#maybe be less partisan

[beardedmrbean]

California’s largest daily newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, announced on Tuesday that it is laying off at least 115 people -roughly a quarter of its staff- as it continues to hemorrhage money.

The layoffs were announced in a newsroom-wide email from L.A. Times president and Chief Operating Officer Chris Argentieri, according to reporter Matt Pearce.

“This total, while devastating, is nonetheless far lower than the total number of Guild layoffs initially expected last week,” Pearce posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Last Friday, members of the Los Angeles Times Guild, the union representing newspaper staffers, staged a one-day walkout to protest the anticipated job cuts.

“Slashing a quarter of the newsroom is devastating by any measure – to our members and their families, to our morale, to the quality of our journalism, to the bond with our audience, and to the communities that depend on our work,” the Guild said in a statement. “We believe our decision to go on strike saved scores of newsroom jobs today.”

Tuesday’s layoffs come after the paper slashed 74 positions in July, the union said.

In an article published in the L.A. Times on Tuesday, the newspaper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, said the cuts were needed to account for losses totaling $30 million to $40 million a year due to declining subscriptions and advertising revenue.

“Today’s decision is painful for all, but it is imperative that we act urgently and take steps to build a sustainable and thriving paper for the next generation. We are committed to doing so,” Soon-Shiong said.

Among the senior editors laid off were the paper’s Washington bureau chief and deputy Washington bureau chief, its business editor and music editor.

L.A. Times video game industry reporter Sarah Parvini was also let go.

“It’s been an honor to work at the paper for nearly a decade, launching a video game beat, helping to win Pulitzers, covering diverse communities. To my colleagues, [the L.A. Times Guild], readers: Thank you,” Parvini tweeted.

Soon-Shiong and his family purchased the L.A. Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune from Tribune Publishing for $500 million in 2018.

Layoffs and buyouts have hit a wide swath of the news industry over the past year. The Washington Post, NPR, CNN and Vox Media are among the many companies hit.

An estimated 2,681 news industry jobs were lost through the end of November, according to the employment firm of Challenger, Gray and Christmas. That was more than the full years of 2022 and 2021.

[batsplat]

there is that adorable pic of a 13 year old pecco and marc, hugging him by the shoulders. pecco hadn’t become a rossi protege yet, marc recently won his title in 125, they are both so so young. like, of course pecco is going to think a senior (albeit as famous as marc was at the time) is cool and worthy of “celebrity” picture! of course marc is going to take photos with kids that ask him to!

and then they meet at the rossi ranch years later, pecco after an abysmal rookie moto3 season, but part of vr46 academy, marc as a multiple world champion in different categories. like, i’m sure they’ve crossed paths in the paddock, but it looks like the ranch was their first outside of work get-together?

i do wonder at what point did pecco stop seeing marc as this admirable motogp giant? they are co-workers/competitors now, supposedly equals. does the childish wonderment and idealization ever go away, when you are put head-to-head? yes, pecco has said that he doesn’t consider himself on marc’s level, but it does really answer the question, when marc achieves something awesome, like a fucking pole on a honda, does it fill pecco only with the sense of falling short, jealousy, frustration, or is there that tiny 13 year old pecco somewhere inside going “wow, this guy is awesome”

anon... first of all this ask is right up my street. second of all, yeah no the thirteen year old never entirely went away

to some extent obviously all riders kinda do this when they end up competing with the guys they grew up admiring. (or well in modern motogp, that's how it worked out - the competitive windows do have to be big enough, yeah? I'm not sure about the nineties premier class riders, but starting from valentino who had the biaggi poster, was a capirossi fan, an norick fan... but then also didn't get to compete directly with doohan for instance and was instead just mentored by him. valentino sticking around for so long basically Breaks this.) like I was talking in this ask about the dani/marc relationship and how when we talk about dani being marc's 'reference', it does mean something slightly different than the valentino hero idealisation. basically, it's the question of whether you think you're gonna fight that guy one day, if all goes well... because if you're little pecco, right, you're looking up to marc and want to be him, but you also want to beat him (if little pecco is feeling very brave). so marc fills the role of 'reference', the bloke who is basically always a few steps ahead of pecco - exaggerated by how precocious marc was. the role of 'hero' is of course again filled by valentino, though in this case pecco didn't actually have to meaningfully compete against his idol. the separation is a bit cleaner

and look, I doubt this ever really went as far as marc's admiration for dani. but yeah as you say: at the end of the day it's this cool superstar who is tearing up the lower categories and then is tearing up the premier class... like that's this prodigy... and then you get to be part of your actual hero's academy AND you're there when the prodigy gets invited to your hero's home!! not only is marc cool, not only is he winning everything, but also valentino clearly thinks he's fantastic... you kinda want valentino to think you are fantastic in the same way he talks about marc and looks at him... and pecco is like. seventeen at this point. great age. super impressionable. he's having a marginally better season than his absolute flop moto3 campaign but it's still!! rough! you know, so far away from this world that valentino and marc inhabit. obviously young athletes dream, obviously they have to be a bit delusional, obviously they have to believe they'll make it, but those are the kinds of harrowing years that really dent your actual belief. like god, the world of valentino and marc must have felt kinda unattainable back then...

anyway, obviously a year later marc became public enemy number one. personally, if I had to guess, I don't really think valentino has ever spoken much to his proteges about the details of the marc feud. it's the kind of thing where you maybe occasionally badmouth a guy you all hate when the kids are in the room, some dismissive comment or some slightly ugly sideswipe... but valentino did probably prefer to keep his mentees out of the whole thing and isn't giving them particularly detailed hot takes on sepang 2015. I mean, look at what luca said last year

hey, he could be lying, but is he really the type? "I'm sure he's still angry" - even that doesn't sound like he knows anything particularly specific about where his brother's at these days. if valentino hasn't spoken much about sepang 2015 with his own flesh and blood, then is he really giving long debriefs to marco bezzecchi? are you sure? of course, unlike luca, pecco does have the dubious distinction of actually being at sepang 2015, so there's always the chance he was in the room when some nasty things were being said about marc... but my sense is that all the academy riders have kind of been left to their own devices when making up their minds about the marc/valentino relationship. just probably a bit of a no-go topic on most days. and while pecco may have initially been completely on board with the marc hate, over the years his stance has mellowed to the brave and bold position of 'actually, I have other stuff to worry about'. like, this is why you don't get this weird bez-style all-over-the-place behaviour from pecco - fundamentally, he is far too sensible and far too interested in his own career to be going around seeking revenge on the behalf of his mentor. it's not like valentino really seems to expect him to either. sometimes the best thing you can do is simply try not to care that much

