanity that takes forever to get anything done and then occasionally does nothing, and Trump has just been making it worse. Just a thought.

Now I wrote an entire post about the wall, so I won’t go into it too much here. But the wall is an expensive, stupid, and ineffective idea. Drugs aren’t coming through skirmishers who are dodging around the border, they’re coming through ports of entry. The San Diego wall he was talking about isn’t nearly as effective as he pretends, and it didn’t really start working until the entry port in that area was spruced up. Smuggler still break through it all the time, as well, to the point where an area of it is called “Smuggler’s Gulch.” It also has trapped migrants into paying more to cross to the bad guys, taking riskier and more lethal routes, and actually trapping “illegal” migrants in who may want to leave. Most of the time, men would come up, do some work for cash, then go home once they felt they had enough, but now they’re coming, staying, and bringing their families.

Trump also points out that there were people in that room who voted for the wall, but I reckon the immense amount of insanity that came from that previous attempt are why a lot of people don’t want to do it again. Trump says that “No issue better illustrates the divide between America's working class and America's political class” but in truth, 60% of Americans are strongly opposed to the wall. The wall is a lost, stupid cause, and Trump needs to give it up before he hurts himself with his flailing about it.

OH, and just as one last cherry on the cake, it won’t stop sex trafficking either. Most traffickers bring there people in through on legal Visas, which they are then forced to overstay as those visas are held from them. In fact, over 80 anti-trafficking organizations got together to say that Trump's comments on the matter were actually harmful to efforts to stop this stuff.

He then goes on to tell the story of the Maddison family. I honestly don’t remember what it specifically was, because they are just a prop to garner sympathy for his position, and I’d actually be fine with that if the idiot didn’t use it to spread a lie. This family lost ones they love to MS13 members. That’s horrible and tragic and very sad, and I feel for them and wish it hadn’t happened. But acting like this is how every “illegal immigrant” operates is just a flat out lie. While the actual numbers are hard to tell, we know enough to say that if you strip away the illegal crime of coming here when not allowed, “illegal” immigrants commit 16% less crimes then the native-born population. Most of them are just people who want to escape an insane life and live the American Dream. But, see, they’re hispanic, so they can’t. You have to be white to be an American.

So with all of that said, let’s jump ahead to a cute moment where he talks about women taking 53% of the open jobs. Again, not his fault but go off I guess.

He then goes on to celebrate the women in Congress, of which there are more than ever before. Hurrah! I appreciate that little wink and nod, and in fact Donny, you get a gold star for this one too because this one is your fault.

By proxy.

Pretty much every one of those women ran for office because they hated you, your policies, and your stupid ugly face. They’re not there because they like you, they’re there because they want to stop you. So I think I’mma just take that shiny gold star away.

Next, he bounces back to talking about the economy, because Trump can’t focus on a single thing. Again, I won’t say much on this because economics is not my speciality, but people who DO know a thing or two about economics are pretty much in agreement that tariffs are a tool, and not a very good one. The analogy I like to use goes something like this. Imagine tariffs as a double edged knife you’re going to use to stab someone you don’t like. You’re already dealing with a weapon that’s not the safest, but guess what? This one also doesn't have a hilt, or a guard, or a pommel or anything. It’s literally just a long, serrated sheet of iron with a point on one end. So whenever you hit the other guy, you’re cutting yourself too. You can’t not.

Tariffs need to be used with the precision of a scalpel, and only if they’re determined to be the right tool for the job. And that’s without accounting for the unintended consequences like how rich people can probably find a way to avoid tariffs so they hurt the poorer people more, or you know, starting a trade war because the other people can just pass tariffs on you too?! And if any of you think this gigantic flatulating, tiny-handed orange with a racist stick coming out of its ass is capable of “precision” then I have a bridge I’d very much like to sell you.

He also goes on to talk about NAFTA again, and I’m gonna have to plead ignorance on this one. I don’t know if NAFTA is or is not a good deal, or if UMCA is a better one. I don’t know enough about economics and I don’t know enough about the laws themselves. I’m at least grateful the idiot didn’t cancel NAFTA before enstating UMCA, and those people who are smarter than me I keep talking about say that Mexico and Canada may not be in a mood to negotiate a new trade deal. So who knows. I’m not going to say much else on the matter.

So then we move on to infrastructure brieful. Trump talks about how it’s crumbling and needs repair, and he’s not wrong. The infrastructure report card for the US is, frankly, abysmal. But this begins a trend on a couple of topics.

He goes on to eagerly talk about how we need to improve health care, and lower drug prices! That we’re going to get rid of HIV in 10 years! That Childhood Cancer is going to be eradicated! Everyone gets paid family leave! All this wonderful pie-in-the-sky stuff that is super cool to hear him talk about, and I’d be totally behind him….

If he were actually doing anything on these matters. Trump talks a big game on these things, but hasn’t made any moves. Whenever he starts to, his business buddies step in and explain why they’re going to lose money and he stops.

So! He then moves on to talk about the legislation in New York that protects women’s rights to get an abortion anytime and how horrible it is that they’re murdering babies.

I think the response the white-clade congress women gave was the best.

I think the look on Angela Ocasio-Cortez’s face is the best, but the look on Angelia Ocasio-Cortez’s face and I think that’s Kathleen Rice giving the stink eye.

