#insanity. they should take you out the car and shoot you in the streets execution style. blow your brains on the asphalt

[lesbicastagna]

still thinking about my WORK colleague who after knowing me for roughly a month thought it was funny and like. normal. to make a joke about kidnapping me while we were alone in his car

[blanc-et-n0ir]

MCYT Multi-chapter Fics

Hey, hey, this time it’s the multichapters :D Meaning, three chapters and above. Again, my AO3 over here

COMPLETED

Bring Me Down With You (11,145 Words) (4 Chapters)

Tags:

Dream, TommyInnit, Sapnap, Wilbur Soot, Fundy, BadBoyHalo, Punz, Tubbo, Eret, GeorgeNotFound

No Romantic Relationships, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, Dream & Sapnap, Dream & TommyInnit, Dream & GeorgeNotFound

Whump, Poisoning, Dueling, Bows and Arrows, L’manberg War, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Family, Compromise, Sick Fic, Sick Character, Wounds, Potions, Healing, Caves, Injury

Summary:

The terms of the deal were simple. They’d both be at their weakest, no armor and no anything and they have to shoot one shot. A single arrow. Whoever is hit, will have to resign and give the win to whoever is left standing. Those were the terms.  So when did they agree to drink poison?

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Set during the Dream SMP war.

All I Want For Chistmas Is... FLUFF (46,641 Words) (24 Chapters)

Tags:

Skeppy, Dream, BadBoyHalo, GeorgeNotFound, Sapnap, Wilbur Soot, Technoblade, Philza Minecraft, Tubbo, TommyInnit, Eret, Niki, AweSamDude, Punz, Ponk, Purpled, Fundy, Quackity, Schlatt, Karl Jacobs, Ant Frost, Velvet

Skeppy & BadBoyHalo, Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap & Ant Frost & BadBoyHalo, Technoblade & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Philza, Dream & TommyInnit, Dream & Tubbo, Dream & Purpled, Dream & Technoblade, Dream & Philza, Eret & Niki & Tubbo, Ant/Velvet, Dream & Punz

Christmas Prompts, Fluff, Family Dynamics, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Family Bonding, Friendship, Rivals, Frenemies, Snowball Fight, Snow Day, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Boys Kissing, Secret Santa, Cookies

Summary:

Fluffy One shots about our MInecraft Streamers in Dream SMP. Featuring different AUs whether it's IRL or MC but IRL and more! Mostly platonic unless stated otherwise!! (but don't expect much I prefer platonic anyways)

Lots of cuddling, shenanigans, pranks and laughter!! Maybe a little hurt for the comfort to feel so much better!!

The Whispers in the Dark (53, 160 Words) (20 Chapters)

Tags:

Dream, Technoblade, Wilbur Soot, TommyInnit, Tubbo, Schlatt, Philza Minecraft, Eret, Sapnap, GeorgeNotFound, Quackity, Niki, Punz, Fundy, Ponk, AweSamDude, Skeppy, BadBoyHalo, Ant Frost, Ranboo, Captain Puffy, Karl Jacobs

No Romantic Relationships, Dream & Technoblade & Wilbur Soot, Technoblade & Wilbur Soot & Philza & TommyInnit, Dream & Sapnap & GeorgeNotFound, Sapnap & Wilbur, Dream & Ranboo, Ranboo & Philza, Dream & Captain Puffy

Family Dynamics, Enemies to Friends, Hybrids AU, Pogtopia Arc, Villain Wilbur, Chaotic Dream, Bad Ending, Good Ending, Government, Uneasy Alliance, Hunting, Discrimination, Friends to Enemies, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Betrayal, Big Brother Technoblade, Switching Sides, Platonic Cuddling, Carrying, Panic Attacks, Found Family, Execution, Violence, Graphic Description, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Decapitation, Revolution

Summary:

They say that when you are a hybrid of a mob, you take one of two things. Their powers or their desires. Their powers, as simple as it is. A Blaze hybrid would be able to conjure flames and stay inflammable. An Enderman hybrid would be able to teleport and are harmed by water. Their desires, not as simple. A Creeper hybrid would desire to see things explode. A Wolf hybrid would desire the thrill of a hunt.  

They say that the dangerous ones were always those who got the desire- the shortest end of the stick.   

-------------------------------   Let me give Wilbur the satisfying ending he deserves please. We all wanted Manberg to b l o w and I'm going to give it to you. No Angst, promise. (I lied, there's angst)

Angst for the Angst God (19,904 Words) (14 Chapters)

Tags:

Dream, Technoblade, Philza Minecraft, Ranboo, Wilbur Soot, GeorgeNotFound, Sapnap, TommyInnit, Tubbo, Captain Puffy, Quackity, DreamXD, Karl Jacobs

NO romantic Relationships, Dream & Technoblade, Technoblade & Philza, Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap, Dream & TommyInnit, Dream & Captain Puffy

Angst, Character Death, Deity Dream, Fluff and Angst, Betrayal, Assisted Suicide, Mercy Killing, Murder, Suicide, Dream and Techno Friendship, One Shot Collection, Time Travel, Time Loop, Insanity, Time Travelling Karl Jacobs, Prison Break, Manhunt, Immortal Technoblade, Immortal Dream, Emotional Manipulation, Exile, Abduction, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

Summary:

A bunch of oneshots about AUs that I've written in a server that is filled with angst or fluff. Whichever strikes the mood. Hope you enjoy your stay here ;)

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

(preview)

He watched as the last obstacle in his path fell. Dream smiled, his eyes glinting with malice and power, “You should have kept an eye on your Patroclus, Achilles.”

He hummed and turned around. L’manberg was no doubt wiped out. Ranboo was firmly in his grasp. All he had to do was take care of that damned egg, Badlands and anyone who stood in his way. He chuckled.

It was almost too easy.   

ON GOING

Let’s Play A Game Called MAFIA (14,399 Words) (5/6 Chapters)

Tags:

Dream, Technoblade, GeorgeNotFound, Sapnap, BadBoyHalo, Skeppy, Wilbur Soot, MegaPVP, Illumina, F1NN5STER

Technoblade & Wilbur Soot, Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap, Dream/GeorgeNotFound

Mafia Game, Mafia AU, Character Death, Suspense, Detective AU

Summary:

A masked man leaves the apartment complex and walks off under the dim lighting of the street lights. It wasn’t long before he reached his car and opened the driver’s seat. He pushed his keys in and turned it, starting the car. He hummed to himself as he took off his mask, placing it on the car seat beside him. He waits inside his started car as he dials a phone number.

“It’s done.”

In a sick twist of fate, Skeppy dies so Sapnap and Bad have to find the murderer before they kill more people. They meet and drag more people into the case but as the days dwindle by, more deaths and incidents come alive.

Will they find the real murderer or end up living on the edge to their very end?

(Based off of the Party Game called Mafia)

Who Would Want To Be King? (10,932 Words) (5/? Chapters)

Tags:

Dream, Technoblade, Wilbur Soot, TommyInnit, Tubbo, GeorgeNotFound, Philza Minecraft, Schlatt, BadBoyHalo, Quackity, Karl Jacobs, Sapnap

NO Romantic Relationships, Dream & Technoblade, TommyInnit & Tubbo, Technoblade & TommyInnit & Wilbur Soot & Philza, Dream & Wilbur Soot

Prince and the Pauper AU, Frenemies, Rivals, Family Fluff, Family Dynamics, Platonic Relationships, Prince Technoblade, Farmer Dream, Fluff and Humor, Attempted Kidnapping, Kidnapping, King Philza

Summary:

In a kingdom not so far away, lived two men. These two lived completely different lives, with one standing at the very top since birth while the other was stuck at rock bottom. Two very different boys with different experiences but they both share one similarity. They both wish to do something different. To live different lives. To get out of their bubble and grow in their own way. In this little kingdom, two men live to see another view of the world they already see.

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

Barbie Prince and the Pauper AU but everything is platonic and it's all about Dream and Techno

Reaching For Something That Isn’t There (3,676 Words) (2/3 Chapters)

Tags:

Dream, TommyInnit, Technoblade

NO Romantic Relationships

Character Study, References to Ancient Greek Mythology, Parallels, Pain, Suicidal Thoughts, Betrayal, Emotional Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Character Death, Theseus! Tommy, Icasrus! Dream, Achilles! Technoblade, Dream centric, Technoblade centric, TommyInnit centric, Anger, Violence, Imprisonment

Summary:

History is forever doomed to repeat itself.

People ask what Theseus gained by playing the hero, what Icarus saw in the sun, what Achilles truly wanted. They ask these questions and still don't see an answer.

Why was the sun so charming enough for young Icarus to forget his father's words? Why was Theseus so confident enough that he would be welcomed home for his achievement? Why was Achilles considered a bad example?

Three tales all ending with caution and fear. Three tales to remind everyone of their humanity. Three tales to ensure no one would do the same. And what did they do?

History is forever doomed to repeat itself.

Guide Me Through Hell and Back (34,714 Words) (15/? Chapters)

Tags:

Dream, technoblade, Philza Minecraft, TommyInnit, Tubbo, Drista, Punz, Wilbur Soot, GeorgeNotFound, Sapnap, Ranboo, DreamXD

No Romantic Relationships, Dream & Philza, Dream & Technoblade, Drista & TommyInnit & Tubbo, Dream & Punz, Dream & DreamXD,

Blind Character, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Fear, Flying, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Family Dynamics, Self Confidence Issues, Trust, Platonic Cuddling, Hybrid AU, Platonic Relationships, Cuddling, Chaos, Explosions, Angst, Broken Families, Trust Issues, Protective Technoblade, Protective Phil, Blind Dream, Panic Attacks, Torture, Kidnapping, Physical Therapy, Black Markets, Forced Healing, Sad Dream, Protective Dream, Soft Dream, Prison, Pandora’s Vault

Summary:

 "I gain immeasurable amounts of stress just looking at you, Dream." 

-SUN TZU

Dream is blind but he's a bat hyrbid with good hearing. Technoblade finds out and he's concerned for his friend. He stays with him and keeps him company, he also ensures Dream doesn't go too far and hurts himself with his stupid ideas. So what if Phil adopts him along the way and Drista causes chaos with Tommy and Tubbo? Technoblade will protect his friend to the ends of the Earth, screw whoever looked at him weird if he gets all fussy.

(Basically just Technoblade and Dream being best friends fluff.)

The Lonely Guardian (59,379 Words) (14/? Chapters)

Tags:

Dream, Technoblade, TommyInnit, Schlatt, GeorgeNotFound, Sapnap, Wilbur Soot, Quackity, Ranboo, DreamXD, Drista, Philza Minecraft

No Romantic Relationships, Dream & Everyone, Dream & Technoblade, Dream & Tubbo, Dream & TommyInnit, Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap, Dream & Quackity, Dream & Schlatt, Dream & Philza, Dream & Ranboo

Cottagecore AU, Soft Dream, Healing, Emotional Manipulation, Realization, Self-Exile, Self-Reflection, Domestic Fluff, Friendship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exile, Protective Dream, Dreamons, Potions, Minor Injuries, Serious Injuries, Betrayal, Friends to Enemies, Enemies to Friends, Long Haired Dream, Dream centric, Anarchist Technoblade, Bittersweet Ending, Sibling Tension, Arguments, Dad Schlatt, Sick fic, Sick Character, Good Friend Dream, Character Death

Summary:

Dream didn't know what came over him, he wanted some time to think. Some time turned to days and thinking turned to building a nice home. Days turned to weeks and the home is bigger and cozier now.

Weeks turned to years and it's been a while since Dream has seen his friends. Still, they're definitely living a more peaceful life now that he's gone, right?

(Or, Dream left and started a cottagecore after the L'manberg Revolution and a Dreamon took his spot and the plot continues as it does in canon. Except, we have a Dream who likes to stay in his cottage and help his injured friends without telling them who he is, exactly)

Dreaming Of Nightmares, Dee? (9,268 Words) (2/? Chapters)

Tags:

Dream, Technoblade, Philza Minecraft, DreamXD, Karl Jacobs, GeorgeNotFound, Sapnap, Foolish_Gamers, TommyInnit, Tubbo, Ranboo

No Romantic Relationships, Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap, Dream & Technoblade & Philza, Dream & Ranboo, Dream & Foolish, Dream & Karl Jacobs, Dream & DreamXD, Technoblade & Philza, Philza/Kristin

Deity Dream, Dreamon, Deity Karl Jacobs, Time Traveling Karl Jacobs, Fix-It Fic, Sad Dream, Fluff, Family Dynamics, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Dream, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Gods and Goddesses, Mins Manipulation, Dream centric, Comfort, Big Brother Dream

Summary:

When three gods have to deal with a world full of mortals, some things get complicated along the way. Well, Dream was hoping for the best when he left the server to his twin, Nightmare's, and older brother, Dee's, hands.

He got more than he bargained for and mortals tend to be fragile. Prime, he needs a break.

(Or, Dream is the god of luck, Nightmare is the god of chaos and Dee is the god of destiny and the three of them try and fix the SMP out of the goodness of their heart /s)

[sarahmcmenomy]

Tarot Reflections Playlist

I’ve been working on this for longer than I should probably admit, but I finally finished my complete Tarot Playlist! I’ve chosen one song for each card of the 78-card RWS Tarot deck. In the spirit of the little white book, I have excerpted a line or two from each song to justify its association with its chosen card. Each suit has its own musical themes, and some of the songs were chosen to invoke the elemental association of the suit. The Court Cards get their own playlist because it can double as an astrological playlist. There are also a few sillier songs picked primarily for humor value (though hopefully still in keeping with the theme of the song). What follows is a complete index, so you can easily listen to whichever parts of the playlist you want to or browse the whole thing.

Entire Playlist

Major Arcana

Wands

Cups

Swords

Pentacles

Court Cards

Major Arcana

0. The Fool: “The Wanderer” by U2, The Edge, and Johnny Cash

“I went out there in search of experience, to taste and to touch and to feel as much as a man can before he repents.”

1. The Magician: “I am the Mercury” by Jimmie Spheeris

“For I am the mercury, the light of the morning, looking for shelter in this thunder and this rain. And you, like some windmill, weave light where it's storming, and love, like a potion for the hunger and the pain. Let it rain...”

