#my most loathed and reviled enemy

[twistedtummies2]

Good & Evil - Villains

Welcome to Good & Evil: A Study of Heroes & Villains. I’m discussing different forms of heroic and villainous characters, different types of protagonists and antagonists, and providing examples of them each from various sources. Last time, I talked about the basic Hero archetype. So it only makes sense we follow up the most basic form of protagonist with the most basic form of antagonist, the Villain. Now, when I say “Villain,” I’m not talking about sympathetic villains, or noble villains, or other villains who you can feel sorry for or even greatly agree with on some level. They’re actually going to be a different category. I’m talking about VILLAINS, with a Capital V. These are the bad guys, plain and simple. These are the characters who do terrible things usually for no good reason at all. Sometimes they’re seeking money, sometimes they’re seeking power, sometimes they’re seeking retribution of some sort…sometimes, they’re just seeking sick pleasure. Whatever the motive and whatever the goal, the Villain is a truly despicable character, with little to no redeeming values to them as a person…and, oddly enough, we often love them for that exact reason. While there are some villains who are designed and rightfully notorious for being “Pure Monsters” - characters the audience reviles and loathes and wants to see punished with all their souls - I often find the best villains are those who can be described as characters we love to hate. It’s a fine line between the two, not easy to define, but I think most people agree that the most wonderful villains are those who, despite being such deplorable creatures, are somehow intriguing and even fun to watch. Sometimes it’s because they’re humorous, sometimes it’s because they’re so imposing, but no matter what the reason, they are eternally fascinating. But why? Why do Villains capture us with the same fervor Heroes do? Indeed, for many people - myself included - Villains are usually MORE interesting than the heroes they face. What makes us feel so drawn to these denizens of darkness? To answer that question, let’s look at a few “Capital V Villains” I feel typically exemplify this idea.

We’ll start this run with a character that many people on my page should be familiar with: Maleficent, from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. In her initial appearance, Maleficent is not a terribly complex villainess: she is the Dark Fairy, an evil entity of spite and cruelty. She has no compunctions with placing a DEATH CURSE on an INNOCENT BABY just because SHE WASN’T INVITED TO THE FREAKING BIRTHDAY PARTY. Without getting into all the potential lore and politics involved, which I know fans LOVE to play with and theorize, that’s still a remarkably cruel and petty thing to do…but the extremes she goes to in the story, treating this simple snub like an act of war, are part of what make her fascinating. Maleficent is cold and heartless, but there are indications of something almost sad about her under the surface: she genuinely cares for her pet raven, Diablo, seeming horrified when the Three Good Fairies take him out, and treating him with a kindness and fairness she shows no other creature in the story. It’s also indicated that, under her malevolent facade, she’s actually somewhat lonely: “Maleficent doesn’t know anything about love, or kindness, or the joy of helping others,” one of her enemies points out. “You know, sometimes I don’t think she’s really very happy!” None of this excuses her actions, of course, but it creates an intriguing mystery about Maleficent, and it’s the mixture of mystery, intensity, and the sheer aesthetic power of the character - along with the equaled power of her voicework - that makes her so interesting.

On the note of mystery and empathy, as well as my favorite villains, let’s talk about arguably the greatest supervillain of all time, the Joker. Batman’s arch-enemy is a notorious poster child for a character who does terrible things basically just for the sheer Hell of it, yet remains enjoyable despite this. And keep in mind, the Joker’s crimes are some of the most heinous and horrible of arguably any fictional character: he beats a young boy to a pulp, till he’s on the brink of the abyss, and leaves him to die in an exploding warehouse; he shoots a young lady through the pelvis, paralyzing her for life, then takes photos of her naked body to help torture her father and try to drive him crazy; he shoots a police woman trying to save a number of innocent babies he’s planning to massacre through the head for really no good reason at all; the list goes on and on. As if the crimes themselves weren’t bad enough, many of these actions have far-reaching consequences, and while some of these characters eventually overcome the mental and physical wounds the Joker leaves behind, the scars themselves never truly fade.

What makes the Joker so fascinating is a combination of several elements. One is the fact we don’t really know his true past; in the comics, at least, his true origin has never been firmly established. And even with the more tragic depictions of his history, they do not excuse his hideous actions in any way. Another element is his philosophy, which becomes disturbingly easier to empathize with as time goes on. The Joker sees the world as a dark, cruel, chaotic place; he believes that goodness is false, that justice and morality are a bad joke, that all the things people conventionally value and desire are complete and total nonsense. So he openly gives up rationality and ethics, embracing madness and sadistic pleasure with gleeful abandon. While his evil deeds are hardly laudable, the bitterest amongst us can unsettlingly see where he’s coming from. His dark sense of humor is the last big point: the Joker is a character who makes you enjoy awful things right alongside him...then you stop and realize what you’re laughing at, and you wonder just what’s wrong with you, in turn.

On the note of philosophy and empathy, some villains use this as a smokescreen. The audience is fully aware that they are terrible people, but the character is able to use such things to their advantage, making themselves seem better than they really are. Perhaps the most popular example of this is Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars saga. Palpatine doesn’t exactly hide his evil: he dresses in a dark hooded cloak, has creepy yellow eyes, and so on. But he’s an exceptionally crafty manipulator: he uses his advanced age as a blind, making people believe he’s not as dangerous as he really is, and knows how to appeal to the better nature of other people. He toys with Anakin Skywalker’s emotions, turning him to the Dark Side with sinister ease; he paints himself as someone seeking peace and order, when really, all he wants is power and death. He’s able to fool people using words of goodness, steadily gaining power through diplomatic means, but he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He makes himself seem empathetic to the world around him, making it harder for people to know the true monster he really is till they experience it firsthand.

Some villains are deceiving in other ways; they don’t really try to justify their actions to the world, but they still manage to trick the audience or other characters around them. The Major from Hellsing is, at first glance, not the most dangerous of dastardly demons. In a world of vampires, ghouls, monster hunters, and so on, he is - at least at first impression - not only deceptively human, but deceptively unthreatening. He’s rotund, not especially tall, nearly always wears a jolly smile, and often behaves more like a merry gentleman than a cold-hearted animal. He’s not even a very good fighter! However, under this unimposing surface, the Major is the single most evil and most repugnant creature anyone could ever meet: a warmonger of the highest order, he wants nothing more than to spread carnage and bloodshed, simply for its own sake. He doesn’t want profit or power out of it, he just wants to see war happen because he LOVES war. He wants to see people fight and die and struggle and suffer for no other purpose than its own bloody existence. A meaningless, brutal war that has no real reason to happen other than for him to, quite bluntly, get off on it. And while he has no great powers of his own, his charisma and intelligence allow him to make such a thing happen with frequently gory consequences.

Of course, some villains are neither empathetic nor deceiving in any way, shape, or form. Freddy Kruger - the main antagonist of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series of horror films - is, to be blunt, a sick freak with no redeeming qualities at all, when you really look at him. He is utterly unrepentant in his villainy, and his crimes are some of the most hideous and gut-sickening sorts of all time. He’s a former child killer, and a presumed bad seed, “the bastard son of a hundred maniacs.” After being rightfully destroyed by his victims’ families, he refuses to die, and becomes a dream-traveling monster who enjoys tormenting his victims before sadistically and gruesomely axing them off. He has no regrets, no major ambitions, no real cause to fight for: he is evil and cruel and vicious just because he wants to be, and does not even have the courtesy to look nice while he’s at it. A monster from top to bottom, inside and out, plain and simple. So, we ask again…what makes all these characters, and so many more, so fascinating to us? Why do we dress up as them for Halloween or Comic Con? Why do we write books about them, or create theories about them? Why do we reinvent them, time and time again, and get so excited when they pop up? Well, there’s one thing all five of these characters - and many more like them - have in common: they ENJOY what they do. No matter what they’re doing, no matter how wicked or perverse, the villains we love to hate have a BLAST doing what they do. They laugh, they smile, they crack jokes, they prance around…they get so into it that it’s hard not to get into it with them. They can be funny in how they play with their victims, they can be endearing in how they revel in their sins. But why is THAT then? Why do we find that enjoyment of evil so attractive? Ultimately, I think the reason is one that many have suggested in the past, so it’s nothing you haven’t heard before. It is, however, nonetheless true: the villains we love-to-hate appeal to us because Villains, in general, represent the dark side of humanity. Just as Heroes are emblems of all the good things we wish humans could be, Villains show us all the bad things humans could be. They are the people who not only give into temptation, but embrace their inner monster with a passion and zeal that is honestly hard to find in the real world. Whether they make us shudder or make us grin (or somehow do both at once), Villains are the inner evils we all know we could be capable of if we just let go of our inhibitions. That’s why actors find them fun to play, why writers always enjoy conjuring them up…and why you can even end up forming crushes on them, if you’re mad enough, I suppose. In short: Villains are essentially the reverse role models of Heroes, a reflection of the beast that lurks inside every human heart. They are the clowns that kill, the godmothers that curse, the warriors without a cause, the devils who rule…the nightmares we never want to forget. Lucifer Bless Their Hearts.

[lassieposting]

What do you think it says that in S1 Lucifer didn’t really have an emotional reaction to Amenadiel wanting/trying to kill him? Manipulating, yes. But not killing? Seems like killing would be the worse of the two, overall.

OK SO

it depends on when in s1 you mean, because his reaction evolves over the season. so let’s start with very, very early on in s1 lucifer. 

this is a man who’s spent the vast majority of his life in hell, in a culture built on violence and power plays. this is a man who’s been on earth for five years and only really formed surface relationships with the people around him - he clearly cares about delilah in his stilted, emotionally backwards way, but they aren’t close the way that he’s close with linda and ella and even dan, and it’s implied he hasn’t really seen her since she stopped working for him. 

this lucifer is deeply traumatised, terrified of rejection, burying himself in sex and drugs to try and cope, and has an entire lifetime of being told how awful and worthless he is keeping him from really connecting with anyone. 

(my personal headcanon is that baby demons will actually attack and kill their weaker siblings in the nest, eliminating the competition for food, so actually, fratricide would not be as unthinkable to lucifer as it is to us. more kind of...vaguely distasteful.)

pretty much every relationship in hell is skewed towards the dark and aggressive. look at maze, lucifer’s oldest and closest friend - their fights are vicious, they don’t communicate well at all, they resolve conflicts mostly by beating the shit out of each other...my point is that this lucifer not only expects the people around him to hurt him, he accepts it as normal. 

(it’s also worth noting that amenadiel’s hatred for lucifer is obvious whenever they interact - he’s treating luci the way he does deliberately, because at this point he sees lucifer as The Reason Everything Went Wrong. lucifer, on the other hand, swings between deadly serious ( “don’t threaten me, amenadiel. you don’t want to start a war.” ) and being almost playful ( “and you, my friend, can go to hell.” 

sometimes it’s a genuinely hate-filled exchange. sometimes lucifer is just being an annoying little shit of a baby brother, hell-style. which, to amenadiel, comes across as open hostility, and deepens the dislike between them.)

it’s important to understand, i think, that lucifer at this point is? basically shut down. he’s closed off all the parts of him that are gentle and loving and good, because those parts of him will either get him killed or pull him apart in hell. he’s running survival.exe, and everything else is closed. he doesn’t trust anyone, keeps his friends close and his enemies closer, and believes everyone is out to get him because for most of his life they were. it’s been five years since he left hell, but he hasn’t moved on from the trauma at all. he’s stagnant.

so at this point in his life? he sees his relationship with amenadiel as normal sibling behaviour. so yeah, no reaction to amenadiel trying to kill him. just sort of, sigh, brothers, amiright? he can’t afford to care, can’t afford not to expect that from amenadiel anyway. he doesn’t know how to stop living in the past. 

and then he meets linda. 

and suddenly we have a lucifer who is starting to get to grips with his own emotions, starting to get some much-needed perspective on what is and isn’t normal. i don’t think he actually realised just how abusive his family - not just dad, but his siblings too - were until he let linda in. 

he bonds with chloe, and for the first time he’s got someone in his life who chooses to support him, who doesn’t take his shit but doesn’t go for his throat either, and now he’s starting to learn the give-and-take nature of a normal, healthy relationship. he watches her with trixie, with dan, and starts to understand what family ought to look like. he’s soaking shit up like a sponge at this point and he’s realising that his family isn’t normal. 

he puts his fist through linda’s wall, the only way he knows how to express how angry and hurt he is by what she’s saying to him, and she keeps seeing him anyway, and he starts to realise that he’s never had that kind of support from his own family, and he should have, and it hurts.

and we start to see him react to amenadiel differently. he goes to amenadiel to ask for help retrieving his wings. that’s the first time we’ve seen lucifer treat amenadiel like a big brother. and amenadiel flings it back in his face ( “clean up your own mess, for once.” ). lucifer wants the sort of relationship he knows he should have with his brother - the human idea of a good sibling relationship - but amenadiel has also been his primary abuser for eons. the trust isn’t there, they don’t know how to care about each other, they’re both dealing with trauma and grief over lucifer’s fall, there’s so much going on there. 

(and amenadiel is beginning to change too, though much slower than lucifer. they banter a little in this episode. he’s very much the exasperated older brother at a few points, but without the loathing from episode 1. linda is already affecting him, too, in very subtle ways; she’s showing him it’s possible to care about lucifer.)

and by the time we have malcolm telling luci that amenadiel sent him to shoot him, he definitely has an emotional reaction ( “so my holier-than-thou brother sent someone to kill me! well, this really is opposite day.” ). 

by now, we have a lucifer with a support system. we have a lucifer who’s been sat on linda’s couch for months(?) having his pain and his fears and his trauma validated, and learning how to deal with the fallout. we have a lucifer who knows what family should look like, who knows his brother is treating him badly, and that it’s not normal, and that it’s not okay. and he’s hurt. he’s frustrated. he’s angry. 

(he’s also putting on a front, because he thinks he’s mortal and someone is pointing a gun at him. and when lucifer is threatened, he makes himself as big and intimidating as possible and bluffs. he doesn’t have time to really sort through his feelings about amenadiel, because he’s focusing on trying to scare malcolm off with his devil face)

i think this - the end of s1 - is really where their relationship began the long slow process of healing. lucifer wants to get in a fight with his brother against campolongo’s men. amenadiel takes the olive branch and there’s even a semi-affectionate moment when it’s all over ( “and to think we spent all those millennia fighting each other.” ). lucifer stops chasing malcolm to try and save amenadiel’s life. amenadiel realises he’s responsible for his own actions and tries to right his wrongs. and lucifer admits fear in front of his brother and shares the burden of their mom having escaped. 

(and can i just scream for a second about how good lucifer is? he’s been rejected and reviled and treated so badly so many times and yet he still keeps reaching out, keeps trying to help his brother, and it hurts my heart so much)

(also i love the progression of this relationship so much, how you can see the tiny little steps they’re taking towards a human-standards Good Relationship. amenadiel's realization that he’s been a terrible big brother and his awkward attempts at being a better one, offering lucifer advice and reassurance. lucifer - trust issues personified - in turn tentatively starting to ask for amenadiel’s input and beginning to trust him more ( “am i boyfriend material?” )

the backslide when amenadiel tells lucifer he loves and supports him and lucifer panics and lashes out hard, because receiving unconditional love from a family member is so alien that the alarms in his head, honed in hell, are screaming wrong wrong wrong wrong and amenadiel’s sad but accepting reiteration that he understands what lucifer is doing and loves him anyway. these two??? kill me)

SO ANYWAY TL;DR: he didn’t react because he was shut down and his Normal Meter was 50 shades of broken. also i have a lot of feelings about amenadiel and lucifer and i love them so much so this got kinda off track sorry

[quidfree]

Wondering how you decided to characterize the Regulus-Marauders relationships in LMV? Really love that fic btw :)

i’m glad someone asked bc i make no secret of the fact that writing said relationships (or interactions, more accurately) is one of my very fav parts about writing LMV- i’m pretty sure i’ve answered something similar but i have no qualms doing it again. i’ll put it under the cut so i can do them one at a time.

lily: lily is probably my very fav of the regulus interactions, for a variety of reasons. lily, remus and james are all three predisposed to be friendly and kind towards strangers and/or their enemies (unlike regulus and his brother lol), but lily is the person whose kindness is one of her (very few) defined traits in canon, and it’s set in stone that she has a high tolerance for bullshit, so obviously she’s the one who is going to be most unfazed by regulus’ antics and just continue to be faultlessly polite and sympathetic around him. on the other hand, lily has 0 tolerance for death eater bullshit specifically, esp after the snape experience, so she will not hesitate to sharply reprimand regulus whenever he says something even remotely anti-muggle. this means that on balance regulus is hard-pressed to find anything to complain about with her other than the fact she won’t let him be racist towards her, and especially given his recent moral quandaries he feels more chastised than he’d like to admit on the latter point. and lily is not just kind- she’s also a very clever, capable and charming witch, with none of james’ more annoying traits nor remus’ cynicism, and regulus just increasingly likes her a lot while kind of attempting to pedal back on it. lily, on the other hand, beyond her refusal to put up with any bigotry, has a particular soft spot for difficult siblings trying to make amends, and beyond that also finds regulus quite cute in certain regards- his obvious attachment to sirius, his newfound bambi act around anything muggle, his very real concern for kreacher, his transparent reluctance to befriend them. also she enjoys a bit of slytherin snark, amidst all of her gryffindor boys. basically lily gently bullies regulus by simply not leaving him be to stew in his self-indulgent pureblood angst and regulus is helpless to it. down the line, since regulus is canonically kind of a fanboy type (hello posters) he will become a staunch lily stan who spends 50% of their conversations trying to convince her to divorce james because she could do better (and silently deploring the fact she didn’t choose him as a token slytherin friend instead of severus snape). i imagine the absolute outrage of shifting his schoolboy admiration from lord voldemort to lily is one no one ever lets him (or voldemort) live down; lily takes it in stride, since he’s not even close to the most questionable admirer she’s ever had. 

remus: in some ways remus and regulus’ relationship covers a lot of the same beats as lily and regulus’ - remus is also a blood aberration in the eyes of pureblood society, and also infinitely more patient with regulus’ various suspicions and barbs than he deserves. the main distinction is just that remus is less trusting- both because he lacks lily’s sibling angle to lend him sympathy, and because he’s more skeptical on the subject of personal loyalties impacting moral compasses. he’s also less willing to confront regulus’ bad takes because unlike lily remus is not comfortable with his lycantrophy and in part feels the bigotry towards werewolves is deserved, having internalised much of it and living in fear of his capacity to harm others across much of canon. as with sirius (or any of their other friends), remus is also the most observant of the gang, so he can read regulus best, which regulus (as a keen-eyed slytherin himself) is uncomfortably aware and suspicious of. these elements all add a level of strain to their relationship that doesn’t exist with lily and regulus. beyond that, however, remus is of course faultlessly civil, and his teaching instincts mean that in practice he does a lot of the quiet helping regulus privately appreciates the most- pretends to check cupboards out loud so regulus doesn’t have to ask where things go, repeats well-known details to himself within earshot of him, unobtrusively shuffles sirius’ bookshelves around so regulus has things to read. despite his suspicions regulus would pick him to spend time with any day, even fully aware of the fact remus can and will needle him into a seemingly mild debate about some facet of pureblood doctrine after a couple of hours of companionable silence. remus isn’t quite so indulgent of regulus as lily is, but he privately suspects he’s growing on him, because remus sees the good in people despite himself and also sees the black in regulus. he’s a smart kid, anyways, and it’s nice sometimes to have someone around that’s just a little less *handwaves* than the rest of the group, and someone else that does the watching. regulus just wishes remus’ general perceptive doubt didn’t have a massive sirius-(and james-)shaped blindspot, and maybe also that he didn’t look quite so contemplative whenever sirius threatens to feed him to the wolves.

james: james and regulus’ relationship is obviously the funniest of the bunch. i simply do not believe there is any way regulus could not have loathed james with every fibre of his grudge-holding being. and it’s not just the deep dark regulus-intro-chapter thing about james being very literally the one to turn sirius decisively away from his family, or the fact that for regulus’ last two years of school he had to put up with the fact sirius lived with james, or even the fact james was so archetypal of everything he’d been taught to revile as a smarmy blood traitor of the highest class. no, it’s also just that james is obnoxious- at least from the bitter perspective of a middle-schooler whose beloved older brother has unceremoniously ditched him for some loudmouth arrogant gryffindor who struts around hogwarts like he owns it and beats regulus’ quidditch team and makes a big show of thwarting his attempts to catch the snitch while he does it, winking up at the stands where sirius sits howling with laughter all the time. there is no living being on earth regulus can’t stand more than james potter. and james, of course, is thoroughly bewildered by this, because regulus is kind of civil with lily and remus despite his bigotry, and warming up to his brother, but if james so much as breathes remus looks like he wants to club him to death with an antique vase. so then it’s this whole cycle of adversity where james ‘why would someone not like me’ potter only grows more determined to get in regulus’ good books in the face of his loathing, and regulus is having a conniption bc james just won’t stop being friendly and helpful. and james fundamentally is a sirius simp (lol) and also canonically The most trusting and idealistic of the bunch, so he is staunchly in the regulus redemption camp, which makes it all the harder for regulus to just oppose everything he says in principle. not to mention james is genuinely a personable guy, who will do shit like recall some of regulus’ better quidditch plays or remember the names of people in his year regulus hung out with you, and regulus is just. suffering. beyond the inexplicable loathing james finds him very entertaining (duh, it’s sirius’ kid brother) and somewhat like a debutante who just needs to blossom into an order member; he’s the one who most regularly engages with regulus’ inflammatory statements because he’s the one who’s most willing to believe he’ll change (and also because he has years of experience telling sirius that you can’t just say that, mate, where the hell did you hear that from?). regulus hates him, and also hates himself for kind of very much definitely seeing why sirius is so into him. bastard. 

also, i’m not really going into sirius here because LMV itself already does so much, but like. they’re brothers. they love each other wholly. they can (and do) hurt each other like no other. they are very awkwardly trying not to do that on purpose so much. sirius wants very, very badly for regulus to Be Like Him, which regulus resents, but really sirius wants more than anything for regulus to be Good, so they can be on the same side of things again, and regulus doesn’t really know how to handle that (especially bc some part of him very desperately seeks to regain his brother’s approval). it’s a mess but they’re trying. i think it’s esp weird for them bc they never really had a middle ground- in the Before they were inseparable and sirius was the cool older brother who stuck up for regulus as he shadowed him around, and in the After sirius was the family disappointment who couldn’t believe regulus wouldn’t follow in his footsteps and took this out on him as angrily as he could manage while regulus bitterly returned the favour. now they’re sort of at an impasse, trying to relearn the actual people they are rather than what they’ve always been to each other. 

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Is It Really THAT Bad?

The DC films have been a mixed bag, to put it lightly. As of 2020, for every fun and enjoyable superhero film like Wonder Woman, Shazam, Aquaman, and Birds of Prey, there has been a film that was reviled or polarizing. Dawn of Justice and Justice League are both common punching bags, but there is one movie that stands out as the single most despised film in the DC cinematic universe so far:

Suicide Squad.

