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scotianostra · 4 years ago

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Vigil Cairn, Calton Hill.

An often overlooked monument on Calton Hill, but an important one. You don’t have to be a patriot of Scotland, or indeed a supporter of the Independence movement to go and inspect it, the Cairn is the first place I learnt about the Scottish missionary Jane Haining, who, rather than save herself, decided to stay with the Jewish children she was helping in Hungary and was shipped to Auschwitz II-Birkenau death camp and ultimately the gas chamber......

The following is from one of those that was involved with the Vigil throughout it’s years and was first published in The National in 2018.

In the 1992 General Election Scotland’s democratic deficit was exposed. Out of 62 Scottish seats the Tories only managed to get 11. But it mattered nothing as the overwhelming victory of the Tories in England guaranteed five more years of Tory rule for Scotland. We were already fed up with the greed-obsessed, destroy-the-unions and support-the -rich policies of right-wing ideologues.

As the results came out on April 11 a demonstration was quickly organised for the weekend. Originally set up by the Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace (SCRAM) by the time they got to Edinburgh, they were met by several hundred people outside the Royal High School, on Edinburgh’s Regent Road., at the bottom of Calton Hill.

The word had gone out to anti-nuclear, Green and anti-Poll Tax groups and among the gathered crowd there was a strange combination of anger, resentment against the political system that forced us to follow the wishes of the English electorate and a feeling that something had to be done.

Initially the plan had been to carry on the protest till the following Monday but pretty soon the discussion was around the need for a more permanent protest. People knew fine well that Scotland’s voice was always ignored in Westminster – where the posh-boy ruling elites had always acted as if Scotland had been absorbed into England after the odious Treaty of Union in 1707.

There was a great deal of anger but above all was the awareness that something had to be done. There was widespread agreement and so The Vigil for A Scottish came into being.

From the beginning the plan was to maintain a vigil till the need for a Scottish Parliament representing the wishes of the Scottish Electorate was recognised.

In those first heady days people were sleeping on the pavement outside the gates of the RHS and those few hardy souls were joined by many others during the daytime

This was not led by any political group but was a spontaneous eruption of political activity that throughout all the years of its existence managed to avoid being dragged into the posturing and infighting that bedevils standard politics. Some level of organisation was however needed, especially when a fire was lit in an old oil drum that appeared at the site. This was the symbol of the will for change, a fire that would be kept alight till Scotland’s voice was heard.

And so it was that the organisation called Democracy for Scotland – still an aspiration more than two decades later – was born. A street-level gathering of environmental campaigners, anti-poll tax activists and a wide variety of concerned individuals came together to form what became known as The Vigil.

Basic organisational necessities like finding wood for the fire and making sure there was a rota that ensured a permanent presence on Regent Road – and finding enough people to fill that rota – were the order of the day. Within a few weeks of the start a weel-kent Glasgow singer donated a Portakabin that made life a great deal more comfortable for the hardy souls who were prepared to sit by the fire in all the varieties of inclement weather to which Edinburgh is so prone.

As the political reaction to the glaring democratic deficit developed, other, bigger groups like Common Cause, the suspiciously short-lived Scotland United, the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly and the Scottish Constitutional Convention all began to organise protests and other events, and The Vigil, directly opposite HQ St Andrew’s, variously referred to as Colonial HQ or the Lubianka, became the focus of many meetings.

At The Vigil there was resistance to the idea of The Vigil being dominated by any party political organisation but everyone was welcome to come along to the fire. And people came, from all over Scotland, from the Borders and Gallloway, from the Highlands and the northern isles. Some came once a month to do a shift or two while others living nearby became regulars.

However the commitment of The Vigil to decide everything by consensus was tested early doors as some experienced political activists tried to create a party structure for Democracy for Scotland. Thankfully the commitment to consensus decision-making, by whoever was around the fire at any given time, eventually ensured that DFS never became a “real” political party.

Hand in hand with the idea of consensus decision-making was a sense of fun about The Vigil – and not because it was staffed by young people. It always attracted a broad spectrum not just of political opinion but of age and background. Unemployed labourers and university lecturers, nurses and social workers, waitresses and hotel porters, bus drivers and builders – The Vigil was always a real reflection of the disparate make-up of Scottish society.

In order to publicise the cause, whole series of events were staged over its five years, including history lessons, open-air concerts at The Vigil itself and on Calton Hill, pub gigs, even a Pavement Party in the first year, timed to coincide with the Royal Garden Party at nearby Holyrood. – and some folk attended both! From the start, though there was considerable interest from the foreign and English media, only in Scotland did the media seem to be frightened of what The Vigil meant. Or perhaps they were so hide-bound in their involvement with the main political parties that they could not comprehend what The Vigil signified.

This was shown most forcefully on December 12, 1992 – the date of a vast demonstration for Scottish Home Rule that attracted more than 25,000 people on to the streets of Edinburgh. The media coverage was grudging to say the least, all the more remarkable when this is the equivalent of a quarter of a million people marching in London.

There was then a reluctance to deal with the depth of anger at the continuing lack of recognition for Scottish political dissatisfaction among the media. One point should illustrate this. The demonstration took place exactly 200 years to the day after a convention took place in Edinburgh calling for democratic reform, the result of which was a series of show trials of leading reformers, ending in deportation to Botany Bay for those selected as being ringleaders by the Establishment of the day.

The first group of those transported – known as the Scottish Political Martyrs, one of whom was Thomas Muir – have a memorial to them in the Calton Cemetery on Regent Road, though there is no plaque or other mention of this magnificent obelisk raised by public subscription in 1840.

The fact that so many Scots were echoing the demands of the Societies of Friends of the People in 1792 was not thought worthy of notice!

All of the Scottish media were informed of this remarkable anniversary but through pusillanimity or the exercise of political control saw fit to ignore it.

It wasn’t only the media who were unsure how to deal with The Vigil. The democracy march was strongly supported by The Vigil, who helped to organise it, but on the day we found ourselves excluded from the platform in the Meadows where the march ended.This wasn’t the only time this happened – the dead hand of political party influence making sure that what they couldn’t control they would ignore. The Vigil was kept going and supported by people of all political parties and persuasions but because it would not conform to others’ rules was seen as a threat.The extent of support was remarkable – one day a brand new Mercedes drew up and a well-dressed woman, yes she had blue-rinsed hair and was wearing a twin-set and pearls, came over to the Portakabin and said: “I am a lifelong Tory voter, but I think you are absolutely right that the democratic wishes of the Scottish people are not well served by the current arrangement. I think you people are doing a remarkable job and I wish you every success.”She then put a 20-pound note in The Vigil collecting tin and drove off.

That is an example of what people at The Vigil found all over Scotland. For its first anniversary, pro-democracy marchers came in from the four points of the compass to meet at The Vigil and raise the Democracy Cairn on the top of Calton Hill. The marchers, a handful that grew to a small crowd as they neared the capital, found support and friendship everywhere they went.

For that is the other thing about The Vigil – it survived on the generosity of the ordinary people of Scotland. Sure, there were T-shirts and posters and badges but most money came from collecting tins. Just as the wood to keep The Vigil fire burning was delivered by a veritable host of friends. Builders, joiners, gardeners and DIY enthusiasts all turned up – some regularly, some just once – to make their contribution, a contribution that always made those at The Vigil feel proud.

Famous and not so famous artists created sculptures andbanners, posters and artwork – much of it of a humorous bent – and many musicians and bands played for free at Vigil gatherings and ceilidhs.

I have not mentioned any of these wonderful people by name – because I believe that everyone who contributed was as important as everyone else. One or two people put in remarkable hours at The Vigil through vicious winter months, others tirelessly kept up the necessary logistic support and yet others came only once for a few hours and made their contribution as so many did by simply putting their hands in their pockets.

The personnel changed over the years, though there was a core group who stuck it out for almost the whole five years. Some people put so much effort into The Vigil they burnt themselves out. Others found love and left to build new lives – there were several Vigil babies. Others moved away and yet others found other responsibilities to fill their spare time.

In the years since The Vigil closed – on the announcement that the Scottish Parliament was going to happen – many stalwart Vigil people have passed on but their legacy can be seen in the current resurgence of the Yes movement.

Looking back it seems that The Vigil played a key part in the agitation for our parliament – not by force of numbers or even by argument, but simply by existing.

In the early 1990s the dumbing down of the British media was proceeding apace and increasingly newspaper editors wanted pictures before they would run a story.

The topic of devolution, despite the best efforts of Labour and the Tories, would not go away and partly this was because those editors always knew The Vigil was there – it was a permanent photo-op! The actual site of The Vigil fire disappeared due to road-widening many years ago, but as we carry on the fight to create true democracy, you can find the Democracy Cairn on the top of Calton Hill. And, opposite the gates of the Royal High School, the original choice for the location of a new Scottish Parliament in 1979, there is a small brass plaque.

And this I do know. In the five years that The Vigil sat it was a privilege to work alongside the many individuals who gave of their time and energy to keep the struggle going. The Vigil was never specifically nationalistic – it was about getting the parliament – but the devout wish of all who did a shift or more, that Scotland would in time be a true democratic land, is at last in sight.