soooooo fundamentally you get to this place where for quite a few years, pecco really isn't thinking about marc too often I reckon... it's very much background noise - even when he's gotten to motogp, he's obviously not exactly fighting with marc from the word go. he has other stuff to worry about! then marc is gone for a bit! 2021 is kinda weird because pecco never really felt in that championship fight (I mean, maybe he thought he was idk) because he only really got going late in the season, and marc definitely wasn't in that title fight... BUT pecco got his first ever motogp win as a result of a proper great defensive ride against marc at aragon! seven overtakes and re-overtakes in the last few laps! truly some proper smart riding, anticipating where marc was going to attack and figuring out how to get him back every time. and of course, that's like... got to be one of the coolest ways possible you can get your first win? beating one of the all time greats (even if a physically impaired one) in a direct extensive duel? genuinely looking at the current grid, I'd struggle to come up with a cooler maiden win... oh I suppose zarco last year would actually be a decent shout. one of those two imo! anyway what an ego boost that must be

typed out the response to this ask on wednesday and let it *vaguely gestures* simmer a bit, but actually thursday they had pecco on that motogp podcast thingy and talked him through basically his whole career. which is one of those cases of 'not necessarily anything new, but always interesting to hear how the bloke himself puts it', and anyway it does also cover a lot of the stuff referenced in this post, would recommend. I did want to quickly bring it up because pecco does talk about aragon 2021 in that (at around 23 mins in):

Q: And the amount of pressure, for everyone who doesn't remember - it was Aragon '21, vs Marc Marquez, anti-clockwise track, everyone's expecting a certain person to win. [...] Seven times, he passes you in the last three laps, and every time you have to find something, for your first win - A: Not bad, yeah? Q: How was that feeling crossing the line, because it's your first win but it's also the last three laps of craziness that you've come through? A: Yeah, I remember that... we were prepared to fight for this victory because we work at it a lot and we were finally prepared and as soon as started the weekend I was feeling great. Marc was very strong, Fabio was very strong also... We started to race and I did the pole position and then we started to race and Marc was like always super super fast in Aragon because it's a left hander track, he's very strong in Aragon, it's his home grand prix, so... I was trying the maximum and I was there fighting with him and for me was fantastic because I was very strong in a very complicated track for me. The first - was not the first possibility to win but was one of the first and we were fighting with the maximum with the top [player?] so defeating him in Aragon was fantastic and I never could have asked more for my first victory for sure. Because some win their first victory with gap or with some luck, we fight. [...] Yeah, was fantastic.

like I said. it's a really cool win! pecco knows it's a cool win! he knows it's a cool win because it's marc! even two premier class title pecco still feels deeply aware of how special that was

*reaches up to scratch at ear in slightly self-conscious manner when saying "not bad" about beating the eight times world champion*

because it does mean something extra to beat marc, right? and that's also what this represents to pecco, as an opportunity... obviously on balance he'd very much want marc to not be in his team, because he's not an idiot and he's aware it's going to be a bit of a nightmare. that being said! of course, would there be anything cooler than for him than actually beating marc in the same team... I don't want to sound like a broken record on this topic but just to reiterate, none of the titles won post-2019 are in any way diminished by marc's absence - and fundamentally pecco must know he's a deserving champion, even if he still considers himself on a different level from valentino and marc. but of course it would mean something special to beat him! it's already meant something special to beat him in individual races! it'd mean something special if he beats him this year, older bike be damned! and it'd mean something special next year. pecco is deeply wary of marc, and rightly so, but don't take that to mean he isn't up for the fight. he always has been

weirdly enough, I do actually think being valentino's protege might help him be sensible about marc. because the thing is pecco has clearly put some thought into all of this at some point and had to decide for himself... or well, to make peace with the fact that he is not going to be the next valentino rossi - and that he doesn't really want to be. it's kinda the casey versus jorge distinction: you can be a valentino fan and admire everything he's done on-track but still very much know that valentino the persona isn't something you really want to attempt to emulate because it just isn't you, or you can hunger after attaining that kind of 'character' and popularity for yourself and find yourself disillusioned when things turn out differently. pecco's in the casey camp, minus the desire to shove valentino off the nearest cliff edge. like he says:

man wants a quiet life when he's not doing the death sport. and, y'know, marc might not have quite those stratospheric levels of popularity as valentino does... but it's fairly obvious pecco links them in his mind, which is not just about talent. they're both Characters, they're both figureheads in the sport, they're both larger than life. and maybe sometimes, deep down, someone like pecco might wish that kind of thing did come naturally to him... but if he has felt that way, then he's already kinda had to work through all that. he's valentino's successor! he's the next big italian motogp star! but he's never going to be valentino. and he wouldn't want that life, it wouldn't make him happy - and probably he looks at marc with all his drama and controversy and thinks he wouldn't really want all that either. pecco's given all of this a lot of thought, and he's still probably a bit too self-conscious and a bit too aware of all of this stuff for his own good, but that does also mean he knows his own head and where he's at when it comes to his own status in the sport. both when it comes to the character and when it comes to the talent. sure, having marc's fuck you talent would be nice, everyone would want that... but also if you're a two time premier champion, at a certain point you need a certain cockiness about your own abilities. he's spoken about how he needs a more well-settled bike than casey or marc, how he can't out-perform the bike like they can - there clearly is a lot of admiration there, still the sense of respect and awe you probably can't ever quite shake. pecco won't ever be one of those aliens. but he's had enough time to establish himself in the sport before he's had to deal with the marc threat in a more active way, has had the chance to find his place without worrying too much about marc - has been able to build up his own confidence. at the same time, pecco is still very obviously aware of just who marc is and the weight of that legacy and it shapes how he approaches fighting marc. it's pecco's admiration vying with his arrogance - and he has to hope the latter wins out. you can't be fearful of the legacy of those you're trying to beat. you have to kill your heroes, even if it's a strange flavour of hero

anyhow - one big way in which valentino does loom large here is that everyone else is aware of his rivalry with marc and how it is crucial Historical Context for the pecco/marc stuff. because pecco does have that dog in him, he's fundamentally disinterested in fighting his idol's battles and is mainly just looking out for himself. a big part of the general wariness towards marc isn't even valentino-related antipathy or just respect for his abilities, but also this kind of sense of... god, this marc thing is always going to have extra implications, will there be discourse, can there please not be discourse... he doesn't want to get into this stuff, he doesn't want to be part of the sepang 2015 reenactment society. he's pretty determined to stay clear of marc-related controversy at every turn, and generally does do a good job of not letting the undoubtedly extremely annoying marc annoy him... the only time pecco had proper marc-induced head loss was mugello last year - y'know, that whole thing when he felt impeded by marc and then slowed down long enough to give marc the chance to warm up his tyres and catch a pecco tow to the front row. like that was just head gone, the kind of thing that happens when you already find someone deeply annoying and then you kinda choose the wrong moment to get mad at them. with a bit of distance pecco may well have regretted reacting that way, like you don't really want to give marc that kind of opening. he's been way more disciplined since then, but it still opened the door