A lot of this comes from just how unashamedly blatant the film is at being a rushed cash in on the type of quirky superhero movie that Guardians of the Galaxy helped popularize: a bunch of wild and wacky antiheroes team up, fight a big problem, make one liners, and become a family, all while an awesome soundtrack blares in the background. It seems like the easiest thing in the world to rip off, but there’s a lot of heart and charm in Guardians that it’s not easy to replicate. And if you ask most critics… this movie did not.

Opinions on the film tend to range from lukewarm to outright hating, with IHE and the [REDACTED] Critic all throwing in their two cents. Perhaps the most damning review of all came from Mick LaSalle, who wrote:

“If you know someone you really can’t stand — not someone you dislike, not someone who rubs you the wrong way, but someone you really loathe and detest — send that person a ticket for “Suicide Squad.” It’s the kind of torment you can wish on your worst enemy without feeling too guilty: not something to inflict permanent damage, just two hours of soul-sickening confusion and sensory torment.”

There’s not much love for this, is what should be abundantly clear. And it’s really a shame, because there is stuff this film has going for it, but it wasn’t really enough to stop DC from basically hitting the soft reboot button and snagging the actual James Gunn to make a sequel while also doing their best to downplay that the events of this film actually happened. But now with a few years of hindsight, I have to go back and wonder like the heathen I am…

Is Suicide Squad REALLY that bad?

THE GOOD

Yes, amazingly, there is some good stuff here, mostly to do with the casting. At least half the cast is just pitch perfect for their roles. Famous rapper and YouTube Rewind star Will Smith as Deadshot is, of course, one of the standout examples; he brings a lot of charm and charisma to his role of an assassin who really loves his daughter, but then again, this is Will Smith. It’s hard not to love the guy in anything he does. Viola Davis as Amanda Waller is another inspired bit of casting, and she truly owns the role, and Jai Courtney is perhaps the most consistently enjoyable member of the Squad, Captain Boomerang, the exact sort of stupid D-list villain who SHOULD be getting screentime in a movie like this.

Of course, the very best bit of casting is Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, in Harley’s big screen debut. Robbie has such an enthusiasm for the role that shines through even with the clunky script, and while she would definitely improve her craft for her outing in Birds of Prey, her performance here still has that spark of zany fun that Harley needs, cementing Robbie as the perfect star for the role. Frankly, that’s the feeling that can be gathered from a lot of these really good performances; they’re good, but they lack proper refinement, and so are stuck spouting the stupidest, corniest, clunkiest lines imaginable. But yes, really the worst thing you can say about Harley in this film is that her outfit is absolutely atrocious and demeaning.

While we’re on the subject of Harley Quinn, tough… while the whole situation with the Joker is something I’ll get to shortly, I think their relationship in this film is actually done well in many aspects. I’ve always preferred the original idea of “Mad Love” over the glorified domestic abuse that Joker x Harley has often devolved into, and while there is a bit of the latter, the fact that Joker literally goes out of his way to save Harley at every opportunity to the point he’s a definition satellite love interest is really good. Of course, this was thrown out for Birds of Prey, but I do think it worked in the context of this film.

Of course, we all know that the greatest aspect of this film is REALLY Slipknot, the single most powerful member of the Squad. I’ve already written an entire Psycho Analysis on why he’s the greatest villain in the history of cinema, so just read that for the rundown on how our man Slipknot climbs his way into your heart and mind.

THE BAD

So there is just a lot to go over here.

First, there’s the soundtrack’s implementation. As a blatant Guardians ripoff, everything the characters do needs to be punctuated by some sort of awesome music to tie the scene together. The difference is that where in the Guardian movies the soundtrack is used as a storytelling tool to help subtly emphasize points that the narrative doesn’t want to spell out for you, Suicide Squad just has these songs because they’re cool and because Guardians did it. Why is “Black Skinhead” playing while Deadshot tests his weapon skills? Why is “House of the Rising Sun” playing during Waller talking about the Squad? What exactly do these songs add besides background music? The opening montage of everyone in the Squad is particularly bad because the songs are just switching up really quickly as the montage goes along, which echoes a complaint I had about Little Nicky, of all films: “One of the more noticeable problems is the usage of music; in the course of one single scene, they play four different songs, and all of this is in a span of about one or two minutes. Just pick a song and stick to it for fuck’s sake!” About the only song that is really properly utilized is “Heathens,” which plays over the (admittedly cool) credit sequence.

Now let’s get into the characters, because for every awesome character in this film, there’s two that just absolutely suck or are so underutilized it’s laughable. Probably the worst case of this is Killer Croc, who despite being a stunning practical effect and probably the reason this film scored an Oscar, does pretty much nothing for the entire film, save for a short bit in the ending where he swims. You’d be entirely forgiven for forgetting he’s in the film, which is not something you should be saying about a Batman villain of this caliber.

Katana and Diablo are both characters who should be awesome, but the story givers them nothing to do and rushes their character arcs, respectively. Katana is yet another character you’d probably forget is there, even though she has a lot of fascinating elements to her character (some of which are detailed in her infamous introduction, which don’t worry, I’m working towards it), but nothing is really done with her. Diablo is actually one of the best and most fleshed-out characters in the film, but the narrative just completely fails to justify him or his ultimate heroic sacrifice; by the end, he claims the Squad is like family, but they’ve never really done anything to earn this. Like, think to the ending of Guardians of the Galaxy, where we have moments like Drax standing up for Gamora and Groot sacrificing himself. These moments only work because the characters had their relationships built up over the course of the movie so that there is a punch when these things happen. Suicide Squad really just throws it in just to have it.

Then we come to our villain. Enchantress is yet another villain I once detailed on Psycho Analysis, and my opinion on her remains unchanged. While she most certainly has a cool design, she is absolutely not the sort of world-ending supernatural threat a team of snarky jackasses should be fighting on their first mission together. The Squad should have had a mission more grounded in reality, and that can’t happen when you have an ancient interdimensional witch causing a Luddite zombie apocalypse through the power of interpretive dance. There’s also the fact that there’s never really any reason given to care about the character of June Moon, the host of the Enchantress, so the desperation of Rick Flag (a character so boring and pointless I didn’t even waste time mentioning him before) to save her comes off as hollow as most of the movie’s other emotional moments. Overall, Enchantress is just a boring generic doomsday villain who feels wildly out of place in the story and just doesn’t do anything to make herself stand out.

Then we have Joker.

I’m not really going to get into Jared Leto’s obnoxious behind-the-scenes antics, because that has little bearing on his performance, kind of like how his performance has little bearing on the film. As I mentioned before, this Joker is nothing more than a satellite for Harley. This is probably a good thing, because despite being called Joker he’s pretty divorced from most other interpretations; while he plays up the thuggish, brutish elements the Joker does typically have, everything else about him is just so jarringly non-Joker as to be laughable, from his ridiculous grill to the absolutely cringeworthy “Damaged” tattoo on his forehead. I wouldn’t go quite so far as to say he’s the worst villain in a superhero movie ever as some have, mostly because he’s not even in the film long enough to leave much of an impact. I will, however, say that so far he is the absolute worst onscreen depiction of Joker in film. Once again, if you’d like to hear more of my in-depth thoughts on Leto’s portrayal, I did make a Psycho Analysis on him a while back.

But all that aside, the worst aspect of this film is the writing. The writing is just utterly abysmal throughout, and while there are a few good lines sprinkled here and there, a lot of the dialogue is cringeworthy and the story itself is a convoluted mess. The story takes so many nonsensical turns from the get-go, starting with how Amanda Waller thinks a bunch of non-superpowered criminals could take down a metahuman threat; what the hell is Killer Croc, whose only power is “being an ugly cannibal,” going to do against Superman? That’s like if you put Leatherface up against a Predator, who would be stupid en-

...Oh. Right. Well, if nothing else, Amanda Waller has a very bright future as a designer for Mortal Kombat games. Beyond that, as mentioned above, a lot of the characters simply exist and serve little purpose in the narrative, and the ones that do serve a purpose are underplayed unless they’re Deadshot or Harley. You’d think Diablo’s tragic backstory and desire to have a family or Flag’s desire to save June from her curse would be more major elements, but nah. We don’t get much, if any, development on these fronts. And for the dialogue… well, I think this one speaks for itself:

Is It Really THAT Bad?

So I’ve been pretty hard on this film overall, I think, but here’s the shocking twist: I don’t think this is the worst DC movie. Frankly, I find the claims that this is the bottom of the barrel in terms of superhero films a gross overexaggeration. F4ntastic and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 are far and away worse films with little to no redeeming qualities whatsoever in them. At the very least, Suicide Squad is a fun kind of stupid, whereas those movies are bleak, miserable slogs that fail to even try and engage the viewer on any level.

And then, even within the DC movie lineup, I would not say this is worse than Dawn of Justice. Dawn of Justice has a more coherent story, and it in a general sense has better writing, dialogue, and so on… but it isn’t fun, it’s overly long, it’s incredibly pretentious, and it absolutely squanders the coolest concept for a crossover fight that there ever could be, all while giving us a Lex Luthor who is an obnoxious, whiny, sniveling brat who is utterly unbelievable as a threat. Suicide Squad almost seems within the ballpark of being self aware that it’s stupid schlock, and I find that infinitely more respectable than a film that, regardless of its artistic merit, thinks it’s deep and meaningful when it is anything but.

Suicide Squad is firmly on the side of “So bad it’s good,” and even within that category it’s somewhat underrated. I don’t necessarily think this film needs more respect per se, but I feel like it falls into the same category as movies like The Emoji Movie, where it isn’t good by any means but people will rant and rave about how it’s destroying cinema by being apocaliptically bad instead of just saying it’s crappy and moving on with their lives. Like this isn’t a great movie, but at least there’s a couple of enjoyable things, and superhero movies have been through far worse. Its current score of 6 on IMDB is honestly pretty fair. Is it spectacular? No. Could you be watching something way better. Definitely. But is it a trashy, idiotic romp with some good actors and some fun performances in a story so mind-bogglingly dumb that it needs to be seen to be believed? Hell yes.

[apiratecalledav]

Okay, reluctantly leaving my happily ever after AU/denial land for a minute because it’s been like two months and I still see people say bullshit like, “If Jaime was going to go back to Cersei, then Brienne should have died” and urgh. No. Just... no.

I won’t even get into how awful it is to reduce Brienne to that as a character within her own right because trivializing and misinterpreting her relationship with Jaime is bad enough. The main reason being that it completely overlooks one of the most important and poignant parts of Jaime’s character:

That even though Cersei was “the end of” Jaime, Jaime was in a lot of ways “the beginning of” Brienne.

While Cersei and Jaime were like kindling and oxygen getting devoured by fire and were destructive and toxic, Jaime and Brienne were like music and lyrics; complete individuals in their own right, but when they’re combined they created something new and amazing. Like two Valyrian steel swords reforged from one greatsword. If fate had been kinder, they would have been very happy together.

Unfortunately, growing up with Tywin (and Cersei), serving Aerys, and spending half his life being unjustly reviled, Jaime had a lot of issues with guilt and self-loathing that no one who didn’t take several advanced psychology classes would have been able to help with.

But despite Jaime’s personal demons, he tried as hard as he could to build up Brienne, not drag her down the way that Cersei did to him. Instead of using his relationship with Brienne for his benefit, he used it to benefit her: He helped Brienne to fulfill her oath to Cat and indirectly led to her being able to avenge Renly. He made it possible for her to go from being regarded as a failure and an oddity to being successful and respected. He knighted her. She fell in love with him and he loved her, too. No, it wasn’t enough to “fix” him (news flash: love isn’t a cure), but it was way, way more than what everyone around her ever expected. He loved her, not her father’s title or lands. And he loved her not in spite of her unusual, knightly demeanor but because of it.  And it wasn’t wishful thinking or all in her head or “but only as a friend.” Jaime Lannister, who was like, a five time winner of Westerosi Weekly’s “Sexiest Man Alive,” looked at Brienne of Tarth like this (so fuck you, Ronnet): 

Cersei saw Jaime as an extension of herself— her “other half” who got to have the kind of power and autonomy in society she desperately wished for herself because he was a man. Her feelings for him stemmed from narcissism and selfishness, dooming Jaime to virtually never being “good enough.”

Jaime also saw Brienne as everything he wished he could be— a true knight who was valiant and honorable, not because she was sworn to do so, but because she wanted to be. The difference here is that Jaime’s feelings for Brienne developed from admiration and respect and he is the one who didn’t feel worthy of her.

Because while Tyrion saw Jaime being with Brienne as Jaime finally allowing himself to be happy, I felt like Jaime saw it as being selfish. Telling Tyrion to “say something snide” made me think he was looking to be chastised. When Brienne tries to talk him out of dying with Cersei and tells him that he’s a good man, he nearly bursts into tears and reveals all of the worst things about himself. The most genuine and heartbreaking “it’s not you; it’s me” speech, like... ever.

If he truly believed that Brienne needed him, he would have stayed with her. We saw a long time ago that he was willing to leave the road that led back to Cersei to save Brienne from the bear pit, and risk his own life in the process. Just as he lost his right hand, his sword hand— when he believed that he “was that hand” and once said he’d rather die than be “grotesque”— to protect Brienne and keep her “whole.”

Even if it was only on a subconscious level, he obviously believed Brienne deserved to live more than he or Cersei did. But Brienne is safe after 8x03; the dead are defeated and she’s not only on the side with a damn dragon, she won’t even be expected to leave Sansa and Arya to fight. The only thing Jaime believes he’s doing for her is clouding her judgment, i.e. “tricking” her into thinking that he’s good and that he deserves her. In his mind, he did the same thing to Brienne that Cersei did to him. He thought Brienne would start making excuses for him, just as he had done so many times for Cersei. Look at his face and eyes when she says “You’re a good man.”

When Jaime told Tyrion that he “never cared” for innocents, I don’t believe he’s a Scooby-Doo villain removing his mask and saying, “Surprise! I’ve been an asshole all along.” It’s just the way he saw himself because he didn’t know how else to explain his mistakes, the (innocent) people he had hurt, or his inability to stop caring about Cersei even though she was horrible. We know that Jaime’s attachment to Cersei is unhealthy and the result of emotional abuse and other factors resulting from trauma. But Jaime saw it as proof he was a bad person.

He did for Brienne what (I can easily imagine) he wished Cersei had done for him— He tells Brienne that he’s hateful and effectively sets her “free” of him. When he perceived himself to be perpetuating the cycle of abuse, he stopped it (more “break the wheel” imagery?). Yeah, he did it in an awful, hurtful way but we have to remember that Jaime had no access to therapy, self-help books, advice columns, google, etc. He hadn’t had or even really seen a healthy relationship since his mother died when he was like seven. On top of that, his last real moment of pure love and acceptance was with Myrcella... about thirty seconds before she died in his embrace. That alone would screw up anyone. It’s tragic and devastating, but Jaime wasn’t in a place to make Brienne happy long term and he had absolutely no idea how to change that. It was easier to shut down those negative feelings when he could say, “I have a noble purpose: help stop ice demons and zombies from destroying the world.” When he couldn’t say that anymore, it got to be too much for him.

I’ve long thought that applying the “redemption arc” label to Jaime (or any asoif/got character, really) was a little too... simplistic. Like most major characters, Jaime has undoubtedly done some reprehensible things, the worst being his attempt to kill Bran. But unlike say Joffrey or Ramsay, Jaime’s thought process wasn’t, “Hey, let’s push this kid out of a window and see if his bones make a sweet crunching noise when he lands!”

He was thinking, “Oh, shit. This kid is probably too young to ‘play it cool’ for long around his parents after being threatened or bribed... And if he blabs, that’s my head cut off, Cersei’s head cut off, and if Joffrey, Tommen, and Myrcella aren’t immediately executed right behind us, they’ll be locked up until they’re old enough that people are less squeamish about chopping off their heads, too. And gee, I bet dear old Dad isn’t going to take that lying down...”

In a world as brutal as theirs, it’s difficult for me to condemn anyone too harshly for trying to protect themselves or their loved ones, provided they aren’t cavalier about collateral damage (for example, Cersei blowing up the sept with more than just her enemies inside and people in the surrounding area ending up getting crushed by the debris).

Early on, Jaime appeared to be arrogant, callous, and convinced that violence was an “easy solution.” As the series progressed, mostly through his growing friendship with Brienne, we discovered that a great deal of Jaime’s behavior was a defense mechanism.

After his “Kingslayer” persona slowly falls away, we eventually see “Jaime” (re)born in Brienne’s arms.

Soon, we even saw him gain a shiny, newly reforged Valyrian steel sword to go along with his new beginning . But he didn’t even have the sword very long before he turned around and gave it to Brienne— and kept the “tainted” Widow’s Wail for himself.

And when Brienne tried to return Oathkeeper,  that precious symbol of hope and honor and second chances, Jaime refused it and told her, “It’s yours. It will always be yours.” (Emphasis mine)

I know we were hoping that Brienne would “save” Jaime— and I firmly believe she was instrumental in saving his soul— but Jaime ended up ultimately saving Brienne. He saved her life, but he also saved her from an existence of loneliness and ridicule. In 4x02 (written by GRRM btw), Brienne tells Cersei, “In truth, he rescued me, Your Grace. More than once.”

Jaime was a flawed and deeply troubled person, but he tried his damnedest to give Brienne everything. No, he couldn’t literally do so— he couldn’t give her his whole, undamaged heart— but he still gave her so much: His admiration; his faith; his trust; his sword; his right hand; her protégé Podrick; helped her fulfill her vows and find good friends like Sansa, Tyrion, and Davos, and a kindred spirit in Arya; and made her dearest wish come true. What is that, if not love, of the truest and deepest kind?

Though Jaime likely thought his knighting of Brienne was merely a nice thing to do for her on their supposed last night on earth, it ended up having an unexpected and incredible impact once the North gained independence: Knights were already mainly a Southern thing and Brienne’s knighthood would have been absolutely worthless in an independent North. Sansa, being completely safe and secure and obviously knowing how much being knighted meant to Brienne, would assure her that she was released from her vow to Catelyn’s daughters. And so Ser Brienne is free to return to the Six Kingdoms, and offer her services to the new King, Cat Stark’s last surviving son. To Bran.

While Jaime once hurt Bran for Cersei’s sake and accidentally paved the way for years of war and destruction, Brienne, thanks to Jaime knighting her, will be able to dedicate herself to protecting Bran, insuring peace, and helping to rebuild.

All of the best parts of Jaime live on in Brienne and not just because she finished his entry in the Book of Brothers. She, and the doors that Jaime opened for her, are his legacy.

Brienne will be able to do the kinds of things Jaime wanted to do but couldn’t. She’ll help restore honor to the knighthood. There will be more Ser Briennes and Ser Davoses and Ser Podricks and fewer Ser Gregors, Ser Armorys, and Ser Meryns.

It truly baffles me to see people bitching about “wasted character arcs” and yet in the same breath are ready to throw Brienne and everything Jaime did for her away. Jaime’s character was frustrating and heartbreaking and maddening but it wasn’t a waste precisely because he made it possible for Brienne to have a bright future and a good life and it’s the proof that he truly was ultimately a much better person than his sister.

TL;DR:  If we must pigeonhole Jaime into the whole “redemption” thing, can’t we see that he did redeem himself through Brienne— by supporting her and validating her and making it possible for her to do the kind of great things he wished he could do himself?

PS: I’m fairly certain Jaime and Cersei’s ending was “softened” for the show, the way so many other characters and events have been. I highly doubt she’ll be pregnant and the idea that he was largely motivated to save their child certainly helped make the whole thing easier for me to swallow. As  Tyland Lannister, hand to the “broken King” Aegon III,  screams “Tyrion and Bran,” and Elissa Farman appears to be foreshadowing Arya’s similar journey/let’s us know it’s very possible she’ll survive... Aelora and Aelor Targaryen make me wonder if book Jaime will accidentally kill Cersei and then freak out and commit suicide. And if that’s the case, I’m glad the show went with something different, as rushed and clumsy as it was. I am glad that Jaime’s last moments weren’t violent or angry or otherwise cruel and didn’t have to add more to his overwhelming guilt and despair.

If he had to die, and especially if he had to die with Cersei, then it’s a good thing that he got to die as Joanna’s son— not Tywin’s— and as Tyrion’s brother— not Cersei’s. He got to die as the man who Brienne fell in love with: Someone who was brave and compassionate, fulfilling his oath, and being honorable in his way, even if it’s not in the way society (or the audience) understands or likes. Even though he was with Cersei, he remained as the man who could see— and love— the vulnerable human being beneath their “monstrous” exterior, just as he did for Brienne and Tyrion. Maybe Cersei didn’t “deserve” that, but Jaime certainly did. And in the White Book, when it’s said that Jaime died protecting his Queen, it’s not a lie. Which is the last thing Jaime would have wanted: “I'll hack the bloody book to pieces before I'll fill it with lies.”

I don’t know if Old Jaime would have intentionally hurt or murdered Cersei, but I definitely think he would have at least hurled out one last massive fuck you in a similar “why have the gods made me love a hateful woman?” way. He’d have reminded her that none of this would have happened if she wasn’t such a stubborn, vindictive wretch: If she hadn’t pushed Joffrey to ditch Sansa for Margaery, whose grandma ended up killing him; if she hadn’t tried to get Tyrion falsely executed, she wouldn’t have set off a chain of events that led to Tywin and Myrcella dying; if she hadn’t tried to screw over Margaery by giving the High Sparrow power; if she hadn’t blown up the Sept, Tommen wouldn’t have killed himself; if she had kept her promise to fight in the North; if she had just stepped down when Dany arrived, etc then maybe they wouldn’t about to damn near literally get crushed to death by all of Cersei’s bad decisions.

Old Jaime talked a lot of shit to people, presumably trying to make himself feel better. But he realized at some point, all it did was make them as miserable as he was. So in the end, when Cersei is so pitifully scared and sad, instead of getting pissed off or bitter, Jaime comforts her the best he can; an ability I don’t think he would have developed if it hadn’t been for his relationship with Brienne. We even see some rare moments of genuine selflessness from Cersei (“You’re bleeding” and “I don’t want our baby to die”). In Jaime and Cersei’s final moments, they act as close to normal siblings as they are capable, seeing as they don’t even try to kiss (thank goodness). This leaves Brienne as the last person Jaime kissed. And to me, that says it all.

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled “Grey Worm and Missandei said ‘fuck you, Westeros’ after The Long Night and dropped Jaime and Brienne off at Tarth on their way to Naath” way of life. 

[theculturedmarxist]

ROBERT SCHEER: Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of “Scheer Intelligence,” where the intelligence comes from my guests. In this case Max Blumenthal, who I must say is one of the gutsiest journalists we have in the United States, and have had for the last five years or so. He’s, in addition to having considerable courage and [going] out on these third-rail issues — like Israel, being one of the more prominent ones — and challenging some of the major conceits of even liberal politics in the United States about our virtue, our constant virtue, he’s done just great journalism. I really loved his book, “Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel,” which came out in 2013, because it was based on just good, solid journalism of interviewing people and trying to figure out what’s going on.