#scotland #scottish #History #the vigil.#Calton Hill #My pics

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theliberaltony · 4 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): On Sunday, The Washington Post published leaked audio of an hour-long conversation President Trump had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, where he urged the Republican to “find” enough votes to overturn the result in Georgia and declare him the winner.

This story has captured headlines, as it is by far Trump’s most brazen attempt to overturn November’s results, although it is hardly his first time trying to do so. Trump has repeatedly tried to cast doubt on the election results since Biden was declared the winner on Nov. 7, citing false claims of voter fraud and launching countless futile lawsuits to try and overturn the election. And now as Congress prepares to vote on Jan. 6 to certify the election results in what should be a largely ceremonial, low-key affair, a faction of GOP senators plans to mount a protest vote, even though it is destined to fail.

There is no question that this is bad for democracy — polls have found a record number of Americans distrust the election results — but let’s talk through some of the biggest consequences of this push to delegitimize the results, in addition to whether this jeopardizes Trump’s role as the de facto party leader once he’s left the presidency.

To start, what do you view as the biggest consequence of all this?

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): I think the biggest potential danger is that in any election where the Republicans earn fewer votes, they will make unfounded and exaggerated claims of voting irregularities and fraud and try to toss out or overturn the results. No election is conducted perfectly, but using minor problems as a pretext for invalidating the outcome is a huge problem. You can’t have a democracy if one of the main parties can’t admit defeat.

I am really worried about this in the context of these Georgia Senate runoff races. If Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock both win their races, that would give Democrats total control of Congress. So will Republicans be able to accept losing these races if they do? Or will there be an endless stream of lawsuits trying to prevent Ossoff and Warnock from being seated?

julia_azari (Julia Azari, political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): Biggest consequence: This splits the GOP and deepens the dilemma for Republicans (and possibly Democrats) about how to deal with the other party. Namely, can they continue to thread the needle in arguing that the other party’s constitutional and political views are illegitimate, but the processes are legitimate and thus they sometimes win? Or will the other party’s victories, as Perry suggests, not be tolerated?

I don’t want to “both sides” this — obviously, the Democrats are not the ones creating the current situation, but I think this creates potential dilemmas for them, too, regarding the way they treat the idea of legitimate opposition.

sarah: What are some of the dilemmas you think Democrats face as a result of this, Julia?

julia_azari: Well, take the debate happening over how Democrats should react to this news. There’s a question of whether the House should consider impeachment, which I’m guessing they probably won’t do. On the one hand, I’m not sure impeachment would have much public support, and there’s plenty of other issues that Congress needs to work on. But on the other hand, it does sort of leave the impression that these kinds of norm violations are sort of begrudgingly tolerated.

This will linger after Trump leaves office, too, I think. You’ll have Democrats who want to move on and not ratchet up the stakes of partisan disagreement. And you’ll have others who want to seek accountability for some of the laws that they think were broken by the last administration.

sarah: That’s a really good point, Julia. One thing we saw after the 2016 election was a big drop in the share of Democrats who thought the election was fair and accurate, but it’s nowhere near as big as the drop we’ve seen among Republicans here in 2020. That’s why what you and Perry are hitting on — how the parties handle loss and what that means for voters’ trust in democracy — is the biggest consequence of all this to me.

But maybe you all disagree? Should Democrats be digging into Trump’s behavior more for the reason Julia cited — that this behavior otherwise seems begrudgingly tolerated?

julia_azari: Well, the fact that COVID-19 continues to pose a very real challenge for the country, creates a bit of a problem for Democrats, because if they look like they’re focusing too much time on investigating the Trump administration, they look like they’re ignoring the pandemic and its consequences. But if Democrats try to take this on in a less high-profile way — subpoenaing lower-level officials, etc. — then maybe they’re accused of not being transparent enough.

The impact of this norm-breaking administration isn’t just that it violates these unwritten rules, but that it behaves in ways that make the whole system of usual practices not work. That makes things extra challenging for Democrats.

perry: Questions about what the Biden Department of Justice, congressional Democrats and state attorneys generals do about Trump’s conduct are all still very much up in the air. If there was some criminal activity, he should not be above the law. Perhaps there are some congressional hearings — and maybe even charges filed by the DOJ and/or attorneys generals — involving some Trump associates and maybe Trump himself. I don’t expect Biden to talk about Trump that much, but other actors might weigh in.

sarah: What is the end game here for Trump and Republicans? Trump admitted on the call to Raffensperger that, “I know this phone call is going nowhere.” I know we can’t speak to the president’s state of mind, but what can we point to for why refusing to concede the election has become Trump’s defining stance?

julia_azari: Well, it fits in well into this idea that “grievance politics” have turned into a somewhat successful brand — especially in a place like Georgia, where a history of racist voter suppression informs the context, and where Democratic victories are especially tied to the mobilization of Black voters.

However, I don’t see how having this kind of split within congressional Republicans is helpful to the GOP in the long term.

perry: Trump has lied and cheated in a lot of different venues in his life. That is just the truth. So him insisting that he won an election that he lost is nothing new. He likes to push and push people and see if they will uphold their ethics or bend to his will. For the Republican Party, part of this is just the trajectory they were on anyway, even without Trump at the helm. When you are writing voter laws targeting Black people with “surgical precision” (North Carolina Republicans), making it harder for felons who served their time to vote (Florida Republicans) and gerrymandering in a way that almost makes a mockery of majority rule (Wisconsin Republicans), then unfounded voter fraud charges that aim to disqualify the votes of Black people in particular are just a more aggressive step in an anti-democratic direction.

But part of this is directly tied to Trump. Elected and aspiring Republican officials know he is very connected to the party base, so aligning with Trump is aligning with the party base. So that is why you see Georgia Sen. David Perdue, in light of this phone call, attacking the secretary of state for leaking it, and not Trump for what he said.

2/ “To have a state-wide elected official, regardless of party, tape unknowing – to tape without disclosing a conversation – private conversation of the President of the United States and then leaking it to the press is disgusting,” Perdue told Fox.

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 4, 2021

julia_azari: I think the intersection of what Perry and I have said is this: “The future of the Republican Party is the division between those who say the quiet part out loud and those who don’t.”

One key difference is that Republicans used to win national majorities with the quiet part. That’s no longer the case. Per Rep. Thomas Massie, who along with six Republican colleagues authored a letter that pointed out the necessity of preserving ‘s comments on the Electoral College, the bullhorn can occasionally at least win a plurality. Matt Glassman, who studies Congress as a senior fellow at Georgetown University, on it:

The Senate vote on the objections will be lopsided—at a minimum 70-75 votes against, probably more like 80-85—and also starkly split the GOP caucus.

It may feel like the end, but this is really the beginning of the party fight over the meaning and future of Trumpism. https://t.co/8E9AW9GJul

— Matt Glassman (@MattGlassman312) January 4, 2021

sarah: If Glassman’s whip count is right, though, we’re still talking about a smallish wing of the GOP, right? In other words, it’s possible that the battle over Trumpism splinters the party, but that maybe the movement loses power?

Calling the integrity of the election results into question has clearly become a litmus test or demonstration of fealty for those in the GOP, but some senators like Ben Sasse and Mitt Romney are speaking out against it. Do you think it’s possible that Trump is ruining his ability to be the party’s leader post-presidency?

julia_azari: Well, our readers should stay tuned for my upcoming piece where I address that question!

But to give you a sneak peak: I think political scientists would frame this question as, “Can populism, on the right, be compatible with participation in a pluralistic, multi-ethnic democracy in which you sometimes lose even when you claim to truly represent the Constitution and the people?” The issue is that a wing of the Republican Party has skirted answering that question for decades now.

perry: Having covered the GOP in the era of Trump for the last six years, I will always bet on the more extreme wing of the party carrying the day. The fact that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would not acknowledge Biden’s win until mid-December was extraordinary. If I had told anyone that in 2015, they would have thought I was crazy.

The moderate voices in the Republican Party are not well organized, not connected to the party base and have no real compelling leaders, whereas the more extreme voices in the party have Fox News, Newsmax, One America News Network, Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson and Trump. I see very little chance that the Republican Party changes its general direction, even if Trump himself recedes.

Would you bet on Sasse winning a battle over the soul of the Republican Party against anyone whose last name is Trump?

julia_azari: I would probably bet a small amount that it is possible, Perry, especially since Sasse seems like a fairly skilled politician and the Trump kids do not.

That said, I generally do not disagree, but I wonder about the sustainability of it all. I think I have some questions on what counts as “moderate” — specifically, considering the GOP, as political scientist and Bloomberg View columnist Jonathan Bernstein has been saying for quite some time, is post-policy.

perry: When I say moderate, I mean people like Romney or Sasse, who are quite conservative on policy but generally avoid white identity politics-style moves (attacking Black Lives Matter or immigration reform) and are full-throated in favor of democratic norms and values. Republicans who are moderate on policy, like Susan Collins and Larry Hogan, are basically nonexistent among top Republicans now.

sarah: That’s largely what FiveThirtyEight contributor Lee Drutman outlined in his piece on why there are so few moderate Republicans left, Perry.