fundamentally, the less time pecco spends obsessing over marc, the better for him. pecco obviously has to be very aware of marc and wary of him, but he also can't spent too much energy on admiring him or being irritated by him or anything else. (given that valentino's descriptions of the marc/pecco rivalry do seem to frame marc as a competitor who sounds an awful lot like valentino himself, ironically valentino is quite well-placed to offer the 'try to avoid letting the guy who gets off on annoying his rivals annoy you' advice.) it's always going to be tough, isn't it, competing against your heroes, figuring out how to disentangle those past emotions from how you actually approach fighting them, how to feel comfortable enough in your own skin to not be cowed by that status... you can't get to a place where you're so admiring or respectful or intimidated that you're already beaten before the competition even starts - and to his credit pecco has shown he is both willing to stand up to the famous marc marquez as well as capable of doing so. my guess is that for him, the childhood idolisation isn't primarily expressed in a 'wow he dragged the honda to pole!!' (not least when he was using pecco's teammate to directly deny pecco). sure, perhaps you do get those knee jerk reactions of admiring the sheer craft of your rival's riding, just have to do your best not to let it affect you. but for the most part it's... really wanting to beat marc. and sometimes feeling a teensy bit insecure about just how good marc is. and really wanting to beat him. he kinda has to be sensible and talk down in his brain how special this one guy is so he doesn't do anything silly, tell himself it's just any other guy... but it's still always going to be there, hovering in the background. and god does pecco really want to beat him

[reasonsforhope]

For all the concern in recent years that U.S. democracy is on the brink, in danger or under threat, a report out Tuesday offers a glimmer of good news for American voters worried that casting a ballot will be difficult in 2024.

Put simply, the new data shows that voting in America has gotten easier over the past two decades. More voters have the ability to cast a ballot before Election Day, with the majority of U.S. states now offering some form of early in-person voting and mail voting to all voters.

"Although we often talk in a partisan context about voter fraud and voter suppression and whether voters have access to the ballot, the reality is, over the past 25 years, we've greatly increased the convenience of voting for almost all Americans," said David Becker, the founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR), which authored the new report...

The data shows that, despite real efforts by some Republican-led legislatures to restrict access at the margins, the trend in the U.S. since 2000 has been toward making it easier to vote: Nearly 97% of voting-age American citizens now live in states that offer the option to vote before Election Day.

"The lies about early voting, the lies about voting machines and efforts in some state legislatures to roll back some of the election integrity and convenience measures that have evolved over the last several decades, those efforts almost all failed," Becker said. "In almost every single state, voters can choose to vote when they want to."

Forty-six states and Washington, D.C., offer some form of early in-person voting, the report tallied, and 37 of those jurisdictions also offer mail voting to all voters without requiring an excuse...

In 2000

In 2024

Infographic via NPR. If you go to the article, you can watch an animation of this map that shows voting availability in every election since 2000.

There are some political trends that show up in the data. Of the 14 states that don't offer mail voting to all voters, for instance, 12 have Republican-led legislatures.

-via NPR, March 19, 2024. Article continues below.

But maybe the more striking trends are geographic. Every single state in the western U.S. has offered some form of early and mail voting to all voters since 2004, according to the data. And those states span the political spectrum, from conservative Idaho to liberal California.

"It's really hard to talk about partisanship around this issue because historically there just hasn't been much," Mann said. "We've seen voting by mail and early in-person voting supported by Republican legislatures, Democratic legislatures, Republican governors, Democratic governors. We see voters in both parties use both methods." ...

In 2020, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts all made changes to make voting more easily accessible, which have since partially or fully become permanent. Delaware is currently embroiled in a legal fight over whether it can implement early and mail voting changes this election cycle as well.

The South, with its history of slavery and Jim Crow laws, has long lagged behind when it comes to voting access. The CEIR data shows that, although some states have slowly started expanding options for voters, generally it is still the most difficult region for voters to cast a ballot.

As options nationwide have become more widely available, voters have also responded by taking advantage.

In the 2000 election, 86% of voters voted at a polling place on Election Day, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

In 2020, during the pandemic, that number dropped to less than 31% of voters. It went back up in 2022, to roughly half of the electorate, but was still in line with the two-decade trend toward more ballots being cast early.

...in reality, Becker says, more voting options actually make elections more secure and less susceptible to malicious activity or even human error.

"If there were a problem, if there were a cyber event, if there were a malfunction, if there were bad weather, if there were traffic, if there were was a power outage, you could think of all kinds of circumstances. ... The more you spread voting out over a series of days and over multiple modes, the less likely it's going to impact voters," he said...

-via NPR, March 19, 2024

[aly-cat-universe]

As a active duty member of the United States Navy I feel it is my duty to make it clear that I do not in anyway shape or form support the current genocide being undertaken in Palestine. It is terrible and awful and has no possible excuse.

Aaron Bushnell, active duty US Air force, age 25, self-immolated in front of the DC Israeli embassy on Sunday, February 25th as a act of extreme political protest against the genocide. In his words "My name is Aaron Bushnell, I am an active-duty member of the United States Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”

Do not make the mistake of belittling this act. News articles today are flashing suicide hotlines or trying to shame him for wearing his military uniform because you aren't supposed to protest in uniform. The headlines do not mention it was an act of protest despite him making that very very clear.

I guess they could court martial his ashes if they wanted for protesting in uniform since he passed in the hospital this morning, however the uniform was part of the point. Maybe you aren't supposed to "engage in partisan activities" in uniform but having to act in support of a cause you are profoundly ethically against isn't exactly nonpartisan either.

Self immolation is a time honored historical act of extreme protest with a very high cost used for anti war and anti genocide. It has been used for centuries. Most people have likely seen the photo of the monk Which Quang Duc's self immolation during the Vietnam war. Aaron Bushnell isn't even the first person to do so in protest of the genocide in Palestine. An unidentified woman self immolated in Atlanta not long ago, though there was significantly less news coverage.

The genocide in Palestine has killed 30000 people so far and displaced 80% of their population.

Self immolation is shocking and horrifying but that is the point. Take care if you watch the video it is upsetting and disturbing- but it is supposed to be. That is the point. Bringing home the shock and horror of a fiery death as so many experience when their cities are bombed. It does not take long for a human body to burn. And every single one of these deaths, both Aaron's and every single one in Palestine was preventable.

He has been described as "extremely principled" and very kind. Rest in Power Aaron.

[mightyflamethrower]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a landmark compromise between Democrats and Republicans, the Senate is set to vote on a new anti-murder bill that will limit the allowed murders to only 5,000 per day.

The bill will also send $60 billion to Ukraine, $15 billion to Israel, and another $100 billion to Iran.