I’d done something a half century earlier, or not quite that long ago, during the Six-Day War in Israel, where I went over when I was the editor of Ramparts. And I know how difficult it is to deal with that issue, because I put Ramparts into bankruptcy over the controversy about it. [Laughter] So maybe that’s a good place to begin. You know, you dared touch this issue of Israel, and it didn’t help that you are Jewish. I guess you are Jewish, right? Do you have a background, did you practice any aspect of Judaism? Literature, culture, religion?

MAX BLUMENTHAL: I’m a Jew who had a bar mitzvah, and I even had a bris.

RS: Oh. [Laughs]

MB: And you know, I’ve continued to pop in in synagogues here and there on High Holy Days. I guess you could say, you know, when the rabbi asked, you know, asked me to join the army of God, I tell him I’m in the Secret Service. But I’m definitely Jewish, you know, and it’s a big part of who I am and why I do what I do.

RS: Well, and I thought your writing on that, and your journalism, was informed by that. Because after all, a very important part of the whole experience of Jewish people as victims, as people forced into refugee status, living in the diaspora, was to develop a sense of universal values, and of decency and obligation to the other. And I think your reporting reflected that. However, my goodness, you got a lot of heat over it. And it’s the heat I want to talk about. I want to talk about the difficulty, in this post-Cold War world, of actually writing about the U.S. imperial presence, or writing critically about what our government does, and some of its allies.

And I think Israel is a really good case in point, because we have one narrative that said in the last election we had foreign interference, mostly coming from Russia. And we talk about Russia as if it’s the old communist Soviet Union, with a top-down, big, organized party — forgetting that [Vladimir] Putin actually defeated the Communist Party, and even though he had been in the KGB, and most Russians had been in some kind of official connection with society or another. Nonetheless, Russia really has gotten very little out of whatever interference it did. Israel, that is very rarely talked about, interfered in the election in a very open, blatant way in the presence of Netanyahu, who denounced Barack Obama’s major foreign policy achievement, the deal with Iran, and has focused U.S. policy mostly against the enemy being Iran, and ignoring Saudi Arabia and everything else.

And the interesting thing is that Israel’s interference in the election, and Netanyahu, has been rewarded over and over — the embassy got shifted, the settlers got more validation, now there’s a big peace plan that gives the hawks in Israel everything they want. So why don’t we begin with that, and your own writing about U.S.-Israel relations. It’s kind of odd that there’s — or maybe not odd, maybe it’s just because it is the third rail — that there’s been so little discussion about Donald Trump’s relation to Israel and his payoff to Netanyahu.

MB: Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot to chew on there. I would first start with just an observation, because you mentioned that we’re in a post-Cold War world — well, we’re not in a post-Cold War world anymore, we’re in a new Cold War. And for all the attacks I got over Israel, which were absolutely vicious, personalized, you know, framed through emotional blackmail, attacking my identity as a Jew, calling me a Jewish anti-Semite — the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is this right-wing racket over there in L.A., made me the No. 4 anti-Semite of 2015. You know, I was right behind Ayatollah Khomeini. But you know, the worst attacks, the most vicious attacks I’ve received have actually been from centrists and liberal elements over my criticism of the Russiagate narrative that they foisted on the American public starting in 2016, and also on the dirty war that the U.S. has been waging on Syria, and how we at the site that I edit, the Grayzone, started unpacking a lot of the deceptions and lies that were used to try to stimulate support among middle-class liberals in the west for this proxy war on Syria, for regime change in Syria. This was absolutely forbidden, and that attack actually turned out to be more vicious and is ongoing.

With Israel, you have a situation where you have, not maybe a plurality, but maybe a majority of secular Jewish Americans, progressive Jews, who have completely turned their back on the whole Zionist project. And it has a lot to do with Netanyahu. Netanyahu is someone who came out of the American — out of American life. He went to high school in suburban Philadelphia, he went to MIT, he was at Boston Consulting with Mitt Romney. His father ended his life in upstate New York as Jabotinsky’s press secretary, the press secretary for the revisionist wing of the Zionist movement that inspired the Likud party. So Netanyahu is really kind of an American figure, number one; number two, he’s a Republican figure. He’s like a card-carrying neoconservative Republican.

So a lot of Jews who’ve historically aligned themselves with the Democratic Party, who see being a Democrat as almost synonymous with being Jewish in American life, just absolutely revile Netanyahu. And here he is, basically the longest-serving prime minister in Israel; he’s completely redefined the face of Israel and what it is. And he’s provoked — I wouldn’t say provoked, but he’s accelerated the civil war in American Jewish life over Zionism. And what I did was come in at a time when it wasn’t entirely popular, to not just challenge Israel as a kind of occupying entity, but to actually challenge it at its core, to challenge the entire philosophy of Zionism, and to analyze the Israeli occupation as the byproduct of a system of apartheid which has been in place from the beginning, since 1948, which was a product of a settler colonial movement.

That really upset a lot of people who kind of reflect the same elements that I’m getting, who are attacking me on Syria or Russia. People like Eric Alterman at The Nation. He wrote 11 very personal attack pieces on me when my book “Goliath” came out in 2013. Truthdig, you, Chris Hedges, it was a great source of support. And you, you know, you opened up the debate at Truthdig, you allowed people to come in and criticize the book, but kind of in a principled, constructive way. Whereas Eric Alterman was demanding that The Nation censor me, blacklist me, ban me for life, and was comparing me to a neo-Nazi by the end, and claiming I was secretly in league with David Duke. And that was because he had simply no response to my reporting and my analysis of the kind of, the inner contradictions of Zionism.

And so to me, it was really a sign of the success of the book, that someone like Alterman was sort of dispatched, or took it upon himself to wage this really self-destructive attack. And in the end, he really had nothing to show for himself; he wasn’t arguing on the merits. And that’s just what I find time and again with my reporting is, you know, you get these personal attacks and people try to dissuade you from going and touching these third-rail issues, but ultimately there’s no substance to the attacks. I mean, if they really wanted to nail me and take me down, they would address the facts, and they really haven’t been able to do that.

RS: Right. But Max, if I can, let’s focus on the power of your analysis in that book, which is that it is a settler colonialism. And Netanyahu actually is — we can talk about the old labor Zionists, you know, and what was meant by progressive Zionism and so forth. Even at the time of the Six-Day War when I interviewed people like Moshe Dayan and Ya’alon and these people, they all were against a full occupation of the West Bank. They didn’t act on that, unfortunately. But they were aware of the dangers of a colonial model. But right now you have a figure in Israel in Netanyahu, who is, very clearly embodies a racialized view, a jingoistic view of the other, which is really, you know, very troubling. And he’s embraced by this troubling American figure.

And so what your book really predicted is that the settler colonialism was a rot at the center of the Israeli enterprise — and historically, one could justify that enterprise. I don’t know if you would agree. But even the old Soviet Union, I think, was the second, if not the first country to recognize Israel. There was vast worldwide support for some sort of refuge for the Jewish people after such horrible, you know, genocidal policies visited upon them. But what we’re really talking about now is something very different. And that is whether political leadership, and interference and so forth comes mainly for Democrats, very often; obviously, for republicans and Bible-belters and all that, who seem to like this image of the end of time coming in Israel. But really what’s happening — and it’s not discussed in this election, except to attack Bernie Sanders, who dared make some criticisms of Israel in some of these debates — you have a very weird notion of the Jewish experience, as identified with a very hardline, as you say, sort of South African settler colonialist mentality.

And so I want to ask you the question as someone–and we’ll get to it later — you grew up sort of within the Democratic liberal establishment in Washington. Your parents both worked for the Clinton administration, were close to it. How do you explain this blind eye toward Trump’s relationship to Netanyahu? And ironically, for all the Russia-bashing, Netanyahu and Putin seem to get along splendidly, you know. And that doesn’t bother people as far as criticizing Netanyahu. So why don’t we visit that a little bit, and forget about Eric Alterman for a while.

MB: [Laughs] Well, he’s already forgotten, so we don’t have much work to do there. But there’s a lot, again, a lot to chew on, a lot of questions packed into that. You know, just starting with your mention of Moshe Dayan — who is a seminal figure in the Nakba, the initial ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population in 1948 to establish Israel — he was the southern commander of the Israeli military. And he later kind of became a kind of schizophrenic figure in Israeli politics; he would sometimes offer some kind of left-wing opinions, and then be extremely militaristic. But you know, when it came down to it, Moshe Dayan — like every other member of the Israeli Labor Party — was absolutely opposed to a viable Palestinian state. He even said that we cannot have a Palestinian state because it will connect psychologically, in the minds of the Palestinian public who are citizens of Israel — that 20% of Israel who are indigenous Palestinians — it will connect them to Nablus in the West Bank, and it will provide them with a basis for rebelling against the Israeli state to expand the Palestinian state.

The other labor leaders spoke in terms of the kind of, with the racist language of the demographic time bomb that, you know, we need to give Palestinians a state, otherwise we will be overwhelmed demographically. And so the state that they were proposed was what Yitzhak Rabin, in his final address before the Israeli Knesset, the Israeli parliament, called “less than a state.” He promised Israel that at Oslo, he would deliver the Palestinians less than a state. And if you look at the actual plan that the Palestinians were handed at Oslo — which Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Authority chairman, didn’t even review before signing — the map was not that different from the map that Donald Trump has offered with the “ultimate deal.” And they’d say, oh, you get 97% of what was, you know, offered in U.N. Resolution 242 in 1967. But it really just isn’t the case when you get down to the details. What the strategy has been with the Labor Party, and with successive Israeli administrations — and with Netanyahu until he got Trump in — was to kind of kick the can down the road with the so-called peace process, so that Israel could keep putting more facts on the ground.

So it was actually Ehud Barak of the Labor Party, Yitzhak Rabin’s successor, who moved more settlers into the West Bank, by a landslide, than Netanyahu did. Ehud Barak actually campaigned on his connection to the settlers. And then Netanyahu capitalizes on the strength of the settlement movement to build this kind of Titanic rock of a right-wing coalition that’s kept him in power for so long. And if you look at who the leading figures are in Israeli life — Naftali Bennett, who was from the Jewish Home Party, he comes out of the Likud party and he’s someone who was an assistant to Netanyahu. Avigdor Lieberman, who was for a long time the leader of the Russian Party. Yisrael Beiteinu, this is someone who came out of the Likud Party, who helped Netanyahu rustle up Russian votes. It’s a Likud one-party state — but then you have, culturally, a dynamic where starting with 1967, the public just becomes more infused with religious Messianism.

The West Bank is the site of the real, emotionally potent Jewish historical sites, particularly in a city like Hebron. And the public becomes attached to it and attains its dynamism through this expansionist project, and the public changes. A lot of people from the kind of liberal labor wing became religious Messianists, started wearing kippot, wearing yarmulkes, the kind of cloth yarmulkes that the modern orthodox settlers where.

RS: OK, but —

MB: Today you not only have that, you have a new movement called the temple movement, which aims to actually replace Jewish prayer at the Western Wall with animal sacrifice, as Jews supposedly practiced thousands of years ago, and to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque, and practice Jewish prayer there. This is not just a messianic movement, but an apocalyptic movement that is actually gaining strength in the Likud party. So when you mentioned Donald Trump’s “ultimate deal,” there’s one detail that everyone seems to have missed there, which is prayer for all at the Dome of the Rock, at Al-Aqsa. That means there will be Jewish prayer there, officially, that Palestinians must be forced to accept that and destroy the status quo, which has prevailed since 1967.

RS: I know, but Max, before I lose this whole interview here — because I think that’s all really interesting; people should read your book, “Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel.” That’s not the focus of this discussion I want to have with you.

MB: OK.

RS: And I want to discuss, in this aspect, the whole idea of Israel as a third-rail issue for American politics.

MB: Yeah.

RS: American politics. And the reason I want to do that is there’s obviously a contradiction in the Jewish experience, because Jews — as much or more so than any other group of people in the world — understand what settler colonialism does. They understand what oppression does, they’ve been under the thumb of oppressors. And so I would argue the major part of the Jewish experience was one of revolt against oppression, and recognition of the danger of unbridled power. And that represents a very important force in liberal politics in the United States: a fear of coercive power, a desire for tolerance, and so forth. And we know that Jews have, in the United States and elsewhere in the world, been a source of concern for the other, and tolerance, and criticism of power.

And the reason I’m bringing that up is it seems to me it’s a real contradiction for the Democratic Party, which you know quite a bit about. And in this Democratic Party, there’s this great loathsome feeling about Donald Trump. And many of these people don’t really like Netanyahu. You know, the polling data shows that Jews are, you know, just about as open to the concern for the Palestinians as any other group. And Bernie Sanders, the one Jewish candidate, is the one who dared to bring up the Palestinians — that they have rights also, that they’re human beings. He’s being attacked for it as, like you, a self-hating Jew. And so I want to get at that contradiction. And, you know, full confession, as a Jewish person I believe it’s an honorable tradition of dissent, and concern for the others, and respect for individual freedom. And I think it’s sullied by the identification of the Jewish experience with a colonialist experience. It is a reality that we have to deal with, but that’s not the whole tradition. And I daresay your own family, whatever your contradiction — and I should mention here your father and mother both were quite active in the Clinton administration, right.

And your father, a well-known journalist, Sidney Blumenthal, and your mother, Jacqueline Blumenthal, was I think a White House fellow or something in the Clinton administration? I forget what her job was, but has been active. And they certainly come out of a more liberal Jewish experience, as do most well-known Jewish writers and journalists in the United States. That’s the contradiction that I don’t see being dealt with here. Because after all, it’s easy to blast Putin and his interference, but as I say, Netanyahu interfered very openly, but in a really unseemly way, in the American election by attacking a sitting American president in an appearance before the Congress, and attacking his major foreign-policy initiative. And there’s hardly a word ever said about it. It doesn’t come up in the democratic debates. You know, and the — as I say, there was this incredible moment where Netanyahu, after coming over here and praising Trump for his peace deal, as did his opponent, then he goes off and meets with Putin. And so suddenly it’s OK, and yet the Democrats who want to blast Putin don’t mention Netanyahu, and they don’t mention his relation to Trump.

MB: Well, yeah, I was trying to illustrate kind of the reality of Israel, which just, it’s gotten so extreme that it repels people who even come out of the kind of Democratic Party mainstream. And the Democratic Party was the original bastion in the U.S. for supporting Israel. So my father actually held a book party for my book, “Goliath,” back in 2013. It’s the kind of thing that, you know, a parent who had been a journalist would do for a son or daughter who’s a journalist. And he was harshly attacked when word got out that he had held that party in a neoconservative publication called the Free Beacon, which is kind of part of Netanyahu’s PR operation in D.C. You know, it was like my father had supported, provided material support for terrorism by having a book party for his son.

But the interesting part about that party was who showed up. I didn’t actually know what it was going to be like, and it was absolutely packed. I mean, they live in a pretty small townhouse in D.C, and there just was nowhere to walk, there was nowhere to move. And I found myself in the corner of their dining room shouting through the house to kind of explain what my book was about and answer questions. And a lot of the people there were people who were in or around Hillary’s State Department, people who worked for kind of Democratic Party-linked organizations — just a lot of mainstream Democrat people. And they were giving me a wink and a nod, shaking my hand, giving me a pat on the back, and saying thank you, thank God you did this. Because they cannot stand the Israel lobby, they despise Netanyahu, and they’re disgusted with what Israel’s become.

And we had reached a point by 2013 where it was pretty obvious there was not going to be a two-state solution, and that whole project, the liberal Zionist project, wasn’t going to work out. You know, and the fact that they just could give me a wink and a nod shows also how cowardly a lot of people are in Washington. They weren’t even stepping up to the level my father had, where when his emails with Hillary Clinton were exposed, it became clear that he was sending her my work. And he was actually trying to move people within the State Department toward a more, maybe you could say a more humanistic view, but also a more realistic view of Israel, Palestine and the Netanyahu operation in Washington. Working through [Sheldon] Adelson, using this fraud hack of a rabbi, Shmuley Boteach, has kind of their front man. They ran like a full-page ad in the New York Times painting me and my father as Hillary Clinton’s secret Middle East advisers.

And then one day in the middle of the campaign, Elie Wiesel died. You know, someone who is supposed to be this patron saint of Judaism and the kind of secular theology of Auschwitz, who had spent the last years of his life as part of Sheldon Adelson’s political network. Basically, he had lost all his money to Bernie Madoff, and so he was getting paid off by Adelson. He got half a million dollars from this Christian Zionist, apocalyptic, rapture-ready fanatic, Pastor John Hagee. He was going around with Ted Cruz giving talks. And so when he died, I went on Twitter and tweeted a few photos of Elie Wiesel with these extremist characters.

And I said, you know, here are photos of Elie Wiesel palling around with fascists. And the kind of Netanyahu-Adelson network activated to attack me. And ultimately it led — I actually, within a matter of a few days, it led to Hillary Clinton’s campaign officially denouncing me and demanding that I cease and desist. And so, you know, I looked at the debate on Twitter, and a lot of people were actually supporting me. And it was clear Elie Wiesel, this person who was supposed to be a saint, was actually no longer seen as stainless, that the whole debate had been opened up by 2016.

And now when we look at the Democratic Party and we look at the Democratic field, you know, Bernie Sanders — he’s better than most of the other candidates, or the other candidates, on this issue. After we put a lot of pressure on him in the left wing-grassroots — I mean, I personally protested him at a 2016 event for his position on Palestinians, and we shamed him until he took at least a slightly better position, where you acknowledge the humanity of Palestinians. But what we’re hearing, even from Bernie Sanders, doesn’t even reflect where the grassroots of the Democratic Party — particularly all those young people who are coming out and delivering him a landslide victory tonight in Iowa — are. The Democratic Party is not democratic on Israel, but it’s no longer a third-rail issue. You can talk about it, and the only way that you can be stopped is through legislation, like the legislation we see in statehouses to actually outlaw people who support the Palestinian boycott of Israel. So we’re just in an amazing time where all of the contradictions are completely out in the open.

RS: OK, let me just take a quick break so public radio stations like KCRW that make this available can stick in some advertisements for themselves, which is a good cause. And we’ll be right back with Max Blumenthal. Back with Max Blumenthal, who has written — I mean, I only mentioned one of his books. He wrote a very important book on the right wing in America that was a bestseller; he has been honored in many ways, and yet is a source of great controversy. And I must say, I respect your ability to create this controversy, because it’s controversy about issues people don’t want to deal with. You know, they want to deal with them in sort of feel-good slogans, and it doesn’t work, because people get hurt. And including Jewish people, in the case of Israel. If you develop a settler, colonialist society, and that stands for the Jewish position, and you’re oppressing large numbers of people, be they Palestinian or others, that’s hardly an advertisement for what has been really great about the Jewish experience, which I will argue until my death.

It was represented by people like my mother, who were in the Jewish socialist bund, and two of her sisters were killed by the Czar’s police in Russia. And they believed in Universalist values, an idea of being Jewish as standing for the values of the oppressed, and concern for the oppressed. And most of their experience in the shtetls, and out there in the diaspora, had been being oppressed.

And so I don’t want to lose that there. But I wanted to get now to the last part of this, to what I think is the hypocrisy of the liberal wing of American politics, or so-called. And now they call themselves more progressive. And it really kind of centers around Hillary Clinton. And whatever you want to say about Bernie Sanders — you know, Hillary Clinton’s recent attack on Bernie Sanders, that no one likes him and he stands for nothing and he gets nothing done. And I think this is a, you know, a person that I thought, you know, at one point — despite her starting out as a Goldwater girl and being quite conservative — I thought was, you know, somewhat decent.

And I’m going to make this personal now. I was brought to a more favorable view of Bill and Hillary Clinton, in considerable measure, by your father, as a journalist at the Washington Post, and then working in the administration. And I respect your father and mother, you know, and Sidney Blumenthal and Jacqueline Blumenthal, I think are intelligent people. And I once, you know, went through a White House dinner; I think I only got in because your father put me on the list, and Hillary Clinton said I was her favorite columnist in America — no, the whole world — and it was very flattering. But I look back on it now — Hillary Clinton has really represented a kind of loathsome, interventionist, aggressive, America-first politics that in some ways is even more offensive than Trump. When Trump said he’s going to make America great again, Hillary Clinton said, America’s always been great. What?

MB: Yeah.

RS: What? Slavery, segregation, killing the Native Americans — always been great? You grew up with these people, right? You were in that world. What — so yes, they can come up to you at a book party and say, yes, it’s about time somebody said that. But what are they really about? That they — you know, you mentioned Syria. You know, their great achievement, they created a mess of that society. And she’s the one who went to, said about Libya, oh, we came, we saw, and he’s dead. You know, sodomized to death. So take me into the heart of the so-called liberal experience.

MB: Well, first of all, since you invoke Sidney Blumenthal so frequently, he has a — I think his fourth book in a five-part series on Abraham Lincoln out. And you know, these books address Lincoln almost as if he were a contemporary politician. It’s a completely new contribution to the history of Lincoln, and if you invite him on, be sure —

RS: I’m familiar with it, and I’ll endorse it —

MB: If you invite him on, you can ask him, I would love to hear that debate —

RS: I certainly would, and I have — as I said, I have a lot of respect for your father and mother. I’m asking a different question. Why do good people look the other way? Or how does it work? Just, you know, to the degree you can, take me inside that Washington culture. And where there’s a certain arrogance in it, that they are always, even when they do the wrong things, they’re just always accidents. They’re always mistakes. You know, it never comes out of their ideology, their aggression. So I want to know more about that.

MB: I mean, I saw all these — so many different sides of Washington. And so — and I was always supported by my parents, no matter what view I took. So I don’t feel like I have to live in my father’s shadow or something like that. They remain really supportive of me. I have a new book out — it’s not really new, it came out last April. It’s called “The Management of Savagery,” and it deals substantially with my view of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment, but particularly the Hillary State Department, the Obama foreign policy team, and the destruction they wrought in Libya and Syria. So, you know, I put everything I knew about Washington and foreign policy into that book. And so I really would recommend that as well.

But, you know, how does it work with the Clintons? They were — they set up a machine that was really a juggernaut with all this corporate money they brought in through the DLC, the Democratic Leadership Committee. It was a very different structure than we’d seen with previous Democratic candidates who built — who relied heavily on unions and, you know, the civil rights coalition. And that machine never went away. It kept growing like this — kind of like this amoeba that began to engulf the party and politics itself. So that when Bill Clinton was out of power, the machine was passed to Hillary Clinton, and the machine followed her into the Senate. And the machine grew into the Clinton Global Initiative, which was this giant influence-peddling scam that just cashed in on disasters in Haiti, brought in tons of money, tens of millions of dollars from Gulf monarchies, and big oil and the arms industry — everything that funds all the repulsive think tanks on K Street through the Clinton Foundation.