2. The High Priestess: “Witch” by The Bird and the Bee

“Yes, I am a carnival, a house of mirrors... and I will con you. And all my tricks and all my magic will keep you dizzy with desire...”

3. The Empress: “Suddenly I See” by KT Tunstall

“Her face is a map of the world, is a map of the world... You can see she's a beautiful girl, she's a beautiful girl... And everything around her is a silver pool of light; The people who surround her feel the benefit of it... It makes you calm.”

4. The Emperor: “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay

“I used to rule the world; seas would rise when I gave the word. Now in the morning, I sleep alone, sweep the streets I used to own. I used to roll the dice, feel the fear in my enemy's eyes, listen as the crowd would sing... Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!“

5. The Hierophant: “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers

“He said, ‘Son, I've made a life out of readin’ people's faces, knowin’ what the cards were by the way they held their eyes. So if you don't mind me sayin’, I can see you’re out of aces. For a taste of your whiskey, I’ll give you some advice.’” 

6. The Lovers: “Dance Me to the End of Love” by Leonard Cohen

“Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on; dance me very tenderly and dance me very long. We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above... dance me to the end of love.”

7. The Chariot: “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen

“I'm a shooting star, leaping through the sky! Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity. I'm a racing car, passing by like Lady Godiva, I'm gonna go, go, go! There's no stopping me!”  

8. Strength: “Roar” by Katy Perry

“I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire, 'cause I am a champion, and you're gonna hear me roar, louder, louder than a lion, 'cause I am a champion, and you're gonna hear me roar!” 

9. The Hermit: “Building a Mystery” by Sarah McLachlan

“You live in a church where you sleep with voodoo dolls, and you won't give up the search for the ghosts in the halls... You wear sandals in the snow, and a smile that won't wash away. Can you look out the window without your shadow getting in the way?”

10. The Wheel of Fortune: “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)” by the Byrds

“To everything (turn, turn, turn) there is a season (turn, turn, turn) and a time to every purpose, under heaven...”

11. Justice: “Botched Execution” by Shovels and Rope

“I gotta find a friend, someone to tell I didn't do it, but my picture's in the paper and there's no way that I can prove it... and the body's in the closet 'cause I never got to move it... Now the neighbor's kids are talking sayin' everybody knew it... All my little seeds have grown... Sooner, later, come back home...”

12. The Hanged Man: “Philosophy” by Ben Folds Five

“Won't you look up at the skyline, at the mortar, block, and glass, and check out the reflections in my eyes. See they always used to be there, even when this all was grass, and I sang and danced about a high-rise. And you were laughing at my helmet hat... Laughing at my torch...”

13. Death: “End of the Line” by The Traveling Wilburys

“Well it's all right, even when push comes to shove. Well it's all right, if you got someone to love. Well it's all right, everything'll work out fine. Well it's all right, we're going to the end of the line.” 

14. Temperance: “Under Pressure” by Queen

“Turned away from it all like a blind man. Sat on a fence, but it don't work. Keep coming up with love but it's so slashed and torn... Why, why, why? Love, love, love, love, love... Insanity laughs, under pressure we're breaking.”

15. The Devil: “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones

“Just as every cop is a criminal, and all the sinners saints, as heads is tails... Just call me Lucifer, 'cause I'm in need of some restraint.”

16. The Tower: “The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning” by the Smashing Pumpkins

“The sewers belch me up; the heavens spit me out. From Ether's tragic I am born again, and now I'm with you now, inside your world of wow, to move in desires made of deadly pretense, ‘til the end times begin.”  

17. The Star: “You Gotta Be” by Des’ree

“Listen as your day unfolds, challenge what the future holds. Try and keep your head up to the sky.”

18. The Moon: “Hope Eyrie” by Leslie Fish

“But we who feel the weight of the wheel, when winter falls over our world, can hope for tomorrow and raise our eyes to a silver moon in the open skies and a single flag unfurled. For the Eagle has landed; tell your children when. Time won't drive us down to dust again.”

19. The Sun: “Sunshine of Your Love” by Cream

“I'm with you my love, the light's shining through on you. Yes, I'm with you my love, it's the morning and just we two. I'll stay with you darling now, I'll stay with you till my seas are dried up... I've been waiting so long, to be where I'm going, in the sunshine of your love.”

20. Judgement: “Ring the Bells” by James

“Ring, ring the bells! Wake the town! Everyone is sleeping. Shout at the crowd! Wake them up! This anger's deeper than sleep! Got to keep awake to what is happening, I can't see a thing through my ambition, I no longer feel my God is watching over me. Got to tell the world we've all been dreaming, this is not the end, a new beginning... I no longer feel my God is watching over me.”

21. The World: “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong

“The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky, are also on the faces of people going by. I see friends shaking hands, saying, ‘how do you do.’ They're really saying, ‘I love you.’ I hear babies crying, I watch them grow... they'll learn much more than I'll ever know. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.”

Wands

1. The Ace of Wands: “Spark” by the Bird and the Bee

“Tell me a tale, something with fire, to break from the sorrows. To break through the dirt, piles of earth, to see where the sun goes... What if I stopped just for a while to see if I'm closer? Still half the night, just for a while to see where the sun goes, oh, oh, oh...”

2. The Two of Wands: "First We Take Manhattan” by Leonard Cohen

“I'm guided by a signal in the heavens. I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin. I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons... First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.”

3. The Three of Wands: “Billionaire” by Travie McCoy ft. Bruno Mars

“Oh every time I close my eyes... I see my name in shining lights... Yeah, a different city every night, oh right, I swear, the world better prepare for when I'm a billionaire.” 

4. The Four of Wands: “Eternal Flame” by The Bangles

“Say my name, sun shines through the rain... A whole life so lonely, and then you come and ease the pain. I don't want to lose this feeling, oh... Close your eyes, give me your hand. Do you feel my heart beating? Do you understand? Do you feel the same? Am I only dreaming? Or is this burning an eternal flame?“

5. The Five of Wands: “The Ultimate Showdown” by Lemon Demon

“This is the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny: good guys, bad guys, and explosions as far as the eye can see... and only one will survive: I wonder who it will be? This is the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny.”

6. The Six of Wands: “We are the Champions” by Queen

“We are the champions, my friends, and we'll keep on fighting 'til the end! We are the champions! We are the champions! No time for losers, 'cause we are the champions of the world!”

7. The Seven of Wands: “Uprising” by Muse

“Rise up and take the power back. It's time that the fat cats had a heart attack, you know that their time is coming to an end. We have to unify and watch our flag ascend.”

8. The Eight of Wands: “Fast as you Can” by Fiona Apple

“I let the beast in and then I even tried forgiving him, but it's too soon. So I'll fight again, again, again, again, again and for a little while more, I'll soar the uneven wind, complain and blame the sterile land.”

9. The Nine of Wands: “Conquest of Spaces” by Woodkid

“I'm ready to start the conquest of spaces expanding between you and me... Come with the night, the science of fighting, the forces of gravity...”

10. The Ten of Wands: “Running up that Hill” by Kate Bush

“And if I only could, I'd make a deal with God, and I'd get him to swap our places, be running up that road, be running up that hill, be running up that building...”

Cups

1. The Ace of Cups: “Quiet” by Milck

“But no one knows me, no one ever will, if I don't say something, if I just lie still. Would I be that monster, scare them all away, if I let them hear what I have to say? I can't keep quiet.”

2. The Two of Cups: “Bus Stop” by The Hollies

“Every morning I would see her waiting at the stop. Sometimes she'd shop, and she would show me what she'd bought. Other people stared as if we were both quite insane... Someday my name and hers are going to be the same.”

3. The Three of Cups: “The Cult of Dionysus” by The Orion Experience

“I'm feeling devious, you're looking glamorous... let's get mischievous... and polyamorous. Wine and women and wonderful vices... Welcome to the cult of Dionysus!”

4. The Four of Cups: “High by the Beach” by Lana del Rey

“I don't wanna do this anymore, it's so surreal. I can't survive if this is all that's real... All I wanna do is get high by the beach, get high by the beach, get high...”

5. The Five of Cups: “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” by The Pet Shop Boys

“I bought you drinks, I brought you flowers. I read you books and talked for hours... Every day, so many drinks, such pretty flowers. So tell me, what have I, what have I, what have I done to deserve this?”

6. The Six of Cups: “In My Life” by The Beatles

“There are places I'll remember, all my life, though some have changed... Some forever, not for better. Some have gone and some remain...”

7. The Seven of Cups: “Which Will” by Nick Drake

“Which do you dance for? Which makes you shine? Which will you choose now, if you won't choose mine?”

8. The Eight of Cups: “Go West” by The Pet Shop Boys

“(Go West) Life is peaceful there, (go West!) in the open air, (go West!) where the skies are blue... (go West!) This is what we're gonna do.”

9. The Nine of Cups: “No Surprises” by Radiohead

“Such a pretty house... and such a pretty garden... No alarms and no surprises, no alarms and no surprises, no alarms and no surprises, please...”

10. The Ten of Cups: “Rainbow Connection” by Kermit the Frog

“Someday we'll find it, the Rainbow Connection... the lovers, the dreamers and me.”

Swords

1. The Ace of Swords: “One” by U2

“You say love is a temple, love is a higher law... Love is a temple, love is a higher law. You ask me of me to enter, but then you make me crawl, and I can't keep holding on to what you got, 'cause all you got is hurt.”

2. The Two of Swords: “I Can’t Decide” by The Scissor Sisters

“I can't decide whether you should live or die... Oh, you'll probably go to heaven; please don't hang your head and cry...”

3. The Three of Swords: “The Killing Type” by Amanda Palmer

"I would kill to make you feel. I don't mean kill someone for real. I couldn't do that, it is wrong... But I can say it in a song.”

4. The Four of Swords: “Take it Easy” by The Eagles

“Take it easy, take it easy. Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy. Lighten up while you still can, don't even try to understand, just find a place make your stand. Take it easy.”

5. The Five of Swords: “Young Men Dead” by the Black Angels

“Run for the hills, pick up your feet and let's go. We did our jobs, pick up speed now, let’s move. The trees can't grow without the sun in their eyes, and we can't live if we're too afraid to die.”

6. The Six of Swords: “I Will Survive” by Cake

“At first I was afraid, I was petrified. I kept thinking I could never live without you by my side. But then I spent so many nights just thinking how you'd done me wrong. I grew strong; I learned how to get along.”

7. The Seven of Swords: “Sabotage” by The Beastie Boys

“I can't stand it, I know you planned it! I'mma set it straight, this Watergate. I can't stand rockin' when I'm in here, 'cause your crystal ball ain't so crystal clear. So while you sit back and wonder why I got this fuckin' thorn in my side, oh my god, it's a mirage! I'm tellin' y'all, it's sabotage.”

8. The Eight of Swords: “Whipping Post” by the Allman Brothers Band

“Sometimes I feel, sometimes I feel, like I been tied to the whippin' post, tied to the whippin' post, tied to the whippin' post. Good Lord, I feel like I'm dyin'.”

9. The Nine of Swords: “Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums” by A Perfect Circle

“Don't fret, precious, I'm here. Step away from the window, and go back to sleep... safe from pain, and truth, and choice... and other poison devils. See, they don't give a fuck about you, like I do. Count lies like sheep, like sheep, like sheep, like sheep, like sheep, like sheep...”

10. The Ten of Swords: “Hurt” by Johnny Cash

“I hurt myself today to see if I still feel. I focus on the pain, the only thing that's real. The needle tears a hole, the old familiar sting. Try to kill it all away, but I remember everything. What have I become, my sweetest friend? Everyone I know goes away in the end.”

Pentacles

1. The Ace of Pentacles: “Dime” by Cake

“I'm a dime, I'm fine, and I shine. I'm freshly minted. I am determined not to be dented by a car or by a plane or anything not yet invented...”

2. The Two of Pentacles: “Down to Earth” by Peter Gabriel

“Did you think that your feet had been bound by what gravity brings to the ground? Did you feel you were tricked by the future you picked? Well, come on down. All these rules don't apply when you're high in the sky, so come on down, come on down.”

3. The Three of Pentacles: “With a Little Help from My Friends” by Joe Cocker

“What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me? Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song, I will try not to sing out of key.”

4. The Four of Pentacles: “This is the Life” by “Weird Al” Yankovic

“They say that money corrupts you, but I can't really tell... I got the whole world at my feet, and I think it's pretty swell.”

5. The Five of Pentacles: “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by The Rolling Stones

“No, you can't always get what you want... You can't always get what you want... You can't always get what you want... But if you try sometimes, you find, you get what you need.”

6. The Six of Pentacles: “Rent” by The Pet Shop Boys

“We never ever argue, we never calculate the currency we've spent... I love you, you pay my rent “

7. The Seven of Pentacles: “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac

“I took my love, I took it down, climbed a mountain and I turned around. And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills ‘til the landslide brought me down.” 

8. The Eight of Pentacles: “The Weaver” by Steeleye Span

“The loom goes click and the loom goes clack; the shuttle flies forward and then flies back. The weaver's so bent that he's like to crack... such a wearisome trade is the weaver.” 

9. The Nine of Pentacles: “My Way” by Frank Sinatra

“I've loved, I've laughed and cried. I've had my fill, my share of losing. And now, as tears subside, I find it all, all so amusing... To think I did all that, and may I say, not in a shy way... oh no, no, not me. I did it my way.” 

10. The Ten of Pentacles: “Monument” by Röyskopp and Robyn

“This will be my monument. This will be a beacon when I'm gone, gone, gone... When I'm gone, gone, gone... When I'm gone... So that when that moment comes, I can say I did it all with love, love, love... All with love, love, love... All with love.”

Court Cards

Wands

1. The Page of Wands: “The Arsonist’s Lullaby” by Hozier

“All you have is your fire, and the place you need to reach. Don't you ever tame your demons, but always keep 'em on a leash.”

2. The Knight of Wands (Sagittarius, the Archer): “Portrait of the Knight of Wands” by Suzanne Vega

“His mood was melancholy, his attitude severe. His inner burden weighed upon him mightily.” 

