#i try to note spoilers on individual bullet points throughout this so it should be fine to read if you avoid those bullet points i think

[theticklishpear]

Hi Pear! About your post about splitting up a series: any advice on how to make each book complete without making the overarching plot episodic? Like, some series, like Harry Potter, have per-book arcs that wrap up at the end of the book, with the big picture almost as background until the end, and then there’s series like Lord of the Rings where everything happens at once, continuously. Your post makes total sense with the first kind of series, but I could use help applying it to the second!

Hey Pan! Thanks for the question! Apologies in advance for the length–apparently when you get me talking about two of my favorite series…..

Spoilers, I guess?? For 21- and 64-year-old books???

I’m of the opinion that the advice in that post still stands for both types you’re talking about, and I would argue that there isn’t much difference in the essence of what those series do, only in two points of execution.

One of the differences you’re feeling is point of view:

The “middle books” of both Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings maintain the structure I proposed in that last post: They each have their own builds in tension, their own goals, and their own input into the main plot of the series. The narrative decision for each series’ point of view, however, greatly impacts how they feel as a unit.

Harry Potter sticks with telling the story from a third-person limited perspective with Harry: We only get where Harry is, what he’s thinking about, and his knowledge. Each book follows individual plot structures with their own climaxes, which work toward the growing tension and eventual boiling-over of the main series plot.The plot arc that each book focuses on centers around Harry and his goals in the fight against Voldemort. Because of this, books feel smaller, more contained, because they’re only dealing with this character’s slice of the world.

Lord of the Rings is absolutely episodic in the same way Harry Potter is, but it doesn’t feel that way because of how Tolkien handles the point of view and his characters. The party splits and then are thrown as far from each other across Middle Earth as they can get. Tolkien endeavors to still tell everyone’s story and splits the point of view as well, in order to travel with them all.

He makes sure to devote time to each character’s arc throughout each of the three books, building toward climaxes in as many arcs as he can in every book. In the case of The Two Towers (and somewhat the series as a whole), because of the distance between the parties and the split point of view, there are more like 3 climaxes: one (or more) for each party.

The physical distance between the Fellowship creates an episodic tale as all of them go through their own isolated events, but the way Tolkien chooses to break up the narrative so that each book carries threads of all the groups rather than the single story of just one of those groups helps to make the series feel continuous.

Consider if Tolkien had chosen to split the structure further so that each “group” received their own book that followed just them. Had he done it that way, it would have felt very similar to how Harry Potter feels because of the way the point of view constructs the overall series plot.

The other difference is how the series handle resolution for each volume:

In the Harry Potter books, Rowling is very careful to bring the tension of the book back down to nearly ground level from where it started. Most of the books have long enough chunks of resolution at the end that we’re left feeling like we’re back in the calm–sure, another storm will come, but for now, this portion is over.

In the Lord of the Rings books, Tolkien gives us no such feeling. The Fellowship of the Ring ends with Boromir actively dying, Frodo and Sam fleeing, Merry and Pippin captured, Gandalf presumed dead, and none of it gets resolved in any way. It just ends.

And The Two Towers? Not much better: Pippin has unwittingly caused another battle to brew, Sam and Frodo just finish fighting a giant spider during which fight, Sam thinks Frodo has died, his presumed corpse taken by orcs, only for it to be revealed that Frodo is in fact alive. Does that feel resolved to you??? Me neither!

On constructing plots:

Arguably, in terms of the language of story and literary structure, Tolkien did a bad job of constructing his story to easily break into satisfying chunks. After all, he’d intended for The Lord of the Rings to be a single enormous, cow-killing-sized volume. He intended it to be one book. His publisher said no (for a variety of pretty good reasons, not the least of which is the longevity of the physical book, tbqh) and asked him to split it into easier-to-print volumes, which eventually influenced the wave of popularity the trilogy structure has enjoyed.

Rowling did a pretty decent job of purposefully structuring her books to be split. Ideally, you should also be planning and structuring your series’ plot to be able to break, which requires each book to be easily recognizable as a story.

They each must have:

openings that put the readers squarely back in the world and the series conflict,

an incident in which characters are driven to take more action (a series version of an inciting incident),

at least one goal characters are working toward (preferably more),

multiple complications that cause setbacks,

at least one climax to a situation relevant to the series plot,

and at least one resolution.