And everyone who was trying to get close to the Clinton Foundation, whether they were in Clinton’s inner circle or not, was just trying to gather influence. That’s why you saw at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, behind her, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was basically Jeffrey Epstein’s personal child sex trafficker, just trying to cultivate influence with people who have this gigantic political machine.

So that’s why so many people, I think, have stayed loyal to this odious project, and have looked the other way as entire countries were destroyed under the direct watch of Hillary Clinton. Libya today — where Hillary Clinton took personal credit for destroying this country, which was at the time before its destruction, I think the wealthiest African nation with the highest quality of life — is now in, still in civil war. We’ve seen footage of open-air slave auctions taking place, and large parts of the country for years were occupied by affiliates of Al Qaeda or ISIS, including Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte. It was immediately transformed into a haven for the Islamic State.

This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton. There would have been no Benghazi scandal if she hadn’t gone into Libya to come, see, and kill, as she bragged that she did. And in Syria, she attempted the same thing; fortunately failed, thanks to assistance from Iran and Russia. But this was, it consisted of a billion dollars, multibillion-dollar operation to arm and equip some of the most dangerous, psychotic fanatics on the face of the planet in Al Qaeda and 31 flavors of Salafi jihadi. Hillary Clinton said we can’t be negotiating with the Syrian government; the hard men with guns will solve this problem. She said that in an interview, and that’s her legacy.

Beyond that, you know, I in Washington grew up in a very complex situation. I don’t know what view people have of me, but I grew up in what was – D.C. when D.C. was known as C.C., or Chocolate City. It was a mostly black city, run by a local black power structure with a strong black middle class, and I grew up in a black neighborhood. And I kind of saw apartheid firsthand, where I saw how a small white minority actually controlled the city from behind the scenes. And then, you know, and I saw that reality, and then I went to school across town in the one white ward to a private school, and I got to know some of the children of the kind of mostly Democratic Party elite. And so I saw both sides of the city. And it was through that other side, and also my parents’ connection to the Clintons, that I — I mean, I barely interacted with the Clintons. I’ve had very minimal interaction with them ever.

But I did get to meet Chelsea Clinton once. And you know, for all my reservations about the Clintons or what they were, I thought you know, she was kind of an admirable figure at that time. She was a — she was a kid, she was an adolescent who was being mocked on “Saturday Night Live” because she was going through an awkward phase. She went to school down the street at Sidwell Friends, and I met her at a White House Christmas party; she was really friendly and personable. And you know, since then, I’ve watched her grow into adulthood and become a complete kind of replication of the monstrous political apparatus that her family has set up, without really charting her own path. She just basically inherited the reign of the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative. She does paid talks for Israel. Her husband Marc Mezvinsky, he gambled on Greece’s debt along with Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs. You know, the squid fish. I mean, there’s just — I mean, as a young person, seeing someone of my generation grow up and follow that path, do nothing to carve out her own space — it just absolutely disgusts me.

And now Hillary Clinton is still there! She won’t go away! She’s not only helped fuel this Russiagate hysteria that’s plunged us into a new Cold War, but she’s trying to destroy the hopes and dreams of millions of young people who are saddled with endless debt by destroying Bernie Sanders. And it’s because she sees her own legacy being smashed to pieces, not by any right-wing, vast conspiracy, but by the electorate, the new electorate of the Democratic Party. And I absolutely welcome that. I think, you know, tonight in Iowa, a landslide Bernie victory, one of the takeaways is this will be the end of Clintonism. It’s time to move on and hand things over to a new generation. They had their chance, and they not only failed, they caused disasters across the world.

RS: So this is — we’re going to wind this up, but I think we’ve hit a really important subject. And I want to take a little bit more time on it. And I thought you expressed it quite powerfully. But the error, if you’ll permit me, is to center it on the personality, or the family. And I don’t think Clintonism is going to go away. Because what it represents — and I know you —

MB: It could be become Bloombergism, you know?

RS: Well, that’s where I’m going. I think what Clintonism represents is this triangulation, this new Democrat. And I interviewed him when he was governor, just when he was campaigning. And I did a lot of writing on the Financial Services Modernization Act and on welfare reform, and all of these ingredients of this policy. And what it really represents — no wonder they’re rewarded by the super wealthy. But the Democratic Party lost its organizational base with the destruction of the labor movement and weakening of other sources of progressive class-based politics, concern about working people and ordinary people.

And what Clinton did is he came along, and he had a sort of variation of Nixon’s Southern Strategy, how he got the Republicans to be so important in the South. And it was this new politics, this redefinition. And it’s not going away, because it’s the cover for Wall Street. It’s the cover for exploitation. And the main thing that happened from when you were young — or born, actually; you’re 42 years — it’s 42 years of, since Clinton really, and you can blame Reagan, you can blame the first President Bush, you can blame other people, and certainly blame the whole bloody Republican Party. I’m not going to give them a pass.

But the fact is, what the Clinton revolution did was it made class warfare for the rich fashionable, in a way that no one else was able to do it, no other movement. And it said these thieves on Wall Street, these people who are going to rip you off 20 different ways to Sunday — they’re good people, and they support good causes. And you mentioned Lloyd Blankfein, you know; “government” Goldman Sachs, you know. Robert Rubin came from Goldman Sachs; he was Clinton’s treasury secretary. And the whole thing of unleashing Wall Street and getting, destroying the New Deal — that was a serious program to basically betray the average American and betray their interest. And that’s why we’ve had this growing income inequality since that time. That’s the Clinton legacy in this world, really, is the billionaire coup, the billionaire culture.

MB: Yep, the oligarchy was put on fast-forward by the new politics of the Clintons. What they promised wasn’t, you know, a break from Reaganism, although there was certainly a cultural difference. They promised continuity, and that’s what we saw through the Obama administration. Obama presided over the biggest decline in black home ownership in the United States since, I think, prior to World War II. You mentioned Glass-Steagall; this set the stage for the financial crisis; NAFTA, destroyed the unions, shipped American jobs first to Mexico and then to China, and destabilized northern Mexico along with the drug war that Clinton put on overdrive, creating the immigration crisis that helped fuel the rise of Donald Trump.

Welfare reform — all of these policies were just, were odious to me and so many people at the time, but there was just this desire to just beat the Republicans and out-triangulate them. Now that we’ve seen the effects on them and so many people have felt the effects, you have an entire generation that sees no future, that realizes they’re living in an oligarchy, realizes that the alternative to Bernie Sanders is a literal oligarch, this miniature Scrooge McDuck in Mike Bloomberg, and they’re just not having it.

I don’t know if Hillary Clinton understands this history; I don’t think she sees it in context. She just blames Russian boogeyman and fake news for everything. But the rest of us who’ve lived through it really do, and it’s the continuity that is so dangerous, especially on foreign policy. I mean, the Libya proxy war and the Syria proxy war, the stage was set in Yugoslavia with NATO’s war that destroyed a socialist country and unleashed hell on a large part of its population. And we still don’t debate that war. The stage for the Iraq invasion was set in 1998 with Bill Clinton passing the Iraqi Liberation Act, which sent $90 million into the pocket of the con-man Ahmed Chalabi and made regime change the official policy of the United States.

It’s tragic that Bernie Sanders voted for that. But we have to see the cause and the effect to understand why so many people are in open revolt against that legacy. And you’re right, it goes well beyond the Clintons. It’s a program that markets right-wing economics and a right-wing foreign policy in a sort of progressive bottle. Now what they’re trying to do with the label on that progressive bottle, the way they’re trying to preserve it — we see it a lot through the [Elizabeth] Warren campaign — is through a kind of neoliberal identity politics that divorces class from race and gender, and attempts to basically distract people with needless arguments about Bernie Sanders saying a woman couldn’t have gotten elected in a private conversation that only Elizabeth Warren was party to.

So I’m really encouraged, I guess, by the results that we’re seeing. We’re talking tonight on the eve of the Iowa caucus. I’m encouraged by those results, just because I see them as a repudiation of the politics that have just dominated my life as a 42-year-old, and just been so absolutely cynical and destructive at their core. But I would just remind anyone who is supporting Bernie Sanders and listening to this — he’s not just running for president. He’s running for the next target of a deep state coup, and the deep state exists, and will respond with more force and viciousness than it did to Donald Trump, who actually has much more in common with them than Bernie Sanders.

RS: I didn’t quite get the grammar of that last paragraph, not any fault of yours. You said he’s not just running — can you —

MB: He’s running for the next target of a deep state coup, the forces of Wall Street. You know, the —

RS: Oh, you mean he will be the target.

MB: He will be the target.

RS: Yeah, you know, it’s — you just said something really — OK, I know we have to wrap this up, but it’s actually just getting interesting for me. [Laughs]

MB: Sorry about that.

RS: No, no, no, come on, come on. [Laughter] What I mean is, I do these things because I learn, and I think, and you know, my selfish interests. And really the question right now, I did a wonderful interview with Chomsky on this podcast, and he took me to school for not appreciating the importance of the lesser evil. And I’ve lost sleep over it since. You know, well — and we always fall for that, you know. On the other hand, some of the things you’ve been talking about, you know — and this is going to get me in big trouble — but you know, Trump is so blatant. He’s so out there in favor of greed and corruption.

He’s so obnoxious. And actually, in terms of his policy impact — not his rhetoric, but his policy impact — is he really that much worse? Well, for instance, you mentioned NAFTA. The rewrite of NAFTA, even before, you know, some progressives got involved in it, it was a substantially better trade agreement than the first NAFTA. You know, he hasn’t gotten us into Syria-type, Iraq-type wars.

He actually — so I’m not — you know, yes, I consider him a neofascist; rhetoric can be very dangerous. He’s obviously spread very evil, poisonous ideas about immigrants and what have you, you know, I can go down the list. But the people that you’ve been talking about, that–you know, and I voted for all of them, and I’ve supported them — are they really the lesser evil? You know, or are they a more effective form of evil?

MB: I mean, to understand Trump, we just have to see him as the apotheosis of an oligarchy. In its most unsheathed, unvarnished form, he’s just lifted the mask off the corruption, the legal corruption that’s prevailed, and been completely unabashed about it. Donald Trump was targeted with this kind of Russiagate campaign, which was partly run by Clintonite dead-enders who wanted to blame Russia for her loss, and to attack Donald Trump with this kind of McCarthyite rhetoric. But it was also being influenced by the intelligence services — figures like John Brennan and James Comey, and neoconservative hardliners who could easily jump back into the Democratic Party. And they were just seeking a new Cold War, to justify the budgets of the intelligence services, and the defense budget and so on.

But at his core, Donald Trump, what he’s actually done, especially domestically, I think outside of the immigration stuff, is he’s been kind of a traditional Republican. And he won a lot of consent from Republicans in Congress when he passed a trillion-dollar tax cut. He’s given corporate America everything he wanted after kind of campaigning with this populist, Bannonite tone. So in a lot of ways, Donald Trump does share more in common with the Democratic Party elite — with a lot of the figures who’ve been nominated to serve on the DNC platform committee, who are just from the Beltway blob and the Beltway bandits — than they do with Bernie Sanders.

And I think that if Bernie Sanders gets the nomination, there will be an effort to McGovern him. To just kind of turn him — turn this whole process into McGovern ’72, hope that Bernie Sanders gets destroyed by Donald Trump, and then wag their fingers at the left for the next 20 years until they get another Bill Clinton. I think that they don’t know how to stop him at this point, but they’re willing to let him be the nominee and go down to Donald Trump, because Bernie Sanders threatens their interests, and the movement behind him particularly, more than Donald Trump does.

RS: You know, they will stop Bernie Sanders, and they will do it by the argument of lesser evilism. And you see the line developing —

MB: But who is the lesser evil, Bob? I mean, Joe Biden is like this doddering wreck. There is no other candidate who seems even remotely viable against Trump.

RS: No, no, no — I understand that. I’m telling you what — well, it seems to me there’s — you know, you want to talk about fake news, the, misreporting of Bernie Sanders — in fact, the misreporting of what democratic socialism is. I mean, he’s now branded in the mainstream media as some hopeless fanatic because he dared to defend democratic socialism. Democratic socialism has been the norm for the most successful economies in the world, even to a degree when we’ve been successful. That was the legacy of Roosevelt, after all, is to try to save capitalism from itself. That’s why you had some enlightened government programs, you know, right down the list, and that’s what saved Germany after the war, and that’s what France and England and so forth, that’s why they have health care systems.

But the mainstream media has actually taken a very moderate figure, Bernie Sanders, and demonized him as some kind of hopeless ideologue, right? And as you point out, Bernie Sanders is hardly a radical thinker on issues — particularly, as you mentioned, about the Mideast and so forth. What he is, is somebody who actually is honoring the best side of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: you can’t let these greed merchants control everything, you have to worry about some compensation for ordinary people. That’s what Bernie Sanders is all about. And it should be an argument that has great appeal to people of power, otherwise they’re going to come after you with the pitchforks. Instead the mainstream media, in its hysteria, you know, has taken this word “democratic socialist” and used it to vilify him.

But the point that I want — and we will end on this, but I’d like to get your reaction — that came up in my discussion with Chomsky, who I have great admiration for. But it is this lesser evilism. And I think while, yes, people in their vote can think about that, they can vote that way — I’ve done it much of my life; I’ve voted for all sorts of evil people because they were lesser. But as a journalist — and I want to end about your journalism — as a journalist, I think we have to get that idea out of our head. And it means being able to be objective about a Donald Trump when he comes up with his NAFTA rewrite, and say hey, there are some good things in it, including the fact that you have to pay $16 an hour to people in Mexico who are working on cars that are going to be sold in the United States, OK. And what the liberal community has been able to do in the mainstream media, MSNBC, is Trumpwash everything.

Which brings us back to your critique. They’ve been able to say — they’ve made warmongering liberal and fashionable. They’ve taken the — they’ve made the CIA now a wonderful institution, the FBI a wonderful institution, [John] Bolton a wonderful hero. And I want to take my hat off to your journalism, because you have — and I do recommend that people go to your website, the Grayzone. Because you have had the courage to say, wait a minute, what’s called a lesser evil can’t be given a pass. Because in fact, maybe in some ways, or in many ways, it’s a more effective evil. We know what Trump is; he stands exposed every hour of every day.

But you know, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton — and I’m not trying to pick on them, but you know, they represented this embrace of the Wall Street center — they were much more effective in redistributing income to the rich. You know, you can talk about Trump’s tax break, but the real redistribution came with letting Wall Street do its collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps that caused the destruction of 70% of black wealth in America, 60% of brown wealth in America, according to the Federal Reserve. So really, in this election, people have to think — you know, yes, I’ll hold my nose and I’ll vote for the lesser evil. But what’s that going to get us? Does it get us a more effective evil, a better-packaged evil? Last word from you?

MB: Well, I mean, one of the things that we do at the Grayzone.com, our mission is to oppose this policy of regime change that the U.S. imposes across the world against any state that seeks some independence from the U.S. sphere of influence that wants to craft its own economic policies in a socialist way, like Venezuela, Nicaragua. We, you know, we exposed a lot of the deceptions that were trying to stimulate public support for regime change in Syria, that would have been absolutely disastrous. And in all of these situations, we don’t stand alone, but we stand among a really, really small group of alternative outlets who don’t play the lesser-evil game on regime change.

Where we say, well, this leader or that leader are horrible, and they are evil dictators, but we should also be kind of suspicious of the, you know, of the war that the U.S. might wage. Or we should be critical of these brutal economic sanctions that have killed tens of thousands of Venezuelans through excess deaths. We say — we actually look at the alternative to the current government and show that there actually isn’t the lesser evil, that the alternative is far worse. In Syria it was Al Qaeda and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood; in Venezuela it’s Juan Guaidó’s right-wing, white collar mafia, which is a front for Exxon Mobil. Same thing in Nicaragua.

And you know, as much as I respect and I’ve learned from Noam Chomsky, he plays that lesser-evil game on regime change. He’s trashed all of the, all of these governments. He celebrated the collapse of the Soviet Union, and we saw what happened to Russia after that. So it’s important to look at lesser evilism through a historical context, and then we can apply it to the United States as well. Look at who’s been sold to us as the lesser evil that we had to support. Well, we’ve been talking about them, Bob, for the last half hour, and they’ve subjected Americans to the same evil the Republican Party has, for the most part. Maybe they’ve limited it to some degree. But now there’s actually an option for something that I’d say is moderate in the United States.

You’re right — Bernie Sanders does nothing, and proposes nothing, outside the framework of the New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. I don’t even think he’s a democratic socialist. I don’t know what that term really means. He’s a social democrat. And he is someone who at least offers a change from the consensus where the government actually starts to intervene to prevent people from dying excess deaths across the country, from the opioid crisis, from poverty, from homelessness. Eighty percent of new homes that have been built in the U.S. in the past two years are luxury housing. And you know who else is supporting Bernie Sanders besides all these debt-saddled youth? Active duty U.S. military veterans who are sick of permanent war. $160,000 in campaign contributions have been given to Bernie by active duty vets. That’s something like eight times more than have gone to Joe Biden, who is involved at the forefront of almost every American war since Gulf War I.

And we’re really capitalizing on that at the Grayzone. We understand the American public and the western public are sick of being lied into war, and they’re sick of being pushed into lesser evilism, whether it’s abroad in countries that are targeted by the U.S., or at home. And so we’re just there providing balance and exposing whatever the lie is of the day.

RS: Let me, as an older person, end with a little editorial about what — and I agree with the thrust of what you’ve been saying — but why I think this word “democratic socialism” is important, not just social democrat. Because it acknowledges the vast harm that has been done by the left in human history. It’s not just the right, it’s not just the corporate elite, and it’s not just the oligarchs. That people got hold of a message of concern for the ordinary person. It happened in religion too, after all, you know; structures were developed, people who claimed they were following the message of Christ, and they ended up building edifices to the exploitation of ordinary people.

I think what Bernie Sanders represents — and I’ll ask your response, but what I think he represents, the reason he’s so authentic — he actually believes in the grassroots. He actually believes that an ordinary person in Vermont can make intelligent decisions about the human condition, and about justice and freedom. And I think the reason Bernie Sanders can survive the rhetorical assaults on his leftism or his socialism, is that what people of power in the capitalist world have managed to do is identify this cause of social justice, a notion of democratic socialism with totalitarianism, with elitism.  And Bernie Sanders — and this is a good night to celebrate Bernie Sanders, if it’s true; I hadn’t caught up with the news, but if he’s really doing that well in Iowa. Because I thought he would get 1% of the vote four years ago when he started; I never thought this would happen.

I think what makes Bernie Sanders authentic is his respect for the ordinary person. He is the opposite of that leftist elitist–and you have them as well as rightist elitists — who thinks they have to distort history to protect the average person from reality. And Bernie Sanders is — he speaks truth about what’s going on. And at a time when people on the right and the left have nothing but contempt for most of the politicians, and journalistic leaders and everything else, for having betrayed them. So I think Bernie Sanders is a ray of hope. I wish he would be around a lot longer, but then again, I wish I’d be around a lot longer. But it’s nice to run into Max Blumenthal, who’s half my age and has all of that spirit that I’d like to see in journalism. So thanks, Max, for doing this.

MB: Thank you, Bob. It’s a real honor.

RS: And by the way, I ignored that last book of yours. Could you give the title again and how people get it?

MB: It’s called “The Management of Savagery.” And let me pull it off the shelf so I can actually read the subheader. You can edit this. It’s called “The Management of Savagery: How America’s National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump.” And it’s really kind of my look at the, sort of how the politics of my lifetime and my generation has been shaped by foreign policy disasters that an unelected foreign-policy establishment has subjected us to.

RS: Full disclosure, I actually have not read it, and I will get it as soon as I can.

MB: I’ll send you a copy —

RS: No, no, no, you got — it’s hard enough to make a living as a writer. I don’t think you should give these things away for nothing. I’ll get myself a copy. And I want to thank you again. I’ve been talking to Max Blumenthal, check out his work, check out the Grayzone. These podcasts are done basically for KCRW, the public radio station in Santa Monica, where Christopher Ho is the engineer who gets it up on the air.

At Truthdig, Natasha Hakimi Zapata writes the brilliant intros and overview of these things and posts them up there. Here at USC, Sebastian Grubaugh, the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, really gets the whole thing going and hooks up everyone, thanks to him. And finally, there’d be no “Scheer Intelligence” without the main Scheer, Joshua Scheer, who’s the show’s producer. And we’ll see you next week with another edition of “Scheer Intelligence.”

[leadflowers]

VTMB OC Meme

I decided to repost this VTMB OC meme by denerims as its own separate post instead of a reblog. Because it’s so long, most of it will be under a cut.

These are my Bloodlines fledglings only; I have loads more VTM OCs but this would quickly become quite unmanageable if I added them all :P

Ahem. Without further ado…

🌹 What clan do they belong to and how do they feel about them?

Emily Belmont - Clan Toreador. Embraced for her looks more than anything else, she feels a bit inadequate compared to the talented artists and visionaries of the Clan. She is generally well-liked among the other Toreador, although she tends to get taken advantage of due to her naivete.

Kate Murray - Clan Tremere. Embraced outside the Pyramid, Kate is determined to earn her way in and gain access to the Clan’s arcane secrets and valuable resources. Distrusted by most for her unorthodox nature, Primogen Strauss is a mentor of sorts, even if they differ greatly in their attitude towards modern technology.

Danniella Drake, aka Dany, Dee, D. - Clan Ventrue. In life an aspiring politician with lofty ambitions, not much has changed since her Embrace. Loyal but arrogant, generous to her allies and utterly ruthless to her enemies, Dee feels she was born to rule and is quite at home among the Ventrue. Of course, an ambitious upstart is as likely to make enemies as she is to gain friends…

Wilhelmina “Mina” Ellicott - Clan Nosferatu. A former British socialite and beauty queen, Mina’s Embrace into the Nosferatu clan was a veritable fall from grace, forced upon her by a vengeful Sewer Rat whom she viciously mocked, taking him for a vagrant. She loathes them and they aren’t fond of her either, so she keeps to herself.

🎹 Do they have any special talents or skills?

Emily: Although she has a pleasant voice and was working as a singer in a seedy bar at the time of her Embrace, Emily also has a BA in English.

Kate: A computer science student and a recently Awakened mage before her Embrace, Kate combines tech savviness with a growing knowledge of Blood Magic.

Dany: Decisive, persuasive, intimidating when she wants to be, Dee is good at making tough choices for “the greater good”.

Mina: A spoiled girl who spent her former life travelling and partying, Mina never bothered developing many useful skills; hard work is for the poor after all. She is good at reading people, however.

🌃 Where are they from and where do they live now?

Emily: Actually from LA, and is still living there.

Kate: Oregon, currently living at the Los Angeles Chantry.

Dany: Washington DC, at the moment looking to establish her own domain.

Mina: From England, was on a trip to the US when she ran afoul of her sire. She is drifting from place to place.