3. The Queen of Wands (Aries, the Ram): “The Queen of Hollywood” by the Corrs

“She's never gonna be like the one before. She read it in her stars that there's something more. No matter what it takes, no matter how she breaks...”

4. The King of Wands (Leo, the Lion): “King and Lionheart” by Of Monsters and Men

“And as the world comes to an end, I'll be here to hold your hand, 'cause you're my king and I'm your lion-heart.”

Cups

1. The Page of Cups: “The Salmon Dance” by The Chemical Brothers

“Hello, boys and girls, my name is Fat Lip, and this is my friend, Sammy the Salmon! Today we're gonna teach you some fun facts about salmon and a brand new dance.”

2. The Knight of Cups (Pisces, the Fishes): “Knight of Noir” by Susanne Sundfor

“I can't go back again and lock the door. In the dead of night I hear her call out for more. I want to be stung by the stars, I gave her my soul and my heart, and now I am a slave.”

3. The Queen of Cups (Cancer, the Crab): “The Queen and I” by Gym Class Heroes

“I love it how she breaths booze in the morning... and it’s so sexy how she can't remember last night... I made the fatal mistake of letting her drink again. But who the hell am I to tell her how to live her life?”

4. The King of Cups (Scorpio, the Scorpion): “Sea King” by Eisley 

“Sea King, Sea king, can't you see that you're so silly? Sea King, I know things, and without love you won't get far...”

[Honorable mention: Franz Schubert’s rendition of Goethe’s “Der Koenig in Thule” is probably the ultimate King of Cups song, but it felt too different in musical style -- and language -- to include in this playlist. Still, it’s gorgeous, and the lyrics are perfect.]

Swords

1. The Page of Swords: “The Sword and the Pen” by Regina Spektor

“What if the sword kills the pen? What if the god kills the man? And if he does it with love, well then, it's death from above, and death from above is still a death...”

2. The Knight of Swords (Gemini, the Twins): “Knights of Cydonia” by Muse

“No one's going to take me alive. Time has come to make things right. You and I must fight for our rights. You and I must fight to survive.”

3. The Queen of Swords (Libra, the Scales): “My Snow White Queen” by Evanescence

“You belong to me, my snow white queen... There's nowhere to run, so let's just get it over.”

4. The King of Swords (Aquarius, the Water Bearer): “The Idiot Kings” by Soul Coughing

“Batting in the light, my reptile-lidded eyes. And all this strung end to end, is wider than the mind.”

Pentacles

1. The Page of Pentacles: “Sweet Child” by Pentangle

“You've been working so hard all day, won't you take your rest? You've been driving my blues away, now it is my turn. Come fly beneath my wings, sweet child it may not be for long.”

2. The Knight of Pentacles (Virgo, the Virgin): “Knights of Malta” by Smashing Pumpkins

“Where omens scar your door... Like a harvest we're bound and set for war... But no soldier comes...”

3. The Queen of Pentacles (Capricorn, the Goat): "Dreaming of the Queen” by The Pet Shop Boys

“Then carriages arrived... We stood and said goodbye. Diana dried her eyes and looked surprised, for I was in the nude. The old Queen disapproved, but people laughed and asked for autographs.”

4. The King of Pentacles (Taurus, the Bull): “A Farewell to Kings” by Rush

“Cities full of hatred, fear and lies, withered hearts, and cruel, tormented eyes... Scheming demons dressed in kingly guise, beating down the multitude, and scoffing at the wise. Whoa, can't we raise our eyes and make a start? Can't we find the minds to lead us closer to the heart?”

Giant shout-out to the Tarot Nerds Facebook Group for inspiring me. You are the best.

[exolstice-blog]

Sweet Lies | Yixing

[A/N: this was requested by another anonie😖💕

genre: Criminal Investigator!AU , Criminal!AU , Angst , Fluff

group-member: EXO-Yixing

prompt: 25- Being somewhere you’re not supposed to be, (05) “You’re one of the most important things in my life.”

word count: 1885

ummm i actually had this idea for a while so im so happy I got to write it, I hope you all like it✨💓💓

It didn’t take long for you to realize you were in a position you shouldn’t entirely be in at all. 

Alright. Maybe you’d figured part of it when this child—as in, the-man-you-were-supposed-to-incarcerate’s child—threw her tiny arms around you like you were some kind of T.V-bonbon nanny. 

You weren’t much a kids person, not friendly and certainly not sweet. You’d lost all and any capability for sugar-coating the moment you joined the forces, just one in the many casualties of the whiplash of mental barbarity and callous reception. 

So, of course, you could only stand there around and about looking painfully uninterested when the kid began pulling dolls from her backpack so as to make up for the lack of conversation. 

“When is Papa coming?” The girl lifted her mellow gaze to you, doll discarded. Her eyes sparkled with the incredible endeavor of keeping herself from crying. God knew how she’d learned to pull the trick with Zhang Yixing for a father.

“He’ll be here shortly,” you said in as soft a voice you could summon as you looked outside the tarnished apartment window to the rundown street below. As convenient as it was to have some secret den in the worst part of the city—where it sure did not look safe at all and would totally be overlooked as a place to stay—you couldn’t give him all the credit. The move was smart, yes, but other plagues fouled the streets and therefore other things could get you killed. 

Luna seemed to understand that.

“I’m scared,” her fingers fluttered on her lap, arms tentatively rising in a gesture that craved for touch, for a hand to grasp her own. 

“You don’t have to be.” Really, she didn’t. You’d been trained to disarm a man double your weight, to shoot point blank without the needless gnawing feeling of contrition that brought you near to vomiting when the bullet shot straight through the back of his head.

But you weren’t just about to tell her that. You shook your head and shut your mouth, pushing yourself away from the window and coming closer to the girl.

“I’m here.”

That should be enough. You weren’t someone for pretty words and consolations, and so you couldn’t believe all that “it’s going to be alright” bullshit yourself, even more when—

“Thank you.” You stiffened again when her arms came around you, when she pressed her head like a little cat on your waist and hid her tears in your coat. 

Now, this shouldn’t be happening. Not when the existence of this girl was practically unknown to you still until barely a mere three days ago and specially not when you were betraying yourself (becoming all fluff and rainbows and all for this kid) for a man you’d started catching feeling for and whom you were supposed to investigate. 

So, yeah, you could only stand there, petting her head like the small creature that she was and wonder what the fuck was going on.

Then, the door creaked, and you had your gun out before it could be opened, shoving Luna behind you. A breath, your aim and—

“Papa!” 

You heaved a sigh with Yixing entering the room with a gun of his own, handing it to his right man when Luna ran and leaped to his arms. 

“My baby,” he seemed to be gasping, rocking the little one in an embrace, more to comfort himself than to appease her. “I’m so sorry.”

“I thought you wouldn’t come see me,” Luna was crying, having finally given in to what had put her in a trance all those hours that you’d waited.

Yixing clutched her tight, “You’re one of the most important things in my life. No, you are my life, my moon. If something happened to you...”

You swallowed, turning your back on the two and encasing your gun. You’d never seen Yixing so helpless, so at the mercy of something that involved not gunpowder and lead. Granted, you’d never encountered the one thing that made him the weakest.

Zhang Yixing was tranquil and numb in all his hushed ire, a demonic doll with a handsome hard cover and calculative death for stuffing. A man that lived up to the “highly-deceiving” “manipulative” and “vicious” that accompanied his name. 

The moment you met him you’d learned as much. Admittedly, you shouldn’t have ambushed his home without a permit and aimed your weapon at him, yes, but he shouldn’t have just almost dislocated your arm either. 

From then on, you were forced to work close to him and follow his every move, much to your, quite sickening, internal abhorrence of him. Yixing was acute, alright, and knew well you were reporting back everything you caught so he let you hang around, a gimmick he pulled so as to prove to you he wasn’t into the shady business his files said he was. 

And the guy did it right. You couldn’t yet prove how much of his records was certain but only that the “highly deceiving” part was well earned.

Yixing wrought you in a string of lies with darling words and daring gazes, blinded you out of all competence for setting apart right from wrong and good from bad with the upward tilt of his blushing lips. Introduced you to the bitter taste of failure with alcohol in them, but with the saccharine savor of his mouth that made it all feel worth it...

You shut your eyes harsh until you saw things, dark things that stung and weren’t him kissing your neck, anything that wouldn’t drive you close to delusion. 

You opened them again and turned your look back inside, away from the window that had hosted your little reverie. Luna was laughing now, showing her father a doll she mentioned to have borrowed from her friend, before she received a call saying he was waiting outside to pick her up. That was a lie, and someone wanting to hurt Yixing’s greatest treasure had been able to pull it. 

Luna, smarter than to be fooled by a car that wasn’t her father’s, sneaked away before being caught and hid for almost an hour when Yixing frantically called you and virtually demanded you to protect his daughter, which is how you’d ended up in that apartment in the first place.

You still wondered how he’d been able to know what went down and who was it that threatened Luna. Mentally, you took a note on questioning him later, you wouldn’t let him off the hook that easily when you could’ve just gotten a lead to proceed with your investigation.

“Go with Uncle Byun for a minute, alright my love?” Yixing kissed Luna’s forehead before standing up, cleaning off her tears tenderly and brushing back her hair before he looked at you. Oh, you needed to talk too, alright.

“Yes, Papa,” Luna followed the dark haired man who outstretched his hand to her, taking it for a second before letting go. She looked at you timidly before running and hugging your hips again, smiling, “Thank you, pretty lady.” With that she ran back to the man who took her hand cheerfully and let her out in high-spirited conversation. 

Yixing seemed to have regained a little bit of the color of his cheeks as he watched her go and sighed, “I don’t know what I would’ve done if something—”

“Probably execute me first,” you deadpanned, crossing your arms and smiling like you meant it as a joke. Partially you did.

“Probably,” he grinned, walking up to you and claiming your mouth, fixing you in place by the strong hold of your jaw. Yixing, as it’d come to be the usual, tasted of liquorice and alcohol and was rough with his hands but kind with his lips. He was the embodiment of a flower that was delight with all its charms but that hurt when you touched it because it kept its thorns. Only that sometimes Zhang Yixing was all thorns. 

He pulled back flushed and bit his lip. His hair was pushed back and he was smiling some kind of way that was hazardous, that made that dimple that he had appear and drive you giddy.

It wasn’t fair. 

“Thank you,” Yixing rested his head on your shoulder, didn’t quite look at you. His hand grasped yours and, yes, it wasn’t fair, because he knew his way with deceptions and you couldn’t let out a word. “I could never be more at your mercy, if they’d hurt her—”

“Who is ‘they’?” You avoided his fingers tangled with yours and only looked ahead. Forget all kisses and touches, bottom truth was all of it was done for both your purposes and it was only a matter of time to see who accomplished theirs first. And you intended that to be you. 

Yixing stiffened and backed away and inch, smiling, “You don’t expect me to actually tell you, do you? They could hurt you too, and I don’t want to be responsible for it.”

“I won’t blame you, just tell me who they are.”

“You know I didn’t mean it like that, I really don’t want something to happen to you.”

You laughed, retracting your hand from his, “And it won’t. Let’s stop playing pretense for a minute, alright. You know who I am and what I do. You know whatever this between us is is nothing but sweet lies and make-believe. I catch bad people for a living, Yixing, and whoever tries to abduct a six-year-old in plain daylight clearly qualifies as bad. And if you won’t let me catch them, I have all reason to think you’re trying to protect them.”

You knew you might have gone too far. Yixing developed a pallor that sickened you greatly. Of course, you shouldn’t have mentioned that last thing when he’d almost gone insane with his daughter at risk, how stupid of you. But you were mad, alright. You weren’t sure you could handle more of it, of his blasphemous touches and softer-than-feathers kisses, even if they were all but sweet lies. 

No, you didn’t want a liar, and you knew a bad guy when you saw one and Zhang Yixing was unquestionably and irrevocably one. 

He ran a hand through his hair and cursed, looking at you only reluctantly, “To think I liked you.”

“Fuck, Yixing, are we kids? Do you think I’m that stupid to believe you?” You gritted your teeth, maintaining your voice as low as possible and hoping the air wouldn’t carry it to wherever Luna was. 

Yixing sighed, shaking his head ‘no’, and turned to leave. And goddamn him because, somehow, any lie could be better now than to watch him go.  

“I thought I could have you by my side by doing this. I guess you really can’t expect too much from me and I can’t blame you.”

Yixing stopped on the threshold, then—

“It was her mother—Luna’s—when I said ‘they’.” He gave you one last glance. “I hope that was all you needed, officer.”

Zhang Yixing took all the sweet and lies that constituted him when he closed that door, leaving a liquor-bitter scent in your mouth if you closed your eyes and wanted him, if you wondered whether you had been the pretender all along.

 how did you like it 🍭?

[thesearebobsthoughts]

March 29, 2020

I don’t know how much longer paramedics can keep this up. Via The New York Times:

One New York City paramedic described responding to a suicide attempt of a woman who had drank a liter of vodka after her cancer treatments had been delayed, in part because hospitals were clearing their beds for coronavirus patients.

Another paramedic said she responded to so many cardiac arrests in one shift that the battery on her defibrillator died.

“It does not matter where you are. It doesn’t matter how much money you have. This virus is treating everyone equally,” the Brooklyn paramedic said

***

Three weeks ago, the paramedics said, most coronavirus calls were for respiratory distress or fever. Now the same types of patients, after having been sent home from the hospital, are experiencing organ failure and cardiac arrest.

“We’re getting them at the point where they’re starting to decompensate,” said the Brooklyn paramedic, who is employed by the Fire Department. “The way that it wreaks havoc in the body is almost flying in the face of everything that we know.”

In the same way that the city’s hospitals are clawing for manpower and resources, the virus has flipped traditional Emergency Medical Services procedures at a dizzying speed. Paramedics who once transported people with even the most mild medical maladies to hospitals are now encouraging anyone who is not critically ill to stay home. When older adults call with a medical issue, paramedics fear taking them to the emergency room, where they could be exposed to the virus.

***

The husband frantically explained that he had tried to stay home and tend to his ill wife, but his employer had asked him to work because their facility was overrun with coronavirus patients.