Given how favorable the down-ballot results were for Republicans, however, one of my takeaways from the 2020 election was that a lot of voters rejected Trump but not necessarily the Republican Party, making it a little harder for me to understand the extent to which the GOP has lost moderate voters.

At the same time, it’s hard for me to see a Romney, Hogan or Sasse winning the 2024 Republican nomination, given the current dynamics we’re seeing play out in the GOP — a largely ceremonial, non-headline grabbing vote on certifying the results of the Electoral College, for instance, has now become this big-stakes issue. That said, I’m not sure we can know at this point the success of Trumpism moving forward. I think, for instance, Democrats will face some real tests in the next four years on whether they can keep their big umbrella coalition of both moderates and very liberal voters happy, and that might create opportunities for more middle of the road or moderate Republicans.

perry: I am not confident who will win the 2024 nomination. I have no idea. I do think in the short term, though, that Trump will remain highly influential in the GOP, as will his style of politics.

I just don’t see an easy path for the Republicans to get off that ramp.

julia_azari: This is a bit of a cop-out but I’d need to think more about the costs and benefits for various Republicans. I’m gonna hold off on 2024 predictions until I get a feel for what politics in the Biden administration looks like. And per my earlier comment about how Trumpism has changed the unwritten rules for everyone, I feel a lot more uncertain about what this will look like now once Trump is gone than I have in previous administrations.

sarah: A lot probably hinges on how the Senate runoffs shake out tomorrow, and like you’ve both said, I really don’t have a sense of how “Trumpism” plays out now. It’s unclear to me, for instance, whether Trump is doing a lot of harm … or if he’s the future of conservatism in the U.S.

But at the very least, can we agree that the lasting consequence of this might be an escalation in how the parties oppose each other when an outcome is in dispute?

I’d argue we’ve seen a ramping up of this in the last decade, but it’s largely been over more procedural things, like the Senate changing rules around judicial appointments, and making it a more partisan affair. But now we have this extreme example — contesting a free and fair election. That ups the ante, no? And it seems as if partisan infighting could get much worse.

perry: I’m not sure I’d say we’ll see an escalation in how the parties oppose each other, at least not yet. I think it’s a change on the Republican side. I don’t expect Biden, for instance, to be fighting his defeat for two months if he clearly lost by a wide electoral margin (not one state by 500 votes) in 2024.

julia_azari: I agree with that, Perry. But I think it’s possible that Democrats will start to feel pressure to both uphold norms and be “reasonable” while also responding to norm violations more forcefully.

perry: I am wary of suggesting we are seeing escalation on both sides, though, as I think we are really only seeing big escalations on the GOP side. And I worry things could get worse. If Republicans controlled the House right now, I would be really worried about this election certification issue, for example.

julia_azari: For me, it comes down to a question of sustainability, and of possible splits among Democrats on this issue. But to be clear, I don’t see any of them supporting the scenario you described, Perry. But I could start to see them play a bit more “constitutional hardball.”

sarah: Yeah, I think Julia is getting at what I meant. I definitely don’t want to “both sides” this. But I do think what Julia touched on earlier, about the mechanisms for expressing legitimate opposition being brushed aside, leaves Democrats in an awkward position, as Trump’s brand of politics has challenged how the whole system works.

julia_azari: My main point here is that the parties are not self-contained, and I don’t think the Democrats have really figured out answers to some of the questions posed by Republicans’ norm-violating behavior (which again, is a situation Democrats did not create).

perry: Julia is getting at an important and complicated question here, and one we kind of saw play out around whether Democrats should add justices to the Supreme Court given Republicans’ rush to nominate Amy Coney Barrett before the election.

Biden was clearly uncomfortable with it, but the party activists really pushed him on the issue. So what does Biden/the Democrats do about what we have seen over the last two months?

Biden, in this pre-inauguration period, is basically ignoring Trump and suggesting Republicans will work with him. And I can’t tell if he is 1) pretending, 2) clueless, or 3) Republicans will actually work with him. But Biden’s theory of the case and how other Democrats approach this issue, not to mention how the two parties interact on this, will be interesting. I truly do not know the answer to this question.

sarah: Exactly. It will be interesting to see how Biden and the Democrats work to address this — or whether Trump’s brand of politics has upended everything.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

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makeste · 5 years ago

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BnHA Smash!! 01 and 02: Smash!!Might is a Fucking Menace

okay, so. I have about a million other things I should be doing instead, including (1) responding to asks and/or finishing in-progress metas, (2) reading Vigilantes, and last but not least, (3) actually making a dent in the ever-increasing backlog of Actual Work That I Really Should Be Doing Instead.

so naturally I’m procrastinating by taking my first stab at reading BnHA’s cute 4-panel omake spinoff series, BnHA Smash!! IT JUST MAKES SENSE. look, I have exactly one thing I felt like actually doing and not procrastinating today, so I might as well do the thing. basically it’s my attention span’s world and I’m just living in it.

anyway! so apparently this series was scanlated by good ol’ Fallen Angels. that’s right; prepare yourselves for some very creative cursing, fellas. other background info for anyone who, like me, is unfamiliar with this spin-off: this series debuted on November 9, 2015, a little over a year after the original series. said original series was currently at chapter 66, meaning the Final Exam arc was just wrapping up.

so now that we’re all properly oriented, let me go over a few disclaimers real quick and then we’ll get started!

all comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity afterward, and added a few ETAs in the process, but aside from that there are no changes.

I’m aware that not everyone may be familiar with Smash!! even if they’ve read/watched the original series, so I’ve tried to make this recap comprehensible even if you haven’t read the spin-off. that being said, it’s probably more enjoyable if you have, so you can either purchase the first volume from Viz here, or read the chapter online (I don’t want to link directly, but the spin-off is available on most of the usual sites. literally just google “read mha” and you’ll find some good options).

this readthrough contains a handful of sorta-kinda spoilers for the BnHA manga, although there are no direct spoilers. just an indirect reference to a joke in chapter 242, as well as a reference to a theory which as of now is in no way canon. but just to be on the safe side I’m posting a heads-up.

and I think that’s it! so here we go.

so we’re opening with a brief summary of the series. people have superpowers and shit’s nuts. you know the drill

there’s also a brief description of the way that the superhero economy works, complete with Mt. Lady’s employees unionizing and demanding better pay

...what

guys I keep staring at this and thinking that surely, SURELY it doesn’t say what I think it says. sidekick... what... manager??

you know what? Viz unfortunately doesn’t include this series as part of their subscription package (WHAT AM I PAYING YOU FOR, VIZ), but it does at least include a free preview of Smash, and I bet you that this, the first fucking page of the series, is a part of that preview. so... let’s see...

okay, see, this actually makes sense! so did the FA scanlating team collectively all have a fucking stroke?! just, what??

this is one of the reasons why I had difficulty reading Vigilantes too, tbh. those early chapter scans were, uh. but at least Vigilantes has a Viz scanlation too. I don’t want to spend 10 bucks just to read one volume of this, but we’ll see. anyways

so now there’s a strip about baby!Izuku watching his favorite clip of All Might saving one hundred people from a bus accident or whatever

lol Inko you should not have left your shrewdly calculating four-year-old son unattended omg

TWELVE MONTHS’ WORTH OF TEXTBOOKS HOW CAN THIS EAGER YOUNG MIND RESIST

and this is why you don’t leave your credit card info saved on the computer when you have kids. life lessons learned today

this is the first indicator we have ever had that baby!Izuku wasn’t perfect and was, in fact, capable of being a little shit and giving his mom plenty of gray hairs in his own special way. ngl, I fucking love it

also 12,800 yen is about $118 USD, which is honestly a really good deal for a year’s worth of textbooks. he got three boxes of books! I just googled the average cost of college textbooks, and the google article said the average student spends about $1200 a year. so this is a fucking steal tbh

OH MY GOD INKO HOW MANY TIMES MUST HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF BEFORE YOU LEARN

at least install a fucking adblocker ffs. you’re lucky quirk supplement ads are the worst of the ads he’s getting! PARENTAL CONTROLS

now we are cutting to a comic about baby!Izuku defending another boy from my problematic fave, as seen in page one of the original series!

lmaooo

I’m not clear on how much of this spin-off can actually be considered canon. my understanding is that it is Horikoshi-reviewed and approved, even though he doesn’t actually write it. but it’s obviously a humor series, so a lot of it is just going to be jokes. that being said, I think my approach is going to be “if it’s not completely ridiculous and doesn’t contradict the actual manga, go ahead and consider it canon”

(ETA: I might change this up after reading the first two chapters. most of these strips would have terrifying implications if they were actually canon sob.)