"Democrats wanted more murder, and we wanted less. We feel this is a reasonable compromise," said Senator Mitch McConnell to reporters before staring blankly at the cameras for 10 minutes straight. "Every day once we hit 5,000 killings, that's it — no more killing! And we're gonna be strict about that."

"Just think of all the additional killings above 5,000 per day that will be prevented by this important legislation."

Some conservatives in Congress have challenged the language in the bill, suggesting that zero murders would be a preferable number. "I dunno, do we have to have murder at all?" said a confused Ted Cruz. "Like, murder is bad and stuff. Maybe zero would be a better number than 5,000." Cruz was quickly condemned by every journalist on the hit show Morning Joe as a shameful partisan.

At publishing time, senators had reassured their biggest pro-murder donors that the bill wouldn't solve anything.

[malottie]

after hinting in a conversation where polearms came up that i had a personnal ranking and obtaining no response, i've come to tumblr. tumblr has my back.

weapon side of tumblr; here we go

#5! : the Naginata

a very cool and classy weapon, however it looses point for being a 1-edged blade. not even 2 edges? not the best thrusting power either. slashing isn't great against armor, and though it can kill in a hit against bare skin, maybe even gambisons, it struggles against the most basic of chainmail. pierce and blunt superiority

contenders for 5th place were also the guan dao, the chinese version with sharp bits on the opposite edge, which should net it more offensive points but they make the weapon look less neat, and they barely add any functionnality

we also have the warscythe, inward-curving and lower-class cousin of these bad boys - a simple grass scythe with the blade turned for increased range, balance, slashing power and ease of use. while the wide availabilty and humble origins are great, i simply am not a fan of the design. notable though, for an improvised weapon, a farming tool, it works well, and is deadlier than it might look

#4! : the Partisan

a fairly straightforward polearm, barely upgraded from the base that is the spear/pike, with upward hooks on the sides to catch and deflect swords. perticularly good in defense, and just a neat shape

#3! : the Guisarme

often called Billhook because it's basically a billhook stuck on a spear, the guisarme is of this category of polearms i love called "more is better". to hit someone with that and not hurt them, you'd have to really try to. spikes everywhere isn't the cleverest design, but it's effective. the backwards-curving hook would have been used to dismount cavaliers off of horseback, although i like it best for the prospect of hooking on and pulling other weapons while clashing to try and disarm your opponent. notably though, said backwards hook makes for the perfect spot to be hooked and pulled on

#2! : the Halberd

yes, the classic, THE polearm, our beloved halberd. also a partisan of "more is better" (of which the Partisan is not) with its "axehead" and big spike, the halberd is more interesting than what its popularity might posit: as seen above, 'Halberd' describes a wider range of weapons than most terms. with or without a backspike, from a normal thrusting head spike to some of the longest ever seen on a weapon, from an almost Foulge aka a warcleaver, to basically a battleaxe on a stick, the halberd is an ol' reliable and has what you need, whatever it is. probably

#Honorable mentions!

i already mentionned the guan dao and warscythe, who didn't make it into the top 5, but how could i forget the most basic of polearms, forefather of our forefathers and original pokey stick;

apparently, whether it is named spear, lance or pike depends on its size and use. spear are for footsoldiers and can even be thrown like javelins in some circumstances, seeing how they're the lightest. lances are for horseback, while pikes, the longest, are used in tight formations to form a barrage of spikes, like against cavalry

finally, the closest thing to our top 1: the Lucerne hammer

used mainly for its hammerhead, the Lucerne is, for this reason and because of its less fancy, less french name, always in the shadow of my favorite polearm:

the Bec de Corbin

from the old french for "crow's beak", our beautiful corvid inspired weapon is used primarly with its sidespike, our namesake beak. an armor destroyer and danger from all sides, the bec de corbin can pierce and crush, with a thrust as deadly as its swipe. hack away at your foes in perfect serenity with the knowledge that a concussion and three broken bones is about the most unscathed you can get out of a confrontation with a bec de corbin. smash their helmet in with blunt force or pierce their chestplate with this XL warpick, the choice is yours. however, be mindfull of this heavy duty weapon, as its weight and force can be used against you, even moreso than with other polearms, with the thrusting spike the only part that remains deadly at close range

and that concludes this! please don't come for me. i am simply a weapons enthusiast and do not deserve to die for any mistakes, omissions or personnal opinions you don't agree with present in this post. please

[greatwyrmgold]

So, apparently Biden started building more of Trump's border wall back in October. Hardly anyone talked about it, partly because American liberals don't like bringing up similarities between Democrats and Republicans, partly because the war crimes in Palestine were distracting sensible people around the same time. But now that I know, I have stuff to say about it.

Biden promised not to build the wall, he said it won't do anything. His administration says we need to build more walls "in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas". Biden says he's only building any of it because he's legally obligated to, because Congress wouldn't undo the budget appropriations; he then waived dozens of federal laws so the construction wouldn't be slowed down by concerns or lawsuits about endangered species, pollution, indigenous burial sites, drinking water, etc.

One of the articles I read pointed out that barriers at the US/Mexican border have historically been a bipartisan project. Clinton ordered a few fences, Bush and Obama a bunch more. It wasn't a partisan issue until Trump built his campaign and political identity around The Wall; I guess it's not partisan any more, either.

Maybe Blue is still better than Red, but they're working hard to make that as much of a technicality as possible. The Democrats are at best spineless accomplices to the Republicans, and at worst willing collaborators. Some individual Democrats are worth supporting, but do your research.

"Vote Blue no matter who" just gives Democrats more leeway to get away with whatever they want, so long as they are infinitesimally less vile than Republicans.

Links to the news articles I read before writing this can be found below, if you're interested.

Probably the best summary from the articles I read:

An article with a completely different focus, which actually lists all 26 laws Biden is breaking waiving for the barriers' construction:

Two articles that are pretty similar to each other and the first article, but each focus on some different details:

There was technically a fifth article, but it was basically just quotes and talking points repeated ad nauseum in the other articles.

[abigail-pent]

very frustrated with the "there's no moral choice on the ballot" crowd. because here's the thing: no human being is perfect. even random ass humans don't live up to their own moral standards all the time. and a human being who is elected to government is, by definition, creating compromises and balances between multiple sets of different parties who all want different things - and who often don't share the same set of moral priorities.

