#like Europe is insanely classist still

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

Speaking as someone who has no option but the sky sports commentary, if you don't think they're biased you're wrong. I've watched F1 my entire life so just over two decades. The rights have changed from ITV to BBC to Sky in that time and the bias has always been there but as Sky Sports has the main English speaking F1 content in the age of social media, the bias is significantly more harmful.

Fans get to be biased. Commentary is supposed to be unbiased and impartial. Yes a driver's home country's commentary will undoubtedly be biased in favor of them and no commentary is completely free from bullshit takes, however the British commentary is held up as the "proper" one, it caters to more of the fan base than any other and is heralded as the home of F1. They continuously spread misinformation, are unable to remain impartial for the roughly two hours of races we get and are unable to not stir shit for views. British drivers and teams that have British drivers are held to a completely different standard.

And it's not just Red Bull or Max affected. I'm basically crying out for literally any info on the likes of Alex, Mick, Zhou, Yuki etc during race weekends but no I have to hear more about how Mercedes might actually have a chance at a win this time out which they've already discussed multiple times prior. Mercedes tend to get a free pass from criticism from the British commentators. Had any other team had "we deal with it in house" strategy in regards to punishing their drivers, the British commentators would absolutely lose it. But Toto giving stern talkings to Nico and Lewis whenever they crashed each other out (Spain 2016 for example) and to George after Imola 2021 (where he without question should've been held accountable by the FIA for hitting a fellow driver in the head after a crash when said driver's condition was still in question) is fine and goes by without question. Had say Ferrari pestered the FIA long enough in order to change rules and regulations (see changing the flooring regulations mid season this year or the pit stop rules mid season last year), they would be dogged by criticism and allegations of cheating. They've been silent about Mercedes doing the aforementioned. Meanwhile one of the alpha tauris or alpines or alfa romeos are starting from the pits but it's not deemed important enough to explain why until literally the last minute and we're getting underway. The way they talk about the likes of Checo and Yuki in particular have been disgusting and beyond insulting. It's far from impartial and it's nothing like real journalism. They criticize the FIA if they don't like a penalty (especially if it affects a British driver negatively) but, apart from Jenson Button, none of them saw the need to talk about the issue of the tractor on track during wet conditions with racing continuing under yellow flags at Suzuka. They often take quotes out of context to fit their narrative and often spread misinformation in order to uphold that narrative.

Some of you are too young or didn't watch F1 during the Schumi days or red bull era! Seb, but as someone who watched both and everything in-between and after, little has changed in regards to that bias. But as I've said before it's significantly worse in the age of social media. You're never free from trolls but spreading this bias as gospel truth leads to people believing it as such. The amount of harm that causes is horrific. I've seen racial abuse, death threats, body shaming, outright misogyny, and so much worse, directed at many drivers and many fans of said drivers both online and irl. They rightfully called it out at Austria. Yet they were almost entirely silent at Monza and at Silverstone. You don't get to cherry pick when it matters because it might fit your narrative because it always does matter and it is always wrong no matter who is directly affected or involved. No circuit or fanbase is perfect or free from bad eggs but to say that it was one driver's entire fanbase one weekend and that it was "just a few bad eggs" the next because it's a different driver's fanbase spreading abuse is clear evidence of inherent bias and double standards. You cannot pretend to be impartial while doing this.

I'm not going to sit here and say I'm without bias because I'm not. I don't have to be, however, because I'm a fan, not a commentator. They should be impartial for the length of the race weekend and be able to give an unbiased analysis on every driver and team. Can you honestly tell me that they are able to do so? I can set aside my biases and acknowledge if the drivers I support messed up or if a driver I'm generally indifferent to (I don't hate any driver, I don't get how people are so obsessed with hating on drivers they dislike) did well. I don't believe they can do the same, if they ever could because they've gone unchecked for years.

Also Sky Sports is the channel that used horrific crashes in ads to wish people a merry Christmas last year. They pulled the ad after rightfully receiving heavy criticism but I don't know if they ever apologized for it. I personally doubt it.

[loganscanons]

Jacques & Ursula + Their Relationship and History

Important Side Characters:

Johannes Wendler: Born into a vampire family similar to the Caligos in the 600s. He’s estranged from the family in the 900s. Goes by several different names, but Jacques knows him as Johannes Wendler.