anyhoo, this actually does contradict the manga in that we saw this encounter play out very differently. but I kind of wish it was canon regardless because looool. these cocky preschoolers and their fucking Battle Tears

the next comic is Mt. Lady accidentally stepping on a guy’s face and the guy being way too fucking happy about it (read: having a fucking nosebleed and taking an upskirt shot). we’re just going to skip this entirely. this is another problem I was having with Vigilantes too. you know, for all my complaints about Mineta and such, BnHA as a whole is so much tamer than it could be, and I need to give Horikoshi credit for that. he mostly knows where to draw the line, and to his credit he’s also much, much better about this kind of thing than he was when he first started. maybe Mineta’s standings in the character poll results are helping to clue him in

anyway, I’ll mostly just skip past the iffy stuff because I don’t have patience for it and there’s still plenty of other stuff to cover. so on to the next strip

which features a bunch of reporters fawning over Mt. Lady’s flashy quirk while Kamui Woods laments in the shadows

and yet we know this kid will have a prominent rise within the next six months. it’s so strange to revisit the start of the series and see how much things have changed in such a short time

oh my god

no one who dresses up as a giant mushroom could possibly have good intentions. I. just

and look at the fucking disappointment in Deku’s eyes. KAMUI WOODS HE BELIEVED IN YOU!

now some strange man is coming up to Deku and is all HEY YOU, YOU’RE A HERO OTAKU, TELL ME WHAT TO BUY MY SEVEN-YEAR-OLD SON FOR HIS BIRTHDAY. better not ask him unless you’re prepared to shell out $120 bucks for some fucking textbooks

hey, what!!

WE DIDN’T EVEN GET TO SEE WHAT HE BOUGHT HIM? unless it’s the action figure the kid appears to be holding? but I’m just going to go ahead and assume Izuku recommended the number one best gift that any seven-year-old child would love, i.e. a giant sword

now it’s a sludge monster omake!

so Izuku is trudging home all depressed after CERTAIN INCIDENTS, and Sludgey is glooping his way out of a sewer towards him

oh no All Might

my biggest takeaway from this is the fact that the entire second half of chapter one takes place after All Might has emerged from a fucking sewer. I forgot all about that somehow. or maybe it never fully processed until just now. but omg. this entire chapter must have smelled so fucking bad. these poor kids

wow All Might

sure called that one wrong. ah well nobody’s perfect

looooool

lmao, Smash!!All Might appears to be quite a bit more vain than the original. wow dude

btw, friendly reminder (and I think this is something that was actually pointed out to me after one of the recaps; that’s one of my favorite things about doing these) that All Might, after saving Deku, actually read his notebook before signing it. super-fast, I guess, because he’s the best. but yeah, so he knew exactly how smart and observant Deku was, and how much he wanted to be a hero. his decision to pick him as his successor didn’t just come out of the blue; even before the “my body moved on its own” thing, there was a lot Deku had going in his favor. this is one of those little details of which BnHA has so many, and which I love

lmao what the fuck

ngl this version of the series would have been amazing in its own way. but yeah. so this is why we clearly can’t assume everything in Smash!! is canon lol. but I can already tell I am going to enjoy the shit out of this series

now we’re cutting to Deku running at Sludgey in order to save Kacchan, oh shit. the most dramatic part of chapter one. clearly no moment is sacred

sob what

I don’t understand this strip at all. is this supposed to be a serious moment inserted unexpectedly among this multitude of joke strips? or did I miss the punchline? heeeeelp

(ETA: okay so. my best guess is that All Might wrote all over Deku’s life-saving advice, and so the joke is that Deku no longer knows what to do when assaulting sludge men because HIS NOTES ARE RUINED. idk. what does 25 P mean??)

now All Might has Done The Thing and saved my boys, and now Mt. Lady is helping with the cleanup. scooping up all the bits of sludge and putting it in trash bags

oh my god

nope nevermind. nope. nope

-- shit. okay, you know what? this first chapter has been a real in-your-face reminder of the fact that the sludge monster was not made of cute sparkly 2018-trending-fad slime, but was in fact composed of RAW FUCKING SEWAGE. (ETA: to be clear, I’m pretty sure the joke in this strip is that she accidentally picked up dog-doo during her clean-up. but still, the fact that it was indistinguishable from the rest of the gunk speaks for itself.) I think I forced myself to gloss over this fact originally due to the nope factor. but just. Izuku and Katsuki were both choking to death on this shit?? and just, how the fuck did they make it out of this not traumatized

and also, like. All Might was straight up going to leave Izuku alone afterwards, just, “well enjoy your autograph, fine citizen” and blasting off out of there. and everyone fucking saw Katsuki almost suffocate to death later on, and after giving him a pat on the back they fucking let him go off on his own too? and you can’t even make the argument that this was Just Another Day In Quirk Society either, because more than a year later, Katsuki is still a bona fide fucking celebrity from the media coverage of his attack. it clearly was not something that happens every day. in conclusion, these kids are resilient as fuck, and thank god for that because people apparently just do not give a shit, holy christ

anyway. at least Mt. Lady had gloves

OH MY GOD

I FUCKING KNEW IT OH MY GOD. THE ROIDS. MUSCLES LIKE THAT DON’T JUST GROW ON TREES, I DON’T CARE HOW MANY LBS OF GARBAGE THIS KID HAULED OFF THE BEACH. THIS BOY BEEN HITTIN THE JUICE

Smash!!Might is so fucking shady omfg. probably sells cheap counterfeit electronics on Amazon

oh shit and that’s the end of the fucking chapter lol. that’s it?? that was only eight pages. fuck it, let’s read another. but first here’s Horikoshi’s note on the spin-off

so he really feels that Neda gets the spirit of the series and understands him. that’s very encouraging. the best spoofs and parodies are done out of love. I really think I’m going to enjoy this series

so! onward to chapter two

so here’s All Might dressed as Mr. 2 Bon Clay from One Piece, I guess??

“you know what’s funny? dressing a man in girl’s clothes LOL.” guys can we grow the fuck up. and also acknowledge that All Might can look good in anything, so this questionable gag wouldn’t have even landed anyway. you work that tutu All Might

lmao check out the past users of OFA here

All for One for All theory fucking confirmed lol. just look. that’s him in the back of the conga line. clearly

so Deku is all “hell yes why would I possibly say no??” but then

HIS LIMBS. lmao. sign here

in all seriousness, given the shit this kid has been through since the part of the series, All Might probably should have gotten him to sign a liability waiver of some sort. not that it would have stood, since Deku is underage! anyways Deku you totally have grounds to sue the shit out of the Symbol of Peace should you ever choose to do so. and the trend of Smash!!Might being shady af continues yes please give me more I love it

so now All Might is giving Deku his fitness plan which has a really elaborate name

given that this is Smash!!Might, I can’t help but wonder if this plan is in actuality some sort of MLM scheme. All Might are you trying to get Deku to do Herbalife

lol what in the fuck

the original series skipped right over a hell of a lot, it would seem. like the time Deku traveled to Arizona and fought coyotes in a poncho

I’m starting to suspect that Neda-sensei might be on some sort of substance. “let’s see what jokes can I make about chapter 2 of BnHA. I know, I’ll send the protagonist to a fictionalized version of the American Southwest in a sombrero, and then turn him into a 65-year-old oil tycoon.” naturally

lmao that’s really it, that’s the strip. moving right along. okay??

now Izuku is staring at the intimidating piles of Beach Trash and is all “I HAVE TO PICK ALL THIS SHIT UP?”

omg Deku no

somebody call Marie Kondo. Deku none of this is salvageable. not even to reuse in a color page photoshoot spread four years from now

OH SHIT

PROVED ME WRONG OH SNAP. SHOWED ME RIGHT WHERE I COULD PUT THOSE SASSY TAKES. MY BAD DEKU I’M SORRY

anyways I don’t know what Smash!!Might is so upset about. he probably wove some kind of clause into the contract Deku signed that allows him a percentage of the profits. unless Deku already spent it all on textbooks

what the fuck is this fucking series lmao

time for a round of “what is All Might casually crushing in this panel?” is it (a) a cardboard box, or (b) like, a mini-fridge or some fucking shit. IT COULD BE EITHER. IT MAKES EQUALLY AS MUCH SENSE EITHER WAY. “HEROES THESE DAYS ARE [FLEEEEEEX] OBSESSED WITH BEING FLASHY”

holy shit no wonder he ran away to the Sierra Nevada. it’s only a matter of time before this freak fucking kills someone

NOW WE’RE CUTTING AWAY TO KAMUI WOODS DRESSED LIKE A DAFFODIL, IN THE SAME FUCKING COMIC STRIP, BECAUSE REASONS

my jokes about the mangaka being high as a fucking kite when he wrote this are gradually becoming less jokes and more serious inquiries??

lol so he coincidentally just stumbled across All Might and Deku at this exact moment