(there is not one true good set of moral priorities in the world. there are some things many people would agree are always moral, but there are a whole lot of other things where many reasonable people either disagree or would say "it depends on the circumstances." claiming there's only one correct morality is, uh. very religious fundamentalist flavored.)

so when you have a government that isn't a total autocracy, its actions aren't a 1:1 reflection of the morality of the person in charge. they're the outcome of many people's preferences, and that outcome can be shaped to an extent by the person in charge, but not entirely. so you can't look at that outcome and say "well Joe Biden didn't make peace in the Middle East so he's immoral" - because a large, large percentage of the decisions that have happened with this war are not actually in his control. which isn't to say the president has no influence - he certainly has some, and the outcomes do partially reflect his influence.

but the real question then is not "why didn't Joe fix this yet" but rather "how bad could it/will it get if Trump were in charge" and the answer is "pretty fucking bad for everyone actually". he is unambiguously worse if you care about Palestinian lives - would you rather have someone who wants to get the killing to stop, or would you rather Bibi gain a buddy and enabler in the White House? calling Biden "genocide Joe" doesn't make the war more or less likely to end, but calling for people not to vote for him because "morality" actively helps Bibi by putting Trump one vote closer to the presidency.

and closer to home: if you want a far-right Supreme Court forever, by all means you should let your "morality" stop you from voting. Trump + Heritage have this agenda called Project 2025. they want to get rid of abortion in a comprehensive way. they want to roll back protections for queer people, and yes that includes marriage. they are staunchly against any DEI initiatives or protections for people of color. they want to get rid of fucking IVF. they want the Department of Justice to fall under *partisan* control, which is giving major Stasi vibes tbh. they want to stop promoting green energy or anything pro-environment, and double down on fossil fuels. they want to criminalize pornography. do you want that future? does your sense of "morality" extend to protecting yourself and your fellow citizens against a white Christian nationalist agenda by showing up and casting a fucking ballot?

because if you don't vote, this is what we will get. and thanks to the makeup of the Supreme Court, the consequences of your decision to vote or not will stick around for at least the next 50 years. that's you and your children and maybe their children too that will have to deal with the fallout.

we don't elect presidents to be a perfect conduit of our morals onto the world stage. they can't be. it isn't possible. but even so, Joe has done a shit-ton of moral things - masses of tax credits for clean energy, HUGE and unprecedented amounts of student loan forgiveness, slashing child poverty in half with expansions of the child tax credit, the list goes on and on. he's one of the most pro-labor presidents we've ever had. he isn't perfect, but saying there's "no moral candidate to vote for" is ridiculous. it sets the standard for morality higher than any president could ever reach. in doing so, it creates a false equivalence between Biden (one of our better presidents maybe ever) and Trump (arguably the worst president we have ever had). they're not the fucking same.

[tethysresort]

☆♥▼ൠ

I am going to choose Erestor!  (Because I’ve already done Glorfindel and Elrond and I am succumbing to my lowest instincts.  LOL.) 

☆ - happy headcanon - Cook and Erestor have been great friends since they met when Erestor was an elfling.  They quickly arranged a system of Erestor getting to read “too mature for you books” (mostly densely written histories and essays) in the corner of the kitchen after his chores and telling each other all the latest rumors and news.  Cook laughs watching Erestor’s big mouth get him into trouble.  Cook is the one that introduces Erestor to chocolate when he gets a rare tiny sample while they are in Himring.  Even in Imladris, Erestor has been known to quietly add rare cookbooks and such to their book orders, just as a gift for Cook. 

♥ - family headcanon - I head canon Erestor as having two loving parents that are NOT famous or important.  Or alive.  And both are elves.  He is brought into Himring as an infant with a mother rapidly Fading - the last of her strength and determination was spent getting them there.  (I head canon the last stages of Fading looking like dementia or Alzheimer’s.)  She couldn’t tell them who she was, who her mate had been, where they had lived or even Erestor’s exact day of birth.  She could, however, tell them over and over that this was her beloved son Erestor and that her mate told her to “seek the red-haired lord” if she needed help.  Erestor grows up in the elf equivalent of foster care (which is thankfully MUCH less horrific than the US system) and always wishes for “a family of his own and maybe a mate”.  He gets family when Maglor and Maedhros hand him Elrond and Elros, and eventually a mate when he marries Glorfindel.  Glorfindel was SO unexpected: Erestor had always assumed a male OR female elf of Noldor (probably related to Feanor’s partisans somehow) or at least not Sindar or Teleri lineage just because of his history with the Feanorians. 

Instead a blond Vanya lord was dropped into his life and turns out to be perfect. 

▼ - childhood headcanon - I headcanon that while Erestor grew up being shuffled from family to family, he had a lot of friends that were in the same sort of boat because he grew up in a dangerous and violent time.  He considered himself lucky because he couldn’t remember his parents to mourn them.  (He still did, of course, but with wondering loss instead of the horrible grief of some of his peers.)  They ran about being children, both elf and Mannish.  (His teachers were appalled when he accidentally lit all the shoes on fire, his friends thought it was wonderful.  They had to be stopped from repeating the experiment a week later.)  He played games with them in the courtyards of Himring and they went to lessons together. 

ൠ - random headcanon - Second favorite food after chocolate?  Ham.  The nice juicy, maple roasted sort. 

Do you want to play too? Here is the original post: https://www.tumblr.com/tethysresort/753952903606239232/headcanon-meme?source=share

[trogthefrog]

I cannot help but like Saw Gerrera.

He’s an evil character certainly. Saw targets civilians, kills and tortures POWs. He’s a mess of paranoia who serves as example of a person who’s worst aspects have been brought to the fore by war.

But.

Saw Gerrera is willing to throw down as both terrorist and revolutionary. He fights the empire relentlessly, harnessing anti imperial sentiment and ACTING on it. He’s willing to free wookiees on Kashyyyk when no one will (even though he abandons them later). Speaking of, his organization is diverse, in aliens and himself being a person of colour. Giving the impression of them in the Star Wars galaxy being lumpen proletariat. The people who’d be most disenfranchised by the Empire representing more of a people’s struggle. Plus in Andor he is shown to be unwilling to work with human supremacists which gets him points from me. Don’t work with racists it ain’t a good idea (plus it’ll turn out bad, remember what happened to Walter White in Breaking Bad?).

My problem is that Saw’s less revolutionarily nuanced then I’d like (Byproduct of not being written by people who know what actual anarchists are I guess). He’s more caricature of violent revolutionary descending into paranoia. This is really expressed by the fact that violence is Saw’s main tool and he and his partisans do not embrace a diversity of tactics. It hurts their credibility and isolates the Partisans as terroirists.

Still I love him with Luthen, I appreciate his struggle and I acknowledge his faults. Regardless of them though, it’s important for the rebellion to have someone who will fight the empire for the right reason. Because the empire is evil and facist. And it is of import to note that Saw acts (irresponsibly maybe) but in service of The Cause, helping the oppressed by hurting the system of oppression.

(I will not credit him with Tech’s death. Saw wasn’t responsible for the Batch and it was pure coincidence they ran into each other that day. Saw did his mission, fucking shit up. If you wanna credit anyone with Techs death give it to the people literally shooting at them. The Empire. (plus It is good whenever someone try’s to kill Tarkin.))