💢 What is their moral alignment?

Emily: Neutral Good

Kate: Chaotic Neutral

Dany: Starts out as Lawful Neutral, then slides towards Lawful Evil

Mina: Neutral Evil

👯‍♀️ Do they have any notable allies/friends?

Emily: Emily has several close acquaintances and is quite close to VV, a Toreador as soulful as she is who understands her desire to hold on to her humanity.

Kate: Regent Maximilian Strauss and Beckett as fellow scholars, Mitnick whom she can geek out with

Dany: Prince LaCroix (for now…)

Mina: Imalia, whom she sees as a kindred spirit of sorts.

💘 Do they have a romantic interest?

Emily: Heather Poe, her ghoul. (I made a drawing of them a while back. Incidentally that’s what Emily would look like if the game engine allowed it)

Kate: N/A

Dany: N/A

Mina: N/A

🏴 What are their allegiances? (Camarilla/Anarch/Independent/etc)

Emily: Anarchs

Kate: Camarilla/Strauss

Dany: Camarilla/LaCroix

Mina: Independent

🧛‍♀️ Do they have any preference regarding who they feed on/how they feed?

Emily: She prefers feeding from willing vessels, and Heather when possible (but not too often as not to harm her)

Kate: She likes taking as few risks as possible when feeding, but otherwise has no real preferences. Will prefer getting a bloodpack instead of going out to hunt if it means getting more research time in.

Dany: She doesn’t tell her specific blood preference to anyone, and is one of her carefully guarded secrets. Needless to say, she tries to ensure she has a steady supply of it.

Mina: She refuses to feed on rats and bums unless absolutely desperate, just like she avoids the sewers and prefers skulking around in a large hooded overcoat. She likes feeding from pretty people and making it unpleasant for them, out of spite.

⌛ When and how were they turned?

Emily: She was targeted by a romantic Old World vampire who said he reminded him of a Pre-Raphaelite painting. He visited her a few nights at the bar where she worked as a singer and lured her to a dingy motel room where they had sex and he turned her without her knowledge. (her story more or less follows the vanilla game intro)

Kate: Little did she know that she nearly became a Nosferatu when, following a clue left by her late grandfather, a mage, Kate hacked her way into a low security server hosted on SchreckNet and used by a group of young Tremere for the purposes of exchanging information. There she met her future sire who soon realised her arcane potential and decided to Embrace her. The Nosferatu were considering doing the same, impressed with her technical skills and wary of the risk she now posed to the Masquerade.

Dany: She was Embraced by an arrogant young Ventrue who watched her debates and how she handled her opponents, believing she would make a good addition to his power base. Foolishly, he believed he could conceal this from the Prince; he was wrong.

Mina: She was leaving an expensive club with her friends when she bumped into a shabby man whom she took for a vagrant. Disgusted, she complained loudly that his stink was now all over her expensive dress and that they really shouldn’t allow such filth to roam the streets in the nice part of town. Unfortunately for her, the “bum” was actually a Nosferatu who did not take kindly to the insults and decided to teach the rich bitch a lesson.  

🤝 What is their relationship with their sire like?

Emily: She only knew him briefly, but she was drawn to him and was shocked when she witnessed his execution. She retains a feeling of guilt over his death; if it hadn’t been for her, he would still be alive…

Kate: She feels what happened to her sire was unfair, although she is aware that he knowingly violated Kindred law, so it was his fault too. She hardly knew him, so she cannot say she had a strong attachment to him, though she wishes he were still alive, and that she’d been properly inducted into the Pyramid without having to fight for the privilege.

Dany: She thinks he was a fool, although she is grateful for the opportunity his actions, misguided as they were, have afforded her. Immortality is an improvement on her previous condition, and she is determined to overcome her…less than auspicious beginning.

Mina: She absolutely loathes him and watched with glee as his head was separated from his body. At least she got that bit of revenge over the bastard.

🖤 How do they feel about being turned? (How did they adjust? Do they feel differently now than they did when they were first turned?)

Emily: She was crushed to find out she had been turned into a bloodsucking monster, but she has tried to adjust (with much difficulty). Heather’s presence has helped her experience a counterfeit sort of humanity, the two of them entering a co-dependent relationship which Emily clings to for comfort. Although she knows Heather’s feelings are influenced by the Blood Bond, her own love for her clouds her judgement.

Kate: She hated the idea of losing her life at first, the future she had all planned out, but soon consoled herself with the prospect of an eternity spent unravelling the secrets of the Tremere Clan and beyond. For a consummate scholar like her, the possibilities seem endless.

Dany: She took it in her stride, and in fact being Embraced into the Clan of Kings only served to cement her belief that she was meant to accomplish great things; greater now than she ever dreamed possible. This was fate.

Mina: Losing her looks, which she valued above all else and underpinned her identity was agonizing for Mina. At first, she refused to come out of her warren until driven by hunger. It is still immensely difficult for her to accept that she is hideous, reviled. Never a particularly nice person, the Embrace has brought out a cruel, vengeful streak in her and she delights in petty schemes and revenge.

💉 Have they sired anyone? If so - why, how and did they claim their childe?

None of them have any childer, although Emily dreams of Embracing Heather one day.

👷🏻‍♂️ What are their opinions on mortals?

Emily: She is determined to avoid slipping into a “predatory” mindset like many of her peers and see them as cattle, which isn’t easy to do given her appetites.

Kate: Always a bit of an intellectual snob, that sense of superiority has increased since her Embrace. She won’t go out of her way to be cruel, but she can’t help seeing their fragility and their limitations, compared with the power and intellectual prowess of an Elder Kindred (which she aspires to becoming one day)

Dany: Most of them are of little consequence, although a few have their uses and a small minority are deserving of respect.

Mina: She hates them for their ability to walk freely in public, without inspiring fear and disgust. She especially hates good looking humans who remind her most of what she has lost.

👑 What is their opinion on the Camarilla?

Emily: Opposing it felt a bit like opposing her government, so for a while she was willing to accept the status quo, and not make waves. She wasn’t blind to their abuses, however, and wanted no part of that.

Kate: She approves of some members of the Camarilla but not others. Overall, she thinks it makes sense as an organization, Kindred needing laws and an organised society to keep them safe, but some of the blatant power plays and injustices she observed left a sour taste in her mouth. She doesn’t care much for politics either way, her focus is her research.

Dany: A staunch supporter of the Camarilla and the Masquerade, she firmly believes that law and order are a Kindred’s best friend, and that the Ventrue are best suited to enforce said laws.

Mina: She doesn’t care either way; supposedly the Camarilla value Nosferatu as informants and spies, but she’s isn’t good at either of those things so she’s not counting on any protection from them.

💥 The Anarchs?

Emily:  The Anarchs provided more equality as well as freedom than the Camarilla did, who just treated her as a lowly pawn. She doesn’t really care about the politics or sparking a revolution, she just wants to live her life in peace.

Kate: Too, well, anarchistic and idealistic. If history taught her anything, is that people will always seek power, power breeds more power and Kindred are no different. The pseudo-egalitarianism they espoused had been tried before in various forms, unsuccessfully.

Dany: Rabble, who endanger all their kind with their petty rebellions and lax adherence to the Masquerade, when they _should _be aiding the Camarilla against the Sabbat.

Mina: She doesn’t give a damn about their “grievances” or their conflict with the Camarilla. She has her own troubles, and it’s not like they give a crap, do they?

🧥 The Sabbat?

Emily: Absolutely terrifying, a mirror of her worst nightmare, of what she could become if the Beast took over.

Kate: Unstable fanatics ruled by paranoid, superstitious Elders who see signs of Gehenna everywhere, although most just seem to enjoy mayhem for the sake of it. If left unchecked, they could bring about the end of their kind, not because of some Ancient awakening to devour them all but because humans would come after them with explosives and flamethrowers.

Dany: The Enemy, which must be destroyed. No mercy shall be granted them.

Mina: Sometimes she is vaguely tempted to defect; then she could cause some real damage to assholes like her late sire and kill uppity kine without restraint.

💞 Do they have any opinions on [particular clan]?

Emily: All clans have their good and bad sides, as far as she’s concerned, but she will admit she feels uncomfortable around the Nosferatu; not because of how they look, but because most of them treat her with thinly veiled hostility (and sometimes they omit the veil altogether).

Kate: She appreciates intriguing, clever, well-educated individuals regardless of clan; for example, she respects Beckett as a scholar and enjoys geeking out with Mitnick.

Dany: She believes in the superiority of the Ventrue but in general is willing to listen to others regardless of clan, if they have proven their worth and loyalty. Disloyalty, on the other hand, (towards her or the Camarilla) is something she does not tolerate.

Mina: Needless to say, she is not fond of the “pretty bloodsuckers” of the Toreador clan, although that dislike extends to attractive members of other clans as well. On the other hand, she doesn’t particularly care for the company of her fellow Nosferatu either; too confronting.

⛪ Do they practice or believe in a religion? (Kindred or mortal)

None of them were religious in life, and they carried that lack of belief in the unlife.

🌎 Do they try to retain any part of their humanity?

Emily: Very much so, to the point of self-deception. Heather is her main tether to humanity, her ghoul and lover, bound to her but having a powerful hold on her in return. She mourns her lost humanity which makes her seem weak in the eyes of other Kindred, but when roused she will fight tooth and nail.

Kate: To some degree, yes. She has no intention of giving in to the Beast any more than she has to, but also understands that the pursuit of knowledge and arcane power sometimes involves some…unsavoury practices.

Dany: The Beast must be kept in check, of course; that is vital for any sensible Kindred’s longterm survival. That being said, difficult decisions must be made, traitors punished and sometimes that involves collateral damage. All for the good of the Camarilla, and the Masquerade.

Mina: Humanity? You mean what was stolen from her by that filthy bastard they called her sire? Well, if they made her into a hideous monster, she might as well behave like one…but the truth is, Mina fears the Beast. Accustomed to pulling everyone’s strings, she now feels powerless; the idea of losing what little control she has is not exactly attractive. So she does exercise some restraint.

🚫 Have they ever broken one of the Traditions? (This is includes the Masquerade)

No, not so far anyway. :P

[musette-thornsong]

Mighty Ducks: The Madness of Dragaunus, Version #2

The Saurian Overlord, Dragaunas, has conquered Earth for some years and left the planet barren wasteland after making an ancient evil prophecy come to realization. Many whom refuse to worship him perish while there are those who plot and lie in wait for the moment to launch a full-scale retaliation. Meanwhile, Dragaunus has started to grow tired of reign feeling unloved by his subjects and going mad from seeing visions of the Mighty Ducks after their “alleged” deaths. How far will his madness go when he thinks of taking on a queen to secure his immortality by means of his continued lineage?

Dragaunus x Fatimah

Warning: CREEPINESS & insanity may ensue!!!

Words: 1593

Fatimah Rhenzon and any other non-Mighty characters belong to me.Enjoy!

--

Dragaunus was sitting in his throne room like usual, relishing in being overlord of the galaxy. He had Ratna locked up just below him and keeps her around to amuse himself. But lately he’s felt something missing since everyone only worships him out of fear. Then one day, he suddenly asked Ratna.

Dragaunus: Ratna, why am I not loved?

Ratna: (shrugs nonchalantly)

Dragaunus: (struts about confidently) ♫ I am that rare and awesome thing. I'm every inch a king ♫ (places his hand on her cage while clutching his fist to his chest in anguish) ♫ yet I feel a twinge of doubt as I go walk about ♫

Chameleon, Siege, & Wraith: Hey, boss!

Dragaunus’ Saurian henchman had come in with several complaints. Unfortunately, he was so lost in his melancholy that he paid them no mind.

Dragaunus: (continues) ♫ When my name is whispered throughout the galaxy, is this talk of love or tragedy?  ♫

Chameleon: (confused) Traggie who?

Dragaunus: (sadly) ♫ Tell me I'm adored. Please tell me I'm adoooored ♫

Noticing he wasn’t paying attention, they decided to try their luck again. Only this time, a little louder.

Chameleon, Siege, & Wraith: HEY, BOSS!!!

Dragaunus: (shouts angrily) OH, WHAT IS IT!?

Chameleon: (annoyed) We got a bone to pick with you

Wraith: (points out) There's no food, no water...

Siege: (frustrated) Yeah. It's dinnertime, and there ain't no stinkin' entrées!

Dragaunus: (roars, practically scaring them stiff) YOU AND YOUR PETTY COMPLAINTS!! You don't know what real hunger is! Day after day it gnaws at the very core of my being!

Chameleon: (completely misses the point) I had that once. It was worms

Dragaunus: (angrily corrects him) No, no, no!!... it's like an itch... deep, persistent, profound...

Siege: (misses the point as well, giving some unneeded advice) That's it-- worms! When they get really bad all you gotta do is... hunker down and scoot

Dragaunus: (irritated, shouts reminding them of their original predicament) Thanks for the tip. INGRATES!! If it weren't for me, you'd be beating off buzzards for your next bite!

Knowing he was in a pretty bad mood to even care about their hunger, they tried to comfort Dragaunus in hopes he’ll get them a decent meal. The Saurians gathered around and serenaded him while Ratna did so from the background of her cage. This, however, was irritating Dragaunus even more than before.

Chameleon, Siege, & Wraith: (serenades) ♫ Yeah, you're our savior, thanks a bunch. But how about some lunch? It doesn't matter if it's fresh, I need a fix of flesh. My bones have moved to where they've never been. They are on the outside looking in ♫

Dragaunus: (growls) ARE YOU BLAMING ME!?

Chameleon, Siege, & Wraith: (reassured him fearfully) Oh no, it's the humans

Dragaunus: Oh

Chameleon, Siege, & Wraith: (continues) ♫ You are so adored ♫

Ratna: (joins in) ♫ You are so adored ♫

Chameleon, Siege, & Wraith: (bows down to Dragaunus) ♫ You are so adored ♫

Dragaunus: (gleefully) That's more like it!

Chameleon, Siege, & Wraith: (continue professing their state of hunger before enclosing around Ratna) ♫ But what I'd give for one more hit of yummy duckling wing or maybe sweet girl on the spit...♫

Ratna: (terrified as they drew in close to closed before crying out) Oh, how I miss dear WILDWING!!!

And as soon as name slipped out, that automatically became Dragaunus’ tipping point. He hated hearing the names of the enemies he had put an end to just to get his way and continue his tyranny uninterrupted. And if it was one being he hated more than Drake DuCaine or Canard, it was Wildwing most of all.

Dragaunus: (becomes furious upon hearing that name) Wildwing?! WILDWING?!

Chameleon, Siege, & Wraith: (shocked at hearing them in their master’s presence, though snickered before suddenly slipping out of the throne room)

Dragaunus: (grabs the bars of her small prison, glaring as his nostrils flared in anger) How dare you! I thought I told you never to mention that name or any of those meddling fowls in my presence!

Ratna: (scared, bows in defeat) Note taken. I promise I won't mention "M-m-m" or any of them again

Dragaunus: (becomes terrified seeing their ghosts everywhere he turned) Even in death, their putrid shadows loom over me. There they are! No!! There they are! And there!!

Ratna: (warns him) Calm yourself, Sire, or you'll get another one of your splitting headaches!

Dragaunus: (screams reassuringly to break himself out of his state of panic) ♫ I AM PERFECTLY FINE!!!

Ratna: (wipes her brow barely dodging his wrath)

Dragaunus: (goes into mental war with himself) I'm better than that Wildwing was. I'm revered, I am reviled. I'm idolized, I am despised. I'm keeping calm, I'm going wild! (physically goes into a tizzy) I tell myself I'm fine. Yes, I am. No, you're not. Yes, I am. No, you're not. I tell myself I'm fine. No, you're not. Yes, I am, no you're not. Yes, I am! No, you're not! Yes, no, yes, no, who am I talking to...!? ♫ (laughs psychotically)

Ratna: (shouts to him to calm down) Oh, pull yourself together, Sire!

Dragaunus: (calms down) Oh, very well. Ratna? Ratna, Ratna, Ratna...? (places himself down next to her)

Ratna: (responds secretly aggravated) Yes, Sire?

Dragaunus: (drapes his arm over the cage before expressing his life-long misery) Nobody loved me, there's the thrashing, not even as a hatchling! What did those loathsome pheasants have that I don't have? (smiles eagerly, excited to hear a redeeming answer)

Ratna: (sarcastically) Do you want the short list or the long?

Dragaunus: (annoyed, gets up while pondering on Ratna’s thoughts) Whatever!

Ratna: (happily but smugly states) Well, they had adoring allies and friends...

Dragaunus: (grunts at that impossibility)

Ratna: (goes on) A bond like a loving family...

Dragaunus: (grunts once again)

Ratna: And (in a certain term) “a devoted significant other they would treat as a king or queen...”

Dragaunus: (instantly latches onto the idea) That's it! I need a queen!

Ratna: (freaks at the very thought of some poor soul becoming the mother of this monster) A what!?

Dragaunaus: (goes on fanatically having finally gone off the deep end) A queen, man! A queen! Without a queen, what am I? A dead end, no line, no descendants, no future! With a queen, I'll have hatchlings... Immortality will be mine!

Ratna: (eyes widened as she covered her mouth to stifle her gasp)

Dragaunus: (raises in arms in victory, exclaiming) Immortality will be mine!

Fatimah: (walks in) Dragaunus

No sooner had this plan stuck to him, Fatimah suddenly walked into the throne room with complaints of her own. That mattered little to Dragaunus as he turned around to gaze upon this battle-hardened beauty before him. Regardless that she was human, Fatimah had the intelligence, strength, charm, and natural looks that would be enough to make her his ideal queen. But she was far less than interested in such a distasteful idea let alone being associated with Dragaunus. But her people were suffering and will do what it takes so they could somewhat coexist peacefully. Ratna admired Fatimah’s bravery but fears she may have come at the worst time.

Dragaunus: (turns to see her in the doorway) Ah, Fatimah... Your timing couldn't have been more perfect. (looks her up and down, licking his lips) My how you've grown!

Fatimah: (puts it off, adamant about her current mission) Dragaunus, you have got to do something. We're being forced to overwork!

Dragaunus walks around Fatimah with his tail suddenly stroking under her chin. All the while admiring her worthiness, he completely ignores her pleas.

Dragaunus: (serenades with his back to her) ♫ She's got those assets feminine ♫

Fatimah: (continues) You're the Overlord. Control the droids and Saurians

Dragaunus: (scheming while clutching his fist in confidence) ♫ I have to make her mine ♫

Fatimah: (angrily points out) You're destroying every planet in the galaxy

Dragaunus: (turns around before circling her) ♫ Nobility in every gene ♫

Fatimah: If we don't stop now, don't you see?

Dragaunus: (circles her) ♫ She has to be my queen ♫

Fatimah: (tries to get through to him) ...there's still a chance for things to be all right again...

Dragaunus: (brings her close to him moving her to balcony, staring at the moon profoundly) ♫ Come, sweet Fatimah. It's written in the stars ♫

Fatimah: (concerned by actions, feeling uneased) What are you doing? Are you listening to me?

Dragaunus: (proclaims his intentions towards her, completely insane) ♫ We'll create a host of little Saurs ♫

Fatimah: (winces in confusion at the very idea) What are you talking about?

Dragaunus: (pulls her closer to him before pinning her against the wall, gropes her backside and leg drawing his lips closer to her anxiously waiting for her to say the words he longs to hear) ♫ Tell me I'm adored ♫

Fatimah: (panics, struggling against him) Get away from me! (manages to grab the dagger strapped to her leg, immediately slashing Dragaunus across the face)

Dragaunus: (shouts in pain as his cheek bled, dropping Fatimah to the ground as he staggered back a bit) ♫ Tell me I'm ador-AH!!! (shrugs it off before responding, turned on before slipping back into sinister) Oh, Fatimah... you know how I loathe violence. One way or another, you will be mine!

Fatimah: (refuses outright before running out of the throne room) Never, Dragaunus. Never!

Dragaunus: (insistent on his position, proclaims) ♫ You belong to me! You all belong to meee-eeee-EEE-EEEEEE!!! ♫

[vhaven93-blog]

True spiritual transformation, like the creation of genuine Art, Music, Dance, or Poetry, requires a deep and conscious confrontation with the monster within you.

Can you enter into an honest and creation dialogue with the diabolic region of your soul? Are you willing to reach your hand into the black hood of the cloaked Devil within you, put your hand on the skull of his face, and caress it?

Most people are unable or unwilling to do this. But they do so at their own peril. For me, it's never been about having enough courage to perform this operation. Personally, I'm not necessarily "courageous", I'm just scared of the right things. I'd rather be destitute in this world, and rebuked and reviled by everyone around me, than to be at war within my own soul and conscience. By far the most enlightening irony that's ever pierced the thick wall of stupidity that is my brain, has been the realization that this internal schism between Character and Conscience can be ameliorated by clothing oneself in the horrors of all that one fears and loathes. In the story of Jesus of Nazareth, the Nazarene didn't become Christ until he died as Jesus. He couldn't go through with this operation unless he first became willing to adopt all the sins (shadow) of the World. This Dark Night of the Soul, consciously traversed, fortified Jesus's Will enough to drag his feet through the swamp of the Abyss with only his burning heart for a lantern. Thus ennobled, and armed with true compassion, the Nazarene found the strength of spirit to endure the Cross, drink the vinegar, and even forgive the maleficence of his accusers such that the phrase, "Father, fogive them! For they know not what they do".

This is a drama and myth that must play out on the stage of one's psyche, and the ordeal consciously and willingly assumed, before we can ever hope to heal that abscessed wound called Humanity. Until we face and forgive the foul beast that lurks within us, we'll forever be at the mercy of the hallucinations wrought by the fever within our souls. The cowardice of our own refusal to fight will be seen as the machinations of our supposed enemies, and even our Love will become poisonous fruit.

Sometimes, even Love can be worse than Hate. At least hatred is obvious. It walks up to you and punches you in the face. But toxic Love? That's a snake that strokes your thigh while biting your neck.

QUESTION: Where does evil live?

ANSWER: That's a wrong question.

The real question is: Why does evil live? More importantly, what does it live on? What feeds it?

Evil is unique in its ability to eat souls and shit out ideas. Then the Ego eats those ideas and feeds them also to its progeny.

What ideas drive you? What's your highest value by which you live?

Are you willing to reevaluate where your most cherished assumptions about yourself come from? What if YOU are the real enemy? What then?

[quill-of-thoth]

Nemo Me Impune Lacessit

Caveat Lector: Death by suffocation, dementia, the catacombs are small and dark and creepy. Also, this is 4k words of me mimicking Poe’s writing style.