AND IT WAS A FUCKING REFRIGERATOR OH MY FUCKING GOD

do you guys remember during the final exam when All Might beat the everloving shit out of Deku and Kacchan, and everyone was all “JESUS CHRIST WOULD YOU LEARN TO FUCKING HOLD BACK A LITTLE THEY ARE CHILDREN YOU MANIAC.” but now we can see plain as day that he was, in fact, holding back. anyways Smash!!Might is terrifying as shit and if this had been the main series I would have already pegged him as the final villain by this point

here he is now wearing an old-timey bathing suit but looking more like an escaped convict than anything else

this panel is actually canon. I’ve decided. this 100% definitely happened at some point. especially the swimsuit

now two bikini babes are walking up and they’re all “IS THAT ALL MIGHT??” with excited sparkly eyes because they don’t know that he’s actually a deranged con artist who crushes refrigerators like empty soda cans. this spin-off has truly opened my eyes

LOOK AT THIS SKEEVY FUCK. JUST LOOK

AND NOW HE’S RUNNING OFF AND LEAVING DEKU TO DROWN IN EXHAUSTION, SON OF A

“SUDDEN BUSINESS” KSJLDKF SMASH!!MIGHT IS A FUCKING MENACE TO SOCIETY AND ALSO DOES NOT GIVE ONE SINGLE FUCK. NOT ONE!! HE’S OUT THERE FUCKLESS, AND NO ONE IS SAFE

now Deku is approaching his mom all serious and says he wants to change up his diet

and she’s looking at the menu he prepared all impressed and thinking that she might join him. as long as it’s for your health, Inko. if this manga starts making jokes about your weight, I will beat it over the head with Deku’s textbooks

OMFG

THIS WENT IN THE EXACT OPPOSITE DIRECTION I WAS EXPECTING, AND THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING THING I’VE EVER READ WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. the whole fucking family is on the juice. and the fucking mangaka is on some special juice of his own oh my stars

now we’re cutting to Mt. Lady stomping on a car

thank fuck no one was actually in there. also does she not wear shoes

and also, it only just occurred to me that she must be another person with a special quirk costume, because her suit shrinks and expands along with her. Hagakure and Momo are really getting shafted by the costume design team here. they need to fire some people

anyway so Mt. Lady slipped on this carelessly placed vehicle and fell down and crushed an entire building whoops

bruh, you think you’re “ow.” let’s hope that building was empty too

and now she’s toppling another building just fucking because, I guess. and saying she can’t do urban areas

lmao and now the sidekick [CENSORED] manager from chapter one is back to guilt-trip her omg

I need this man to show up in every freaking chapter. please. respect my wishes

and now Izuku is standing on top of his collected pile of garbage screaming in victory

I only just realized that there’s still a big old Pile O’ Trash on this beach, though. someone needs to haul all of this junk away. or else get All Might and Mt. Lady to crush it all with a combined effort

oh shit here it comes y’all, the famous “eat my hair” scene. potential comedy gold right here omg

lol what the fuck

this man is a fucking billionaire and he’s out here clipping coupons and deleting pictures of his son in order to make room for them smdh

okay now we’re doing the hair scene

oh. oh no. I know where this is going sob please keep this comic rated PG for the children Neda

motherfucker they really --

Smash!!Might is a straight-up felon. this man has no fucking scruples. that’s okay Midoriya-shounen, if you don’t want to eat my hair we could just try some REDACTED, jesus christ I am going to need some bleach for my eyes after this

OR LET’S JUST STRAIGHT UP GO THERE WHY NOT

lmao sob. well, two chapters in and we’ve established that no territory is off-limits here. it’s a brave new world. wow

so that’s it! our introduction to BnHA Smash!! I enjoyed it a lot and I will definitely be reading more! I’m not sure what kind of schedule I’ll keep, but this is a really good procrastination manga thus far, so knowing me I might actually work my way through this relatively quickly. especially since the Manga At Large is on break this week. anyways my deepest apologies to the many people who have been requesting for me to start Vigilantes instead. I just need something lighter right now, and this is a good fit. one of these days I’ll get my shit together with the other two spinoffs as well.

#bnha smash!!#boku no hero academia #midoriya izuku #all might #midoriya inko #mt. lady #kamui woods #bnha smash!! 01 #bnha smash!! 02 #makeste reads bnha #the pile o' trash is a legit plothole though you guys #are we just supposed to pretend it magically vanished #they really drew deku standing shirtless on top of a heap of garbage #and in the very next panel declared that the beach was spotless??#so what is the truth #someone #answer me

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jswdmb1 · 5 years ago

Text

I Wanna Be Sedated

“Hurry, hurry, hurry

before I go insane

Can't control my fingers,

can't control my brain”

- The Ramones

All of our resources have been focused on two things: keeping people alive and keeping the economy afloat. It is hard to argue the prioritization of those two areas and it is understandable that there are not resources beyond what we have already marshalled to focus on anything further down the list. But I worry that we are just burying another landmine in the ground that we’ll be stepping on sooner than later if we forget about it. I am talking about the complete and brutal destruction of our mental health both collectively and individually.

Before I go further, I must repeat that I completely support the efforts of social shutdown and shelter in place that are currently in effect. It is literally the only tool we have to fight this pandemic as our leaders (most specifically the president) mocked its potential wrath when more could have been done to prepare and now we are boxed into a corner. Experts warned long before this man even got nominated by his party that he was unfit for this office and an existential threat to our way of life. It was just a matter of time before his vulgarity, stupidity and incompetence manifested into real pain and destruction, and that time is now. I bring this up before delving into my primary subject because I still see polls and news reports that show there is a large percentage of people who still think there is overreaction to the crisis and that the president is doing a good job handling it. If you believe either of those things, please stop reading now because you do not have the intellectual capacity to grasp what I am going to say.

Now that we have established how we got here and who is responsible, the real question that everyone has on their minds is what is next. We have been told to shelter-in-place for the foreseeable future and been given no further instructions. The economic bill passed yesterday is the equivalent of treating a gunshot wound with a band-aid, and will be of little use as a real solution to the financial devastation that most people will experience long after those checks run out. This combination has made it increasingly hard to keep strong mentally as the massive uncertainty weighs on our minds literally every hour of the day. For a few days, we found some solace in things like getting outside, but now that is being quashed as acceptable. We are pretty much under a house arrest with no defined sentence and we are being punished for no crime we ever committed. Even a prisoner gets access to basic services such as counseling and religious freedoms, but not those of us at home. In war, there is something known as collateral damage, and our civil liberties are fitting that description for the current crisis. On top of all of that, the weather in my part of the country has been miserable. It all adds up to one very grim picture.

Some of you may not like that I am painting such a picture, but that to me contributes to our mental health crisis in the same way that putting our heads in the sand about the virus got us to where we stand today. I am not alone in feelings of anxiety or depression, but it’s well known I have had both long before the virus hit our shores. I feel it gives me a little bit of a perspective on this issue and why I see it a potentially more damaging long-term than anything we are experiencing today. What I can tell you from experience is that it is not possible to work through profound feelings of depression by “just being positive”. The two worst things you can tell a depressed person is that they have to remain positive and they need to work themselves out of their mood. That is akin to telling someone who is drowning that they need to come up for air and should go look for a lifejacket when they do. Yet, all I see on social media and the news is that this is the “new normal” and “we’ll get through this”. What are you talking about? There is nothing normal about this at all. Why on earth would anyone accept it as such? And, how do you know that we’ll get through this? What are you basing that on? Have you been through a deadly pandemic before? Have you sat under quarantine for weeks that will soon turn into months? It literally grates on my nerves to hear such things as good tools to use to “get us out of our funk”.

So, that begs the question about what do we do? I will not pretend to have any real answers and certainly there is no quick fix. But first, we all have to acknowledge that this problem exists, and it is at least on par with the other aspects of this crisis. And don’t say that it isn’t life-or-death because it is. I predict in a matter of weeks, not months, that you will see a morbidly sharp increase in the suicide rate. This is also incredibly damaging to the efforts of those trying to recover from addiction diseases, and many will not only succumb to their addictions without a support system to help them, but they will die as a result of this. And the casualties are not limited to those who don’t make it. The deep psychological scars left on the rest of us that manage to get through this will not heal without significant intervention. I am particularly worried about our teens and young adults who were already not in a good place and I think are suffering more than most when it comes to the social isolation steps being implemented. We all need to acknowledge that we are experiencing acute mental trauma and we cannot simply accept that as “normal”.

If you cannot accept this as fact, then there is not much more I can do to help you. You are going to suffer a similar fate as those who don’t believe we are in the middle of a deadly pandemic in the first place. But if you are willing to accept that your mental health is (or will be) destroyed as a result of this, there are a couple of things that I have learned over the years that can help you cope:

Depression, pain and anxiety are normal feelings and you should not feel guilty for feeling them. By all means do not suppress those feelings as they fester without an outlet. Also be aware that those around you will have these feelings as well and don’t shame them for not being “positive” or “constructive” for expressing them. It is going to take a lot of patience along with some give and take to work with each other on this, but if we deny ourselves or others the freedom to express these emotions, we can’t even get started with healing.