Plan distinct goals in between Point C (when they enter the fray) and Point X (when they fight the Final Fight™ of the series), and additional climaxes for the climb toward achieving those goals.

Plan to have intense and not-easily-navigated-around complications to those goals that might take some time to resolve.

You don’t need to resolve everything as cleanly as Rowling. As I mentioned, Rowling brings the tension way back down by tying up many (most?) of the loose ends in each book, only to ramp that tension right back up in the next book. You don’t have to wrap things up quite so neatly at the end of your installments and de-escalate as much as she does (particularly in those early books).

You can leave threads unfinished. You can plant the plot seeds for the next book. You can leave characters hanging. You can introduce complications without solving them right that moment.

Leaving the tension higher, however, does not mean there’s no resolution. There should be at least one thread that resolves in each book, whether that’s big-series-structure goals like successfully acquiring or completing part of a plan, or removing an enemy player from the board; or smaller character arc things like a character conflict, or something else.

Without that aspect of resolution, you leave the book as a block of rising action rather than a narrative in its own right. Each book should have some definitive arc that moves forward, inciting incidences, complications, climaxes and all. The plot has to be structured in a way where there are things the characters are trying to achieve, obstacles they are trying to overcome to achieve those things, and it’s up to you to make sure each book is a complete book.

On weaving series:

There’s a good middle ground between Tolkien and Rowling, and it involves a lot of plotting and picking and choosing: Point of view will tell you exactly what you can show on the page, and purposefully taking your time to structure the narrative so that you’re able to feature and bring to the forefront the particular threads and arcs you want are key.

Honestly, I personally don’t recommend taking the Tolkien route of literally just chopping it into thirds (or fourths, or however many pieces). Instead it’s a bit like trying to plan for a multiple POV novel, except that you’re planning a multiple story novel instead, and a similar technique can be applied.

As a firm plotter, I believe that it’s best if you can sit down from the start and plot it all out as much as you can. Make a plan for the overall series, make plans for character arcs, make plans for any subplot arcs. Lay them all out, and see how they interweave and connect together to create a massive plot plan.

Then go back and make a note of all the plot points that are particularly crucial to understanding the story, including any moments that could be considered climaxes to overall arcs, character arcs, and the mini-arcs that make up larger overall arcs.

Evaluate which of those points absolutely must be on screen and which ones you can safely portray off screen. From there, you’ll be able to see what kind of point of view will best complement the points you have. Always be sure to keep notes on what things must happen off screen so that you remember they are happening in the background.

(I do all of this on a smaller scale in this post, putting together two character arcs into an overall story arc.)

Once you’ve done that, it’s really about deciding how and where you want to break up those books. The end of one and the beginning of the next will need to be smoothed out, and sometimes the plot of each chunk will need to be tailored a bit to make sure it follows a palpable rise and fall and features those things listed in the bulleted list above.

We’re going to talk more about figuring out where to break a book in a future post, which will play a big role in how the series feels as a whole. Ideally, you’re structuring the series to rise and fall continually throughout the series in conflicts, climaxes, and resolutions throughout, so theoretically you’re looking for moments between those when a resolution of some kind provides a bit of a lull in the story.

Now, that was real long and a bit rambly. I hope it helped somehow... Good luck! -Pear

[flockofdoves]

wait ok maybe a bad time to start this at 1:30am (<- started this post last night lmao) but i’ve been thinking so much (for a long time but this week i think maybe prompted by jonny saying stuff in the s5 q&a part 3 about fanon character designs getting more homogenous as the fandom gets bigger its really been on my mind again) about my thoughts on the magnus archives character design stuff

(this turned into such a fucking long post my god sorry lol. just writing this for my own purposes really but i feel ridiculous i spent like a good portion of the past day writing this out dkjfhgfd)

like i already said on that other post character design stuff is full of so much under the surface both really silly and almost nonsensical (like ‘oh this character just feels like they have a lot of triangles incorporated into their design’ or the slightly more connected to reality arbitrary ideas people have about what type of character might wear glasses) and stuff thats incredibly loaded and very much connected to real life systems of oppression. so its like. idk. i like drawing people and fashion and harmonizing shapes and the idea of coming up with people who dont exist through abstracted drawings that somehow click and that can feel cohesive even with different angles/expressions/poses/etc is really fun to me conceptually but Character Design(tm) as a thing even outside of established tropes and schools of it that really lean into elements that can uphold gross shit as shorthand just inevitably theres so much to consider in the implications of making a person (visually) and ascribing traits to them (or i guess in this case largely the opposite)