Grudgingly, the man told the medics, he went to work. When he returned home after his shift that day, he found her unconscious in their bed. For 35 minutes, Mr. Almojera’s team tried to revive the woman, but she could not be saved.

Usually, Mr. Almojera said, he tries to console family members who have lost a loved one by putting his arm around them or giving them a hug.

But because the husband was also thought to be infected with the coronavirus, Mr. Almojera delivered the bad news from six feet away. He watched the man pound on his car with his fist and then crumble to the ground.

“I’m sitting there, beside myself, and I can’t do anything except be at this distance with him,” Mr. Almojera said. “So, we left him.”

Speaking of poor, non-white people getting the toxic end of this lollipop: 

The numbers in the above map represent positive tests. The next one, showing the differences in deaths from COVID is going to be truly grim and absolutely divided along race and class lines, because America. Specifically, because poorer, browner New Yorkers have less access to well, everything: heath care, information, jobs that can’t be performed from home. All those people working in supermarkets and making deliveries, the “essential workers” are disproportionately poor. Social distancing? Sure, try that when you’re living on the streets or still trapped in Riker’s or even a huge public housing project with one or two goddamn working elevators. 

Even those who do have insurance are about to be royally screwed. “No insurer, no state, planned and put money away for something of this significance,” Peter V. Lee, the executive director of Covered California, an state exchange that’s part of the ACA, said. Well then, maybe the insurance providers shouldn’t have eaten so much avocado toast at brunch. Ha ha. Just kidding. The current admin has decimated the ACA, which was a laughable excuse for a healthcare system to begin with, and has only grown worse since. 2010

Here’s a fun/funny story. I was running low on Juul pods and with the next shipment not scheduled to arrive till Monday I had to do something. So, scribbed my hands raw, I put on clothes that I’d feel comfortable incinerating if need be, strapped on a pair of brown leather gloves, and tied a scarf around the entirety of my face as if I were a Black Bloc anarchist. And then I stepped outside the front door for the first time in... ten days? I’m going to say ten days. It was stressful and enraging with some light terror tossed in for variety’s sake.

I scoped out the block for people like I was on a goddamn recon mission, and let me tell you, wealthy-ass Brooklyn Heights residents were not maintaining social distancing. Dads breezily lazily walking their dogs, unconcerned (somehow) if someone trotted right by them. Gaggles of people, laughing, chatting, shooting the shit as if nothing had changed. On more than one occasion, I had to sprint across the street to maintain proper spacing. At my local bodega—the only bodega anywhere within walking distance of my apartment which sells pods—a hand-drawn sign had been taped to the shelves containing cigs and e-cigs. “Please make your selection and leave as quickly as possible,” the sign read. 

I did so, bolting back out, ticking off the seconds till I was back at 108 Pierrepont. My neighbor was idling at the front gate, trying to coax her large labrador retreiver up the steps. I waited till she’d gotten to the front door and asked how she was feeling. 

My neighbor said “better.” Which, sure. The dry cough of hers seemed to echo through our shared (thin) wall less frequently now. Oh and her sense of taste and smell was slowly returning. 

You have got to be fucking kidding me. I tried to gently explain that she fucking has it without flipping my shit at her for not immediately telling everyone in the building. I sent out a mass email the instant I started feeling under the weather and unlike her, I’ve never had two of the most common fucking symptoms. Standing outside the building, paralyzed, unsure how long I needed to wait to sprint into the building and up the spiral staircase. She wasn’t even wearing a scarf, let alone a mask. Every exhale was flooding the lobby with infection but somehow using a Clorox wipe to open and close the door was enough of a preventative measure in her mind. 

So grabbed all the packages that were waiting for me and galloped up the staircase. (Stalling for two days before going downstairs to pick up my deliveries accomplished nothing, what with the co-op’s own personal Typhoid Mary going outside twice a day to walk the dog. I’m still livid, two days after the fact. It’s insanely irresponsible of her. ) l kicked off my shoes outside the door, then stripped naked and deposited every item in a plastic garbage bag, tying it as tightly as possible. After scrubbing down my hands like Hawkeye Pierce, I then scoured the packages themselves with a wipe, followed hard upon by every surface they’d touched. I washed my hands a second time, belting out two consecutive particularly antic versions of the Happy Birthday song. Then I opened the packages, wiped down the contents, and washed my hands for a third time before jumping in the shower. 

70 percent of the tests run by Northwell Health are coming back positive, and thousands of people will likely die. "I don't see how you look at those numbers and conclude anything less than thousands of people will pass away," the Governor said on Sunday. Vulnerable parts of the population will be hit particularly hard. "I hope its wrong, but..."

This is the Jacob K. Javits Center now. Soon, the beds will all be full: 

In the hopefully not-too-distant future, someone’s going to write a book detailing the ongoing failures at every level of the Federal government. (Who am I kidding? Everyone is going to write that book.) At least one will probably toss in a bit of color about the Javits Center: It’s where Hillary Clinton was on the night of November 8, 2016, getting ready to deliver her victory speech. The one that never came. Once the election was called, she sent John goddamned Podesta out instead. Ha ha. 

On Wednesday, I spent a frantic afternoon getting epidemiologists on the blower to talk about ballplayers going under the knife and feeeling generally flu-ish and tired while doing so. [Editor’s note: stop trying to sound like you’re not incredibly fucking privileged and have less shit to deal with than the vast bulk of people in this city alone. You blogged whilst sick. Hero-type stuff, truly.] 

It’s not in the article, but yeah. All these high-paid orthopedic specialists should be barreling toward the front lines and turning their top-shelf sports medicine facilities into something fucking useful. 

Per Mom, on Facebook:

It doesn't just "look like" special privileges for the rich and powerful, it is just that. Doctors, nurses, technicians, and other healthcare resources are currently being diverted to parts of hospitals and other locations where they are needed. They are being called back from retirement to help fill the need. These resources could be used with urgency elsewhere and are not when such elective procedures are being done instead. Excellent article, Bob.

Thanks, Mom. 

Mike Francesa has been radicalized. Back afta this.

[ramajmedia]

Seinfeld: All Of George Costanza's Jobs, Ranked | ScreenRant

Focusing on the minutiae of daily life, Seinfeld took on various aspects of mundane human existence. It tackled friendship, dating, marriage, parents – but arguably, above all, being a show about four single thirtysomethings living in New York, its strongest focus was on the characters’ work lives.

While Jerry retained his standup career for all nine seasons and Kramer’s source of income remained a mystery, George and Elaine jumped from job to job every couple of seasons. Elaine was better at holding down a job and keeping up with office politics than George, so he had more jobs than her. So, here are All Of George Costanza’s Jobs, Ranked.

RELATED: Seinfeld: Kramer's 10 Craziest Get-Rich-Quick Schemes, Ranked

10 Parking cars

“These pretzels are making me thirsty!!” The guy who parked cars on Jerry and Kramer’s street went on vacation, and since George was out of work, he decided to take the guy’s business while he was gone.

However, he found it to be far too stressful, basically losing his mind as he spent his days surrounded by honking traffic. It was even worse for George than the regular guy, because George took the job as a new Woody Allen movie started shooting just a block over, so the traffic got even worse and the street was even busier than usual.

9 Sales rep in charge of the Penske file

This one wasn’t even a real job. The interviewer left in the middle of the interview, so George just showed up on Monday and said he was the new guy. They gave him his own office and “the Penske file,” but since he had no idea what his job would be or who Penske was, he did nothing for a full week before the guy who interviewed him came back, confused that he was there.

All he’d done in a whole week was transfer the Penske file into an accordion-style folder and attend a fellow employee’s birthday party (he even gave a speech at the latter).

8 Play Now

When George was first hired at Play Now, a playground equipment manufacturer, he was walking on a limp with a cane. The interviewer gave him the job because he thought he was disabled, and he ended up getting special treatment – they gave him his own office, he got a mobility scooter, and he was literally carried around the office. When they found out he was lying, they tried to fire him.

However, since he had a one-year contract with the company, they couldn’t. So, he came into the office every day and did nothing as the employees all tried and failed to get him to willingly quit.

7 Computer salesman for Frank

When Frank Costanza watched the movie The Net, he got the idea to open a business called “Costanza and Son.” He bought a bunch of computers that he planned to sell over the phone out of his garage. He hired George (the “son” in Costanza and Son) and Lloyd Braun (the guy that George’s mother often compared him to – “Why can’t you be more like Lloyd Braun?”) to be his salesmen.

RELATED: Seinfeld: Every Supporting Character, Ranked

Lloyd continuously outsold George until it was revealed that he’d been making up his sales and Frank was forced to shut down the business before it had taken off.

6 Kruger Industrial Smoothing

The ninth and final season of Seinfeld is far from adored by fans, but one of the silver linings of the show’s farewell installment is Mr. Kruger, George’s negligent boss at Kruger Industrial Smoothing.

He was insanely incompetent – he’d take the rest of the day off if he locked himself out of his office, he gave a ton of the company’s money to a made-up charity fabricated by George, and it was a mystery how his company managed to stay afloat for so long. Mr. Kruger was the guy who assigned George the nickname “Bobo” when he was trying to get “T-Bone.”

5 Real estate agent

In the first couple of seasons of Seinfeld, before George became known for bouncing from job to job and being unable to hold down a regular source of income, he had quite an affluent career as a real estate agent. He had a sharp eye for the marketplace and was up-to-date and how the industry was doing.

This job was also used for storylines, like in the episode “The Robbery,” in which he offers a great new place to Jerry and Elaine hopes to take his apartment when he moves out to get away from her annoying roommate. When he quit, he tried to go back in the following Monday like it never happened.

4 Reader at Pendant Publishing

When George was out of work, Elaine managed to get him an interview at Pendant Publishing, the publishing house where she used to work. Like Elaine, George’s job at the company involved reading manuscripts. He somehow managed to get the job, despite never reading a book in his life beyond the ones he was forced to read in high school.

RELATED: Seinfeld: The 10 Worst Things Elaine Ever Did, Ranked

The only reading he’d done as an adult was the sports section of the newspaper. Still, he aced the interview and got the job. However, as soon as he’d been hired, he got himself fired for sleeping with the cleaning woman on his desk when he was working overtime.

3 Sitcom writer for NBC

The fourth season of Seinfeld got meta when NBC executives approached Jerry after a show and asked him if he’d be interested in developing a sitcom for them. He teamed up with George to write a pilot for “a show about nothing.”

Despite having no idea and no experience, they managed to get the pilot picked up by the network. George passed on the offer in an attempt to negotiate for a higher salary, but he barely managed to scrape the deal back with a lot of groveling and a lower salary. Unfortunately, the pilot wasn’t picked up to series, but for a while, George had a job he was proud of.

2 Hand model

In the season 5 episode “The Puffy Shirt,” George was forced by unemployment and a lack of funds to move back in with his parents in Queens. With no job prospects, he ran into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when a talent scout spotted his hands and promised to get him work as a hand model.

In Kramer’s own words, George’s hands are “smooth, creamy, delicate, yet masculine,” and it seemed as though his prayers had been answered and he was on his way to the top. Then, he made fun of the puffy shirt and the designer pushed his hands onto a burning iron.

1 Assistant to the Traveling Secretary for the New York Yankees

“Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle...Costanza?” In the season 5 finale “The Opposite,” George decided to go with the opposite of all of his instincts. It landed him a date with a woman whose uncle worked for the New York Yankees and could set him up for a job interview.

He was up for the role of Assistant to the Traveling Secretary, working under then-team owner George Steinbrenner. By following the opposite of his instincts, he managed to land the job – his dream job, working for his favorite baseball team – and kept it for a few seasons, longer than he’s had any other job.

NEXT: Seinfeld: 10 Fake Movies That Should Actually Get Made

source https://screenrant.com/seinfeld-george-costanzas-jobs-ranked/

[vaczine]