Recognize that while many tools have been taken way from us that usually can be a big help, many others are still available. We have to just be more creative and look for other doors that may be open when others have been shut. One of my main outlets has been a group running program where I coach, and that is now gone in its old form. But we are working hard to still get out and run (solo and never congregating) and support each other virtually. It is not perfect, but it would be wrong to dismiss the sense of community we have built over the years because it is still alive and well no matter how far apart we are kept. It may even be stronger when we eventually can see each other again. That is just one example. I recommend you take whatever you had before and look for ways to retool and still use that as something you can have that is a positive force in your life. It could be that you have that taken away at some point, but then go back and retool it again. If GM can retool its operations from cars to ventilators, we can certainly do the same on our micro levels.

Avoid using alcohol and drugs as a crutch. I can tell you from direct experience that this is just about the worst way to deal with depression. I am not saying you cannot enjoy a drink now and then, but I have already seen anecdotal evidence in some of my interactions on social media and elsewhere that this is not the case. I know that I sound preachy here, but I’m just trying to help as I’m sure many of you may have not experienced profound depression like this before. There is no doubt that the drink or drug of your choice feels good for a little bit and may even help you forget, but it is an incredibly slippery slope.

For those who have committed to sobriety before this all went down, please hold onto that. It may be the only thing you have left that they can’t take away, and it is too valuable to give up so easily. I know it is hard, the thought of heading down to the liquor store (which incredibly is still open and considered “essential”) has passed through my head more than once, but you have to let that feeling pass. You know better than I that what I say in the preceding paragraph is true and heading off the path to sobriety will be a disaster. I have heard that support groups are still meeting (as they have also been deemed essential) so consider a way to attend those (even virtually) if you are struggling with temptation. If you have no such support mechanism, contact me directly through FaceBook Messenger. I am always willing to talk to someone who needs to work though a moment of crisis. It’s a ridiculously impossible situation, but there is no other choice to hold on.

I know that I sound like I am on a soapbox here, but that is not my intent. This is more of a plea to everyone out there not to forget that mental health is a critical component of living and bodies free of disease are useless if our brains can’t function within them. Please just remember that as you deal with the people in your house and those you interact with virtually. While you may think you have the right answer in telling people to stay happy and chipper during a dark time, that is not how everyone feels and it could be damaging to their mental health if you ignore the danger signs they are presenting. My guess is that anyone who has gone this far into reading this already knows that, but it is going to take some reminding for even the most empathetic and caring person among us. Starting now can hopefully get ahead of issues that are already taking root so that we can move forward much more quickly with “normal” life if such a thing ever exists again.

In the meantime, I sincerely hope that this finds you healthy and safe and that you are coping with the mental aspects of the situation better than me. One outlet I have is this blog, and I have thought about suspending it during the crisis because I don’t have anything to say that people want to hear. After writing this post, I realize now that would be the easy way out, and at the risk of being unpopular, I can not give up the fight to protect the most important organ in our bodies – our brain. So, I’ll keep on keepin’ on, but just remember that I really am trying to help. I don’t want anyone to end up in a place that they can’t leave. We’ve come too far to let that happen.

Please take care everybody,

Jim

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late-to-the-hunger-games · 5 years ago

Text

The Drunken Mentor

A small one-shot inside the mind of Haymitch Abernathy after Snow’s visit to Katniss.

Haymitch Abernathy was more than District Twelve’s drunk, washed up Victor; but very few residents knew of the man he had been these days. Once, he had been like Gale Hawthrone. Young, idealistic, wanted, and full of fire. His Reaping hadn’t changed that. If anything, it had boosted it. After, he had been wanted Panem wide. He had been especially wanted in the Capitol. That had been part of why his family and girl were murdered. His trick with the arena had been enough, but telling Snow no when it was strongly suggested he sell himself had been the final nail. After that, his popularity spiraled down the drain as he funneled more and more booze to deal with the pain.

So, it had been easy to have an answer when young Finnick had come to him with suspicions of Snow’s plan for him. People talked; Finnick knew to listen and wait. Haymitch had told the boy not to say no. Finnick had somehow worked the situation to work for him. Despite it, the booze came a little more frequent. With every loss of his tributes, he drank more.

It drown the faces of the dead, the children he had failed to save, and now it drown out the reality of just how fucked his newest charges were.

His only surviving dual victors…Haymitch knew what awaited them if Katniss failed to “convince” Snow of her love for Peeta and he knew what awaited if she succeeded.

They were doomed from the second Peeta created a love story. They had just unknowingly conpounded on how fucked they were with every action after. The dress, the compassion Katniss and Peeta both showed fellow tributes, and the moment she held out those berries and backed Snow into a corner.

Katniss only believed Snow was after her, but sweetheart was overlooking one crucial detail. Peeta and she wouldn’t have survived that arena without one another. The boy was in just as much danger. Just because Peeta didn’t get the presidential house call didn’t mean Snow feared him any less. Didn’t make the boy anymore fucked.

After all, Peeta had brought Katniss sponsors with his never-before-seen confession on live television she most certainly wouldn’t have had without him; and Katniss had saved him in the arena and then chosen to dangerously gamble with the Gamemakers in a stroke of heartstopping brillance.

Katniss may have made the Gamemakers look like a joke, but Peeta had turned the Games into a love story. He had made all of the Captiol enthralled with two kids from District Twelve. Haymitch had been able to see the results of Peeta’s concotion the moment they set foot into that arena. When they had been separated, the ladies and gentlemen of the Captiol held their breath. Whenever Peeta had joined the Careers, there had been a overwhelming poll over his reasons. Whenever they had reunited with Peeta sick and in desparate need, the sponsors had rallied.

If Katniss was the spark for the rebellion, then Peeta was the gasoline. Katniss’ form of rebellion was in action, but Peeta’s was words.

No. Katniss wasn’t the one in the most danger. It was Peeta, the wordsmith as much as the baker. Whereas Katniss’ every action was more reactionary, Peeta was cunning in a way that came as a surprise. He made plans–confessing on national television and cozying up to the Careers. Every word he spoke during interviews had been well-thought out in the seconds before he uttered them. More threatening than his words was prehaps his conviction. He had, after all, been prepared to die so that Katniss could live. It takes a hell of a lot of conviction and other things like goodness and love to make that choice as stalwartly as the boy had. If Katniss managed to convince Snow, Haymitch imagined it would be worse for Peeta. He would be the weapon Snow used to break her and, in doing so, Snow would break him.

Haymitch sighed and tipped back his bottle. ‘All for a girl who had never so much as waved in his direction,’ Haymitch thought as he looked toward the skyline at the set of the sun. 'Should be time for her to come back.’

He saw a flash of blonde from the corner of his left eye. Peeta was walking out of his house, probably to go visit his folks. The boy gave him a wave; Haymitch returned it by waving the bottle. Blue eyes rolled before Peeta turned and walked down the steps. Just in time for Sweetheart to round the corner. Haymitch sighed.

What a pathetic sight two of them had made after getting off the train. Haymitch didn’t quite know what had happened between them, but it had certainly left its mark on whatever relationship they had been cultivating. Haymitch took another pull from his bottle and studied their interaction. He doubted it would tell him anything knew about their situation, but it was always interesting to watch.

The boy and girl both tensed for a second. Peeta’s shoulders relaxed sooner, but he didn’t look at her. Haymitch’s lips twitched as Katniss fought not to look at Peeta, but the cut of her grey eyes to him was impossible to miss. They passed one another without speaking. The girl’s shoulders slumped the moment Peeta was past her. Pitiful. Haymitch snorted. Interesting, pitiful, and annoying.

“How do you plan to convince Snow if the two of you won’t even look at one another?” He muttered into the mouth of his bottle. Katniss stomped into her house. Haymitch lowered his bottle and swallowed the sweet, burning liquid. “And how am I going to save you both?” His whisper was so light that it barely reached his own ears, but it fell so much heavier in his heart.

Without a glance toward either house, he turned back inside and drained the remaining half of his bottle.

#the hunger games #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #haymitch abernathy #everlark #i don't really know what this is #but I felt like writing

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snkpolls · 5 years ago

Text

SnK S3E17 Poll Results (Manga Reader Version)

The poll closed with 362 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results of the manga reader poll. Anime only watchers are suggested not to read if you do not wish to be spoiled about certain events! Anime only viewers, click here to view your poll results!

RATE THE EPISODE 354 Responses

Similar to ranking systems seen outside of this poll this week, the episode has gotten a very high score, with no one voting for anything under a 4. WIT really outdid themselves with this one!

Chapter 82 is one of my top 5 favorite chapters of the series to date. This episode is top 5 of the series to date. Absolutely top notch.

Best episode of all media (and i'm not kidding!!!!) We don't deserve SNK/WIT

Absolutely amazing. I’m a manga reader who watched with an anime only. We normally discuss while watching, but even I who knew what would happen couldn’t make a sound. We were completely speechless. Amazing episode. Definitely top 3..maybe 2.

Best ep in the series. WIT and the cast absolutely delivered these past two eps.