so thats not something id call fun its just important and inevitably a big factor if i’m going to put any of this to words and can only hope i do so non-clumsily when i wanna talk about this on the whole just bc i find the process of how fanon designs get homogenized interesting (and the purpose of it understandable and maybe a bit inevitable in certain contexts) but also regardless of any actual potential problematic implications in any of that just bc i like the creative process of coming up with character designs i like trying to see when it comes to practicing that through applying it to characters in non-visual media i care about how i can break my guides for what they could look like down to their bare essentials between canon description, things i vibe with personally, etc so that if i have all that written down for myself it can be a good starting place for just experimenting with designs (i dont have any desire to settle on any one design for these characters but its just good general practice for this stuff) and maybe pushing a bit against some things that seem to be generally defaulted to mix things up or w/e. so yeah i’ve just wanted to write all this out for myself for a while, so after that long fucking intro fdkgh here goes!

jon!!!

ok so canonically hes born about 1987 and is like roughly 28-31 throughout the series but looks older to the point where he straight up lies and says hes a decade older at one point, he has graying hair, has been described as looking like he hasnt slept in weeks

(this bullet point contains spoilers up to early s4) depending on what part of canon youre describing him in he canonically has scars from worms probably all over his body (post ep 39), a burn scar on his hand (probably right and probably roughly shaped like a handprint) (post ep 89), actually i’m checking on the wiki now and it specifically says melanie stabbed him in the shoulder? but rereading the transcript and another couple parts that i thought potentially could mention it i dont believe it ever actually specifies (maybe the person who wrote that is conflating how both melanie and daisy’s first injuries from the slaughter are on their shoulders? so even if not canon good guess i guess that his scar from thats on his shoulder) (post ep 125) plus also probably on his throat from daisy (post ep 91), somewhere from michael stabbing him (post ep 47), and who knows maybe even something from mike crew (probably not it was just the height part of things not a lightning strike but i saw fanart of him getting a lichtenberg figure scar once from that which was interesting) (post ep 91)

has been described as ‘scrawny’ and ‘little’ which may just be more of a insult but because of that i support manlet jon lol. also because of that tend to think of him as skinny and not very muscular but i’m def not opposed to him being fat i think its really fun when i do see interpretations of him as such esp in juxtaposition with martin its nice having stuff sometimes where its two fat characters in a relationship. but if i’m leaning on every little word to narrow down character design i’d say hes most likely thin and probably short too.

getting into stuff with no real canon basis, i am a fan of him having long hair like a lot of fanon has him with. its a very tangential justification because i know its more the specific events surrounding this this was describing but when he was described as a “grubby jesus” that helped lol

but! my jon hair opinion that seems to differ from fanon is that i think maybe itd make sense with him being described as looking older and stuff to give him a bit of a receding hairline

not sure about glasses either way i think it just comes down to the specific design whether it looks good or not. there is something conceptually funny to me about giving an avatar of the eye glasses and debating whether that “makes sense” or not lol. one time i saw someones design where he stopped needing to wear glasses later on and i thought that was kinda fun

i don’t really care for like. idk. glowing green eyed jon or multiple eyes or w/e. like i get it. idk probably somethings happening when hes doing like the ceaseless watcher thing or like that one scene where he forced a statement out of that person who described him as “all eyes” like the phrase but maybe not just that as a phrase. so that plus the cover art of the show being green and making people probably theme stuff on that color i guess i cant blame people for doing that but idk just like. it feels kinda just Blah and not that novel to see a lot of the time and a bit too tropey or w/e for my personal taste unless people mix it up a bit. so i tend to prefer him just looking like some guy even later on usually. also with just like brown eyes or w/e

okay so this next part is for both jon and martin because i cant fit this into either of their sections because i feel like i cant adequately talk about this without doing it in juxtaposition to one another

this post summarizes basically anything i’m reiterating here far better but basically by nature of this being a podcast written by a white person for whom most of the first characters voiced (who included most of the most frequently appearing characters outside of those described by others because they were reoccurring avatars or w/e long before voice appearances) were from a small pool of people at a majority white company and their family members, even if that wasnt “intentional” of course that pattern happens so much and more productions should be conscious of that from the get go and reach outside their immediate circles to cast more actors of color from the start of their productions if they have the resources to properly compensate them. so basically from there theres no real totally satisfying solution for portraying “aracial” characters acted and written by white people’s race, because the situation just isn’t ideal in the first place