Walt Cessna

You may think you know or understand me from the suggested and often misunderstood visceral & visual tone of my posted work. You MAY, but you will never ever actually come to any sort of conclusion unless you choose and succeed at looking deep into the self polarizing pathos and DIY till I die determination that informs every facet of my creative & hopefully thought provoking artistic, political and personal stance. If your spending an overwhelming period of better utilized time questioning the purpose, passion and correct point of view of those you deem .not on your side and couldn't actually care less about their indifference and non inclusion of your world anyway, it is perhaps time for you to social media disconnect and redirect the inspirational sparks and shared creative synergy that your on-line presence not only inspires, but informs anyone seeking some deeper meaning and lasting purpose regarding the manner and socially awkward mayhem of your experiences and the at times long hesitation of wait and see the final destination of our daily life experiences that we over emphasize through bullet point rifled personally potent postings promoting our self delusional appreciation and understanding of the self stating shared synergy that fuels our current creative desires and the never ending search for a perfect new medium in which to showcase them. Picture frames ans pretty much any type of visual not displaying itself correctly on some sort of screen set at a 3 second shift of images that leaves the pictures haphazardly etched into our conscious. It;s been slightly amusing seeing the often incorrect re-appropriation of my past works that when originally presented labeled me a pornographer of dubious and damaged integrity blithely showing off my ex-hooker, forever a junkie, AIDS relate-able personal drama and self persecution laced presentation of what polite people refer to as my artistic work. Autistic twerk is more like it. It all starts to make sense suddenly and my personally motivated switch of creative mediums comes across casually and gives no hint at others poorly perceived notions of how to maintain, manage and virtually manifest the clearest and most accurate version exactly how, where, when, what & why I am initiating a long awaited and previously posed with move from digital photography to digital film. It's not that photographs or random still images no longer incite inspiration within me, but i have a renewed creative hunger to tell my visually rich, moment caught in time pictorial perceptions of the world as I continue to come upon it in personally nuanced and arresting pictures that often wear their intensity like a much maligned and majorly misconstrued social handicap of frankly preposterous and selfishly painful decrees decrying ,owns own carefully and life long curated correctness. I'm 52 and I've been pretty much taking photographs since I was just dropped out of high school and living part time in the Chelsea Hotel as anti- fashion terrorist and 7th Ave knock off re-designer self publishing the first of 5 indie publication The Key. Al it took was an unsolicited paragraph of self reverential praise to take it from a Xeroxed & hand stapled $1 a copy fast food fashion inspired teen dream novelty to fashion designer approved & super supported legends in their own lifetimes hyper surreal 80s shooting style stars like Norma Kamali & Way bandy introduced Stephen Sprouse to secure is a publishing deal literally on my 18th birthday in what would come to be the best realized and inspired 1984 year of my life. I got to work with the essentially inspired likes of Teri Toye, truly the first notable and visually inescapable Transgender fashion cult level model courtesy of the two other points of a supremely inspired and inspiring collaboration between the three of them as downtown designer, muse & Nico - model, aspired, casually confrontational It girl 80s hybrid that paid due homage to Warjol;s Edie now known as Sprouse & Meisel's fashion franken-weenie of perfect for rthe times sculpted androgyny that wore its scandalous reputation like a badge of maybe it just might be true dis-honor. The late 80s defining Avedon Vogue covers just as world famous make-up artist as his oft times super model before it was deemed hashtag worthy Brooke Sheilds. Way was very approachable, much like most of the pop art world of culturally correct pre-internet celebrities that never had to fear with cell phones and social media to further distract from whatever way out wild and personally soiled to random extinction proclivities of all too often misunderstood or simply ignored, looked on as unnecessary critiques on those who call their arts performing. The 70s / 80s gold plated period of utter pop(t) culture perfection has never been replaced or more relevant. it continues to inform a host of style servers and visual vanguards who set the tone for all we deem fashionable, fierce & transformative. Going back to the good time girl prohibition era flappers and their self professed need / desire to dance their cares away and have the best time of their life till death to the current state of street style inspired rebooted and redefining world of Haute Couture once again inspired and defined by Saint Laurent, Dior and Gucci albeit each famed and style setting house now under radical redefining fashion focus that manages to respectfully pay nu rage homage to the brands history, but seek ways to incorporate the often awkward proportions of urban influenced street style that when seen through the eyes of the Vetements infused mind rewerking the always sublime mod style proportion savvy design mind helming an extremely personal and stylishly over wrought almost radical re-imagining of the deeply respected and ultra icronic experimental & visionary couture house Balenciaga..There were skirts fashion from actual and completely randomly sourced car mats deftly shuffled into a collection that closed with 9 over the top and way over-sized almost to the point of unwearable proportions that instantly achieve Avedon photo moment in fashion history correctness as they unapologetic-ally praise the design notion of ultra future modern vintage retro photograph of culturally current creations that take inspiration from bold silhouettes and a generous, almost overly lavish attention to cut and proportion that in some cases requires the pop kulture class-ism of 60's Irving Penn influenced and perfectly posed presence of the cult model of Funny Fave infamous-ness Dovima to pull off with a level of panache and a heightened sense of strictly amplified drama punctuated by perfectly arched eyebrows framing equally attentive and slightly rich bitch super vixen fierceness that can't be faked unless it;s Evita moment Mario Testino in his 90s Vanity Fair primed for all time Madonna. People who talk shit about the should hsve known better bitch i'm Madonna. Looking at the aggressively fearless proponents of radically almost unwearable proportions executed in a modern assimilation of not always unawkward siljouettes that altrhough not as gar out and frankly unbothered by anything other than it;s own correctness Comme des Garcon, rather a redefined riff on the retro notions of business attire and women wearing versions of men's tailoring, sparked by YSL in his properly Helmut Newton 70s style blip of his Le Smoking tuxedo influenced suits further pushed into androgyny by slicked back short hair cuts that forever set the standard for Bowie pioneered gender bending ensembles that were majorly loathed or deeply loved when first introduced. The insane radical yet pop culturally relevant instantly pop cult classic correctness of Ziggy Stardust seamlessly morphed into YSl man tailored sexually ambiguous models mane even more infamous in their provocative, often sexually charge/d photographs often shot in dark Parisian alleys and dramatically street light lit lending an air of instant style reformation of perfectly potent only werked correctly in the 70;s mix of lady like femininity mixed with an elegantly irreverent masculine tailoring that too easily wrought to mind the gay disco dollies not yet commonly referred to as lesbians, yet unflinchingly setting the style trend that made Helmut Newton dangerously exotic and first introduce the idea of super exclusively expensive made by hand atelier attended Haute Couture that today seems more Ready-to-Couture with it;s street styled leanings and brave style assertions that are elegantly askance. The often classic attention to cut and uber refined measures of stitching that further accented the carefully crafted couture cut that is nothing like your basic, badly cut and boring boxy jacket. The New Look symbolized and introduced Christian Dior's legendary post war arrival that stirred a full on fashion freak out for bucking war time fabric restrictions with liberated and lavish for the times over indulgences of fabric measured by multiple yards and a retro regal stance when wearing the often sharply pinched and flared waist suit jackets that had a multi gored and just above the ankle length skirt that every designer in time since had offered their own version. Print Vogue is a bore, but vogue.com gives you every single look shown during global fashion week and to the point well worded break downs freshly devoid of attitude and detail driven to blogger extremes. This just finished past season was over loaded with a plethora of just the right dose of retro inspired vintage sportswear taken to wryly ironic or deathly drastic extremes. Which is probably why I love it and have actually been inspired to write fashion inspired posts in over a decade. - Walt Cessna

Balenciaga Fall / Winter 2017

[casualarsonist]

The Division review (PC)

Jesus Christ Ubisoft, you really can’t help but kick yourself in the dick, can you? Is it...is it something sexual? I mean, I’m not going to judge you, but it kinda feels like there’s something else going on here. 

<Ubisoft executive masturbates aggressively>

Let’s look at the facts - you put out Watch Dogs and you lied about a whole bunch of shit in the marketing. Then the game comes out and it’s absolutely savaged by the press and public alike because the reality of the game is far from the false hype you built around it. But the interesting thing is that it’s not a bad game, not by a long stretch. It’s a fun third-person shooter with a massive open world and a deep attention to detail, entertaining mechanics (even if it does have a bit of your mindless collecting bullshit scattered around), and some top-notch production values. But you couldn’t have the public believe you were simply releasing a release a ‘good’ game, could you? No, you had to make them believe that you were releasing the BEST game, all the while knowing that the final product wouldn’t meet the promises you’d made. 

I mean, you don’t have to do much to impress us anymore. 

Why did you do that, Ubisoft? Had your CEO made certain commitments to the shareholders about pre-orders and day one sales figures? I genuinely can’t fathom why you would make such terrible, terrible marketing decisions when you had to know that there was going to be blowback - you had to know because you had been there before, hadn’t. Which brings me to the pertinent point: if your methods failed you multiple times before, why did you do it AGAIN?

Because here is The Division - a fun third-person shooter with a massive open world and a deep attention to detail, entertaining mechanics (even if it does have a bit of your mindless collecting bullshit scattered around), and some top-notch production values, and once again you lied about it in the marketing. And once again, when it was released, the game became a pariah - not because it wasn’t a good product, but because you fucked it over before it was even released. It didn’t stand a chance really, not with your ridiculous schemes to deceive the public with an almost sociopathic level of denial and self-delusion. What is it that the villain in one of your own games said about the definition of insanity?

Pictured: Ubisoft.

The Division came out TWO YEARS after Watch Dogs. And you learned nothing. People should have been fired over this. Many high-ranking people should have been fired. 

God damn you, Ubisoft. 

The Division is a third-person sort-of-MMO set in a dystopic near-future New York City. You play a nameless and voiceless agent of The Division - a top secret unit of sleeper agents brought in when the shit well and truly hits the fan. And it has, because NYC has been decimated by a deadly man-made virus transmitted via banknotes on Black Friday. The city itself has been left near deserted but for the scant few civilians who were trapped inside the quarantine, members of the Joint Task Force, and roving bands of gangs and private military soldiers that rob and kill on-sight. Your mission is to do what the normies can’t, venturing into dangerous enemy lairs to procure people, intelligence, or simply the corpses of notorious trouble-makers. 

The city is mapped, as far as I can tell, to a nearly 1:1 scale. The level of detail and effort put into the design is unprecedented; I can honestly say that I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. From the buildings that are meticulously designed inside and out, to the changing weather effects that completely alter the atmosphere of the city, to the destruction, decay, and seasonal decorations littering every single street and alley, it’s almost inconceivable the years of work that must have gone into the production of this.

<I masturbate aggressively>

The enemy leveling is handled intelligently and in such a way that a challenge always remains present, and wandering into a pack of gun-toting psychopaths can and will get you killed most of the time. It keeps you on your toes, and keeps the threat of the city real. The loot system is excellent too, and you’ll find that loot drops just rarely enough for it to feel like a real reward, yet frequently enough for you to always have something to sell or disassemble. 

And while MMOs can often be troublingly unbalanced, rewarding griefers, or forcing you into playing with people who rush the objectives and leave you behind, The Division’s multiplayer elements are not so. For the most part the game is perfectly enjoyable as a single-player-only experience as the difficulty of the main missions can be adjusted to suit those that just want to get through them as well as those that want a real challenge, whilst the base difficulty of the general encounters around the city is just high enough to keep a lone player engaged and excited. You can join other human players at any point, if you so choose, and if you do the game encourages co-operation and teamwork for the most part by carefully and astutely balancing the damage taken and dealt by enemies, making for a challenging and fun multiplayer experience, and punishing players that try to rush ahead by hammering them into the ground. 

The only time in which PvP is forced upon the player is the Dark Zone: a no-man’s-land located in the centre of Manhattan, and cordoned off from the rest of the island by towering walls. The Dark Zone is an anything-goes environment filled with the best loot in the game, difficult computer-controlled NPCs, and (on weekends) human players looking to score some sweet treasure. You can be attacked by humans only if you’re carrying loot yourself, and can traverse the area safely (at least safe from human players) by simply walking around empty handed. However, if you do collect some gear, you can only take it out of the Dark Zone by initiating a timed helicopter extraction at a few select areas of the map. During the two and a half minutes the extraction takes you will often be assaulted by computer controlled enemies, although players in your sector can also see that the extraction is taking place and can either come along and send their gear up as well, or, more commonly, try to kill you and jack your stuff. 

Pictured: How not to be a little bitch.

It is this latter behaviour that has garnered the Dark Zone an infamous reputation - one reviewer called it a ‘failed experiment’. But after enough time playing in the area, you begin to understand the psychology that may drive a lot of this behaviour. The smartest players will always travel in the Dark Zone in groups of two or more as it always pays to have backup on hand, but this doesn’t stop the odd stray player from trying to kill and rob you both. The freedom of the area allows all kinds of behaviour, and those feeling cocky or perhaps even just wanting to experiment with the game’s mechanics can often try to take you down just to see if they can get away with it. And once that’s happened to you a few times, you will begin to learn that in some situations it’s better just to shoot first and ask questions later rather than tolerate a bunch of interlopers that will likely end up shooting you in the back when they have the chance. 

Pictured: Other players in the Dark Zone

Mutually Assured Dickishness doesn’t exactly give the game a pass from all accusations of toxicity, but the roguish nature of the Dark Zone fits perfectly with its narrative context and allows for some incredibly tense and memorable gameplay moments, like the time that a player dozens of levels higher than the area catered to ran rampant, killing everyone on sight and taking what could only be worthless loot for himself. My teammate and I were hunted through the streets as we tried to flee this terrorist, hiding behind cars and in alcoves just praying that he would pass us unknowingly. Or the time that I came across two players who let me attach my gear to their extraction, seemingly uncertain if I had any friends, before attempting to take it when they realised I was alone. I waited around a corner and watched them warily, and once they did try to swipe my stuff I gunned one down before I was killed myself, but not before my gear had been extracted. I came across the same two players at a later time as they rounded a corner to find me standing there with my weapon raised. Knowing that I had outmatched one of them earlier we stood there in a tense stand off before I managed to flee unharmed. Yes, it is more lucrative to venture into the Dark Zone when others aren’t around, but there’s a certain tension that comes with never knowing when you might come across another player, and never knowing if they’re going to be friendly or not, that lends a wonderful sense of threat and challenge to the situation, and makes escaping with loot all the more rewarding.

While the DLC isn’t anything to write home about, the handling of the end-game content is enough to keep me going for at least another dozen more. Beyond the maximum player level the difficulty balances out to a more manageable degree, and the pursuit of the highest ‘gear score’, i.e. a score that denotes the level of quality gear you have equipped, becomes a customisation goal. This gear score is visible to other players, and becomes a good way of judging a threat in the Dark Zone; my gear score is likely the reason I escaped a confrontation unscathed on more than one occasion. The idea that you can intimidate Dark Zone players into not attacking is great, especially when that experience is balanced against memories of being walked over by jerks. And as the Dark Zone inevitably becomes one of the last unexplored areas of the game, the desire to level this gear score up becomes a deeply motivating thing. But even if you don’t wish to indulge that area of the Divison, there are still dozens of hours to devote elsewhere. I mean, I’m 40 hours into a game that I bought for ten pounds and I don’t want to stop, and I think that’s a damn good bargain. The player count isn’t as high as I would sometimes like it to be, especially when I’m trying to get through story missions on a really high difficulty and no-one is responding to my matchmaking calls, but it’s still alive enough to satisfy most social desires. 

Which is why it’s such a shame that Ubisoft do their utter damnedest to shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to marketing their games. The company and its leadership have lost themselves inside a world of meaningless expectations and promises, and long ago lost sight of what really matters to consumers. The bar isn’t set as high as they think it is, and endevouring to make the world think that they’re a bunch of shithead liars is counterproductive, especially when The Division is a standout in a number of ways. In fact, most of their games far exceed the expectations I have of them after the community savages them post-release. Ubisoft can make good games. I just wished they could come back down to earth and trust that we’ll see that. 