It's great. Hats off for staffs who delivered this episode

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOMENT? 356 Responses

Levi taking out the Beast Titan was ranked as the most favored moment of the episode. Following closely behind was Armin’s sacrifice. The third most popular moment, aside from the votes of those who can’t just pick one scene, was Eren dealing the finishing blow to the Colossal Titan.

Let's not forget about the jawdropping Sawano music pieces, the music during the Armin burning scene made the scene so powerful i teared up, as well as Marlowe's monologue one!

I've waited almost two years to see Levi vs Zeke animated and it was so much more glorious and heart breaking in the anime. And the Armin scene had me in tears, every single time, which didn't happen when I read the manga. (Then again I didn't cry at all while reading manga).

I was extremely disappointed with the Levi vs Beast Titan fight, the music choice for that scene was so underwhelming and out of place, and the animation - while better than anything else in the episode - still manages to look extremely lazy.

Am I the only one who actually likes Zeke's monologue? Yes? Ok then.

I never cared much about Armin, he isn't even in my top 5 characters but his death made me cry and every time I see the scene I get emotional. Music was perfect and Inoue Marina did an amazing job.

WHO WAS THE EPISODE’S MVP? 356 Responses

Armin easily takes the mantle as the Most Valuable Person this episode, with Levi following behind at 15.4% of the vote. In third, people voted Pieck as the MVP.

Armin is the mvp of this episode. No matter how much wit wants us to think it’s Levi with the end card, Armin is the mvp.

Levi was, is, and always will be glorious. That break in his voice, that rage... I'm in tears.

WHO’S SACRIFICE HAD MORE EMOTIONAL IMPACT ON YOU? 357 Responses

Erwin and Armin had to make choices that brought them to the brink of death. 63.9% of respondents expressed they felt more emotional for Armin’s sacrifice while 36.1% hold Erwin’s closer to their heart. We thought about adding a “both” option, but some poll makers wanted to be evil and prepare you for the next episode. >:)

I HATE the question with Erwin and Armin as the only choices btw. :( Both of them sacrificed their biggest dreams to ensure victory for humanity, and choosing one over the other downplays the strength of both of them in making their choices. That's what made serum bowl so terrible imo. I love both the characters dearly, and the entire thing is a clusterfuck of a Sophie's choice type scenario (I picked not ready for the serum bowl question, if you couldn't tell).

WHICH CHARACTER HAD THE BEST “FINAL BLOW” AGAINST THE ENEMY? 358 Responses

At 45.8%, Eren gets the most vote for “best final blow” for taking down the Colossal Titan, with Levi following closely behind at 41.6% with the Beast Titan.

Levi vs. Zeke was Imai at his finest, Marina killed it once again as Armin, Reiner vs. Levi Squad was incredibly satisfying, and Eren finally taking down Bert was breathtaking. This episode deserves all the praise it's getting.

Didn’t expect to be so conflicted over Eren taking down the Colossal - he finally got revenge but at what cost ;_;

Daaaaaaayyyyyuuuummmmm. Levi VS Zeke was just *chef kiss*.

WHICH WAS THE BETTER ONE LINER FROM MIKASA? 353 Responses

“Annie. Fall,” still remains as the more iconic pre-mortem one-liner from Mikasa.

THOUGHTS ON WIT CHOOSING TO OMIT ANY MUSIC WHEN EREN TAKES OUT BERTOLT? 355 Responses

Nearly 66% of respondents were happy with WIT’s decision to keep the environment quiet during the Colossal Titan’s takedown, allowing the audience to truly focus on the moment. 21.4% were happy with the choice but also would not object to there having been music. 9% feel that it would have had more impact with some music.

Not having any music was a parallel to back when Eren tried to kill Bertholdt in Trost and failed, also because Armin is badly wounded, not having any music gave respect to his "sacrifice"

I never consider the music of an episode beforehand and I was too into the moment to notice there wasn't any

I'm pretty confused abouy how they chose to do it, i guess i was expecting something more impactful, and the no-music, seen from afar thing didn't do it for me

I was too busy crying to notice there wasn’t music

Would’ve been perfect if the silence hadn’t been blocked by berts needless exposition imo

Sometimes silence is better than music.

850 YEARBOOK VOTE: WHO HAS THE BEST TEETH? 349 Responses

It was almost a tie, but Zeke’s teeth win the yearbook vote with 30.9% of the vote. Just behind him with 30.7% of the vote is the random redshirt that got 2 seconds too much of screen time. 26.6% feel that the Attack Titan has the best teeth. Sorry, Bertolt.

The vast amount of weird looking teeth in this episode freaked me out

WHO WORE THIS LOOK BETTER? 344 Responses

Reiner wins the most handsome look with 61.3% of the vote. But you have to admit, the resemblance is uncanny.

REINER LOOKS LIKE JAMES CHARLES IN HIS TITAN AHAHAHA

HOW WELL DID THIS EPISODE ADAPT THE CORRESPONDING CHAPTERS? 354 Responses

The majority of manga readers feel that the source material was handled extremely well this episode, with only 0.3% of respondents feeling it could have been handled better.

Mikasa taking down Reiner was definitely more badass in the manga too. Her expression is too serene here. Hange was infinitely more BAMF-y and I am very glad for this at least.

Levi vs Zeke had an amazing animation, but i didn't like Levi's slashing flurry at the end of it. It didn't make any sense

I thought I was going to be ready for that Armin scene, but it was so much more intense than the manga. I ended up crying so much.

I wish they added more emotional Levi's faces like in the manga, but it turned out pretty ok

The adaptation was pretty badass this time around imo. My roommate lost her appetite watching Armin's sacrifice

If it weren't for the perfect plot that WIT was adapting, this episode would have been one of the worst quality wise, and I wish they would have taken more time and care to adapt one of the best moments of this series.

WAS LEVI VS. ZEKE: ROUND 1 ALL YOU HOPED FOR? 357 Responses

71.1% of respondents were left feeling extremely pleased with WIT’s adaptation of Levi vs. Beast Titan. 21% were happy, but perhaps not totally blown out of the water like the others. A few small groups of people are either neutral, or felt underwhelmed and/or disappointed.

This was so awesome!! Levi was so badass and damn, rage looks good on him. Zeke clearly didn't see any of it coming!

The voice acting on Levi's part was beyond what I'd hoped for so I was emotionally into it, but the over-the-top drama of the slishy-slashy moment kind of downgraded the actual visuals for me. But you know what, overall I think it was quite good - not brilliant, but good.

It was way too flashy

Zeke's monologue didn't really feel well this time. Yet, the whole scene was pretty good.

SO COOL ALL HAIL GOD LEVI!!

Couldn't fully enjoy Levi slicing Zeke now that I know he'll have him another time and fail at killing him again (with yet unknown circumstances for Levi) :c

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT WIT CENSORING THE SCENE WITH LEVI’S BLADE IN ZEKE’S MOUTH? 353 Responses

52.1% of respondents were pretty understanding of the situation, feeling that the censorship couldn’t have been avoided. 23.2% feel that they could have at least shown a little bit of sliced flesh. 14.4% are hopeful that we’ll get a more gorey version of the scene when the bluray animation comes out. A small percentage were very displeased.

Censorship is understandable all things considered, but it managed to be effective. Sometimes, your imagination makes things worse than the reality of it, such is the case here.

HE HAS SO MUCH TEETH WHY DID THEY GIVE ZEKE SO MUCH TEETH NO HUMAN BEING HAS TEETH THAT GO THAT FAR

The guy got absolutely destroyed right before, the blade still pierced his mouth, I don't give a shit.

I actually think that too much realism would be overkill for fast paced animation. They managed to keep the scenes intense and smooth and i wasn't bothered by it at all.

I was pleasantly surprised we saw the blood from the blade thrusting in his face. I don’t require more gore than that lol

i wanted to see it SO BAD ugh :rip:

Anyone disappointed about censorship in anime in 2019 isn't really knowledgeable about the industry.

I don't care, gore is cheap, snk is better than that.

HOW DID YOU FEEL SEEING ARMIN’S SACRIFICE ANIMATED? 356 Responses

Over half of the fandom felt more emotional about Armin’s sacrifice than they did reading the manga, a testament to how well WIT adapted the material, given we all know the ultimate outcome of Armin’s fate. 26.1% of respondents felt that the scene was equally moving in both mediums, while 12.6% felt more emotional while reading it happen in the manga.

Both were equally moving for sure but the anime version had that extra element of Body Horror™. Armin's skin literally melting off is something I will not forget for a long time.

Emotionally, this episode didn't get me as much as the manga did but that is mainly because I've got like 2+ years of rereading it and working through my emotions.

Armin was just as annoying with his ocean and he should've died here.

Showing the skin melting off was an absolutely brutal touch

After I read that scene I spent a lot of time thinking and mulling it over. After I watched that scene I had to pause because I couldn't see anything through my tears. They are just different types of impact, there's no way to compare them

Seeing his pants in pristine condition right after took me out of it, so probably manga > anime, but both really good

I told you I wasn’t ready. I had to watch my son melt. M e l t. He is truly a hero and I’m sobbing.