[keepmeinmind-01]

Hello! So interested in exchange student AU and the dogs, but I HAVE to ask about plug in baby because that is giving me a weird image in my head.

thank you so much for asking @tina-mairin-goldstein :D

I'll go through them! I did a little too much writing last week and haven't managed much at all this week. No idea whether I need to rest and recharge or just get a bit more inspired LOL. But I can share some snippets—I write in chunks in the first draft stage so they're a bit everywhere, and these bits might not even make it into the final :')

Exchange Student AU

This is actually the prompt you gave me about a little Newt seeing Theseus and Percy together and being his accepting self!

A Second Person? Visiting the Scamander household?  Well—Second Person wasn’t trailing in. He seemed very confident and self-contained. In fact, Newt has always thought Theseus was exactly like that; but next to this shorter, dark-haired stranger, Theseus suddenly looked coltish and far too smiley. Newt clicked through the settings and accidentally zoomed in far too much on the stranger’s expensive-looking scarf.  Why does he want to spend time with Theseus? Newt mused, as most seven-year-olds with older siblings sometimes do: sure that his brother could hang the moon and stars if he tried, but chagrined by the pure bossiness their relationship seemed to entail enduring. 

Thesival Dogs

It's a one-shot (with several chapters LOL, I don't know if that stops it being a one-shot anymore). I started drafting this in a frenzy over four days because I felt bad about how kmim Theseus never really finds a partner he's comfortable with again. Losing those feelings of intimacy and trust forever hurt me. So, it's set sometime after the end of the election in kmim and kind of diverges from the rest of the outline I have planned for that long story. Theseus and Percival get into a sort of casual-sort of not relationship complicated by their respective traumas. When Percival accidentally triggers Theseus while they're working on a case together, they have to get through it and figure out how to re-negotiate the physical stuff. It goes well—well enough that Theseus accidentally summons his Patronus (a borzoi). But after Percival summons his (a German Shepherd) too, as a joke, the dogs stick around, so they spend the next day figuring out how to make them dispel and thinking about their relationship.

Nearer the start:

Each like a damning indictment—because of him, it could never be long term. Because it’s you, Theseus imagined, because it’s you, and it’s me, they could tangle their broken bodies together, but they couldn’t fix them.

Nearer the middle:

"Tell me how you imagined it," Percival demanded, voice roughening.  "I, ah..." Theseus faltered, uncharacteristically flustered by the heat kindling behind Percival's eyes. Get it together, Scamander. “Mmh?” “Er…” Theseus racked his brains, but it’d been weeks since he’d had a vaguely sexy thought. I thought it’d be nice seemed like a mood killer for someone as skilled in talking filth as Graves. And I love you was all of the steps too far. “You…hmm. You would…um. Or maybe I...or maybe not.”

Plug in Baby

This is named for a song by the band "Muse", because I always end up doing song lyric titles. I do have four other songs that fit wayyy better with the themes, plot points, etc, but even though Muse said they forgot what the song was about because they were high (LOL), there's something particularly good about this as a title imo. This is my dark!thesleta fic, where Leta joins Grindelwald at a rally and Theseus follows her. It's set in a world where Grindelwald and Dumbledore are much more organised and there are very partisan 'sides'. Theseus is less certain, trying to convince her to leave, but when something happens that makes him fall apart, Grindelwald has enough and brainwashes/reconditions him using a mixture of drugs and magic. The 'character is turned into a weapon against the ones they love' trope, basically. It goes downhill from there, and involves Newt, Tina, Grindelwald, and Dumbledore, focusing mostly on Theseus, Leta, and Newt. The ending is a bit bittersweet, but I'd say positive, given what happens. I'm curious what the image in your head was! Hopefully, no actual babies? XD

I have no big chunks of text for this one. Even though it's all planned in detail, it's being written in spotty chunks, so here are a few lines I've jotted down:

"You're getting better at this," Gellert said, removing the needle. His voice was approving, almost fond. "Hardly even a flinch anymore." How much did he require tonight? Surely his tolerance was not increasing this quickly.

Power still crackled through his veins like lightning seeking ground. He felt half-feral, drunk on destruction. Unstoppable.

[dynared]

While Robert Kirkman and friends have made it clear they have no immediate plans for characters outside of US G1 for now, I'm once again pondering what might be done in the near or far future with certain characters. Admittedly some of this is also because I know there are certain characters Earthspark won't touch for anything, even if they might have some use there, because Mae Catt was told she couldn't make them gay couples.

Anyway, my rambling will start with one character that was screwed over hard in IDW and really deserves more of a chance to shine, especially given how nice his Haslab and third-party figures are. I'll probably do this for other characters later. So let's start with the biggest victim of IDW's writing - Star Saber.

Star Saber is someone who got a REALLY bad look in IDW thanks to his characterization being based on the one from James Roberts's shitty fanfic, to the point Hasbro has essentially done an about-face with him everywhere else. Knowing that Hasbro won't return to the insane religious fundamentalist that he was mutilated into is already a relief. Still, there is something to the idea that if Optimus and presumably Rodimus aren't going to be gone for volumes at a time as the leader of the Autobots, there may be another role Star Saber can fit into in the Energon Universe.

Swordsman/Master of Metallikato -

One of the ideas in Transformers lore that has existed since the Furman run of the 1980s but has surprisingly never been elaborated on, even in IDW, was the idea of Metallikato. Metallikato is supposed to be a mysterious Cybertronian martial art thought lost to the ages, until the Decepticon Bludgeon began bragging to everyone within earshot that he was a master of the art, a combination of bare-handed fighting techniques and swordplay. While on occasion you get a Bot or Con who claims training in it, like Drft for example, it rarely gets elaborated on in any meaningful way.

Maybe it's my love of martial arts movies talking, but the idea of an ancient martial art in the tradition of kung fu movies being used to turn the tide of a civil war has a lot of potential. Star Saber being a master of Metallikato along with others, wondering if he should lend his blade to a partisan cause, only to find that bots like Bludgeon and Drift have made that choice for him. From there there's a ton of ideas that could sprawl from that, both sides wanting to train new Metallikato practitioners, the philosophical issues with lending a blade to a partisan cause, or the idea that a master would want power for themselves.

As an aside, if he were to show up in Earthspark, Saber training one of the Terrans in the mastery of Metallikato seems like it would be a pretty natural fit. Then again, considering what the rejected script with Drift looked like, I doubt they were entertaining such a notion.

The Single Dad in the galaxy -

While Star Wars may have abused the utter hell out of the framework of Lone Wolf and Cub since The Mandalorian became a hit (Bad Batch and Obi-Wan both try to replicate the core idea to much less success) one of the bigger parts of Star Saber's original characterization (which was ignored by IDW like everything else) was that he was essentially a father with an adopted child. A human child, named Jan.