8/10

Very Good

[vrsystem-us]

15 BEST GRAPHICS on Modern VR Systems

we don't get to talk about VR very often but we love it when we can and we love graphics so we figured it was a good time to feature 15 VR games with some of the most insane graphics let's just get started with number 15 and talk about Vader immortal it's by far not the best-looking game on this list but it has a few key things first it's one of the better-looking games on the quest the wireless oculus device the quality and detail they cram on the headset for this game in particular is just incredibly impressive but also now that it's on the standard rift platform you could really see the graphical effort even more but the big thing I want to point out with this game is just Darth Vader himself when he walks up to you and he stares you down you can really tell they put a Hall of the budget into him he looks incredible and the sense of presence he gives off when he's standing in front of you is nothing short of amazing you really feel like it's him so we're giving the game big points for that but moving on to number 14 let's talk about red matter VR red matter VR is awesome there are a few VR games on this list that are like this but I think whew look as cool the concept is you're exploring a Space Station lab on a moon of Saturn to investigate shady secret research projects it's like an alternate universe sci-fi cold war dystopia and if something went wrong so it's up to you to figure it out it's atmospheric but it's also strikingly detailed even more than you'd expect and some of the weird evil red visual effects they use in-game are a sight to behold really check it out but next at number 13 zero caliber VR this game is impressive in a different sense I mean it looks pretty decent but it's all how it comes together as a first-person shooter you have full movement around the environment and can take cover at will it's all freedom you have big guns that you can realistically hold and interact with different parts of it and there's just lots of explosions and the game doesn't really take a hit up close some things can look kind of crappy but when it's all in motion the ambition of the game itself makes it really visually impressive it feels like you're dropped into a real first-person shooter like Call of Duty or something since you shoot things and it looks cool that's what I'm trying to say and next up at number 12 we have Arizona sunshine a game that you might think at first it's just another throwaway zombie shooter game like you see on every other app store but this one actually looks damn good once you get into it the use of lighting in just the outdoor environments and just the art style of sort of being kind of artsy but sort of realistic make this thing quite a looker and more than you'd expect especially if you're running on a decent machine aside from just the bright color and the lighting and stuff the explosion effects and some of that stuff is really really impressive this game isn't like the absolute masterpiece or anything but it is absolutely solid and consistent and just fun to look at so that's why we considered it plus honestly it's just fun as hell shooting zombies is always cool and Arizona sunshine is of the higher quality so check it out but moving over to number 11 something I really want to talk about is the gallery part of the Ember stone this is actually the follow-up to the gallery call of the star seed which was a big hit for a lot of vibe players back in the day when it first launched it's a really cool puzzle mystery adventure game which already looked damn good and the developers cloud head games really stepped it up with ember stone I just look at it now that in the game story you're entering a new ancient hidden world everything is just bigger and more fantastical within the game so the art design and the graphic line should really keep up and make up for this it really looks better than ever visually and gameplay wise it's a massive improvement over a call of the star seed and I would highly highly recommend it but next at number 10 singularity 5 it's this awesome wave shooter that I'm really hyped to talk about it looks incredible and has a great sense of style the art direction is like a crazy high-concept sci-fi kind of artsy fartsy vibe that they completely nailed from the vision to the actual execution in the game not only is it stylish though but the on-screen menus and the fonts and everything like little things are really cool too it's just you know like I said sometimes with stuff it's just really the little details and when people really pay attention to every single individual element in a game they're making I just really appreciate there are a few other games like this on this list in terms of just like wave shooter type thing but it's still worth pointing out just because it's art style is so different and eclectic now at number 9 project cars to VR I still really firmly strongly believe that racing games are the perfect style of game to really get people into VR and just show them what it can do and right now really the best showcase of that is project cars - now straight up it's not my favorite racing game by any means but the VR component is just extremely extremely well done and the fidelity is perfectly translated to the VR options and in the best ways you really feel like you're in the car and there's still a surprising amount of detail on everything kick-ass graphics are needed to be able to properly convey a good sense of speed and if that's not done right the fun factor can drop instantly thankfully though project cars 2 succeeds and then some like from that - detail - just everything you want to blow somebody's mind put a VR headset on them and put them in a racing game and like I said earlier project cars - is the one to do it with at number 8 primordial this is a weird otherworldly first-person shooter with a single-player adventure and an arcade mode and despite there being so many other VR shooters this one just feels super unique and it looks great I think primarily it's because of the scope of this dense looking world as well as definitely these weapon visuals that the guns or weird gross weapons use are hyper detailed and cool and the game makes really fun use of glowing colors and bright neons - just great great effect it was made by like two dudes it's really amazing that it looks as good but we got to give them props next at number seven let's talk about how blade we love how blade here at game ranks and it also got of the arm oh it's just a damn good looking game it was a good looking game then and putting it in VR was a weird choice but it totally works the way it's set up essentially most at a time you're acting as the camera the game is still you know in third-person perspective only the camera has some slight movement and freedom with your head in motion and stuff there are other games that do it like this but I think he'll played is just one of the best-looking ones you know there is a loss in graphical fidelity in some spots as there always is with VR but experiencing this game in front of your damn face is still really cool and the characters and a creepy environment still look great and absolutely emulate you feel of playing it the traditional way honestly however you play it maybe you're watching this you don't even have a VR headset I'll say it again play hell-blade cuz it's a really cool single-player adventure anyway let's move on next at number six in death people describe this game in death kind of like as a Dark Souls VR game and yeah that works it has a lot of like great bow and arrow gameplay in it and it's a robe light so it has a satisfying challenge loop but gameplay aside it looks really good it's been hailed as one of the best-looking VR games and I really got it in particular point out how cool the enemies look and especially the way they move and animate here this is one that you just really kind of need to see to believe in motion like it's gotta be on your face as generic as that sounds I really think it's true some of the games on this list is better off you actually seeing them in person than a YouTube video with awful compression in 1080p showing it but getting down to the final five let's talk about Batman Arkham vr this is honestly like a relatively simple Batman experience this is really freaking cool and immersive and it looks so damn good and what started out as a psvr exclusive has been ported over and it's just really goddamn awesome it looks good on every platform because it preserves the look of the Rocksteady Batman Arkham games from style tough all that gritty detail and it puts you in Batman shoes literally it has a depth and scale of Gotham rooftops where you can look down to the busy streets below but also all of Batman's gadgets and his cool clubs are recreated with a bunch of really really fun detail this game is really more of an experience you know a museum type thing but it's really awesome and impressively running in real time I played this one like well over a year ago at least and I still can't stop thinking about how good it looks but moving on to number four just a quick one lone echo lone echo is awesome the movement and zero-gravity the puzzles and seriously I can't say enough good things about this one but it also looks awesome despite the simple premise of a Space Station floating through empty endless space it's the detail in the environments the lighting and really the character models you get up close and personal with that really impressive this one might make you queasy you know but the floating around in space is so much fun and I'd really recommend it especially because it's practically a graphical powerhouse dude but next up something I'm really excited to talk about at number three is Resident Evil 7 it's one of the more impressive triple-a VR outages Capcom definitely gambled on this one it's been probably a ton of money because the entirety of Resident Evil 7 can just be played in VR first of all this makes it incredibly scary the atmosphere and the graphics are preserved enough in VR to make certain sequences of the game still feel genuinely spooky also the detail of the character models is still insanely impressive those Baker's are messed up I don't know but really this is truly a VR game on a massive budget and if you can experience it you should because they gave it their all as long as you have the stomach for it it sucks EDD it's still just a psvr exclusive but still it looks damn good now down at number two let's talk about less of an official one its ally and isolation alien isolation is a crazy looker I mean creative assembly put a ton of time into the visuals here and just support in general with the game the dark hallways atmospheric lighting emergency lights the faithful level design that just really recreate that feeling the original alien it's a no brainer for looking good when it's also strapped to your face and ER this has to be access to with mods though there were like files in the game for VR support groundwork but it never came through as official DLC or an update like ii sega didn't support but it's worth tweaking fairly easily and checking out it's very scary and very moody and I think more than anything alien fans need to get themselves in this but finally at number one we want to talk about Robo recall okay where to start on this one ooh Robo recall kind of acts as like a nice graphical showcase for Unreal Engine VR stuff but thankfully it's also fun as hell but also more importantly on this list it's an absolute looker it's got a little bit everything you know semi explorable environments with impressively detailed city streets and tall skyscrapers where the scale actually feels properly massive up close and personal you have these highly detailed robot character models that really get in your face and look pretty amazing they can be blasted with bullets and damage and you can also grab them and slowly rip them apart with your hands before your very eyes and see all that stuff happening in motion in real time is so cool everything is shiny glossy detailed sharp it's highly stylized while also just making you feel like you're really there a robo recall is something really special everybody's gonna have different opinions on like what the best looking VR games are like there are more than we can even include on this list and everybody has a different type of preference for a graphical style and art style but these games look really amazing and we just wanted to highlight them but of course for VR enthusiasts down in the comments we want to hear what you guys are up to you what are you playing what do you think looks the best what are you really in love with what's whisking you away if you learned about a new game or something like that from us clicking the like button is the best way you can show appreciation and help us out we would love that but if you're new consider subscribing and hitting that notification about in it because we put out videos every single day but hey as always thanks for watching we'll see you guys next time

https://youtu.be/Ri5HKY6nguc

[bestvrsystem-com]

15 BEST GRAPHICS on Modern VR Systems

we don't get to talk about VR very often but we love it when we can and we love graphics so we figured it was a good time to feature 15 VR games with some of the most insane graphics let's just get started with number 15 and talk about Vader immortal it's by far not the best-looking game on this list but it has a few key things first it's one of the better-looking games on the quest the wireless oculus device the quality and detail they cram on the headset for this game in particular is just incredibly impressive but also now that it's on the standard rift platform you could really see the graphical effort even more but the big thing I want to point out with this game is just Darth Vader himself when he walks up to you and he stares you down you can really tell they put a Hall of the budget into him he looks incredible and the sense of presence he gives off when he's standing in front of you is nothing short of amazing you really feel like it's him so we're giving the game big points for that but moving on to number 14 let's talk about red matter VR red matter VR is awesome there are a few VR games on this list that are like this but I think whew look as cool the concept is you're exploring a Space Station lab on a moon of Saturn to investigate shady secret research projects it's like an alternate universe sci-fi cold war dystopia and if something went wrong so it's up to you to figure it out it's atmospheric but it's also strikingly detailed even more than you'd expect and some of the weird evil red visual effects they use in-game are a sight to behold really check it out but next at number 13 zero caliber VR this game is impressive in a different sense I mean it looks pretty decent but it's all how it comes together as a first-person shooter you have full movement around the environment and can take cover at will it's all freedom you have big guns that you can realistically hold and interact with different parts of it and there's just lots of explosions and the game doesn't really take a hit up close some things can look kind of crappy but when it's all in motion the ambition of the game itself makes it really visually impressive it feels like you're dropped into a real first-person shooter like Call of Duty or something since you shoot things and it looks cool that's what I'm trying to say and next up at number 12 we have Arizona sunshine a game that you might think at first it's just another throwaway zombie shooter game like you see on every other app store but this one actually looks damn good once you get into it the use of lighting in just the outdoor environments and just the art style of sort of being kind of artsy but sort of realistic make this thing quite a looker and more than you'd expect especially if you're running on a decent machine aside from just the bright color and the lighting and stuff the explosion effects and some of that stuff is really really impressive this game isn't like the absolute masterpiece or anything but it is absolutely solid and consistent and just fun to look at so that's why we considered it plus honestly it's just fun as hell shooting zombies is always cool and Arizona sunshine is of the higher quality so check it out but moving over to number 11 something I really want to talk about is the gallery part of the Ember stone this is actually the follow-up to the gallery call of the star seed which was a big hit for a lot of vibe players back in the day when it first launched it's a really cool puzzle mystery adventure game which already looked damn good and the developers cloud head games really stepped it up with ember stone I just look at it now that in the game story you're entering a new ancient hidden world everything is just bigger and more fantastical within the game so the art design and the graphic line should really keep up and make up for this it really looks better than ever visually and gameplay wise it's a massive improvement over a call of the star seed and I would highly highly recommend it but next at number 10 singularity 5 it's this awesome wave shooter that I'm really hyped to talk about it looks incredible and has a great sense of style the art direction is like a crazy high-concept sci-fi kind of artsy fartsy vibe that they completely nailed from the vision to the actual execution in the game not only is it stylish though but the on-screen menus and the fonts and everything like little things are really cool too it's just you know like I said sometimes with stuff it's just really the little details and when people really pay attention to every single individual element in a game they're making I just really appreciate there are a few other games like this on this list in terms of just like wave shooter type thing but it's still worth pointing out just because it's art style is so different and eclectic now at number 9 project cars to VR I still really firmly strongly believe that racing games are the perfect style of game to really get people into VR and just show them what it can do and right now really the best showcase of that is project cars - now straight up it's not my favorite racing game by any means but the VR component is just extremely extremely well done and the fidelity is perfectly translated to the VR options and in the best ways you really feel like you're in the car and there's still a surprising amount of detail on everything kick-ass graphics are needed to be able to properly convey a good sense of speed and if that's not done right the fun factor can drop instantly thankfully though project cars 2 succeeds and then some like from that - detail - just everything you want to blow somebody's mind put a VR headset on them and put them in a racing game and like I said earlier project cars - is the one to do it with at number 8 primordial this is a weird otherworldly first-person shooter with a single-player adventure and an arcade mode and despite there being so many other VR shooters this one just feels super unique and it looks great I think primarily it's because of the scope of this dense looking world as well as definitely these weapon visuals that the guns or weird gross weapons use are hyper detailed and cool and the game makes really fun use of glowing colors and bright neons - just great great effect it was made by like two dudes it's really amazing that it looks as good but we got to give them props next at number seven let's talk about how blade we love how blade here at game ranks and it also got of the arm oh it's just a damn good looking game it was a good looking game then and putting it in VR was a weird choice but it totally works the way it's set up essentially most at a time you're acting as the camera the game is still you know in third-person perspective only the camera has some slight movement and freedom with your head in motion and stuff there are other games that do it like this but I think he'll played is just one of the best-looking ones you know there is a loss in graphical fidelity in some spots as there always is with VR but experiencing this game in front of your damn face is still really cool and the characters and a creepy environment still look great and absolutely emulate you feel of playing it the traditional way honestly however you play it maybe you're watching this you don't even have a VR headset I'll say it again play hell-blade cuz it's a really cool single-player adventure anyway let's move on next at number six in death people describe this game in death kind of like as a Dark Souls VR game and yeah that works it has a lot of like great bow and arrow gameplay in it and it's a robe light so it has a satisfying challenge loop but gameplay aside it looks really good it's been hailed as one of the best-looking VR games and I really got it in particular point out how cool the enemies look and especially the way they move and animate here this is one that you just really kind of need to see to believe in motion like it's gotta be on your face as generic as that sounds I really think it's true some of the games on this list is better off you actually seeing them in person than a YouTube video with awful compression in 1080p showing it but getting down to the final five let's talk about Batman Arkham vr this is honestly like a relatively simple Batman experience this is really freaking cool and immersive and it looks so damn good and what started out as a psvr exclusive has been ported over and it's just really goddamn awesome it looks good on every platform because it preserves the look of the Rocksteady Batman Arkham games from style tough all that gritty detail and it puts you in Batman shoes literally it has a depth and scale of Gotham rooftops where you can look down to the busy streets below but also all of Batman's gadgets and his cool clubs are recreated with a bunch of really really fun detail this game is really more of an experience you know a museum type thing but it's really awesome and impressively running in real time I played this one like well over a year ago at least and I still can't stop thinking about how good it looks but moving on to number four just a quick one lone echo lone echo is awesome the movement and zero-gravity the puzzles and seriously I can't say enough good things about this one but it also looks awesome despite the simple premise of a Space Station floating through empty endless space it's the detail in the environments the lighting and really the character models you get up close and personal with that really impressive this one might make you queasy you know but the floating around in space is so much fun and I'd really recommend it especially because it's practically a graphical powerhouse dude but next up something I'm really excited to talk about at number three is Resident Evil 7 it's one of the more impressive triple-a VR outages Capcom definitely gambled on this one it's been probably a ton of money because the entirety of Resident Evil 7 can just be played in VR first of all this makes it incredibly scary the atmosphere and the graphics are preserved enough in VR to make certain sequences of the game still feel genuinely spooky also the detail of the character models is still insanely impressive those Baker's are messed up I don't know but really this is truly a VR game on a massive budget and if you can experience it you should because they gave it their all as long as you have the stomach for it it sucks EDD it's still just a psvr exclusive but still it looks damn good now down at number two let's talk about less of an official one its ally and isolation alien isolation is a crazy looker I mean creative assembly put a ton of time into the visuals here and just support in general with the game the dark hallways atmospheric lighting emergency lights the faithful level design that just really recreate that feeling the original alien it's a no brainer for looking good when it's also strapped to your face and ER this has to be access to with mods though there were like files in the game for VR support groundwork but it never came through as official DLC or an update like ii sega didn't support but it's worth tweaking fairly easily and checking out it's very scary and very moody and I think more than anything alien fans need to get themselves in this but finally at number one we want to talk about Robo recall okay where to start on this one ooh Robo recall kind of acts as like a nice graphical showcase for Unreal Engine VR stuff but thankfully it's also fun as hell but also more importantly on this list it's an absolute looker it's got a little bit everything you know semi explorable environments with impressively detailed city streets and tall skyscrapers where the scale actually feels properly massive up close and personal you have these highly detailed robot character models that really get in your face and look pretty amazing they can be blasted with bullets and damage and you can also grab them and slowly rip them apart with your hands before your very eyes and see all that stuff happening in motion in real time is so cool everything is shiny glossy detailed sharp it's highly stylized while also just making you feel like you're really there a robo recall is something really special everybody's gonna have different opinions on like what the best looking VR games are like there are more than we can even include on this list and everybody has a different type of preference for a graphical style and art style but these games look really amazing and we just wanted to highlight them but of course for VR enthusiasts down in the comments we want to hear what you guys are up to you what are you playing what do you think looks the best what are you really in love with what's whisking you away if you learned about a new game or something like that from us clicking the like button is the best way you can show appreciation and help us out we would love that but if you're new consider subscribing and hitting that notification about in it because we put out videos every single day but hey as always thanks for watching we'll see you guys next time