As I listened to the rantings – no, the ravings! – of Montressor, there remained no doubt in my mind that the man had finally gone mad. The fits of pique and passion to which he was subject, the whims that I must needs indulge him or face his wrath, the very mercurial aspects of his personality: these I had patiently borne, knowing my company his only comfort in his decline and considering that, in all other ways, my position in the crumbling manse of the Montressors was an easy one. The old man, perhaps seeing something of his youth in me, preferred my company to that of all others as his health failed and his world narrowed to the scope of his ancestral halls, then finally to his own private rooms, where he pored over the tomes of his forefathers and dreamed of the long faded glory of his progenitors until he was half convinced that he was in fact imbued with the power and the authority of his forefathers, the utmost master of his own domain, untouchable, beyond reproach so long as his honor remained unsullied, and the family motto Nemo Me Impune Lacessit gleamed proud underneath the ancient heraldic crest, a serpent rampant striking, with its last breath, the human foot that crushed it.

For the better part of a year, I had watched the decline of the mind of the last of the Montressors, and smiled in his face as he decayed from a man of unparalleled brilliance to the decrepit wreck that he was now, infected by honor, raving about the imagined slights of other gentlemen of the city, some of whom I was convinced had never existed. I showed my teeth at his purposeless ramblings, feigned a laugh at his imagined triumphs over his neighbors, lied with kind eyes as I explained why men long dead would not visit – not that the living ever haunted our halls! No, I, and I alone, bore the changing of days and the decay of the house around us – I alone, too distant a cousin to bear the old man’s name or any resemblance to the gloomy portraits hung upon the walls, cared enough about the old man to let him die in peace. All other friends and relations had abandoned him; little wonder that it was I who he addressed as one who knew the very nature of his soul. None other still addressed him as anything other than a patient, to be dosed and quieted and sent to bed.

The months had served to all but wipe away my memories of a happier time before the old man’s mind had begun to rot away – I had long since ceased to think of him as anything other than the wreck he was – when I noticed a new turn in his mind. Where before he had told boastful stories of his youth, his prowess at debating, the respect he was afforded by the town, hunting parties, whatsoever else came to mind – a mind previously as quick as a steel trap, which now resembled a selection of lost pieces from a child’s jigsaw puzzle – his tales, (or perhaps some still were memories,) began to take a much more sinister, even grotesque turn. He claimed that he had been a member of any number of secret societies – had overseen arcane rituals to turn lead into gold – had seen one midwinter night the ghost of his father, begging him to dig him up out of his grave and release him from the suffocating earth. I paid these stories as little mind as I possibly could, as he rambled by candlelight in the dank, empty house with the winter wind whistling through the gaps in the shutters.

The story of Fortunato I dismissed almost instantly as pure phantasm. 

There was no family named Fortunato in the city, nor had Montressor spoken before of such a man – though when he spoke, it was with the deepest and most vehement hatred of him, such that I shuddered to think – for the old man’s mood had been angry and volatile for so long, now – what he should do if he had any such enemy living, and was not kept under constant watch. For in some things, Montressor’s mind was still as cutting and agile as ever: he spoke with the same impassioned fluidity of old, but he knew not to whom he was speaking; each crevice and cranny of the old house was still known to him, yet it had been over half a year since I could trust him outside of its doors; he would in a day remember events from fifty years ago and forget the events of the day before. In time, the preposterous imaginings of the old man grew far more bizarre – ominious, confused, and at times disturbing despite his growing bewilderment and vitrol towards the world – and his story of vengeance in the crypts below the palazzo was all but blotted out of my mind, replaced with more trials and tribulations of the old man’s dwindling life, such as a night spent tending to a detailed delusion that he was dead already, with centipedes crawling about under his skin. After that, I took the advice of the local pharmacist, and Montressor grew quiet at last.

In the bitterest dark of the winter – in fact, just after Carnival – that the old man caught influenza, then pneumonia, and finally died, though not quite peacefully. More people came to his funeral than had come to see him in the last year. They toasted to his memory – to a friendship that they pretended to fondly remember, though all the while I watched, knowing what the late, great Montressor had thought of them in his final months, and saw nothing on their faces but condescension and smirking deceit.

Then they were gone, and I was left alone with the crumbling wreck that was the manse of the Montressors; fit, I thought for a few wild moments, only for burning to the ground. Yet it was mine now, for the old man had no closer kin, and loathe as he was to allow it to pass out of the family proper, he would have been horrified to see it leave his bloodline entirely. How he had thought I would manage to keep the moldering skeleton in one piece was entirely beyond me – had there been money for the necessary repairs, it would already have been spent on them – so I resolved all at once to sell it, crush that last ounce of patrician vanity, the only legacy of a dead man, take whatever I could get, and make a new life far away, in a land where my connection to the Montressors raised no eyebrows and my name carried with it no shame.

And yet, as I lay listening to the rats scratching through the walls of the newly emptied house, alone save for my candles, I could not sleep.

I did not miss the old man’s waking nightmares, his mirages cut from whole cloth, the way he had laughed smugly at the world outside, seemingly unaware that his lot in life had diminished to little but delusions of grandeur – but it had covered the noise of the questing rats and the wind whistling about the house. It had kept the shadowed portraits at bay, and the thousand morbid fantasies that the night bears to a waking brain – and I could not go on in that house, not without knowing the answer to the thought that had begun in that night to gnaw at my soul.

Surely, the old man had only imagined it all – far stranger things had he told me, of a woman buried alive, of guilty murderers who heard the hearts of their victims beating on and on even after death until the drumming drove them insane, of secret signs and symbols, of pirate codes and buried treasure, of portraits that stole the youth of their subjects, of vengeance extracted after years through slow poison, of the tortures of the inquisition, and of impenetrable mystic rites that conferred upon the recipient of a draught of lamb’s blood the ability to read men’s souls and find precious metals in the earth. Next to such fuel for dreadful fantasy, such a thing should have quickly been forgotten.

And yet, I had not forgotten, for the old man’s eyes had flashed so, the spittle had flown from his lips, the cold and unholy light of vengeance had lit up his whole countenance, the words fell from his lips with an inviting surety: he had felt sure, I thought, that I should celebrate with him his great victory over the oafish, the drunken, the bumbling Fortunato! I should feel in the marrow of my bones that the insult to our house by the smug aficionado could not be borne – that Montressor’s course of action was the only which was right, which was just, which would preserve the dignity of those who, no matter how poor and how decayed, should never suffer such impudence against them without swift and terrible retribution. The untold numbers of our ancestors – his, not mine, though at the moment he had extended to me the hand of acknowledgement, perhaps not even remembering who I was – should turn over and over again in their crypts, should have haunted him until he destroyed that serpent, that buffoon, that motley bedecked dunce for daring to –

I had not the least idea what insult Fortunato was supposed to have offered my recently deceased cousin. 

Nor did I have any belief that such a man had ever existed, save as a confused compilation of all Montressor’s most abhorrent acquaintances, a face to attribute every imagined slight of his youth – a face that he had conjured in the absence of his so-called friends during his slow decline, and hung upon the hated visage every bewildered memory of the indignity that he had suffered – old, childless, poor and yet too proud to do aught but rot in it, draining the dregs of the family fortune that my own father’s cowardice had barred me from with each pipe of Amontillado! 

No, I no longer had to smile and bear the old man’s diatribe with placid blandishments – I was free, free from the long-forgotten heraldry, from the often translated motto – for there was nothing left of the Montressors! I was soon to wash my hands of it all! I resolved to go as far as I could, to Britain or Austria, for the company of millionaires reviled by the rest of the town for their gauche and presumptuous ways was far preferable to the poisoned insincerity of genteel poverty and a slow, agonizing slide into the darkness of ignorance and obscurity, pitied by all and valued by no one! No, I had no sympathy left for the old man – for he knew not what it meant to be truly, and honestly, despised for circumstances he could not change, nor what it was to scrabble for acceptance, to curse his paternity at every sly smile, at every moment of condescension, knowing that it was impossible to gain that which he so desperately sought – for should you please anyone, you are “well mannered, considering your birth,” and should you give offense, you are instantly lowered – for who should truly consider one so misbegotten worthy even of their anger? Even in his old age, when I was willing to aid him in his illness, the old man had always had a self-righteous look about him, as if to say “I give you the crumbs off my meager table only so your mouth may water at what little more I have,” the cruelty of one beggar to another. It was only as his mind had begun to fade and his fair-weather friends, his creditors and his connoisseurs, had abandoned him, that I, my ancestry forgotten, became his bossom companion, his only confidante. But for an accident of birth, I should have shared equally in the name, the reputation of the Montressors – and I should not have drank and gambled myself into poverty and obscurity! Yet he sought to give me his bleakness, his desolation, his macabre mockery of gentility and his obsession with a dead era of nobility and honor! 

How then, should I believe in his fearful chimeras, why then, should I lay awake near-drowning in the impression of his voice, his boundless arrogance, his certainty of purpose?

Why should I shiver at the thought of a dead man in the crypts below? There were any number of dead men, for the crypts had been used as an ossuary for many years before my cousin had taken possession of the house. Rationality told me that they were naught but bones, that being aware, so suddenly, of where they lay unburied underground, behind perhaps only a few doors, did not change this – for no ill had come of them in the past decades, and no ill would come of them tonight. Yet it seemed I heard, in the voice of Montressor, hushed and yet gleeful, as he was wont to be when he told me of his superstitious exploits or his exaggerated prowess in revenge, the words, “No harm has yet come to a Montressor from the remains of his ancestors.”

I lay awake as the candle guttered: I thought that Fortunato would not have died quickly, even bricked up in the vaults. He first would have exhausted himself, testing his chains and shouting, hoping fiercely that it was all a fit of dark humor on the part of my cousin, that he had now been well and truly humiliated for whatever offense he had given, that any moment now he would be released… as hours passed, that perhaps someone would hear him beyond the catacombs, that he should be rescued by a steward lost in search of some rare wine, that he would miraculously be encountered. If his chains had been long enough, he would have tested the wall – he would have clawed at it until his fingers bled, his nails worn down to stubs – he would have thrown his weight against it, tried to break the shackles, tried to knock the bricks loose before they set – known that the bricks were what would kill him quickest, had they been properly set, for soon he would run out of air –

No! For the last time, there was not – never had been – a man by the name of Fortunato! Therefore, no man had suffocated alone in the vaults of the manse that I now owned, nor starved, nor died of fear and despair and betrayal; therefore there was no body hanging, shackled, behind a wall, mute evidence to the depravity of my line; therefore I must snuff the candle so that I may sleep through the night and wake in the morning to make the preparations to sell the wasting pile as fast as I may. Yet when I reached for the candle, my hand was shaking.

All at once I stormed up from the bedclothes, candle in hand, and was halfway to my chamber door before the freezing stones against my feet became unbearable. I dressed with undue haste in some of my warmest clothes, and then, candle in hand, I descended to the depths of the vaults.

It was indeed as damp and cold as I had thought: nitre hung from the walls and the ceiling like frost stiffened moss, and my breath fanned out in front of my face like a silent shroud. Everywhere there were racks, filled haphazardly with empty bottles of wine stacked one upon the other, and glass fragments of brilliant colors that would have dignified a cathedral glittered on the floor. As I searched amongst the wreckage for a torch, I cursed the biting air and my cousin’s drunken, wastrel heart – then, warming my hands one at a time by the new flame  that threw the lurking shadows of the catacombs into stark relief, I blew out my candle and placed it upon the steps.

The catacombs of the Montressors were vast, descending deep beneath the Palazzo in long, winding passages cut into the rock of the hill beneath – vaults and caverns older by far than the Montressors. It would be far too easy to lose myself amidst the walls of piled bones, the emptied barrels and flagons, which grew only more deeply encrusted with white nitre as I descended yet another stair, passed under another series of low arches, and began to come upon the small bones of rats mixed in with the powdery debris of human existence. The air became oppressive – not yet foul, but heavy with the weight of the earth above me, the dust that stirred at my footsteps, the ever-present smoke of my torch and the silence that, save for my footsteps and the hiss and crackle of my light, reigned inviolate.  Though I knew it to be only a trick of the mind, I fancied myself able to see a deeper weight to the shadows, as if they had passed beyond mere darkness, out of the reach of my torch, and into some life and animation of their own – as if they moved of their own accord, a sort of antithesis to light rather than it’s mere absence. As I stood and the faint, wet echo of my footsteps died away, the silence grew louder, until I felt that my heartbeat must be as loud as a drum, my breath the sound of a whirlwind, the very blood in my veins the roaring of the ocean.

I should be pleased when I was finally quit of this place, and all the morbid fascination that it contained. Let some foolish scholar, some young pomp pleased with his own fortune inherit this gloom, this reproachful silence!

Gripping the torch in fingers that felt raw with cold, I descended once more to the lowest level of the crypts, far below the bed of the river. The air had grown from merely still to actively foul, and the flame of my torch sank low against the wood. Although there seemed no reason for any rational being to enter, these chambers were also filled with bones - in the smallest, they were stacked on three sides and scattered across the floor, surrounding a curious wall, where some bones were clumsily stacked across three feet of space between a pair of rough hewn pillars was sealed with badly mortared stones.

Though I did not remember all that my departed cousin had said on the matter, I knew without a doubt that this was the place. Here were the bones of the quiet dead, thrown down to clear the way for his delusions. There was a dark niche fit only for hiding the most gruesome of secrets: here too was the foul air that would quickly kill a man with a chronic shortness of breath, the oppressive darkness and the silence that might drive him mad with fright when he recognized the onrushing pace of his own death. How must he have gasped, fighting to breathe against the crushing weight of the earth above him, when my own breathing was even now a little labored? How must his heart have beat its way out of his chest as he saw the face of one he counted friend distended by the madness of vengeance for some unforgotten ill? How must he have died, despairing, alone save for the nameless, faceless bones complacent in their tomb, filled with the body and yet empty of the soul of the house of the Montressors –

With a cry I threw down my torch and seized the first object to hand – a trowel thrown down amidst the bones – and I hacked at the wall. I would prove that this was nothing but a phantasm, brought on by the disturbed mind of my mad cousin! I would open the wall and see only a dark passageway, bricked up to stop the foul vapors from rising, the memory of which had prompted Montressor to elaborate upon his invented revenge! I would have peace, would sleep at night in the house I now owned, would, by destroying the very foundations of his delusions, exorcise the ghost of the last of the Montressors!

The masonry crumbled beneath the tip of my trowel, never having been dry enough to set, and the first block fell almost upon my feet. I could see nothing beyond it in the dim light, so I yanked out first one stone, then another, until they came crashing down in a ragged wave and I jumped back, seized my torch, and thrust it into the opening, already giving a little cry of exultation as the light reached smooth granite, empty of all save a rusty band of what must be metal, no, two, a pair of chains depending from them –

My cry of exultation gave way to a gasp of horror as I saw the truth. The years had not quite mummified him, though the nitre must have to some degree counteracted the damp – in  places the sagging skin peeled back from the bones, and there was no way of knowing , save for the rags of the oversized garb he wore, that the corpse had once been a large and fleshy man. Yet I knew – I knew it with a certainty that to this day shakes my bones, that still causes me to see in my mind the skeletal, half-rotted face with hair that might pass for a living man’s hanging down around it – that this was the mortal remains of Fortunato, bound in chains to the stone wall. His cap bore three bells: it must once have been motley.

[thesinglesjukebox]

YOKO ONO - IMAGINE

[4.90]

Today, we imagine there's no Lennon.

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: Yoko Ono is not a musician -- not in the pure sense -- but she's a creative powerhouse and an era-defining artist. John Lennon knew it, but in the ultimate dick move decided to silence Yoko's part in the creation of one of the world's most iconic songs. It is a triumph of History that Yoko's authorship is finally recognized, a triumph for Women. And still, this version, that itself signifies the correcting of an absolute injustice, was brought up by Yoko as a loving tribute to her beloved companion. That gesture alone describes that enormous truth, that Women are what holds the world together. A gesture that speaks as much as the song itself. [10]

Edward Okulicz: I loathe "Imagine." Lennon's gloopy hymnal arrangement and sleepy performance always sounded opportunistic and dishonest to me, wallowing in misery while promising deliverance. I find it vile, and I hate the melody too. Much of Ono's take on the song she had a big hand in creating fixes the things that cause my revulsion. Ono removes the sickly piano from the first part of the song (alas it comes in later) and intones the words starkly, making a song of hope sound quite bleak, as if it really is an anthem for times of crisis. I still loathe "Imagine" the song that is so important and meaningful to everyone because of who sang it and how he sang it, but Ono makes a stronger case for the worth of "Imagine" the relatively humble poem. I can't imagine ever wanting to listen to it again, but I'd take it over Lennon's any day of the week. [3]

Alfred Soto: Justice for Yoko Ono -- not long after she was awarded a deserved credit for co-writing "Imagine" she has a go at her dead husband's most famous song. I'm not a fan of the original; I'm a fan of Yoko, though, and her halting, tentative approach suits a song whose conditionals haven't gotten any less conditional in the last forty years. But I never want to hear it again. [5]

Tobi Tella: Yoko isn't winning any "vocalist of the year" awards for this one, but as an 85 year old woman I think she's past that point. This rendition is genuinely haunting, the sparse instrumentation and true melancholy of her voice make the meaning of these often sung words feel new. It's not the kind of thing I would listen to casually, but I would much rather listen to a cover with purpose like this then some artist giving a generic imitation of Lennon. [6]

Iain Mew: It makes me think of the Johnny Cash "Hurt," which I guess is a combination of a familiar song and the rarity of hearing the age in anyone's voice laid this bare. It's so eerily bare that it reveals a tinge of nihilism that the original was way too cozy to let out, a progression in meaning beneath the words. Imagine there's no heaven. Imagine there's no countries. No religion. Imagine NOTHING. Live as one with nothing. Listen to it hum. Then the piano comes in and rather spoils the effect. [6]

Will Adams: "Yoko broke up the band" is as common a refrain of received misogyny as "Eve gave Adam the apple," which is why the video for "Imagine" is flooded with drive-by dislikes despite the comments largely praising her version. That alone would make this worth championing, as would her finally reclaiming her work, if only from a songwriting standpoint. The original's treacly arrangement isn't exactly upgraded -- the first half especially is rather dirge-like -- but by the end, when the haze lifts and we're left with a lone piano, this version approaches something more stirring. [6]

Jonathan Bradley: Pouring acid on John Lennon's messianic self-regard improves "Imagine" immeasurably, but Ono's stark delivery can't curdle the melody nor the sentiment of her poem enough to stop it from cloying. [2]

Taylor Alatorre: It was CeeLo's New Year's Eve performance that got me to finally realize that "Imagine" is a bad song. It wasn't how he changed the line about religion or how the chattering class reacted to it. It's that the line was there in the first place, as something to be gawked at and fussed over and cowered from and wielded against your enemies. I don't take issue with the irreligious slogans of hardcore or the hushed heresies of indie folk, but really, how are you gonna write a song about universal brotherhood and deny entry to 80% of the world's population? Never mind that Lennon's vision of brotherhood is the kind of post-materialist pablum that's led entire left-leaning generations to regard tending their organic gardens as more important than organizing their workplaces. Ono's version is an improvement on Lennon's because it's harder to tell how serious she is about the quote-unquote political message, even though she had a hand in its creation. You can imagine it's just a tribute song four decades in the making, a finger tracing the ink lines of an old love letter, an echo of a recording of an echo. A prayer with no return address. [5]

Juan F. Carruyo: The orchestral approach reminds me of Disturbed's Simon & Garfunkel cover and while Yoko turns a brave, stark performance at the end of the day she's still a millionaire bossing the audience around. [0]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Yoko Ono is a much reviled figure, often for reasons rooted in racism, misogyny, a misunderstanding of her experimental roots, and the deification of The Beatles. While John Lennon had stated that she was the main creative force behind "Imagine," it wasn't until last year that she finally received her co-writing credit. Nearly fifty years since Lennon's single, Yoko's rendition feels like a small victory. But a question arises: who is this for, exactly? While the song's first half is quietly haunting, it eventually defaults into familiar, cloying territories. Those who love the original won't find this to be more inspiring, and those who hated it will likely be turned off by that damn piano melody. The song's good for those interested in virtue signaling, and it's surely a curious little novelty, but will anyone be listening to this years from now? Who knows. But the sense that Yoko's version of "Imagine" will remain an obscurity is at the heart of the song's true beauty. For one of history's most universally known pop songs -- one meant to unify the entire world -- Yoko manages to turn this into something incredibly intimate, like Lennon and Ono are the only ones privy to its existence. "Imagine" was always a love song to humanity, but it's only here that it can be understood as a love song between two specific people. [6]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[styrac0saurus]

Get To Know My Hunter

Tagged by @thesaint-jimmy

Bloodborne OC meme courtesy of @princeofmorley

We all know Bloodborne can be a difficult fandom for OCs given the vagueness of the lore, but a lot of us still enjoy coming up with stories for our hunters. I hadn’t seen an OC meme for Bloodborne so I figured I’d make one myself!

These are all the questions I could think of without getting into the nitty gritty of the lore. Of course, all questions are optional. You can remove any question you don’t want to answer, or add questions I might’ve forgotten!

Feel free to use this template as you wish! I’d love to read about other people’s hunter OCs, so be sure to tag it as #bloodborne oc meme so I can read yours!

Put my response under a ReadMore because there were a lot of questions! Please know that I haven’t played Bloodborne yet so some responses may seem a little off because I’m filling in gameplay knowledge based on what I’ve experienced in Dark Souls I and the Bloodborne wiki.

Name: Antares Mai Quyen Nickname(s): Auntie (sometimes Auntie Antares when addressed by their younger charges), Mai-Mai (used only by their parents when they were young) Age: 33 Gender: Non-Binary Agender (they/them pronouns) Sexuality: No strict preference for any gender, they’re currently in a relationship with a woman Height/Build: 6′5″ and fairly thickset (muscular with some fat over everything)

Personality description:  A reserved Hunter of Hunters, though those who become close friends with Antares know they are capable of sincere affection. The hunter is usually mindful of their size, choosing to talk quietly and walk slowly so that they don’t intimidate people, but also so that they don’t constantly bump their head into ceiling stuff and startle people with their outbursts of pain. Such gentleness is something that was internalized from being raised as a girl in a Vietnamese household (speaking from personal experience as a AFAB NB Viet). Children adore Antares and Antares adores them back, always willing to give the smaller ones either some sweets or a lift onto their shoulders. Indeed, the hunter seems to have a respectable position in Yharnam. However, Antares heavily dissociates and experiences extreme self-loathing in private because they are actually an Abhorrent Beast finally corrupted by the Old Blood. More to come about those sentiments and how Antares finally (sorta) succumbed to the scourge later.

Physical description:  Like most in their covenant, Antares wears the Crowfeather set around Yharnam. A modification of the Vietnamese áo dài is worn underneath all of the set’s heavier layers for casual wear though. During the daytime, they might wear the whole Crowfeather set minus the mask and hat if the weather’s not too warm because they find the overall outfit comfortable, even though most hunters may choose to separate work from daily life so people don’t stare at them. Antares doesn’t really mind such attention because they’re used to rude oglings, having grown up as an Asian (thick black hair, light to medium brown skin, almond eyes, etc. typical of Vietnamese people) in a mostly White European place like Yharnam. The hunter probably gets more stares because they’re relatively large and androgynous so there are plenty of people curious about Antares’s “true gender.” The hunter always replies stoically to gender questions, but replies may leave people more confused because their coherence reaches the shitpost plane of existence.