Ruprecht Von Dressler: Born in the 1460s to a wealthy and powerful family in what is now Germany. He’s obsessed with the occult and supernatural. In 1489, he meets Johannes, who initially intends to just toy with Ruprecht. They end up falling in love and Johannes decides to turn him. Ruprecht turns both Ursula and Jacques.

Laura Wood: Jacques’ wife. They marry in 1825. In 1837, Laura is murdered, and Jacques goes on a killing spree before spending the next 16 years being an outlaw.

Jacques & Ursula’s Relationship

They don’t like each other, but they do have that special bond created when two people plan and carry out a man’s death together.

Jacques thinks Ursula is stuck-up, self-centered, and a bitch. She also thinks she’s gorgeous but that’s beside the point. She does respect Ursula, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that Jacques was a servant for the de Bourbon family and less to do with whether Ursula is actually deserving of her respect.

Ursula thinks Jacques is poor and beneath her and not even that pretty, so why did Ruprecht even take interest in her in the first place? Ursula gets more tolerant toward gay people, but she’s still personally offended anytime a gay man isn’t interested in her, and she really doesn’t get why Jacques is interested in women when men exist.

Jacques doesn’t get Ursula’s infatuation with men.

Though Ursula would sooner die than admit this, she does respect Jacques. She’s impressed by what Jacques has accomplished, especially because she’s a servant girl.

Ursula will disparage Jacques and say negative things about her but if anyone says something negative about Jacques to her, she starts feeling little murderous toward that person. It doesn’t usually result in actual murder, but that person is definitely on her bad side.

Jacques doesn’t say negative things about Ursula generally but if someone says something negative about Ursula, she’s usually like “You’re not wrong”

They’re each other’s only connections to their pre-vampire life, and that keeps them on good terms. They tolerate each other and know that the other person would probably (albeit reluctantly) be there for them.

Their history below the cut b/c it’s v long

Becoming Vampires

In the 1520s, Ruprecht suggests to Johannes that they build their own vampire family comparable to Johannes’s original family. Johannes is like “but they suck and also u can’t have kids” and Ruprecht is like “I don’t want kids. We’ll just turn them ourselves and have an army of vampire allies” and Johannes is like “ok bet”

Ruprecht and Johannes turn a few people in the late 1520s and early 1530s, choosing to seduce and romance the people before turning them in an attempt to ensure loyalty and affection from the new vampires.

In 1537, Ruprecht sees Jacques (19) for the first time and is like “I want her.” Jacques has no desire to get involved in the life of a nobleman and ignores him as politely as possible. He can’t get near her bc Jacques’s mother is convinced Ruprecht is a life-draining demon and makes her do a bunch of things to ward him off.

Since he was born a vampire and not turned, Johannes is not as affected by the wards and starts courting her in 1538. Over the next several months, Johannes convinces Jacques to stop taking her mother’s wards so seriously. He presents himself as a servant, and though she’s not actually interested in romance (she’s actually just not interested in men, but she doesn’t realize that yet), she figures getting married is in her best interest and doesn’t resist his advances.

Jacques is a servant for Ursula’s family. While Johannes is busy trying to get Jacques to let her guard down, Ruprecht turns his sight on Ursula (24, almost 25).

Ruprecht starts courting Ursula and a few months later, starts feeding off of her. She believes she’s dying. She laments that her and Ruprecht’s love affair is being cut short by her impending death. Ruprecht reveals that he’s a vampire and offers to turn her so they can be together ~forever~.

At this point, Ruprecht and Johannes have turned several people, and Ruprecht is confident in himself and their little harem. He doesn’t tell Ursula about his other lovers before turning her because stupidly, he’s not concerned about the possible consequences of turning a lovesick, entitled, rich girl.

A couple weeks after turning Ursula, Ruprecht turns Jacques.

Johannes is more careful than Ruprecht and suggests easing Ursula into the idea of being part of a vampire harem. If it had been up to him, they wouldn’t have turned Ursula at all. She’s too volatile.

When Jacques wakes up as a vampire, she’s furious, betrayed, and hurt. She’d always had a lot of internal anger and frustration, but Johannes and Ruprecht didn’t realize that. From the moment she wakes up, she starts planning her revenge. She lets Johannes and Ruprecht introduce her to the harem and pretends like she’s content to be there.