https://youtu.be/Ri5HKY6nguc

[topmixtrends]

THE HEADQUARTERS of the San Francisco Chronicle announces itself with a six-story clock tower; the whole edifice looms above Mission Street like a clipper ship with lighted portholes. I used to work there on the nightshift.

While my friends wrote UNIX code and got rich on stock options during the belle époque of the year 2000, I wrote about drug homicides and late-running meetings at City Hall for low pay inside an old-line newsroom. I also fielded phone calls from cranks.

This was part of my job. For every hundred people who calls up a newspaper at 9:00 p.m. wanting coverage of their garden show the next day or an investigative reporter to look into the rotten oysters sold at the fish counter of the Food King, there’s one who might have a tip worth pursuing.

One of these calls came from an abrasive guy with a New Jersey accent. He had a theory on the Zodiac Killer he wanted me to see. He’d be in town soon and wanted to talk about how he had — single-handedly — solved the notorious case, which was then about four decades stale from its first murder. Police had long since given up on it; the killer would be elderly, if he were even still alive.

The homicides had electrified California in the late 1960s, but that period was about as antique to the Chronicle’s newsroom as the 1906 earthquake. This weird call should have been prime hang-up material, but I kept talking to the guy, whose name was Mike Rodelli and whose theory turned out to be remarkably cinematic.

He told me the Zodiac Killer was still living, and not in squalor or obscurity, but at the levels of beau monde San Francisco society. He was a wealthy sports-car dealer, a horse-breeder, and a philanthropist who slept in a Presidio Heights mansion, but from December 1968 until October 1969, he had lived a murderous double life, stalking lovers’ lanes around the Bay Area and killing at least five people.

Rodelli told me he was traveling out to town in that spring to meet with a fellow amateur Zodiac investigator and asked if I would meet with him. He promised more details. He said I would have little doubt in his theory once I saw the proof. I equivocated, telling him that it would be dependent on whether there was breaking news that night. But part of me felt compelled to hear him out. Sure, I said. Come see me at the Chronicle when you’re out here.

And so in April, I sat with Rodelli — a trim guy with the perfect everyman look of a spy — in the third-floor conference room after all the desk editors had gone home and the newsroom was practically deserted. He explained how he zeroed in on his suspect, and I had to admit that it was ingenious.

Like Jack the Ripper before him, Zodiac had distinguished himself from more obscure serial killers by sending handwritten letters to the newspaper that read like a combination of insane babble, soaring egotism, and a coy scattering of facts that were either clues or red herrings.

“This is the Zodiac speaking,” he wrote to the editor of the Chronicle on October 13, 1969, with his customary salutation.

I am the murderer of the taxi driver over by Washington St. + Maple St. last night, to prove this here is a blood stained piece of his shirt. […] School children make nice targets, I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning. Just shoot out the front tire + then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out.

The killer wrote at least 20 of these letters (a few are of disputed authenticity) in the same block handwriting before they faded away after 1974. Rodelli’s insight was that a person so accustomed to writing imperious notes to the newspaper must have also been in the habit of doing so under his real name. So he asked an associate in the Bay Area to search the Chronicle’s files on microfiche until he came across one that matched the Zodiac’s literary style.

On June 26, 1969, a wealthy car importer of Norwegian descent named Kjell Qvale wrote to the editor complaining that the paper was supporting “militants and lawbreakers” and warning of a “bloody confrontation” if society didn’t shape up. This rant might be read as a reactionary piece of fretting typical of the late 1960s, but Rodelli saw an ominous voice. He learned everything he could about the author, spoke to him directly, concluded he was likely the Zodiac Killer, and has compiled 18 years of painstaking research into a book recently published on Kindle: The Hunt for Zodiac: The Inconceivable Double Life of a Notorious Serial Killer.

After discovering the forgotten Chronicle letter, Rodelli’s next logical step was to find a photograph of Qvale from the late 1960s to compare it to the best police sketch taken from witnesses who saw him fleeing from his final murder.

Qvale’s home in Pacific Heights was a few blocks from where the cabdriver had been murdered. Rodelli then tried to trap Qvale into giving him a handwriting sample by sending him an innocuous question through the mail. But he received only a typed note in response. Curiously enough, it was written on an unusual trim size of stationery known as Monarch — a bit smaller than ordinary typing paper — that had been the same kind favored by the Zodiac in his letters to the newspapers.

Rodelli had passed his thick file — along with the envelope from Qvale with what he hoped would contain fingerprints and saliva DNA — to the San Francisco police. They only brushed him off, as had the Napa County Sheriff’s Office. I couldn’t blame them. Here was one of an estimated 3,000 suspects that had been suggested by detectives and amateurs alike over the last 30 years, in a once-glitzy case whose evidence had been shoved into lockers long ago. Qvale was also not your average homicide suspect: he had been one of the West Coast’s biggest importers of MGs, Jaguars, Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, and Austin-Healeys.

But Rodelli’s obsession and the enduring interest in the case gave me the hook I needed for a feature article on how amateur investigators keep the memory of the Zodiac alive. I was, of course, 30 years late to the story, but what struck me most while recapping all this was how lame these actual murders were compared to the level of thought Zodiac had put into creating a public persona. Two teenagers shot in their car in Benicia, California; a similar slaying in Vallejo, California, in which the killer emptied bullets into a car in a lovers’ lane; a picnicking couple at a lake attacked by a costumed man wielding a knife; a final execution-style murder of a San Francisco cabbie. In the heartless logic that governs media attention, these wouldn’t have gotten much attention from the newspapers. But the pure weirdness of the way Zodiac talked about himself gave it marquee status. I found a criminal behavior specialist who told me: “In no way was he a genius, except as a marketing genius.” Like the Manson family murders in Los Angeles, they caught a wave of social anxiety about the permissiveness and liberalization of the 1960s. The gleeful nihilism of the anonymous killer, as expressed in his creepy letters, seemed like the face of evil that resisted all negotiation or explanation.

Now I was in the position of having to go down to Qvale’s luxury automobile dealership on Van Ness Avenue without calling in advance and asking him the equivalent of, “Um, excuse me, I’m from the Chronicle and I was wondering if there was any chance you might happen to be the Zodiac Killer?” That day, I told several people where I was going to be before walking over to the showroom and taking a deep breath.

I told the receptionist who I was, asked to speak with the boss, and Qvale came out a few minutes later, an affable-looking silver-haired man of means, 81 years old. I asked him if we might go into a side office, where, embarrassed and guilty, I told him of Rodelli’s accusation and asked for a response.

He paused, then stood up, stretched his hands out in front of him, and rubbed them together. Then he began to pace back and forth, his lips thin. I wondered if this could be seen as a sign of guilt. I also wondered if I would have reacted any differently if, out of the blue, somebody from the metropolitan newspaper had — in effect — accused me of committing a notorious murder outside my own house.

Finally, Qvale laughed. “You can’t find anybody in this city that’s less likely to be the Zodiac Killer than me,” he said. “I haven’t hit anybody since I was a kid. It’s goofy.” He said of Rodelli: “He has nothing. This is all circumstantial nonsense in his eyes. I have a lot of assets to bring to bear, and that son of a bitch is going to be sorry he did it.” I wrote about this.

Qvale never did sue Rodelli. In fact, he agreed to meet him in person five years after I left the Chronicle. Over the phone, he displayed the same affability and charm that he had shown me in person, as though he were cheerfully giving street directions to a young man who had lost his way. Rodelli described these conversations “like old friends renewing acquaintances.”

But he wasn’t as friendly in person on September 27, 2006, when Rodelli went into the dealership, along with a retired detective from the Vallejo police named Jim Dean. They came forearmed with one of the truly rare elements of the Zodiac story: a new fragment of information. An SFPD officer named Armond Pelissetti, who had canvassed the neighborhood the night of the cab driver’s murder, had confirmed he briefly had spoken that night with a man out walking his dog, asked him if he had seen anything unusual, and then moved on. He indicated the dog walker had been Qvale.

Then followed a truly bizarre meeting, in which Rodelli first apologized to Qvale for the nature of the conversation and then hit him with the entire investigative file, running him through a series of questions. Qvale said it wasn’t him that the officer talked to that night, as he hardly ever walked his dog; he claimed never to have touched a firearm, despite serving in World War II; he said he had “no idea” where he was on the dates of the other murders that didn’t happen near his house; that he didn’t even read the thick report of circumstantial evidence that Rodelli had compiled for him. There wasn’t much to go on, but Rodelli found him slippery on details, and not vigorously protesting his innocence. But what was he supposed to do? That seemed to be that.

Qvale died in 2013, four years after having taken up piano lessons at the age of 90. The New York Times eulogized him as “one of the earliest American importers of European cars, ultimately selling a million automobiles as a distributor and dealer.” Having failed to persuade any law enforcement agency to interrogate him, Rodelli decided to marshal together all his research into the Kindle where it can be considered an artifact of crime history, one of the most impressive public briefs ever compiled on the approximately 2,500 people who have been identified as Zodiac suspects, both during the red-hot period of the active investigation and the inevitable chill that followed.

This is probably the right place to disclose that I have stayed in occasional touch with Rodelli via email and gave him some advice as to how to find a literary agent. He also described my Chronicle interview with Qvale in his narrative. When his book published, I gave it a nice review on Amazon. Because if nothing else, it serves a monument to persistence and a record of dogged tenacity.

Rodelli studied to be an oceanographer and spent a few years mucking about in Malaysian swamps looking for mangroves before he found a career in telecommunications, and later in advertising copywriting. The logical cast of his mind helped inform his research.

He has vacuumed up every available scrap of information about Qvale from the public record and put it on display. We learn about his birth in Trondheim, Norway (whoa — an official sister city to Vallejo, a Zodiac murder site), his automobile business (he autographed a few cars with a felt pen, just like the murderer), loads of head-spinning details about significant dates in his life (two murders happened on the anniversaries of his parent’s dates of deaths), the geometry of his Presidio Heights neighborhood (a little similar to the killer’s drawing of a bus bomb), even the exterior pattern on one of his car factories in Italy (which looks sort of like the murderer’s logo). For an amateur investigator, Rodelli is more thorough than most district attorneys, and for an amateur writer, he tells a thoroughly absorbing story of sifting through obscure records and playing a cat-and-mouse game that lasts 18 years.