BACKSTORY

Introduce your hunter and their backstory. Alright this meme got so long that I got super tired of writing responses so maybe I’ll go back and edit this post, but read this other post for some backstory in the meantime.

Which class/origin did you choose for your hunter? Does this tie into their backstory? Lone Survivor, only because I usually start off as a tank character in Dark Souls before I build up my Endurance/Stamina. This origin definitely doesn’t tie into Antares’s backstory because they aren’t from the Fishing Hamlet.

Where is your hunter from? What brought them to Yharnam? Antares was born in Yharnam, but closer to the outskirts of the city where the relatively more common class people live. Their father traveled to Byrgenwerth from Saigon to study and brought their mother to the city later while she was pregnant with Antares. So really, Antares grew up as a Milquetoast with their father eventually working in the Byrgenweth libraries and their mother working in the clinic that would someday belong to Iosefka/Imposter Iosefka.

Did your hunter know any of the characters from the game before they entered the Hunter’s Dream? Yeah, they knew Eileen the Crow and then some of the other Yharnam hunter NPCs by extension. Antares also knows of the Old Hunters, but they haven’t met them. Other NPCs they don’t really know about if they appear outside the actual city streets of Yharnam (Micolash, Yurie, the Madara twins, etc.).

Had they fought beasts before entering the Dream, or is this their first experience as a hunter? Antares has definitely fought beasts before coming to the Dream. They’re a Hunter of Hunters so they’ve killed (and eaten) a few blood-addled hunters as well. 

CHARACTER DETAILS

How do they react to first waking up in the Hunter’s Dream? Do they remember anything about their life before the Dream? Hmm… I’m not really sure how to answer this question since I haven’t played Bloodborne and therefore haven’t had much thought about the Hunter’s Dream. I personally think they would be angry that they can’t Properly Die until they discover a way to leave the Dream. Antares honestly wants to die as a (mostly) human being before they become too blood-addled and kill someone else they loved again. That being said, yes, the Hunter remembers everything about their life for sure, even once they’ve come to the Dream.

Do they align themselves with any Covenants or other factions (the Healing Church, the Choir, the Old Hunters, the Unseen Village, etc)? As previously mentioned, Antares is part of the Hunter of Hunters covenant. Other than that, they don’t really align themselves with any of the other, for lack of a better word, more political covenants in Yharnam.

Do they befriend any NPCs in particular? Make enemies of any NPCs? Haven’t really thought about this because I haven’t played Bloodborne yet. Maybe Antares would be friends with Eileen the Crow, but they might know of Gascoigne, Henryk, and Djura through them also being Eileen’s friends. Meanwhile, they probably wouldn’t really have any enemies. They’re not often aggressive towards most people, I imagine.

Are they in a relationship? If so, with whom? Yes, they’re currently in a relationship with another Bloodborne OC of mine (Miriam Hashmi, a Byrgenwerth scholar).

How does your hunter feel about the Healing Church? About blood ministration? Considering that they’re now a fucking bloodthirsty Beast (not all the time fortunately), they’re probably feeling pretty resentful about the Healing Church and how the Church has continued trying to hide the consequences of blood ministration.

Do they fear the scourge? Are they afraid of turning into a beast? Afraid of becoming blood-addled? Of the unknown Cosmos? What are they afraid of? Antares could honestly care less about the Unknown Cosmos. They tend to worry about more visceral and tangible fears such as the Scourge.  What happens to a Respected Hunter once they become an Abhorrent Beast after all? Being a Hunter of Hunters doesn’t help much and Antares’s anxieties have multiply tenfold when they realize they hunt others just like themselves. Other than being caught and outed, they also have to worry about staying alive for their friends’ sake as well as about succumbing to the corruption and killing the same friends as a blood-addled monster. Should Antares somehow have some conscience returned to them after going on a rampage, the guilt would be too much to handle. 

Does your hunter relish in the Hunt or revile their bloody work? After killing their father while being blood-addled and beastly, I think it’s safe to say that Antares very strongly reviles being a Hunter. Also, it sucks having to eat a blood-addled hunter you once considered a friend just to satisfy your own hunger.

What is your hunter’s attitude towards Gehrman? Do they resent being trapped in the Hunter’s Dream? They don’t really think much of Gehrman after getting over the initial resentment of being trapped in the Hunter’s Dream (see first question of this section for reasoning behind resentment). While perplexed by his presence and the Doll, Antares comes to respect both as the Night goes along. Because they don’t go to the Hunter’s Nightmare to fight Lady Maria, they have no reason to think more negatively of Gehrman otherwise.

Does your hunter sympathize and associate with fellow hunters, or are they more of a loner who avoids other hunters? Do they leave notes for other hunters? Antares will gladly help others in need, but rarely asks for help themselves, especially while hunting a target. The preference for solitude is not based on cockiness, but rather a desire to avoid being outed as a beast if they need to transform to fight a particularly difficult mark and feed on the remains. Messages will be left to warn other hunters to stay away from their hunting territories as a result. However, the warning will be more along the lines of “There’s going to be a dangerous blood-addled hunter here. Don’t come around until I deal with them. - Antares” rather than obviously “There’s going to be a beast a.k.a. me here. Don’t come around if you don’t like seeing excess blood and gore because I need to eat. - Antares.” There might be more messages of a more positive vibe though. Antares might leave cute little sketches for hunters-in-training to find on patrol throughout Yharnam.

Does your hunter worship the Great Ones? Do they worship blood? Or do they have a different belief system? If they’re not devout, what do they value or prioritize in life? Antares certainly has respect for the Great Ones, but they’re not particularly religious otherwise. They prioritize family and close friends more than anything (well… more like just friends at this point in their life since both of their parents have been killed so there are no other really close relatives in Yharnam).

Do they have a special place where they feel safe or “at home”? Is there a place they’re afraid of or that they avoid? Ugh, this will be incredibly sappy, but Antares feels the most at home lying down with their head on Miriam’s thighs. They love having their girlfriend (or wife by the actual game’s timeline I imagine) stroke their hair. As for a place the hunter would be afraid of, it would probably be the Hunter’s Nightmare for reasons already/to be explained. But… it might be an unavoidable fate…

Are there any particular items your hunter holds onto for sentimental reasons, or items that serve to comfort them? A jade necklace and a bracelet made of wooden beads, jewelry that were given to them by their parents when they were a child. The jewelry’s all that’s left of Antares’s happier memories from before their parents were killed.

Do any of the discoveries in the game (about the old blood, the Healing Church, the Great Ones, etc) shock them? How do they react to these revelations? Perhaps the consequences of the Old Blood not so much because Antares is already experiencing their consequences. I guess they would still be shocked by how far back and all-encompassing the Old Blood history goes in terms of the Healing Church and the Great Ones. Some stuff they would feel angry and unsettled about though, especially if they went to the Hunter’s Nightmare as someone trying to figure out what the hell is really happening in Yharnam (but that isn’t really their main questline I suppose).

Does your hunter want to discover the secrets of the Healing Church and the origins of the scourge, or do they just want to kill some beasts and escape the Dream? What motivates them? I mean, they might discover some secrets during the Night, but they ultimately just want to escape the Hunter’s Dream.  Honestly, I don’t really know how to answer this question until I actually play Bloodborne.

How does your hunter feel about being effectively immortal? How do the unending deaths affect them over the course of their time in the Dream? See previous questions about Antares’s opinions of the Dream.

COMBAT AND STATS

Which primary stat does your hunter most rely on (Strength, Skill, Bloodtinge, Arcane)? Do they prioritize Vitality or Endurance? Strength and Endurance would be emphasized, with some Skill since Antares does wield the Blades of Mercy. Vitality might also be increased once Antares becomes a beast, but they don’t often prioritize this stat otherwise.

What are your hunter’s trick weapon and firearm of choice? Why? Saw Cleaver and Hunter’s Pistol are the usual combo. However, Antares can also wield the Blades of Mercy if they’re fighting a more skilled enemy such as a blood-addled hunter versus a crowd of corrupted beasts.

Do they make use of any hunter tools? Only the Old Hunter’s Bone for Quickening and the Beast Roar for keeping enemies back so that they can transform if needed.

What type of armor do they wear? Why? Usually the Crowfeather Set for style points. Otherwise, whatever has high defense against mostly physical slash/bite/etc. attacks to make up for the lack in emphasis on Vitality.

Describe their fighting style. Antares is not one who likes crowds, whether they consist of people at a Hunters’ Communion or beasts at some bloody hunting ground. They’re more likely to fight enemies one or two at a time, drawing them away from a crowd with pebbles. With their strength, the hunter would hopefully stagger and dispatch enemies quickly this way with just their hunting weapons. Beast mode only gets used when Antares gets desperate and really needs to up their strength even more either against a multitude of enemies or a really tough enemy. Honestly though, Antares usually doesn’t try to fight everything because it would take so much time and effort away from hunting down either a more serious beast or a covenant target.

Which Caryll runes does your hunter keep equipped? Communion to increase the number of blood vials they can hold to make up for a lack in Vitality. Anti-Clockwise Metamorphosis to increase maximum stamina. Hunter to increase stamina recovery so they can quickly restore their Endurance. It is a Covenant rune, though, so it might be replaced by Beast’s Embrace for gameplay mechanic reasons related to Antares’s storyline so that they can transform.

How much Insight does your hunter have? How does this affect them? Not much Insight because Antares care little for the mostly intangible. They still pay close attention to their surroundings nonetheless. However, they can only do so thanks to their heightened beast sense more than anything.

Does your hunter take advantage of Beasthood to fuel their attacks? How does it affect them? Oh my fucking god, all this time, I never knew there was an actual Beast Mode already incorporated into the gameplay. That being said, of course Antare takes advantage of Beasthood to fight. Not all the time though, only when desperate. It really messes with their psyche, though, because they have a hard time reconciling the fact that they’re both human and monster.

Is there a beast or type of enemy your hunter likes to fight? An enemy they avoid? Antares both loves and hates fighting beasts. They feel like they’re fulfilling their duty as a Yharnamite citizen every time they take down a scourge wolf or a blood-addled hunter. But they also feel like they’re succumbing to the scourge more and more because every kill seems to increase their bloodlust. Not to mention looking at every blood-addled hunter keeps reminding Antares of their own possible fate… The more Eldritch looking enemies really just befuddle the hunter in the meantime. Not too much felt when fighting them than some disgust and the previously mentioned confusion at how much creatures could exist.

Do they often summon the Old Hunters or hunters from other worlds to aid them? Not really, Antares is a bit of a lone fighter.

PLOT DECISIONS

Does your hunter’s story deviate from the central plot of Bloodborne? In what ways? I guess so. I’ve mostly filled this meme out for an Antares who exists in @thesaint-jimmy‘s pre-game timeline of the Bloodborne universe. By the game’s time, I would have had Antares become an old hunter who has long left the Dream like Eileen. They would be more like an NPC the Good Hunter encounters.

Does your hunter try to rescue any of the civilians of Yharnam? Are they successful? Of course. Despite their introvertedness, Antares still tries to keep an eye out for others in Yharnam. They are successful only with some, though (namely those NPCs who safely make it to Odeon Chapel except for the crotchety old man and the suspicious beggar). Suspicious beggar dude and Antares immediately sense that they’re both Abhorrent Beasts and fight because they obviously have different thoughts about controlling themselves/endangering people when in Beast Form. Crotchety old man is just a loss Antares grimly but firmly accepts because they’ve gotten so used to losing people over the years of the Hunt. Father Gascoigne’s daughters are another story however because Antares has always been protective of children. To know they indirectly caused the deaths of a former acquaintance’s children brings about a great sense of shame and failure.

Does your hunter kill the Impostor Iosefka or let her continue her work? Thanks to their heightened beast senses, Antares probably smells there being a different Iosefka in the clinic. That certainly raises suspicion so the hunter would check everything out and discover the Celestial Mob experiments, much to their horror. After all, being friends with someone who was once cruelly used for experimentation would make such work leave an incredibly disgusting taste in Antares’s mouth. They’d definitely kill the Imposter Iosefka before mercy-killing all of the Celestial Mobs she’s made for experimentation. 

Do they fight Djura or befriend him? What about Eileen the Crow? Befriend both Djura and Eileen. I imagine them both knowing Antares before the game timeline of Bloodborne.

Do they choose to side with Alfred or Queen Annalise? Perhaps Alfred, though they are a little concerned about his trustworthiness given his evident devotion to Master Logarius.

Does your hunter enter the Chalice Dungeons? I personally would enter the Chalice Dungeons because they seem like cool places to explore and practice combat skills. Antares probably wouldn’t be interested in them though.

Does your hunter enter the Hunter’s Nightmare? Do they defeat the Orphan of Kos? Maybe to the first question and no to the second question. I imagine there could be a timeline where Antares dies as a blood-addled beast so they’re sent to suffer eternally in the Hunter’s Nightmare. 

What is your hunter’s final choice at the end of the game? They accept Gehrman’s offer so they can leave the dream. But hmm… it would be interesting to consider an Antares who decides to take Gherman’s place if they think forever leaving their friends with their humanity still whole would be a better fate than eventually succumbing to the Scourge like Father Gascoigne.  

If they accept Gehrman’s offer, what does your hunter do once they’re free of the Hunter’s Dream? Immediately return home to their loved ones and try to continue living their life as Yharnam continues to descend into Hell. I don’t know to be honest. Antares has never been one to work actively towards the Greater Good, but they’ll provide support as needed.

If applicable, how does your hunter die? I don’t know because I want my Gaysian character to live a wholesome life well into their older years with their loved ones but… I also love Soulsborne style tragedies.

Is there anything else you’d like to share about your hunter? I have a Dark Souls AU version of Antares where they’re far more chill as a character because they’re not a monster trapped in an urban hellhole. If people are interested in either version, though, I have a Soulsborne RP blog for them (@knightantares).

[nolimitsongrace]

April 3: Entrust Yourself to God’s Care

Entrust Yourself to God’s CareApril 3, 2020

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. — Hebrews 12:2

When Jesus hung on the Cross, beaten almost beyond human recognition, He was subjected to intense, ugly verbal abuse. The soldiers at His feet scoffed, religious leaders laughed, and even a criminal being crucified nearby sneered at Him. In this eternally pivotal moment, all of creation should have rejoiced, for the Creator of the universe was paying the ultimate price for the redemption for mankind. It was the single greatest act of love the world had ever witnessed. But instead of comprehending the supreme price Jesus was paying that day, the crowd arrogantly jeered, mocked, and scorned.

Have you ever pondered how all of this ridicule affected Jesus’ emotions when He was dying on the Cross? Let me ask you — what if you were hanging on the Cross and people laughed and mocked you as you died for them? How would you be tempted to feel at that moment?

Jesus’ body had already been ripped to shreds by the vicious beating He received in the residence of Pontius Pilate. Roman soldiers in Pilate’s court laughed at Him, mocked Him, and played humiliating games with Him. One by one, a whole cohort of soldiers took turns spitting on Him, slapping Him, and striking His face with a reed they took from a nearby fountain in Pilate’s palace. It was extreme verbal, mental, and physical abuse.

*[If you started reading this from your email, begin reading here.]

Then the soldiers jammed a crown of thorns so firmly on Jesus’ head that the long, sharp spikes perforated His skin and scraped across His skull, causing blood to stream down from His brow like a river until His entire face was covered with it. The thick, sticky blood matted His eyebrows and eyelashes, making it difficult for Him to see. Huge, nine-inch iron nails were driven through His hands and feet, which pierced His nerves and sent signals of pain throughout His entire body. The weight of Jesus’ body hanging from those nails dislocated His shoulders, and His joints were pulled out of place. He struggled to breathe every breath as His lungs began to fill with fluids that would eventually suffocate Him.

Making this unimaginably horrific experience even worse was the fact that Jesus had been completely stripped naked and hung on that Cross humiliated before the hostile crowd. Putting one’s naked body on public display was a great indignity in Jewish culture, thus making the ordeal especially shameful for Him.

Yet Jesus endured all of this agony, pain, and embarrassment willingly. Why? Because His death was the price demanded to purchase forgiveness and redemption for the very people who had done all of this to Him. He was dying for the very people who sneered at Him, for the criminals who laughed at Him, for the soldiers who mocked Him, for the religious leaders who demanded His crucifixion — and for you and me. (In Sparkling Gems 1, April 21-24, I wrote vivid descriptions of the scourging and crucifixion of Jesus. If you have not already read it, I encourage you to do so. It will give you a greater understanding of what Jesus endured to purchase your salvation.)

But how do you think Jesus felt about this experience at the time it was happening? Hebrews 12:2 gives us insight to this question. It says, “Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

First, I want you to notice that this verse says that Jesus “endured” the Cross. The word “endured” is from the well-known Greek word hupomeno. It is a compound of the words hupo and meno. The word hupo means under, and the word meno means to abide or to stay. When the two are compounded, the new word portrays a person who is under some type of incredibly heavy load but who refuses to stray from his position because he is committed to his task. Regardless of the load, opposition, stress, or weight that comes against him, he is not going to move. He is going to stay put in his spot and not surrender it to anyone for any reason!

This word depicts one who refuses to bend, break, or surrender because he is convinced that the territory, promise, or principle under assault rightfully belongs to him. It denotes a refusal to give up. One expositor has rightfully translated hupomeno as staying power. However, my favorite translation of the word hupomeno is hang-in-there power!

The fact that the Holy Spirit chose to use this word to describe Jesus’ time on the Cross tells us emphatically this was not an enjoyable experience. Regardless of how difficult and humiliating the experience was, Jesus was committed to “endure” it because the shedding of His blood was the only way to purchase our freedom from Satan, sin, and the effects of the curse that Adam’s disobedience brought upon the human race.

The Cross was so unpleasant that Hebrews 12:2 goes on to tell us that Jesus “despised” it. This is very important because it reveals exactly how Jesus felt emotionally about His time spent on the Cross. According to this verse, He “despised” the whole experience. The word “despise” is from the Greek word kataphroneo, a compound of kata and phroneo. The word kata means down, and the word phroneo means to think. When the two are compounded into one word, the new word means to think down on something or to despise it. It could be translated to loathe, to spurn, to detest, to abhor, to have an aversion, or to find something revolting or repulsive. The Cross was a degrading, crushing, and humiliating experience. In fact, crucifixion was the lowest, crudest, and most barbaric form of death in the Roman Empire.

Hebrews 12:2 goes on to tell us that Jesus despised the “shame” of this experience. The word “shame” is aischune, which depicted disgrace, embarrassment, or humiliation. In the New Testament language, the word aischune carries mostly the idea of shame. By using this word, the author of Hebrews was telling us that the Cross was something that brought shame to Jesus. It was an act of indignity which degraded, debased, and dishonored Him.

Just before He died, Jesus cried out and said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). In this amazing statement, I want you to take note of the word “forgive.” It is from the word aphiemi, which means to release, as in releasing a prisoner or setting someone free from an act they have carried out. It is the decision to not hold something against someone, but rather to liberate a person from the consequences of his actions. When Jesus cried, “Father, forgive them,” He was saying, “Father, release them…” or “Father, do not hold this against them….”

When you are facing unfair criticism or being blamed for something you didn’t do, it is imperative that you keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and the example He set for you. He lived a perfect, sinless life and did not deserve the punishment that was laid upon Him. Yet He willfully carried our sicknesses and bore our diseases. And when that sin and sickness was laid upon him, He did not retaliate or strike back! The Bible tells us that “when he was reviled, he reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to Him that judgeth righteously…” (1 Peter 2:23).

There are rare times when nothing can be done to change a situation, and we are required to be silent and trust God to take care of it. First Peter 2:23 says that when Jesus was reviled, He did not revile again, and when He suffered, He threatened not. The word “reviled” is the Greek word loidoreo, which means to speak abusively, to insult someone, or to speak words that are crude and vile. We would call this verbal abuse. However, when these kinds of words were hurled at Jesus, He didn’t return them to his offenders. Instead, He remained silent and “threatened not” when He suffered — even though He could have called upon all of Heaven to deliver Him or to obliterate His enemies. The use of the word loidoreo in this verse emphatically means that Jesus didn’t threaten his enemies when they began to threaten Him.

Instead, Jesus “committed himself to Him that judgeth righteously.” The word “committed” in First Peter 2:23 is from the Greek word paradidomi, which means to entrust, to hand over, to surrender, or to commit. The fact is, there was no way for Jesus to escape the Cross without abandoning His divine mission on earth. Rather than fight it or becoming angry and vengeful toward His abusers, Jesus chose to turn His eyes to the Father and entrust Himself entirely into God’s hands in that very difficult moment.

Likewise, if you are in a situation that you cannot change, you are called to follow Jesus’ example and entrust yourself into the Father’s care. Retaliating against your offenders or verbally returning words they have said to you will not help you or them. It will just make the situation worse. When you are in a situation that you have no power to change, you must pray for strength to endure the situation, and you must also entrust yourself to God who judges righteously. You can be sure that God is watching, and He will not overlook your prayers of faith or the price you’re paying for the love of Him.

MY PRAYER FOR TODAY

Lord, I want to say thank You for sending Jesus to die for me on Calvary. What a terrible price He paid to purchase my freedom from sin. When He hung on that Tree, it was for me, and for this I want to say thank You from the depths of my heart. Today I ask You for grace to forgive those who have sinned against me, just as Jesus forgave those who sinned against Him. The devil has tried to make me bitter, but I know Your grace can make me better. Rather than focus on the injustice I have experienced, I am fixing my eyes on You and entrusting myself completely into Your loving care.

I pray this in Jesus’ name!

MY CONFESSION FOR TODAY

I joyfully declare that God is my judge and He is watching everything that is taking place in my life right now. I do not have to worry or fret that God doesn’t know what is happening, because I have entrusted myself into His care and He is lovingly watching over me. I will not fight those who have wronged me and I will not retaliate with ugly words. I have made the decision to follow the example of Jesus. So today, I confess that I am not abandoned, I am not alone, but I am resting safely in the arms of my Heavenly Father who deeply cares about me and all that I am going through in my life right now.

I declare this by faith in Jesus’ name!

QUESTIONS FOR YOU TO CONSIDER

Has there ever been a time in your life when you knew that fighting back would accomplish nothing, and you knew that you needed to simply be silent and trust God to work on your behalf? When was that time in your life and what happened as a result of silently trusting God?

Can you think of someone who is going through a difficult season in life and needs to be reminded that God is watching and that He will take care of those who surrender themselves to Him? Do you need to pick up the phone and call that person today to encourage that person to keep surrendering his or her situation to the Lord?

What did you specifically learn from today’s Sparkling Gem that was new for you?