She realizes that Ursula, who supposedly died a couple weeks ago, was likely turned into a vampire too. She finds Ursula hidden in a house that Ruprecht owns, where he’s keeping her until Johannes is confident that Ursula won’t snap if they tell her the truth about the harem. Jacques never interacted with Ursula much, but she knew from other servants what Ursula was like. She tells her the truth about Ruprecht and Johannes and convinces Ursula that she’s on her side.

Ursula is pissed for many reasons. She wants to be the only object of Ruprecht’s affections. She’s also classist and homophobic, so she’s extra pissed that Ruprecht took interest in Jacques, a poor servant girl, and is in love with Johannes, a man.

Jacques and Ursula team up to kill Ruprecht and Johannes. They have to kill a few of the other vampires in the harem who try to protect them, but neither of them are broken up about that. Ursula kills Ruprecht in a very brutal and messy way, making sure he feels plenty of pain before he dies.

Johannes escapes before they’re able to kill him. They spend a few weeks trying to track him down, but they lose his trail and decide to part ways.

Wandering Years

Ursula and Jacques both spend a few centuries wandering. Ursula moves around France, and eventually around other areas in Europe, marrying men whom she inevitably kills.

Jacques searches for a cure to vampirism while also trying to track down Johannes. In the early 1770s, Jacques finds a witch that grants her the ability to survive in sunlight. Shortly after that, she moves to the New England area of the U.S.

Around the same time, Ursula decides to move to the U.S. She’s suspected of murdering her past three husbands and decides it’s best to leave Europe for a while.

Ursula marries a man in Massachusetts. This is the first time since the 16th century that Ursula and Jacques are in the same area. They have a few meetings, but they mostly run in different circles and don’t see much of each other. Jacques is presenting as a man, which Ursula thinks is weird.  

Jacques finds out that Ursula has been trying to track down Johannes for as long as Jacques has. Ursula doesn’t hate Johannes the way that Jacques does, but she sees him being alive as their job being unfinished.

Jacques falls in love with a woman named Catherine Williams. When Ursula finds out about this, she’s like “uhh Jacques you know you’re not actually a man, right? How’s this going to work?” and Jacques, in denial about being gay is like, “I’m just playing the part of a man!” but she’s also like “oh fuck this won’t work out what will happen when Catherine finds out I’m a woman” so she dips

Moves westward over the next few decades, living in different towns east of the Mississippi, usually pretending to be a man. Eventually ends up in a small-town west of the Mississippi in 1824, where she meets Laura Wood.

Falls hard for Laura (which she again attributes to just playing the part of a man) and indulges in Laura’s affections. She tries not to let Laura get too close, but she’s super in love with Laura and isn’t good at keeping her distance, especially bc Laura is also in love with her.

Laura finds out that Jacques is a woman. Jacques is fully prepared to flee but to her surprise, her being a woman changes nothing for Laura. They get married in November of 1825.

A few years after they get married, Laura finds out Jacques is a vampire. She’s not bothered by it because Jacques generally doesn’t kill people, just drains as much as she needs to get by.

For the first time ever, Jacques is happy.

Unbeknownst to Jacques, Johannes has been tracking her and Ursula, mostly to ensure he stays out of their way, but also because he loved Ruprecht and wants revenge for his death. Seeing Jacques happy and in love with Laura infuriates him. He disguises himself and heads to the town where Jacques lives. He spreads some rumors about Jacques and Laura, including revealing that Jacques is a woman. In 1837, his rumors result in the murder of Laura and the attempted murder of Jacques.

Jacques goes on a killing spree and kills everyone who was even remotely responsible for Laura’s death. She’s unaware that Johannes had anything to do with it.

She isolates herself for several months, grieving Laura’s death. One day, a group of wealthy travelers get a little too close to her hiding spot and she takes out her anger and grief on them, killing all of them.

The killing feels good, and she wants to do more as a way of coping with her anger and grief. This marks the beginning of her career as an outlaw, where she tracks down people growing wealthy off the gold rush and kills those she considers “guilty.” Her definition of guilty is pretty vague and she’s kinda insane during this time period.

In 1854, Jacques ends up in Forsaken Bluff. She meets Uriel and he helps her work through some of her grief.

Once she’s settled into Forsaken Bluff, Jacques stops disguising herself as a man as often.