Part of what makes it all so appealing is Rodelli’s mixture of obsessive drive combined with a surprising humility. He acknowledges at several points when he is out of his depth — he admits he is no trained interrogator when he goes to face Qvale and wishes at many points that the actual police would take over for him. He does not arrogantly proclaim that he has solved the case; only that he believes his suspect to be especially compelling. A reader senses his discomfort at possessing a conviction that others have not embraced. This makes his incomplete journey of discovery almost as compelling as the Zodiac himself — a rare literary act in the true crime genre, which tends to demand neat endings and clearly defined characters.

This isn’t to say that his book is perfect. There is seemingly no detail of Qvale’s life that doesn’t seem shaded for maximum ominous value, down to the names of his racehorses Gun Barrel and Skystalker. As the protagonist of his own detective story, Rodelli also creates an overcooked sense of melodrama around his discoveries. “I felt a chill suddenly pass through me,” he writes at one point. “The hair on the back of my neck immediately stood up,” he says another time. Through most of the book, however, he keeps a check on the pulpy prose and builds his case from fact.

What always appealed to me about Rodelli’s thesis — from a strictly literary point of view, as opposed to anything forensic — was the way it linked the nastiest elements of society to the aristocrats, a bit like the 1996 graphic novel From Hell, which postulated that Jack the Ripper, who stalked prostitutes in the scuzzy Whitechapel neighborhood, was one of Queen Victoria’s physicians. It weirdly speaks to the hidden unity of a population — the aristocrats are intrinsically connected with the dregs, no matter how much wealth and segregation may divide them.

Another compelling feature, common to all Zodiac resurrections: The case is firmly embedded in the distinct anxieties and contradictions of late 1960s San Francisco, which was a conservative and conventional town in many ways, despite the famous hippie superstructure. The Zodiac’s world is a lost one of rotary dial phones, ubiquitous cigarettes, men’s sideburns, plaid jackets, lovers’ lanes, jazzy speech, and bulbous car hoods. It was also an era in which physical newspapers were king, and readers hung on their content.

Mystery novels in which the killer leaves riddles, codes, or some version of a scavenger hunt also owe their modernist inspiration to the Zodiac, whose very name taps into an arcane demi-world of secret meanings and gnostic texts. The four ciphers he sent to Bay Area newspapers were full of strange symbols. Only one of them was ever cracked, significantly not by police but by a schoolteacher in Salinas. It reads like the rant of an uneducated psychopath. Here is the text, complete with misspellings:

I like killing people because it is so much fun it is more fun than killing wild game in the forrest because man is the most dangeroue anamal of all to kill something gives me the most thrilling experence it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl the best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the (people) I have killed will become my slaves I will not give you my name because you will try to slow down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife

This fantasy does not sound like one coming from a suave and educated importer of luxury cars, one who could charm even the eccentrics who walked into his marbled showroom. But perhaps such a gifted actor had the ability to shift his range for a particular audience, adopting the literary style of a murderous lunatic — with strangely British tics like “rather” and “the most” — even as he lived as a ordinary public citizen?

Whoever the Zodiac may have been, he deployed a similar obtuse and taunting tone in his uncoded letters. He filled them with enough eccentric tidbits to give armchair investigators a lifetime of leads to chase: references to the musical The Mikado and the novel Don Quixote; an eerie postcard sent to the Chronicle with the legends “peek through the pines” and “sought victims”; hints that future murder scenes could be determined by following radians keyed to the peak of Mount Diablo; a pleading letter to celebrity attorney Melvin Belli; brags about his victims; promises to wipe out more if the public didn’t start wearing lapel buttons with his trademark circle and crosshairs logo. When he killed a woman and severely wounded her male companion on the shores of Lake Berryessa, he wore a white KKK-like costume bearing this logo. Then he penned a note on the car door, noting the dates of previous killings: Vallejo 12-20-68, 7-4-69 Sept 27—69—6:30 by knife.

Like many of the amateur Zodiac investigators, Rodelli got hooked on the case not from contemporaneous memories — he was 13 when most of it was going on — but from a book published in 1987, the foundational Zodiac: The Shocking True Story of the Nation’s Most Bizarre Mass Murderer by former Chronicle editorial cartoonist Robert Graysmith, which has sold nearly four million copies.

Graysmith worked in the noirish clipper ship of the Chronicle building when the letters began arriving. His book is structured like a timeline, progressing from the first canonical shooting at Lake Herman Road on December 20, 1968, all the way to the frustrating fizzile as the killings stopped, the letters halted, and the era faded away.

“At first, I was merely fascinated by the purely visual qualities of Zodiac’s symbols,” he writes in the introduction. “Then, gradually, a resolve grew within me to unravel the killer’s clues, to discover his true identity, and failing that, at least to present every scrap of evidence available so that someday someone might recognize the Zodiac killer.”

Graysmith’s book was the source material for the 2007 film Zodiac, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr. One of its most fascinating elements to me is the role played by time. The active period of the murders lasted no more than 16 months, but the speculation, frustration, and the pursuit of thin leads continues to this day. Characters in the film seem to age before us; they sift the same evidentiary sand with the same disappointing results. The Zodiac mystery never resolves. Perhaps this is a part of his evergreen lure.

I don’t think that it is a coincidence that Graysmith’s narrative spends only its first third in the 1968–’69 period when the murders were actually taking place. The bulk of the book — and the secret of the enduring interest in the Zodiac — lies in the ensuing quietude, and the dreadful chasm of the future. As Graysmith points out, the killer was almost caught multiple times and seemed, via his letters, to wish for a spectacular capture and a show trial. But it never happened. He may have been killed by accident or suicide. Or he may have faded into retirement like Wichita’s BTK Killer or Sacramento’s Golden State Killer after his psychosis ran out of youthful fuel. What’s left is a sizable cottage industry dedicated to him that thrives on the open question. There are now at least half a dozen websites and message boards that get regular traffic from armchair investigators and at least 35 published nonfiction books about the case, many of which feature the killer’s cross-and-circle logo on the cover, some of them which put forward various suspects. Graysmith himself was convinced Zodiac was really an oil refinery worker named Arthur Leigh Allen. He also hypothesized that up to 44 unsolved Bay Area killings — most of them with women as victims — might have been the handicraft of his subject.

The San Francisco police thought they might still be holding a thin fragment of his biological essence — some old DNA recovered from possible saliva on the stamp and envelope of one of his letters. Such technology wasn’t available in the era of rotary phones and leaded gasoline when the murders were taking place. But the San Francisco police have since acknowledged that the DNA sample appears to be “background” material that could have come from any of the hundred hands that touched the letter, and that Zodiac might not have ever licked his own stamps.

“If there is one key word for the entire story of the Zodiac mystery, it is obsession,” wrote Graysmith. One of his closest readers, Mike Rodelli, has poured much of his life into pursuing a theory he believes correct, in hopes of finally answering a great American riddle that remains officially unanswered.

When I first met him in the Chronicle conference room, he was 44; he is now 62. Most of the key investigators and witnesses are dead, and those that remain have fuzzy memories. If the killer himself is still alive, he would be 85 at the very youngest. And unless Qvale left a diary of his purported crimes in an attic somewhere, or if the police of the distant future are somehow able to do a better DNA analysis of the Zodiac letters and match it to Qvale’s relatives, Rodelli will never live to see his suspicions either validated or dismissed for certain.

After having gone over Rodelli’s voluminous file representing 18 years of digging, do I think that the affable — even presidential — Kjell Qvale could have been living a double life and been out killing teenagers when he wasn’t selling Bentleys? I don’t know. I’ll probably never know. The ambiguity has kept the story of the Zodiac alive for half a century, and the enduring dilemma — an answer dangling just out of sight — recalls that of the 2001 film The Pledge in which a police detective played by Jack Nicholson makes a promise to grieving parents to catch their daughter’s killer, and spends decades chasing a suspect only to lose him in the end. The viewers of the film are permitted to know what the protagonist isn’t: he was right all along.

In an even broader sense, this frustration captures man’s existential dilemma in a Platonic universe of unknowable absolutes. Truth exists. Answers exist. A hard foundation of reality exists underneath a concealing fog. But humans will not always see it.

¤

Tom Zoellner is the Politics Editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books.

The post The Serial Killer as a Marketing Genius appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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[silviajburke]

Trump’s Secret Meeting (Today) Could CRUSH The EPA

This post Trump’s Secret Meeting (Today) Could CRUSH The EPA appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

Today, while most of the financial world is focused on Janet Yellen and her miniscule interest rate hike, Trump is sneaking out the back door.

The Commander in Chief is hopping on Air Force One and leaving Washington.

You probably won’t hear much about Trump’s meeting today. That’s because the media will be hanging on every word coming out of Janet Yellen’s mouth. But Trump’s purpose today will have far more long-term impact than any statement the Fed Chairman could make…

Trump’s Clandestine Trip to Detroit

Today, President Trump will be traveling to Detroit to meet with top executives from the auto manufacturing industry. The meeting is something of an “11th hour intervention” to save as many as 600,000 jobs!

So if this meeting is likely to have such a great impact on saving jobs, why would Trump schedule it on the same day as the Federal Reserve rate hike?

I’ll tell you why…

It’s because this meeting is likely to embolden some of Trump’s most powerful (and verbal) enemies. The meeting could trigger a new wave of protests across America. The meeting could even lead to new supreme court cases challenging its agenda.

Trump isn’t backing down on his pro-jobs agenda.

But it appears that he’s willing to be a bit more subtle about this sensitive meeting… Scheduling it on a day when so much of the media will be distracted elsewhere.

So what is this 11th hour meeting in Detroit all about? And more importantly, how can you profit from it?

Let’s take a look…

Trump’s Campaign Against the EPA

The agenda for Trump’s meeting today is to discuss environmental regulations for cars sold in the U.S.. These regulations were recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency and signed into law by Obama.

Today, auto manufacturers are struggling to figure out how to meet these regulations which require gradual improvement in the average miles per gallon of vehicles sold. According to the regulations, vehicles will need to average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

New standards have already taken effect with the companies’ 2017 models and will be increased gradually over the next 8 years.1

Auto makers worry that these stringent regulations will not only hurt profits. They will also lead to higher vehicle prices and threaten as many as 600,000 jobs!2

Now I have to say that I’m all for protecting our environment.

After all, I’m the father of a big family, and I want to leave my children with a clean, vibrant and beautiful planet. Heck, I even drive an emission-free electric vehicle!

But I think most of us can agree that the EPA has taken things too far. In the name of protecting our environment, the EPA has placed stringent regulations on many American companies.

Take the “Renewable Fuel Standard” also known as ethanol mandates, for example..

Whoever cooked up the idea in Washington to put inefficient “corn-fuel” into cars is insane (oh, wait, I know who it is… it’s cash-rich corn lobbyists and over-zealous democrats. )

Not only is ethanol inefficient (in the sense that the amount of energy that goes into getting a gallon of ethanol is about as much or more energy than you’ll ever get out!), but in some cases ethanol can gum up small engines or harm fuel storage.

Regulations like this can kill jobs. They have hurt real families. And I believe they have stifled creativity and innovation that could ultimately have led to better standards that ultimately do more to protect our environment.

Think about this for a moment…

If the EPA regulations really do put 600,000 jobs at risk and cause new vehicle prices to move higher, what do you think will happen?

I’ll tell you!

The economy will weaken because of the lost jobs. And in a weak economy, fewer people buy new cars. At the same time, higher new car prices will make it even MORE difficult for average Americans to buy new cars.

So what we will have is a nation that continues to drive older, less fuel-efficient cars out of necessity. Which means the EPA’s regulations will actually do more harm than good!

Whew! Sorry for the rant there. But hopefully you get my point.

And look…

I’m not saying Trump is going to end the ethanol mandate in today’s meeting, or any time soon — but he has gone on record about “draining the swamp” so we could soon see some pushback on the EPA.

Trump’s meeting today should be a big step towards deregulation or new alternative regulations that both stimulate the economy, and also protect our environment in a reasonable manner.

The “EPA SQUEEZE” Is On — Here’s Who Wins…

Let’s get off the subject of the EPA. I’m sure I’ve given some of you enough fodder to send me hate mail. (And I’d love it if those of you who agree with me would chime in too! Email me at EdgeFeedback@AgoraFinancial.com)

Today, I want to show you three great companies that could benefit from Trump’s Clandestine meeting in Detroit.

Auto manufacturers are going to thrive under President Trump’s administration.

There’s just no getting around it!

A pro-jobs agenda will leave more Americans with reliable income. And that means more car buying for years to come. Meanwhile, relaxed EPA standards should help boost profits and keep cars affordable.

And all of that will push car manufacturer stocks higher.

This is a great time to invest in car manufacturers. That’s because shares are relatively cheap. And that’s partly because investors are worried about environmental regulations.

When those regulations are loosened, I expect to see these stocks shoot sharply higher.

Here are the three best stocks you should consider.

General Motors (GM) — General Motors currently has a dividend yield above 4%, and the company is expected to earn $6.16 per share this year. That means GM is making plenty of cash and should be able to increase its dividend for years to come. The stock is trading near $37 which is a great value compared to GM’s profits.

Ford Motor (F) — Ford has an even higher dividend (near 4.8%) and Wall Street analysts expect the company to earn $1.71 per share this year. With a stock price near $12.50, you’re getting a great deal on Ford. And as the U.S. economy continues to grow and Americans buy cars, Ford should trade much higher.

Fiat Chrysler (FCAU) — While Fiat is technically based in the United Kingdom, the company’s Dodge and Chrysler brands are very popular in the U.S. This stock is a bit more speculative as Fiat does not pay a dividend. But lighter U.S. regulations could boost sales and send FCAU sharply higher this year.

I’ll be watching for media coverage of this event and I hope to update you with good news for these stocks very soon!

Here’s to growing and protecting your wealth!

Zach Scheidt Editor, The Daily Edge EdgeFeedback@AgoraFinancial.com

1 EPA rushes to finish MPG regs before Trump takes office, Keith Laing, The Detroit News 2 Trump to Head to Detroit as EPA Reopening Review of Fuel-Economy Targets, Mike Spector, The Wall Street Journal

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