[live4thelord]

MSGR. CHARLES POPE

Satan is Real

Once again it is necessary to reiterate the true, Catholic, and biblical teaching on Satan and demons. Contrary to what Superior General of the Society of Jesus Fr. Arturo Sosa stated in a recent interview, the Church does not teach that Satan is merely a symbol or an idea. He is not the “personification of evil”; he is a person, an individual creature, a fallen angelic being (as are all demons). Scripture uses personal pronouns in referring to Satan and demons (e.g., he, him, they). The Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms that Satan is an existing creature, a fallen angel who is envious of us and is a murderer from the beginning:

Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the Church’s Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called “Satan” or the “devil.” The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing (CCC # 391).

Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls “a murderer from the beginning,” who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father. “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” In its consequences the gravest of these works was the mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God (CCC # 394).

This is Church teaching. Let no one be misled by the Fr. Sosa’s erroneous statements or by the implications that follow from his unfortunate, repeated remarks. Let no one be so unwise as to dismiss the truth that we have an enemy who is very much alive who commands legions of fallen angels. We must accept this as a definitive teaching of the faith and be sober about it.

Any exorcist or anyone who has ever assisted in an exorcism can well affirm Satan’s reality and his deep hatred for humanity and all that pertains to God.

As a more extended lesson, I’d like to point out some things I have written before about certain teachings and cautions that come from the Rite of Exorcism.

The Rite of Exorcism presupposes the Catholic teaching that Satan and all demons are persons. They are addressed as persons and commanded to reveal their names, ranks, and other pertinent information. These angelic persons respond, often reluctantly and with fury at first, but later, as their power is broken, with cries and whimpers. The exorcist is clearly addressing an angelic person, a fallen angel who then reacts and responds.

As he is dealing with a being who is both a creature of God and a fallen angelic person, the exorcist must find a balance. Sadly, he must usually inflict pain upon demons in order to drive them out. This is done through the prayers of the Rite of Exorcism and through other things recommended by the rite such as the use of holy water, the use of relics, the touch of a stole, and the use of the Holy Cross.

The exorcist must be careful not to hate demons or harbor unjust anger toward them. If he were to do so, they would have him; he would be drawn into their territory. If they can get him to hate and have vengeful anger, he will be theirs, little better than they save for the possibility that he can still repent.

Hence, the exorcist and any who would pray for deliverance from demons for themselves or others, do well to stay inside the norms of the Church and Scripture. These norms warn and set limits for those who would confront demons, lest they stray by pride or anger.

What are some of these norms? Here are just a few, but they are properly cautionary to be sure:

A lay person should never undertake to drive out demons except by the following simple formula: “I command you, all evil spirits, to leave me at once in the name of Jesus Christ the Lord.” At no time should a lay person ever engage a demon in conversation, ask questions, or in any way seek information.

Priests who only engage in minor exorcisms are similarly limited. While they are permitted to use more elaborate imprecatory prayers (found in the Manuals of Minor Exorcisms), priests are not to go beyond the commands therein. They are not to ask questions or to demand names or signs from demons.

Only appointed exorcists, delegated by the bishop, may or should ask things such as these: names and numbers of demons, their time of entry, why they possessed the individual, their rank, and so forth. The rite makes clear that only necessary questions should be asked. Other extraneous information is both unnecessary and potentially harmful.

Within the formal Rite of Exorcism, an exorcist does well to stick to the formulas, expressions, and norms of the rite. Banter, insulting language, and toe-to-toe debate are to be avoided. Good exorcists indicate that returning to the prayers of the rite is essential when demons seek to engage in debate, ridicule, and/or diversionary talk. Obmutesce pater mendacii (Be silent, father of lies) is a quick command from the rite to order the demons to be silent, and it is a good way to refuse to enter into pointless conversation.

Scripture also attests to the need to refrain from reviling demons:

For even Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a reviling judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” (Jude 1:9)

Further, hate and ridicule of any person (angelic or human) whom God has created is an ungodly attitude. Scripture says,

For you O Lord love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for you would not fashion what you hate (Wisdom 11:24).

Therefore, anyone who confronts demons or suffers their oppression is warned that hatred, unjust anger, reviling, and ridiculing, is no way to fight them, for if we do so we become like them.

That said, exorcists and priests must often use strong language approved by the minor and major prayers of exorcism, most of which are drawn from Scripture or Sacred Tradition.

Consider, for example, the following rebuke of Satan from Scripture:

How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How are you cut down to the ground, who did weaken the nations! For you have said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the farthest sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the lake of fire (Is 14:12-15).

These verses speak truth. They do not revile; they state what happened and point to Lucifer’s prideful fall.

The Rite of Exorcism has collected many descriptions from Scripture and Tradition. They are not intended to ridicule or revile but rather to remind Satan of who and what he has chosen to become. They remind him of his pride, his destruction by God’s justice, his ultimate fate, and the many ways he seeks to harm us. Consider, then, some of the “titles” and descriptions of Satan drawn from both the old and new rites of exorcism:

Enemy of the faith

Foe of the human race

Carrier of death

Robber of life

Shirker of justice

Root of evil

Fomenter of vice

Seducer of men

Traitor of the nations

Instigator of envy

Font of avarice

Source of discord

Exciter of sorrows

Transgressor

Seducer full of deceit and lies

Enemy of virtue

Persecutor of the innocent

Horrible dragon

Prince of accursed murder

Author of incest

Leader of sacrilege

Teacher of all negative action

Teacher of heretics

Inventor of every obscenity

Hateful one

Scourge

Unclean spirit

Infernal adversary

Evil dragon

Inventor and teacher of every lie

Enemy of man’s salvation

Prince of this world

Deceiver of the human race

Ancient foe of mankind

Father of lies

Evil dragon

Cunning serpent

(I have compiled a pdf containing a list of these in both Latin and English here: Titles of Satan from the Rite of Exorcism.)

Thus, whether driving out Satan in a major exorcism or seeking to expel his oppression in a minor exorcism, all are cautioned not to stray from the understandings and descriptions of Satan that the Church provides in Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Again, the reason for this is that Satan seeks to draw us into his world of hatred and revilement. Do not go there in your thoughts and surely not in your heart.

It may be hard to accept, but God does not hate Satan. God does not hate even the worst of sinners. Justice requires God to recognize the final disposition of a person (angelic or human). Some are justly permitted to live apart from God’s kingdom in a hellacious parallel universe; that is their permanent choice. But God does not hate fallen angels or fallen humans. God is love, and love does not hate—and neither should we.

We ought to be sober about what sin has done to demons, fallen angels who were once glorious. Now, through the disfigurement of sin, they are in darkness and are horribly contrary to the glory for which they were made. They are to be pitied and kept at a distance. They will not change because angels choose once and for all. Their lies are to be resisted. Though they can still appear as lightsome, it is only for a time, and then their terrifying state of horror and darkness roars forth.

Remember, too, what the Catechism says about Satan’s power and why he permits some limited influence by demons:

The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God’s reign. Although Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave injuries—of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature—to each man and to society, the action is permitted by divine providence which with strength and gentleness guides human and cosmic history. It is a great mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity, but “we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him” (CCC #395).

Do not be deceived. Satan is real and we must resist him, strong in our faith. However, do not be so terrified that you forget that God, His angels, and the grace He bestows on us are more powerful and that God limits what demons can do. Trust God; call to Him; frequently recite the 91st Psalm. Be sober and watchful and stay distant from the once-glorious fallen angels we rightly call demons.

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Joan Swirsky Explains 🔥 Obama’s Bunker Festers in The Swamp

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Obama’s Bunker Festers in The Swamp

By Joan Swirsky —— Bio and Archives—February 4, 2018

Once upon a time, a seasoned political operative ran for President of the United States against a candidate who had virtually no political experience.

She––Democrat Ms. Hillary Clinton––former First Lady of Arkansas, former First Lady of the United States, former U.S. Senator from New York, former Secretary of State under the faux “president” Barack Obama, was clearly the favorite.

Her opponent––Republican Mr. Donald J. Trump––the billionaire builder who lived in the American version of the Palace of Versailles in Manhattan and in several other resplendent homes around the country and the world, who hosted two wildly successful TV shows, who owned casinos and built golf courses and was a favorite of tabloid magazines, and who had been lionized and courted by the Hollywood crowd, the media whores, and both Democrats and Republicans for his generous contributions, was the clear loser.

Ha ha ha sputtered the political experts. The idea that this neophyte, this (pardon the expression) capitalist could go up against a representative of the outgoing Big Government regime––which brought us socialized medicine (Obamacare) and socialized education (Common Core) and 94-million unemployed Americans and strangulating regulations and horrific trade deals and a foreign policy that bowed deeply to our enemies and spit in the faces of our faithful allies––well that just struck the experts as preposterous.

With the powerful Clinton Machine behind her, the endorsement of the outgoing faux “president,” the immense help of rigged-election experts like ACORN, the incalculable assistance of a bought-and-paid-for leftwing media, and with the good-old-reliable votes of feminists and blacks and Hispanics and gays and all the other groups that stupidly believe Democrats have helped them over the past 60 years, Hillary had no competition at all.

THE BEST-KEPT SECRET      

The cocky Hillary supporters believed that millions of deplorable Americans failed to notice their candidate’s frequent coughing fits, the help she needed simply to ascend three stairs, her peculiar head-bobbing spasms, the cringe-producing effect of her strident voice, and her frequent absences from the campaign trail, not to mention her promising more of the same socialist-cum-communist policies that had failed so miserably for the previous eight years..

They also failed to realize that her opponent had hired an extremely savvy pollster.

That pollster told candidate Trump, on a daily and sometimes hourly basis, how Americans throughout the country were responding to his America First message. And it was all good. And it was a secret that the entire Trump Team kept to themselves.

Or so they thought. But the information that was so damning for Hillary’s candidacy apparently reached the corrupt upper echelons of Obama’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Justice (DOJ), and scared them enough to hatch an illegal, seditious, unconstitutional plot to derail the Trump candidacy and, failing that, the Trump presidency.

For months on end, fake polls, as reported by fake news shills, told us that Hillary was a slam-dunk. Right up to 8 p.m. on the night of November 8, 2016, when the entire leftwing media started to wipe the avalanche of egg yolks dripping down their faces.

TRYING TO BRING DOWN A PRESIDENT

To those of us who supported Mr. Trump from the beginning––I wrote an article back in 2011 entitled “Trump is Already Running the Country”––it was clear that every now and then in American history, someone comes along to save our country from those who hate it.

FDR is in this category, bolstering America’s spirits through the worst Depression in our history and a devastating World War (although I personally revile Roosevelt for condemning six-million Jews to annihilation when he could and should have bombed the concentration camps in Germany and Poland to which Hitler condemned his defenseless victims).

Abraham Lincoln is in this category, miraculously uniting our country after the ferocious Civil War that almost tore it apart.

President Trump belongs in this category, accomplishing more that is good for America in one year in office than any chief executive in our history––all while the clinically hysterical liberals in the media and among the populace continued to beleaguer, hound, protest, vilify, insult and harass him, and when ill-intentioned actors from Obama’s DOJ and FBI put their malevolent plot into action, a plot that accused both candidate and President Trump of colluding with Russians to swing the election his way.

To this malicious end, they did the following:

Hired British spy Christopher Steele (who admitted in writing that he “hated” candidate Trump) to create a phony story about the Republican candidate being in a Russian hotel engaging is raunchy acts with a prostitute;

Hired the political opposition-research group Fusion GPS to distribute the phony info.

Paid for this sham scenario with multimillions of dollars from both Hillary’s campaign coffers and the Democratic National Committee’s monies;

Went to the judges of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to apply for a search warrant without informing the judges about (1) the Trump-loathing spy’s bias, and (2) who paid for the warrant. By the way, who are these judges and exactly who appointed them???

Obtained the warrant which allowed the partisan hacks from Obama’s DOJ and FBI to conduct a more than year-long collusion investigation which produced NOTHING!

Oops… make that something. It produced hard, cold, concrete, irrefutable, and to my mind indictable evidence that the people who were in collusion were––ta da––the corrupt upper echelon of the DOJ and FBI who lied to the FISA judges, as well as Hillary Clinton who as Sec. of State gave 20 percent of U.S. uranium to the Russians (similar to her husband Bill giving nukes to North Korea and their ideological clone Barack Obama giving nukes to Iran!).

WHAT’S MISSING FROM THIS PICTURE?

For well over a year, we’ve had the fishy FISA memo, former FBI director James Comey being accused of covering up Hillary’s crimes, the witch hunt of President Trump by another former FBI director Robert Mueller, CA Democrat Adam Schiff’s manic attempts to impeach the president, the media’s narcotizing anti-Trump talking points, and the few lone voices––vox clamantis en deserto––in the conservative media, but what do they all have in common? What is missing?

Not outrage…they are all outraged.

Not accusations…the right blames the left and the left blames the right.

Not plain talk…conservative Sean Hannity has been clear as a bell, as are the leftist bought-and-paid-for shills on every leftwing news outlet, both electronic and print.

While all of them pointed fingers, cast blame, railed against the “system” they thought was crooked or biased or partisan, the elephant in the room––the subject they never raised, the person they never mentioned as the arch architect of the entire illegal corrupt plan to derail the Trump presidency––BARACK OBAMA!

Does anyone really believe that FISA warrants can be submitted or obtained by any underling in the American government? Of course not! That request has to come––or at least be approved––directly from the Oval Office.

Does anyone really believe that the anti-Trump talking points, rallies, vigils, disparaging articles, and orchestrated hatred is spontaneous? Of course not! They come directly from groups like Organizing For America, which was formed by the former community organizer Barack Obama with the express intent of dismantling traditional American institutions and converting them into the socialist and communist regimes they most admire.

According to journalist and author Paul Sperry, Obama sent a message to his “troops” saying that he “was heartened by anti-Trump protests. Yes,” says Sperry, “Obama has an army of agitators — numbering more than 30,000— who will fight his Republican successor at every turn of his historic presidency. And Obama will command them from a bunker less than two miles from the White House.”

Ah… the bitterness.

A FEW EXCEPTIONS

To their credit, a few people––so far––have cited Obama as a central player––probably the central player––in the Russian-collusion fiasco. As CanadaFreePress.com editor Judi McLeod has written, “One day after the release of the Memo, we should all be asking, `Where is Obama?’ Why is he so stonily silent…? The answer is that the scurrilous Obama, just like Steele, went into hiding. The Memo proves that the FBI is not just part of a USA intelligence apparatus that systematically spies on its own American citizenry, it paid…for filth completely made up by a foreign agent with whom they were in tight ‘Hate Donald Trump’ league.”

Daniel Greenfield, in an article entitled The Memo Reveals the Coup against America, writes that “the Democrats and the media spent a week lying to the American people about the `memo’”…claiming its release would be damaging to America’s spying and even treasonous. But “they didn’t mean American spying methods––they meant Obama’s spying methods.”

“The memo isn’t treasonous,” Greenfield continues. “It reveals a treasonous effort by the Democrats to use our intelligence agencies to rig an election and overturn the will of the voters. Today, the media and Dems switched from claiming that the memo was full of `classified information’ that might get CIA agents killed by insisting that it was a dud and didn’t matter. Oh, what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive.”

And the other night the Fox News moderator Jesse Watters called out Obama for his significant role in this orgy of corruption.

But where are the other voices to identify the virulence––and jealousy––of the anti-Trump minions? And particularly Barack Obama’s role?

As I wrote in a former article, “James Comey and the Stinking Fish Factor”––“Whether it’s in industry or the military or sports or show business, if a failure occurs, it’s always the top dog who is accountable. Not the assembly line worker or the buck private or the third baseman who calls the shots, but the one who occupies the ultimate seat of power. Look at what happened at the Democratic National Committee…the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief of Communications, and Chairwoman all resigned because of the hacking that proved the DNC to be both crooked and racist.”

So it is with the putative head of the Democrat Party, Barack Obama. And it’s not just jealousy or ideology that drives his obsession––it’s fear! All the honchos under Obama––John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Loretta Lynch, John Podesta, Obama himself, the list is long––quake with dread that their own scandals, acts of malfeasance, controversies, and possible illegalities will be unearthed and come to light during the Trump years and they will all be frog-marched straight into Leavenworth…hence the mad quest to frame the president and get him out of office.

They should be afraid. And they should be remorseful for their shabby tactics and constitutional violations. But if Hillary Clinton is an example of the left’s craven sociopathy––and I think she is the prime example––the American public can expect no apologies and no regrets but rather the same evasions, deceptions and lies that the Obama gang raised to an art form during his ignominious eight years in office.

In fact, not only is Hillary credited with creating the Russian-collusion fakery but as writer Mark Tapscott so thoroughly documents, the Clintons have been using the FBI against their enemies for years.

It is doubtful that when candidate Trump promised to “drain the swamp,” he had even an inkling of the vast number of slithering, predatory, reptilian creatures who inhabited that toxic environment. But being the smartest guy in the room, and a quick study at that, you can bet that he will decontaminate the place as swiftly as he pushed through the biggest tax and jobs bill in history.

For that, he will gain the eternal gratitude of the American people, a huge majority of the candidates he endorses in the midterms, and a thunderous reelection in 2020.

Joan Swirsky Explains 🔥 Obama’s Bunker Festers in The Swamp Joan Swirsky Explains 🔥 Obama’s Bunker Festers in The Swamp Joan Swirsky

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The GOP war on college Since 1980, conservatives have used their institutional power to smash one pillar of liberal power and influence at a time. Federalist Society legal automatons have waged a 30-year siege on the federal court system, and are one Supreme Court retirement away from total conquest. The assault on organized labor launched by Ronald Reagan has cut the number of private-sector union members nearly in half since 1983, with Wisconsin's Scott Walker leading the war against public-sector unions. Now it is the university's turn. The execrable GOP tax bills that got jammed through the House and Senate should be thought of as an airstrike designed to soften up collegiate targets prior to the all-out ground assault. While it's not clear which education-smashing provisions will make it out of the conference and into the final legislation, make no mistake: The invasion is coming. Republicans have long dreamed of drastically decreasing the number of people with access to affordable, reputable higher education, and this might be their last chance to pull it off. Contemporary conservatives believe students are getting a terrible deal by going to college, and worse, that they are being tormented and brainwashed by out-of-control liberal professors intent on transforming their children into a million little Bernies. Fox News and Breitbart obsessively report every minor speech scuffle on every campus, blowing trivial news items into threats to the republic. In the right-wing imagination, most universities are authoritarian hellscapes run by a cartel of Marxist students, Maoist professors, and Stalinist administrators. While it is true that Americans with college degrees are more consistently liberal in their political orientation than those without , that is less because of indoctrination than because prolonged encounters with deeply researched realities tend to make it difficult to believe the idea that, for example, climate change is a hoax perpetrated by avaricious scientists and Chinese manufacturers. But for contemporary Republicans and their Manichean approach to public policy, that fact alone makes colleges and universities an enemy to be vanquished. That's why the GOP tax bills treat the idea of going to college like some municipalities now regard plastic bags and soda. On one end, the House bill targets undergraduates, by eliminating the tax deduction for interest on student loans (this was left out of the Senate version). For most people this might be mostly offset by the proposed increase in the standard deduction to $12,000, but it creates an important precedent: The state no longer considers financing higher education a laudable enough goal to be part of the tax code. The bill is therefore the first step in reversing all meaningful incentives for individuals to go to college, and will reportedly be paired with caps on student loans and the elimination of a variety of federal grant programs, including one for students who plan to teach in high-need areas after graduation and another that forgives loans for people who go into public service . Both the House and Senate tax bills included provisions that would tax the endowments of certain colleges and universities, which those (mostly elite) schools sometimes use to give needy students a free ride. It's not hard to imagine a future Republican Congress simply eliminating federal student loans altogether and crippling hundreds of public and private universities in the process. At the other end of the pipeline, the House tax bill shafts graduate students by taxing their tuition waivers as income . Had this provision been in place when I got my Ph.D., I would have graduated with tens of thousands of dollars in debt. This law alone would have been sufficient to discourage me from ever going to graduate school in the first place. The GOP's fresh assault on higher education comes on the heels of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos reversing Obama-era regulations that prioritized helping borrowers manage debt rather than helping predatory companies collect it, and that forgave loans for students victimized by the for-profit education industry. It follows decades of decreasing federal aid to state university systems, forcing such institutions to raise tuition and exclude more and more young people from the affordable educations so effortlessly enjoyed by the middle-aged and elderly people currently dismantling the opportunities that made their prosperity possible in the first place. And of course, this assault is taking place in tandem with right-wing governors like Scott Walker deliberately torpedoing their own public higher education systems and treating them like a vanquished campaign opponent. No wonder that just 49 percent of Americans now believe college is worth the cost . Yet very little of the productive work in academia is performed by the kind of radicals that the War on Christmas crowd fears and loathes. Most professors in the humanities and social sciences bend over backwards to be fair to their conservative students, balance their syllabi with competing ideas, and have no interest in conducting mind erasure on a bunch of 18-year-olds. They mostly do the difficult work of teaching young people how to think critically, perform research, learn second languages, and cultivate a healthy skepticism about the world around them. At research universities public and private, scientists create incredible value for society at large by researching new medicines, technologies, and innovations. Large, land-grant university systems like the ones in Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan are unambiguous boons for otherwise struggling Midwestern economies , employing tens of thousands of people and serving as regional economic anchors. If conservatives succeed in destroying or undermining higher education, they will eventually realize that they have reaped a very bitter harvest indeed. Ironically, well-regarded public university systems are one of the few ways that states like Wisconsin have of convincing young people to stay and settle in-state after college in the first place, or of attracting people from other regions. And thousands of public and private universities are the only thing propping up rural economies in places like Cullowhee, North Carolina, and State College, Pennsylvania. Without their colleges and universities, these towns would be transformed into depressed craters like the Pennsylvania hellhole visited by a Politico Trump whisperer last month , full of marginalized people living desperate, hardscrabble existences, casting about for someone to blame for their misfortunes. Some further irony: By reducing the aggregate number of Americans with college degrees, Republicans will succeed in making America look more like the Northern European societies they so revile. The United States, in fact, has one of the highest rates of college degree holders in the entire world, far outpacing most of our European counterparts, which mostly lack the dense network of private universities to complement state-run systems. A college degree remains one of the few ways that Americans can move up the class ladder — another thing that horrifies Republicans who increasingly want to lock in the stratified status quo. This is not to say that all is well with America's system of higher education, whose cost is now out of reach for too many families. The system of loading 18-year-olds up with mortgage-sized amounts of debt is something that desperately needs to be revisited by high-minded policymakers. But like all Republican solutions for pressing public problems, the tax bill will make things worse, rather than better, for individuals seeking higher education, for the colleges and universities that they attend, and for society as a whole. One of America's two major political parties wants to radically decrease the number of Americans who graduate from college, eliminate ways to pay for it, and instead funnel those social resources to the predatory for-profit education sector or just directly into the pockets of the wealthy. The philosophy of these Republicans is to find any group of people who voted against them and instead of persuading or helping them, destroy them and their livelihoods for sport. December 11, 2017 at 02:28PM