so like, with that in mind, i know its a bit of a mixed bag with jon in fanon being pretty consistently either ambiguously a person of color or specifically south asian, because i know people of color who were excited from fanon going in for him to be a person of color only to realize hes written and voiced by a white guy and has no canon race (which might just somewhat default to him being written as white since theres no active thought to how him being a person of color, let alone any specific race or ethnicity, might affect anything), but then on the other hand, characters with no race given being defaulted to being portrayed as white is absolutely another common issue in fandoms of things like books and podcasts. so personally because of that i would feel weird portraying him as white in my own designs in contrast with how consistently hes depicted as a person of color, but i would be interested in potentially depicting him as other races beyond the default fanon of him being south asian too (although theres def stuff to consider there that doesnt prevent any interpretation but just is there regardless like his dynamic with daisy in like s4)

and then this post expresses things better than i could ever rehash, but because of the stuff outlined in there in my own attempts at character designs i try to avoid making martin white because of the juxtaposition between that and making jon a person of color in their dynamic. not as pertinent and not something i’ve taken in from any fan of color saying it so i’m definitely not dictating this just talking out my thought process, but by extension of this i’ve also tried to consider how colorism in juxtaposition between them might make it sit better to have martin have darker skin than jon. this does get a bit weird though when balancing how martin has a couple really goofy lines implying ignorance about police abusing their power (i guess charitable interpretations could be that hes plenty aware but nonetheless vocalizing shock in the moment of it actually happening in front of him), so even if as one of the few characters i’ve posted designs of before i drew him as black, when i remembered those lines i guess its just an issue of an “aracial” character being defaulted to being written as if hes white, so even if he certainly could still be black (or any race besides white who might not have the luxury of ignorance about police brutality) it just makes clear that by him being written the way he was nothings ideal because theres not necessarily much depth that can be taken from canon to make certain depictions of him as satisfying or well fleshed out as they could be. oh also so inconsequential to the rest of this and i dont care about this at all beyond just latching onto any scrap to base things off of but the fact that martin maybe knows at least some polish i feel like thats not a language most people just know from school (esp as someone who didnt go to college) or w/e so maybe his mom is polish so probably hes part white at least to wildly extrapolate from there? idrc tho its just one more thing to note on the subject depictions of jon and martins races

martin!

canonically the same age as jon (so approximately born 1987 and roughly 28-31 throughout the series)

theres at least like 4 things in canon that can be used to say hes canonically fat, and some of those lines also more just generally describe him as “big” or w/e so while i dont care about sticking to this as much its easy to argue hes tall too (esp that one point where he says a worm “jumped literally 6 feet through the air at my face” which i guess could be approximate or the worm like. arcing lol and also iirc jonny says he doesnt remember writing that line but regardless its another thing to latch onto to narrow down design stuff)

melanie!

canonically has a scar on her shoulder (as of late 2016), probably on her leg too (if not by early 2017 then by early 2018/ep 125), and is described as skinny

(spoilers for late s4) (also eye trauma mention) post ep 155 she’s blind but trying to research what exactly she might look like like would the results of the damage she does with the awl after going to the hospital would her eyes need to be eviscerated vs enucleated? idk. thinking about lydia saying in a s3 extra in retrospect talking about this where shes like ‘it wouldn’t work like that with [an awl]!’ bc . lol yeah idk. or like would she have scarring on her eyelids or anything, would she have glass eyes, would she feel a need to wear sunglasses to protect her eyes or as a visual cue that shes blind (bc idt shed be the type to just wear it to hide her eyes) or not, etc. i’m not sure! one thing i do know for sure though thats a pet peeve in art is that people make her cane have a red stripe on it when it the UK especially a red striped white cane is for deafblind people, so her cane is most likely just plain white (also theres different styles of white canes but from researching i think shed probably make use of a long cane imo)