The second episode of Transformers Victory actually has Star Saber doing paperwork to get Jan into a private school.

While, as noted before, the idea of a lone warrior traveling with a kid has been used a lot in recent years, there are definitely a lot of ways this could be taken that would be new to Transformers. The human element (or another alien if the EU goes that route) forcing Star Saber to interact with other people a lot more than he would have to otherwise. Hard to be the straight-laced, serious sword guy when you're worrying about your adopted kid being able to socialize with others and get an education. At the same time, there's definitely a lot of comedy to be milked out of such a setup. You just know the other Bots would groan whenever Saber shows pictures of his son.

The Super Robot Parody/Reconstruction -

Simon Furman, the quintessential Transformers writer guy, has been writing a lot of stuff for the mobile game Transformers: Earth Wars (and he also helped to write the script for the Earthspark game). In it, he has Star Saber as an active character, but as something of a worrywart/blowhard whose speeches about JUSTICE and other platitudes oftentimes rub his Autobot compatriots the wrong way. Then he fights and everyone is quickly reminded why he's the head instructor of the Autobot's War Academy.

As I mentioned in another post, the idea of a super robot parody is not one that Transformers has ever really dealt with despite having super robot elements in past shows, and Bang Brave Bang Bravern showing the potential of such a concept. Granted, I don't see Star Saber being nearly as...affectionate as Bravern can be, but the fact that Transformers hasn't played around with this parody concept outside of some flavor text in a mobile game few want to whale for is something that you think would have potential. Is he genuine about it or is this something he thinks is cool? How do the other Bots and Cons react? How do the humans? And what happens when they underestimate him and the end result has them lose to the weirdo?

Like I said before, I get not wanting to have the straight leader archetype if you're not planning to get rid of Optimus or Rodimus. But with the religious extremist angle having been rejected by just about everybody, there are ways to make Star Saber work in the Energon Universe and other animated material.

[canmom]

an expression of something, or perhaps a record of insanity

obviously there's a famine because israel destroyed any indigenous means of food production, and aren't letting food trucks in, so they're just sitting at the border. not to mention that time the other day that they fired on the crowd gathered around a food truck on the beach, causing a panicked stampede that killed people. 'the guys with guns won't let us in' is not a problem that can be solved by money. still. if even one person escapes death by starvation because an aid org or a medical org had more money on hand, then that money is better off in their hands than mine...

rn i feel very conscious that while it's impossible to achieve any significant change without sacrifice, the converse is not true, there's no magical law that ensures sacrifice must be rewarded. a social media campaign resulting in a few tens of thousands of people trying not to spend money for a week is not a strike pressing demands, and probably won't make a noticeable blip on whatever economic statistics are gathered by whoever gathers economic statistics, and even if someone notices the line going down a bit, they probably are not able to conclude it's supposed to be a general strike for Palestine.

similarly, activist actions that deliberately get someone arrested for the sake of a few hours of annoyance to security are a questionable trade in the battle of attrition. I still remember doing first aid at the massive mobilisation against the arms fair a few years ago, which ran up a hefty policing bill cutting people out of lockons on the main road, but did not in fact stop the arms fair. direct action does not always get the goods.

and in general I believe our people should not be thrown away lightly. getting arrested should be something we are prepared to risk but a risk we mitigate as much as possible, not something we actively seek out. this is something that the antifascists understood pretty well, with tactics like the black-bloc and de-arresting. but the current trend in activist orgs is to exploit the state's unwillingness to inflict bodily harm by putting activists in intentionally dangerous situations and forcing the state to spend and money time freeing them, with the resignation to getting arrested. it's less direct action and more stunts for the media. but is that just an excuse? 'the americans are not what we call a useful people', they say, when the yanks don't want to be arrested.

the gnawing feeling that I must do something wants me to stand up and prove that I give a shit. I just cannot see what would actually be effective with the resources I have available to me. the people who have real power in this situation fundamentally have no reason to listen to me. I'm sure many of them think, quietly, along the lines of that guy at the protest a couple months back who walked by and called me a gender-confused leftist pedo: giving a shit about people in palestine is disgusting to them.

I've signed up to do arrestee and court support and shit like that with a certain org that's had some success shutting down Elbit facilities in this country. between health shit and work, I'm not realistically in a place where I'm capable of doing the spiky direct actions at the moment, but if I can be part of the logistics wing for the people who can do it, maybe I can feel less fucking useless. I hope when the call comes, I'm able to get out there and show up, rather than crushed in another wave of mysterious fatigue.

of course, if a 32-year-old disabled game dev could stop a war from her bedroom, the world would be a very different place... but I must not ignore that I have some power. even if it's just the money I earn at this job.

I frequently fall back to wondering what I'd have done if I'd lived in Germany or Poland during the Holocaust. the fantasy is that I'd be a partisan in the woods, fighting the Nazis by any means available; a likely answer is probably that I'd flee the country, or die in a camp. but the scariest thought is that I'd have been able to get away with 'inner emigration', and just keep my head down and do nothing. cue the daniel kahn song I guess. (Daniel Kahn's song is of course a lot more subtle and bitter in its treatment of the subject, not just this goofy morality play in my head.)

words are cheap!!!

[eyedelater]

tasks

(part 1 of a series of posts about tsukishima hajime)

tsurumi puts tsukishima up to the worst tasks. he does not shy away from having tsukishima do anything that needs to be done. tsukishima does his work skillfully and without complaint because his will has been broken. let's examine some of that dirty work.

thinking back to the first arc where tsukishima was important to the plot... when tsurumi was pursuing edogai (volume 8, chapter 71), tsukishima told nikaidou that tsurumi had him dig up a grave in yubari to see if the corpse had coded tattoos. it was only mentioned in passing, but that task sucks. i bet he had to do it in the dead of night and then neatly fill in the grave again afterward. (granted, it would have been worse if the coffin wasn't empty.) a little later, tsukishima was given the task of overseeing edogai as he made the counterfeit skins and ensuring that the skins made it safely to tsurumi. setting aside all of the strangeness of edogai's hobby that he had to kindly overlook as an extension of tsurumi's good will, the task became incredibly rough! his comrade maeyama was killed by ogata! ogata tried to kill him! super scary sugimoto the immortal tried to kill him! there was a gunfight in moving minecarts! two explosions! deadly suffocating gas! he watched poor edogai-kun die horribly! tsukishima came very, very close to dying! and his clothes got all dirty with coal :( sure, he survived thanks to his incredible toughness, and tsurumi praised him at the end, but praise for a job well done can only take you so far. tsukishima must have questioned on some level whether it was worth it. his loyalty to tsurumi is incredibly deep, but loyalty and enthusiasm are two different things. tsukishima is unique in that his loyalty dial is turned all the way up and his enthusiasm dial is turned almost all the way down. (koito's enthusiasm dial is turned all the way up.)