20th Century

Other stuff related to Forsaken Bluff happens, but I haven’t decided on that yet so we’re just gonna skip all that.

Jacques helped found SBI, but she hates bureaucracy and is a jaded person in general. She’s not very happy working there and does it because she feels obligated to. Every few decades, she’ll take a decade off of work and isolates herself or obsessively looks for Johannes and/or a cure to vampirism.

In all this time, Ursula has been what she’s always been doing: getting married and then killing the men she marries. In the 1950s, she stops marrying the men she’s interested in. Her relationships get shorter and she kills significantly more men. She has a type and by the 1970s, she’s attracted the attention of the SBI for being a serial killer that goes after wealthy, high profile men.

Because of their weird bond, Jacques warns Ursula that the SBI is on her tail. Ursula flees to France while she waits for things to cool down.

Jacques has a lot of informants around the world, and in 1990, she gets reliable information on the recent whereabouts of Johannes. She finds Ursula in France and asks if she wants to help her track Johannes down once and for all. Ursula is more than willing.

In 1993, Jacques and Ursula find Johannes. Before Jacques kills him, she finds out that he was responsible for Laura’s death. This stirs up the old feelings of grief and anger that Jacques never got over, and she tortures him for weeks as retribution before she finally grants him some mercy and kills him.

Ursula is shocked by how cruel Jacques gets while enacting revenge. When she points that out to Jacques, Jacques is like “oh no I’m a terrible and cruel person I can’t believe I’ve let myself behave this way” blah blah self-flagellation. Ursula is less impressed after Jacques’s “woe is me I’m so awful” speech

After Johannes is dead, Jacques hermits again, isolating herself from everyone for about a decade. She’s grieving Laura again and also having a crisis about herself and how she’s a terrible person and how Laura would be so disappointed in her. It’s very emo and whiny

Ursula moves back to the U.S. in 1994

Jacques returns to work at the SBI in 2004. She’s working just to work at this point. The SBI regularly pisses her off, and she frequently goes against the orders of the SBI. It’s hard to fire her though because she’s been there longer than anyone else and she has a lot of power.

She also has an entire library of encoded information on most important supernatural creatures and many uninfluential creatures as well. She has a lot of information on most people she’s worked with at the SBI. People would rather not cross her

[squidproquoclarice]

Honestly, I can see Dutch playing politics despite his anti-government leanings, like trying to use his ill-gotten gains and blackmail to buy a senator seat or governorship. Or even using Arthur, etc as assassins. Political corruption in 19th century America was insane. Plus there's always been an element of classism to Dutch's character. Some of his comments toward Arthur, Abigail, etc. who are and always have been on society's very bottom rung are condescending as hell.

Ding-dong, Nonny, because you hit it on the head here.  Dutch’s supposed anarchosocialist rhetoric doesn’t hold up well against some of his actions and words.  I see him from his words and actions, as I’ve written, as the scion of a decently well to do Philly family whose prospects disappeared with his father’s death in the Civil War, and thus his bitterness towards the establishment and the power structure is acutely personal, not idealistic.  But he’s wallpapered it over with this pseudo-egalitarian rhetoric to recruit the lost, disaffected, and outcast of America as his foot soldiers in this crusade to say “fuck you” to society and the government.Like you point out, his condescension towards gang members is definitely there.  And for his supposed remarks about egalitarianism and the like, he certainly also talks about the “peasant trash” of Europe coming over and “ruining” America, and the “white trash” of America.  Which means he has the typical nativist and classist sentiments of a middle or upper class man of the times, and they’re showing.He’s willing to keep immigrants, women, and black people around him which does mean he’s not as extreme a bigot as the likes of Micah, but it still smacks of the insidious racism of exceptionalism, i.e., accepting someone from an oppressed group only when they meet your ideals and standards, but still thinking of that group as conceptually lesser.  Well, you’re a credit to your kind, you aren’t like the rest of them!  He’ll be entertained by Lenny’s smarts, but I don’t believe he sees black people, on the whole, as equally intelligent, capable, and deserving as whites, for example.  He’ll let Sadie wear a gun and hunt, (but won’t let her ride out on jobs until after she effectively leads the gang in his absence and he really can’t deny her that afterwards), but the other women are overall treated as domestic workers and possible sex workers, and in the case of Molly, his much-misused mistress.  He’s willing to use and sacrifice young Native men in both RDR1 and RDR2 in a cynical ploy to achieve his own personal aims, all while spouting bullshit about how poorly they’ve been treated by the establishment to appeal to them.  He insists on the priority of updating his posh tent with luxury items and bringing along his gramophone and books, while people in his gang are sleeping on the ground in a half-open lean to.  He claims they’re all equal, while badgering, shaming, and exhorting them to do all the dirty and dangerous work while sitting on his ass in camp crowing about the brilliance of Evelyn Miller.  And Evelyn Miller is utterly appropriate, because like Lenny calls out on Miller, Dutch is also a poseur, trying to slum it as a “man of the people” while treating it like a personal vacation rather than truly living the desperation of that reality.Uncle openly calls him out on wanting to be an American king “surrounded by his knights”, and Dutch’s vehement response to that shows just how much Uncle hit the nail on the head.  It’s true.  Give Dutch the opportunity to become a man with economic or political power, and he’d take it, all the while telling his people he’s doing it only to better protect them.  He’s only anti-government because the government hasn’t given him what he feels he personally is owed.Dutch hates Cornwall, but not because he truly hates what Cornwall represents, the power of money.  He resents that his way was blocked.  He wants to be Cornwall.  And I firmly believe had they gotten to Tahiti or Australia or wherever, he would have indeed set himself up as a petty king in his own little fiefdom, because he’s already done it with the gang.      