my biggest non-canon appearance thought about her is just. melanie king butch 💗

i do think its fun when characters get drawn with unnaturally colored dyed hair for no real reason and do think people should have fun with that more but simultaneously the contrarian in me gets annoyed with how common blue grown out roots straight hair bob melanie is. like the fun of the novelty of being ‘fuck it dying this characters hair’ gets sucked out of it from it being so consistent in fanon. also while she def could be a long haired butch or w/e regardless i just wish fanon of her was way more masc for my own self indulgent reasons

basira

i think the only canonical appearance description is the implication that shes not thin by jared when describing her, melanie, and martin, distinguishing melanie as “the skinny one”

hussain specifically as a surname spelled that way while i’m def no expert, from people i know personally and looking online too seems to be most common specifically with pakistani, indian, and bangladeshi muslims so it makes the most sense to have her be depicted as south asian. considering her VA, her being part black could make sense too but also i feel like its kinda a Thing in a lot of media where they’ll barely have black characters but when they do they’ll make them cops so like idk that’d def require more thought to it.

definitely not on authority on this of course this is just me talking through my own thoughts but i feel like maybe the common fanon of her being a hijabi feels a bit just like . theres not much thought behind it for a lot of people doing it? like it feels like ‘she has a muslim name’ -> ‘she’s muslim’ -> ‘she wears a hijab’ and not much else. like theres just like a whole lot that would need to be unpacked with any main character being religious in this series and actually specifically iirc theres a part in season 5 or something where her and jon reflect on the implications of all this on human religion? and both seem a bit agnostic in their approach. and of course theres people who wear hijabs who arent particularly religious (just like obviously vice versa) but for adults in places that arent majority muslim i feel like a main motivator for that would be connection with ones wider community? but basically all of the main characters in this story like necessarily with the themes and how all this was able to happen to them they feel pretty atomized from any real community (she specifically is paralleled with martin in how she latches onto daisy) none of this is at all to say she couldn’t be practicing islam and/or a hijabi but just that if thats how people want to depict her i think it deserves more thought than just drawing her as such (like for one example of how people have done cool things with making characters muslim i appreciate this artists comics about muslim jon (1, 2, 3)) but yeah! idk just something i’ve been thinking about but very much is not something i can act like an authority on of course. because being a hijabi is something stigmatized i do nonetheless feel slightly weird if i were to go against that fanon but idk

part of me is like ‘we dont need more butch cops’ but then the other part of me just defaults to wanting to make every woman gnc lol. for w/e reason i tend to picture her dressing pretty practically in like khaki cargo pants and hiking boots and flannels and such

daisy

canonically theres here starburst shaped scar on the back of her shoulder

(spoilers for mid s4) i dont care to find it now but i feel like once she was described as scrawny or skinny or whatever (not sure how much focusing on muscle vs thinness if so) but if so that was after she came out of the coffin so i dont think that really implies she always looked like that and i think maybe even by contrast could be implying she was muscular before

def think it makes sense to make her white. generally i do see her similar to fanon depictions of her although i do kinda wish in juxtaposition people would make more women look butch besides her. i think when i first pictured her before seeing fanart or anything it was pretty similar in build and hair color and demeanor such as most of fanon but i pictured her with like . you know like the tight bun women in the military wear lol. so its more ambiguous if her flavor of powertripping “tough” white woman is gay or not. but idrc regardless i dont plan on making much art of her

tim

uhhh i think the only canonical description of him beyond his worm scars (post ep 39) is that basira called him hot in comparison to jon and martin lol

ever since i started listening i keep defaulting to picturing him vaguely like tim from marble hornets lol. so like idk i think its fun when he has defined eyebrows and sideburns and stuff. but not even that i’m really Set on i think theres a lot of fun potential designs for him

sasha

canonically has long hair, is tall, and has glasses

(spoilers for either end of s1 or end of s2 depending on if you’ve figured out something. if you know you know lol) like obviously theres weird stuff in juxtaposition if you make not!sasha a different race than her. i think probably regardless theyre the same race considering melanie didnt note that when describing what sasha looked like. idrc about figuring out what not!sasha looks like ig if i ever make art of her i’ll just figure it out

i think this was the first art i ever saw of her like right around the week or so i started listening to the show that was posted and a mutual reblogged it so i think from basically the start thats how i pictured her essentially. but the main parts of ‘long dark hair, glasses’ i internalized from that are so close to just canon so maybe not saying much

georgie

uhhhh i dont think theres any canon description of her? and i dont have very many opinions on what she does look like honestly except that i think she looks very bisexual lol. i like the idea of her presenting pretty gnc but still maybe having some fun with feminine aesthetics too, but honestly making her present totally masc is really cool too

oh also wrt body type stuff. part of me is a bit tired of how sometimes it feels like fat characters only get to be in romantic relationships if its with skinny characters and rarely are there character designs of two fat people together and melanie is canonically skinny (which doesnt really matter i Could ignore it but i like latching onto descriptions just to narrow things down) and jons maybe implied to be which makes jon/martin like that too. but on the other hand idec i care more about just having fat wlw characters so if melanie in all i project on her cant be that then georgie will be

oliver!