going further back in time (but forward in the story)... around chapter 200, we see that tsurumi had tsukishima play a central role in staging a violent kidnapping. tsukishima, ogata, and kikuta had to kidnap a child, take care of him for like 3 days while pretending to be russian, find some russian prisoners to act as stand-ins, sneak them out of prison, bring them to the appropriate places, dress them up, and kill them at the appropriate times— all as part of the tsurumi theater. it wasn't tsukishima alone this time, but that task really fucking sucks. for everyone involved except tsurumi. you really can't overstate it.

and was tsurumi the one who assigned tsukishima to be koito's sergeant advisor? if so, that was another difficult task, because it forced tsukishima to pretend that the two of them hadn't already met as kidnapper and victim. but maybe helping cover up his sweet lies is among the least offensive tasks tsurumi assigns. after all, all you have to do is lie more...

the only task tsukishima complains about is having to serve as koito's interpreter when talking to tsurumi, and he only complains about it inside his own head. he really is stoic.

when tsukishima and koito became inseparable (narratively), koito began to take part in tsukishima's unpleasant tasks as well. in volume 14, tsurumi brought the two of them to abashiri to help him achieve the explicit goal of leaving no surviving witnesses. that was a really fucked up, unpleasant, and morally abhorrent task. that's just a massacre. and they achieved that goal, more or less. a little later, sending tsukishima and koito to karafuto with sugimoto was also a rough assignment (traversing unfamiliar northern lands during the winter, chasing a moving target, pursuing a dangerous soldier and a dangerous partisan and shiraishi) that left both of them seriously injured (tsukishima's explosion injury to the neck, koito stabbed through the arm and the chest). but maybe that task in particular ended up being worthwhile for tsukishima and koito, because during their trip, they grew closer to each other and realized that much of the pain they had endured could be laid at tsurumi's feet. they were able to share in their growing doubts about tsurumi and get a clearer view of the whole situation.

another task that fell to tsukishima was bringing the peepee bottle to and from bedridden koito after sugimoto stabbed him. did everyone notice the peepee bottle? in volume 23, chapter 223, we see tsukishima holding the bottle that is specially made for peeing into. i'm pretty sure it reappears at least one other time. when i first saw it, i didn't understand what it was (i thought it might be like... some kind of feeding implement?), but now i have learned it is called a shibin 尿瓶 (尿 shi means pee, 瓶 bin means bottle) and it's a bottle for bedridden people to pee into. i would love to see the discussion that ended in tsukishima agreeing to do that. i mean, they're in a hospital. there are orderlies who could carry the pee bottle, right? anyone else could do it. but the one transporting the pee bottle is sergeant tsukishima. you have to wonder, would tsurumi really delegate that task to him? or the other question could be, would tsukishima do that without being asked to? does he think such a thing would just be expected of him? is his self-esteem so low that he wouldn't see such a task as below him? or... is it love 😳

an especially troublesome task that tsurumi seems to have assigned to tsukishima was guarding the pregnant hostage inkarmat, which came to a head around chapter 230. however, it's not clear exactly what tsurumi instructed him to do and what tsukishima may have come up with on his own. when you do dirty work for 10 years, maybe every task becomes a little dirtier in your mind, and you start leaning more toward violence as a default. would tsurumi really have explicitly told tsukishima that if tanigaki tries to rescue inkarmat, tsukishima should kill them both? or did tsurumi just make it clear that inkarmat was being held hostage without giving any further instructions, and it was tsukishima who decided how important it is to follow up on threats? i don't think it was ever spelled out clearly. in the end, that was the first dirty work task from which koito was able to save tsukishima (by using his authority to stop him) and the first time the two of them explicitly defied tsurumi together.

it is a testament to tsukishima's broken spirit that he remained loyal to tsurumi to the very end, despite all the dirty work he put him up to, even after tsurumi disappeared into hakodate bay. but tsukishima was saved by koito's own loyalty to him, and by the end of the story, it seems like happiness is within his reach.

[duchessofostergotlands]

The prison/justice sector is such an influence on her early years work that I’m surprised that she hasn’t taken it up as a cause exclusively.

I am also waiting for Camilla William and Kate to wake up and collaborate on the domestic abuse —>homelessness—>early years cycle with parents and children. Its just so obvious to me and a joint project would be quite a statement I think

I'm actually not too surprised. It's not strictly a partisan issue but there will be a strong overlap between people who support the monarchy and people who want to bring back capital punishment and think prison is too "nice" for offenders. In other words, it isn't technically bad for her to support prisoners - and on a personal, moral level I think justice reform is massively important - but I can see why she hasn't launched herself into that area full force as it's one that requires a lot of sensitivity and careful thought in the delivery. I think getting involved with women is a bit easier - honestly just because women are less likely to be involved in violent or sexual crimes, those people would find it easier to feel sympathy for female prisoners - and female prisoners fits a bit better.

I think a joint project absolutely makes sense - you could really create a joint project with most areas of work, nothing exists in a vacuum and even something like Sophie’s global VAW work and William’s animal trafficking work, i’m sure there’s overlap there or Charles’s traditional craftsmanship and Kate’s interest in the arts - but I also think ultimately royals have to think about value for money as they get taxpayer funds in exchange for being public representatives. So I'm sure they talk about it at home and things but there's probably a balance to be struck, asking whether it really is needed for three of the four most senior royals to be at the same engagement or doing the same thing rather than spreading their involvement. Organising for one royal to attend an event is a nightmare, trying to coordinate three of them for a long term campaign would be very tricky and likely require a lot of resource. So it's not to say it's not a good idea, it definitely is. It's just possibly not something we'll see immediately. I could see a joint William and Kate thing more than a Camilla thing - even just Kate's patronages working on a William project or vice versa - but I do think maybe not until after Earthshot ends or is established as a separate entity because he's now got two big things on his plate and Kate's early years thing is still in its infancy (pun intended).

[bad-quail]

Mud + Laser prototype sheet

My first draft of the Mud + Laser character sheet was, really, the first thing I made for it, when it was just an idle idea in my head. Aside from renaming a few things, the big difference from Mausritter is adding the Decorations slots. As envisioned, Decorations are special abilities earned through play. They can be actual medals partisans pin to their dress uniforms or be a purely meta contrivance.

Each Decoration has its own criteria for award. And that's where the mechanic possibly getting irritating comes in. Presuming a decent variety of Decorations, it can become a lot of bullshit to remember. So, maybe we need a new sheet? One that lists the award criteria of all the Decorations?

Also, took the opportunity to make it look a little less like the original Mausritter trade dress.