[heat0death0of0the0universe]

America, and how to remember it.

Today is the 4th of july, a day celebrating the U.S and its liberty.

But you must remember, america is not some shining becon on top of a hill. It is a country with problems that cut deep into its history

The founding fathers were racist, sexist, and classist. They originally wrote that only white men who owned land could vote.

They preached freedom as they held people in chains and claimed them as property. And They screamed equality as they routinely denied denied that equality to women.

Those "unalienable right" were swept aside as native Americans were killed like animals, with rewards for there scalps.

Thomas Jefferson, a man who claimed to fight against the slave trade, still prospered in it. Especially when he used his position to have 6 children with a slave, and didnt even free her before he died.

The confederacy lasted 4-5 years. It fought for slavery and for its use of people as property. And people scream about heritage like it shouldn't be shunned as a dark error if there history

After the confederacy the same slave holders and people in power controlled the land and made jim crow laws. The reconstruction saw people treat lynching as public entertainment.

Tulsa was burned down by to ashes and it's people hung by ropes and driven through the streets by there necks. And people are still only now learning about it.

During industrialization business had such poor conditions that children died in machines and cans of tuna found rat meat and fingers still in them

And people still scream about over regulation and that business need more leeway. Here's a hint. If you give a business a minimum requirement of safety, theyll fight you all the way to go lower

America was so segregated and violent that Hitler himself saw it as an inspiration to his laws.

During ww2 ships full of Jewish refugees wished to enter america. We turned them back to Germany. When nazi Germany fell, we accepted nazi refugees with open arms, and even put som in or scientific fields.

When Martin Luther king jr. Marched the FBI sent him letters telling him to kill himself. And after his assassination he was stripped of all his other messages and is now used by white people as a prop to go against any protest worse than a petition.

During the HIV epidemic america did nothing to help the gay and queer community. So many people were killed that the community had to start all over again in later generations with the scraps of who was left to tell of there history.

America who's bloated its military budget to an insane degree, becoming a nuke in a knife fight. And who's army has been credited with predictory application that target the poor and disenfranchised.

America spent years targeting other smaller countries and forcing a coup and placing a leader they liked more. Here's a fact, the middle east is dealing with ISIS because america gave guns to super conservative muslim extremists.

And let's on forget how Hawaii was taken after white supremacists on the island took control and handed it over to the us. Now nation is treated as a tourist spot and its native language is beginning to die

America is so right on the political spectrum that even most right politicians in europe are considered center left in america.

America has problems. Systematically. culturally. Every spot of american soil and philosophy is covered in someone elses blood. It is sick, but it is not hopeless.

Everywhere americans are fighting for a more equal nation.

Everywhere the judicial system is being uprooted to expose it flaws.

Everywhere people are being accepted with less hate.

This battle cannot stop. Everyday is a battle. Every step has push back. Every person is made a new target. But the battle cannot be lost

The flag is not burned so that we can laugh at it. It is burned so that something better rises from the ashes.