only canonical description of him i believe is “tall, black and careworn, deep lines of worry etched into an otherwise handsome face”

uhh beyond that idk.. not really set on this at all but i feel like maybe he dresses like. business goth lol. like idk. well put together casual clothes like nice quality short sleeve button ups and chinos or nice cuffed jeans but maybe darker colors and a bit of a vaguely edgy but not tacky flair (like fucking idk. raven pattern button up or something lol)

i saw some art of him once where he had long locs and also just idk he was like doing that ominous floaty thing which included his hair and that had a nice rhythm in the art together with the black tendrils in the background so i could appreciate him having long locs/braids/twists or something. but def not set on that and ofc theres like a lot of years to depict him between he could have various hair styles

this is hard to really judge but ive seen posts where people are like ‘haha i draw oliver just like i drew kravitz in the adventure zone’ which is like vaguely annoying to me idk lol. but of course i cant Really know if thats what people are doing from depiction alone bc theres no set appearance for kravitz himself but sometimes i get the Vibes thats whats someones doing and its just like. whatever idk. branch out and design another character!!

there are literally soooooo many more characters i really thought i could make a short-ish thing for each character beyond a few necessary addendums but god even on inconsequential shit this post is already SO fucking long lol so i’m giving up for now i’ve done most of the main people plus my favorite side character so its fine i can get back to this later if i really want to

[rightwingbully-blog]

Returning to Conservatism at the Height of Controversy

As many reading this already know, all throughout the latter half of 2016 I was a vehement supporter of Hillary Clinton. Today I can say with the utmost confidence, I was wrong and I’m sure some of my friends and family will never let me live that down. First and foremost, I need to clarify: I strongly believe that Donald Trump is the most unqualified, embarrassing, and repulsive individual to work in the oval office to date. I will likely never support him, nor see him as a legitimate leader. HOWEVER, I feel that under a Republican ran congress, with actual politicians working along side him, America actually may have a shot. There are a few things I want to accomplish with this initial blog. First and foremost, I want to clear the air as to why I ever fell into the trap of socialism. Second, I want to make a case for my fellow men and women on the right who may need some statistics to back up their claims in their next heated Thanksgiving arguments. Lastly, I want to express clearly what it is that the Republican and Libertarian parties represent to me. So without further ado, topic number one.... It all really comes down to one key element- marketing. With a solid marketing plan you can make even the most ludicrous items seem enticing. The Democratic Party have managed to grasp on to a majority of today's millennials and young adults by painting a vivid picture of a socialist utopia with no person left hungry, sick or wanting. They make progressive Europe out to be the epitome of civilization and cultural acceptance, laying out bullet point after bullet point of good things that might happen if you are willing to release “this” freedom or “that” one in a blind trust- or at the very least, you'd be willing to compromise on them, right? By captivating such a large majority of today's youth, they have gained a plethora of individuals that are undergoing or have completed a higher level of education. These individuals are formidable. Buying into the promises of big brother, they contort statistics and budgets to fit their agenda. They tell you that free or affordable college or healthcare will not affect your taxes to any degree, or that it will be such a small amount you won't notice it. The young and struggling, like myself in the very recent past, further buy in to this fantasy in hopes that it may set us free of financial mistakes we may have made previously. I will counter this using simple statistics, and at the same time address the issue of illegal immigration. My example of socialism will the ever-praised Canada, and obviously my example of capitalism will be the best god damn country on the face of the fuckin' earth (USA!) So, it's all pretty simple math once you find the numbers to plug in. This is what it looks like:

CANADA 35.16mil people 17mil of which are tax payers cost of healthcare $141 billion

This averages out to $8,294 per tax payer annually. Information provided by Fraser Institute, note the figures they give show the price per Canadian, not per tax payer. Since not every Canadian is a tax payer that leads to one of the misleading statistics that I addressed previously. (The number they provide is $4k)

USA USA USA 319mil plus approximately 11mil illegal immigrants totaling to 330mil. 122mil tax payers Due to the population of the US being roughly 9x that of Canada, we simply multiply the cost of Canadian care by nine to end up with a total of 1.2 trillion. This averages out to about $9800 per tax payer annually.