I don’t want to get into a debate about abortion, because that really is the best way to get everyone everywhere ever to hate you. I will say this, however. The law more or less only applies to pregnancies that would kill the mother or if the baby is already dead, and it wouldn’t matter if it didn’t.

Do you honestly think a person is going to go throw eight months of the most harrowing and obnoxious process the human body is capable of performing and then just suddenly decide “You know what? I don’t want this baby anymore.” If you’re that far along you either wanted the baby and were willing to suffer for it, or you never wanted the baby and were prevented from getting an abortion when it would’ve been kinder. The law isn’t about murdering babies, it's about letting women have control over themselves and their bodies. Acting like it’s some horrible evil that happened just makes you look dumb.

We then go onto nonsense about military bravado. Trump yammered about how he forced our allies to pay their fair share in NATO - which is honestly a kettle of fish I want to talk about in its own post, but suffice it to say it’s interesting everything he stresses and hates NATO for makes matters easier for Putin.

The real thing I want to talk about is the nuclear treaty he eventually meanders into like a toddler into a wall. Look, I’m not going to pretend that I understand the intricate diplomatics of nuclear negotiations, but even I know that YOU DO NOT ARBITRARILY CANCEL A TREATY THAT PREVENTS NUKES FROM BEING BUILT. You want an arms race?! This is how you get an arms race!

So what if Russia is “flaunting it” and ignoring it? I do not give one single solitary flying fuck. You negotiate a treaty that makes them suffer consequences - or better yet, stop not making them suffer the consequences they’re supposed to when they pull that shit - and you do it while the other treaty is still active. The last thing we need right now is a nuclear war and I don’t want to fucking hear that you’re taking Russia out of a treaty that at least somewhat contained them.

This man is going to get us all killed, I swear to Athena.

He then starts saying that “oh, the world would be in Nuclear war with South Korea if it weren’t for him, and he’s just wrong. I mean I know the nature of reality is such that there’s no real way to measure the tiny micro changes in the fabric of events that could lead to a given result, but I can say for damn sure that North Korea became more aggressive after Trump took office, and that their nuclear problem is largely for deterrent purposes because they are afraid of. Not that anyone should have nuclear weapons. Point is, this claim is bullshit, and I don’t need to source anything because it’s fantastical.

Next up is Venezuela, and his whole...spat against socialism. First of all, socialism is not responsible for the collapse of Venezuela because it wasn’t socialist. Those close to Maduro call his state a narco mafia government under the guise of socialism. It’s complicated - like everything else here is - but it can basically be summarized that instead of gathering material in the government and using it to support the people, it gave all that to big companies and then just kept taking and taking. Because that’s what unregulated big companies do. There was no market.

That said, even if Venezuela had been socialist in the truest sense, that doesn’t mean that socialist policies couldn’t work or shouldn’t be used. When applied properly (with a mix of capitalism, in my opinion), you can create a prosperous country that takes care of everyone by skimming off the top of those who have much and giving to those who have little. We’ve seen it work in different circumstances before, and even an entire country that made it work up until Stalin decided to take it over and twist its efficacy into bullshit.

He then talks a bit about Israel and Palestine, which is another basket of snakes I refuse to open other then to say that treating it as casually as he does is stupid. Israel and weird creepy end times Christians are the only people who actually don’t want a two-state solution. Sooo yeah.

Next, he speaks on how he’s done with the war against ISIS and that the troops are coming home, but fails to give a time frame and talks about not fighting an endless war - something I’d be more willing to believe if he wasn’t spewing money into the military like a sick man on laxatives does into the toilet. But whatever, I’m all for both of those things, so if he does them I’ll compliment him accordingly and apologize for not believing him.

The last thing I really want to talk about is how he brags about getting out of the Iran Nuclear Deal. That was actually working just fine and had finally squeezed Iran into cooperating and now they don’t have to while still giving them breathing room for their civilian population. But that is a complicated matter, that, again, is more difficult to ascertain than “Thing Good” or “Thing Bad.”

From there, the rest of the speech is just chest beating and bravado. Emotional appeals about how great America is and how free we are and blah blaah blaaah. I actually don’t have a problem with this - the swelling call to action at the end of the speech is a very effective tool and it’s not like I haven’t used emotional manipulation myself, even in this very article. But the point is that it’s not factual - it’s not meant to be criticized as a series of claims or even critiqued at all. It’s bravado, pure and simple. Trump is good at it, and he did a good job with it here.

Before I conclude though, I just want to quickly comment on one thing. Him derailing antisemitism is hilarious. You’re like 4 years too late on that bro.

Anyway, conclusions.

Most of the problems with this speech can be summed up with “It’s not that simple, idiot.” The world is a complicated place and Trump tried to simplify it. His ignorance to fully explain the complexities - or, as the case may be, even bother to understand them - has led him to misinform people live on TV. I’m not going to spend time talking about whether it was deliberate or not, I have long since given up and trying to determine where Trump’s evil ends and his stupid begins.  

I will say that I give him one or two points for doing the things right, but given how much else was disgusting and, frankly, hateful, it’s very much “even a broken clock is right twice a day” type thing. Trump’s state of the Union was a cavalcade of lies and misjudgements, interspaced with bravado and unnecessary calls to his god. This is a secular nation, people. I should not hear about God no less than 4 times in the most important speech the country makes.

Hopefully he’ll be out of office soon.