If that doesn't sound bad enough, take into consideration that the entire federal budget of 2015 was only 3.8 trillion. There is simply not a way to “smarter spend” our way without raising taxes drastically. (source for 2015 budget:nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending ) Socialism is not a sustainable idea for a nation this populated with a budget that size. Even if it were, such an idea can not become a reality without a strong border. This isn't a new, bigoted concept that evil Orange Hitler came up with. For decades presidents have been calling to strengthen our border security- ol' Tiny Hands just so happens to think a wall will work (spoiler: it wont, that's not how we should go about it.)  And if you think Obama didn't believe that, do a quick google search right now saying “Which US President had the most deportations?” To tackle the idea of illegal immigration, I'll bring up one method that these men and women are and have been using for quite some time. It was brought up during the Swift Raids of 2006 but I haven't heard much of it since. A large number of those arrested by ICE during those raids were charged with identity theft. There isn't a specific number anywhere that I've found, but all articles claim hundreds. The most common method of identity theft for work purposes is using their own name, but stealing a SSN. That is 98% of such cases ( cis.org/IdentityTheft ) We do have a system in place that detect this fraud but it is not nationally enforced. Using this method, they do help our federal government by paying their income taxes, however, in addition to the felony crime they're committing, we also lose economic stimulation. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, illegal immigrants send about $50 billion in remittances to their native countries annually. That averages out to about $4500 a person. WOW- that's a lot of info and a whole lot of numbers to remember. But I will end the boring stuff there, thus concluding my second objective. So now we arrive at the heavily opinionated part of today's lecture, children. Feel free to check out now, I don't care. Revisiting the marketing aspect, for years the left had all kinds of empty rhetoric logged into my mind as to what was offensive and what wasn't. They've played out the words “Hitler” and “Nazi” so much that they can now call a gay Jew with a black boyfriend a Nazi with a straight face, and absolutely mean it. They convinced my that a wage gap was real, that people were really missing out on opportunities due to something like race or sexual orientation... With enough of the echo chamber, you begin to feel guilty just for existing as a straight, white, middle class male. In these echo chambers- these facebook pages, forums, YouTube comment threads, etc- you will be silenced and told you don't understand the struggles these groups face. You're conditioned to believe that you're not allowed to feel oppressed or overworked and under paid. Well I'm gonna tell you right now- that's a load of fucking horse shit. I'm embarrassed it took me so long to realize. They call America the land of opportunity. There are no conditions to that title. It's just that. All US Citizens are now guaranteed the same rights- and the reason people immigrate here, legally or not, is because of THOSE values! Cherry picking instances like Alton Sterling or Castille to try to paint a picture of a nation of racist pigs but condemning me for believing ISIS is the true face of Islam is not only hypocritical but it is marvelously stupid. [Short rabbit trail- I don't like cops either but tens of thousands of them go to work every day without committing a racist act. Meanwhile you can find more than one verse that condones the beheading of non-believers in the Quran. I find this to be an interesting comparison because the left argue you can't attribute the actions of a few to the whole crowd- apparently unless it's the judicial system.] All that said, I'm still fairly progressive on some things. Climate change is real and we need to do something about it. I'm pro-choice but to me it makes sense to ask for the father's consent as well. And of course, I want gays and lesbians to be able to have the same opportunity to be miserable like everyone else. I wouldn't mind being able to smoke a joint once in a while either, but whatever. To close: I hope Trump does well through his presidency. I hope our congress can get things moving in the right direction. And above all else I hope to someday see us govern based entirely off the constitution. If you liked this please let me know. I'm going to periodically post opinion-based blogs from now until whenever I feel like not doing it anymore. I may do some where I dissect amendments of the Constitution, interpret them and really dig in. Not sure yet. The ol' hamster is just now starting to run, but mostly I'm hoping that doing something like this will help me keep my personal facebook a little less political. That's all for now!