THOUGHTS ON BERTOLT’S STEAM BECOMING AN INFERNO? 353 Responses

61.8% of the fandom felt that WIT’s animation helped really put into perspective the pain that Armin was dealing with during his sacrifice. 21.% really enjoyed WIT heating up the steam attack by turning it into an inferno as a cool effect. 9.3% may have felt that it was a little too dramatic, and a small few didn’t really care either way.

The inferno made the decoy plan even better and shows how powerful bert is with his titan.

It made it even more suprising that Armin survived this

Not really consistent to 02/06 where he just emits hot steam, but whatevs.

I was willing to buy Armin miRaCulOuSlY surviving in the manga bc it was just hot steam (and a nearly 50m fall but whatever). He was literally cooked alive. He caught fire, everything was fire. He’s dead. It’ll be even worse when he’s alive and starts the serumbowl in anime form. The inferno cheapened the whole premise of that fight because there’s no way in hell that armin should’ve survived all the shit they added in the anime. Rant over.

Bert for the win

Shinganshina’s first deep fryer looked pretty cool!

DID MIKASA TAKING OUT REINER HAVE AS MUCH IMPACT AS IT DID IN THE MANGA? 353 Responses

45.6% of voters felt even more excited about Mikasa delivering the final blow to Reiner than they did while reading the manga. 41.1% felt that the scene was adapted well, but that it could have been done better. 8.8% found the animation a bit awkward and didn’t enjoy the moment as much because of it.

Finally Mikasa played bigger role in the anime. She was a real badass.

The only knock that scene has is just... Mikasa get out of the mouth! There's an explosive in there! How did you not get hurt?!

Mikasa has come a long way from being picked up and carried away to safety. The girl who watched Shiganshina crumble because of this guy just stuck her whole-ass body in his mouth like nbd and blew his shit to pieces. Call that narrative satisfaction.

It was wonderfully animated, but when I read it in the manga I felt very sad for Reiner. In the anime, the music was very triumphant

I loved the fluid animation. It’s so fitting for the scene!

Yes. It simply made me cry another time for my poor Reiner

THOUGHTS ON WIT MOVING UP THE FLASHBACK SCENE OF EREN AND ARMIN BECOMING FRIENDS? 356 Responses

The majority of the fandom, at 64.9%, felt that moving the childhood flashback scene added more weight to Eren finding Armin’s burned body on the roof. 21.6% aren’t too concerned about the placement and are just happy to see it at all. A small amount of people felt it was better placed in the manga.

Torn, it made the end of this episode way better but might make the start of next episode a little less impactful, we'll see.

I think their voices should have been more childlike. They sounded too mature.

Baby armin is the cutest thing ever. I' m also glad they did some justice for eremin for the first time in the anime

WHO IS CUTTING ONIONS?? WHY MUST YOU HURT ME WIT?

WHICH SCENE FROM THE PREVIEW ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 354 Responses

Seeing the Yeagerbros meet for the first time won out with 37.3% of the vote. Following closely behind is the moment when Levi tries to inject Erwin with the serum. 24% of the fandom are looking forward to seeing Eren and Mikasa’s defiance once Levi realizes that he can still save Erwin.

BUT REALLY, HOW EMOTIONALLY READY ARE YOU FOR THE SERUMBOWL? 354 Responses

34.2% of the fandom feel the impending turmoil coming up as they watch a number of beloved characters either dying or fighting each other. 29.7% are ready to feel everything. 26.3% are looking forward to seeing the characters express their very base and raw emotions. A small few either don’t feel affected or are not really looking forward to the chapter being adapted at all.

One of my favorite characters is Bertholdt so I'm not prepared to see him begging and death next week…

I watch with two anime-only siblings, the serumbowl is going to divide the household into WW3

oh jesus oh fuck i'm not fuckin ready for serumbowl 2.0

I’ve cried so much the past three episodes. I can’t even imagine how bad next week will be.

Last week before Bert dies please no

At least the serum bowl will be dealt with in one episode and we won't need to deal with the endless cliffhanger which definitely did not contribute positively to that part of the arc. It's inevitable with a monthly manga, but man, those few months were rough.

My body is not ready, send help

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

It was so good overall! The anime continues to do a really great job in bringing life to the manga, this episode especially. Not ready for the emotional rollercoaster of next ep tho asgskdk

It was fantastic. I'm so happy with this season. But how dare you guys not give us multiple choice or "all of the above" as options on some of these

So because of the manga I was reAlly beginning to dislike Floch but seeing the survivor scene really reminded me of why his character is the way it is

Zeke’s monologue was much more terrifying than in the manga, specifically when he raged at the soldiers, it was intense. It’s really got me hyped for the next chapter. “Game set” indeed. The way they are lining this up can’t be a coincidence.

i wonder what the cart titan/pieck was doing the whole time

The preview for E18 was wayy to much spoiler imo.

Armin is MVP 5eva but also RIP the anime only fans, it's been so satisfying to see their reactions all over the interwebs

NGL, they put more in the episode than I thought. Guessing that they’ll dedicate 3-4 eps on post photo exposition

This episode was the best of them all. It brought powerful emotions and made me 100% sure that Levi made the right choice with saving Armin's life. Armin is the bravest of them all and I hope he will become a hero in the final arc of the manga. However, for now I can imagine the feelings and emotions the anime-onlies have. They didn't expect Armin to sacrifice himself and die. In the other shonens main trio always survives, while here the situation is different. However, I hope they won't be disappointed after finding out that Armin is still alive. It may feel like strong plot armor for them. Anyway, I love this episode very much!

I've never been so glad to be a manga reader. Watching this episode without knowing that Armin will be okay would have fucked me up for a long time.

I do feel that Zeke's animation turned out a little too cartoonish as he was ripped from his Titan. Which is a weird critique on an anime episode I know, but. The style seems off. Sloppy somehow. Compare this animation to the beautiful chase scene with Levi in episode 2 of part 1 of this season and it feels like two completely different animes. The VA's have done an outstanding job, though.

Armin has evolved to Arman

Can we appreciate how Bertolt was rendered in this episode? His VA did a fantastic job as always and made him more sympathetic. You could sense that Bertolt was rather chill with his monologue. At several times he wasn't ready to commit but he did anyway. Emotional parting is hard for him.rman

Marlowe's scene in chapter 81 was heartbreaking and eerie enough, but this... that shit H U R T E D

My poor heart still hurts after Armin's sacrifice. Like if you cry everytime.

No question regarding Levi vs BT ost? They used such an awesome ost for Armin's sacrifice and made the scene more epic than the manga, which made me really really happy. On the other hand, in Levi vs BT, they used such an ost which didn't even match the fight's mood. Just because of the wrong choice of ost the scene had much much lesser impact.

For me, this episode was the most anticipated from the manga ever since I read it years ago, and they delivered. It's the best so far, but I hope Blu-Ray can make it better

Like a roller coaster of emotions this show was for me, Levi's fight against Zeke put the animation on a high level if I forgot the two last episodes (because it was "meh" for me but good anyways). The promise that's still remain in force, the sacrifices in vain, three epic and decisive battles that put a semicolon in the saga AND the next episode or serum bowl nightmare. Ugh, I need to take a breath because I've cried more that I expected

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 332 Responses

Thank you to everyone who participated! We’ll see you again in a few days!

#snk spoilers #snk s3 #snk poll #snk polls #poll results

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douxreviews · 6 years ago

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The West Wing - ‘Bartlet's Third State of the Union’ Review

"That's all that tonight's speech was about!"

Bartlet gives his third (or second – see below) State of the Union speech, but Abbey is not impressed that serious issues concerning domestic violence got bumped for school uniforms. Very sensibly, she deals with this by going for food.

There's a lot going on in this episode. Bartlet delivers the State of the Union speech, obviously. As a result, Abbey is mad at him. Joey Lucas is here (yay!) and polling responses to the speech. CJ has to break bad news to a guest honoured in the speech. Five DEA agents have been abducted in Colombia, an ongoing thread to be resolved in the next episode. And there's a bench covered in wet paint in the rose garden that people keep sitting on.

This is basically the first part of a two-parter, so most of the storylines won't be resolved until the next episode. However, it still works as an individual episode, partly thanks to a really strong final scene. The core of this first part is a brilliantly tense scene between Mr and Mrs Bartlet which forms part of the ongoing story about preparing to run for a second term and is especially memorable, partly because it's so strongly acted, and partly because this is the first indication the audience gets that Bartlet running again may not be a done deal.

Leo and Toby formed their little committee to re-elect the President and didn't tell anyone else, but Abbey Bartlet is perceptive and brilliant and can see a political campaign coming a mile off, and she is Not Happy. She and Bartlet made a deal, which he has apparently broken if he is running for a second term. (Bartlet himself appears to have been letting Toby and Leo do their thing and deliberately not thinking about it – he knows Abbey's right but doesn't want to face the issue). Stockard Channing can do righteously pissed off like no one else and the weirdly domestic-but-not setting of the argument, in a kitchen while eating a sandwich (very domestic) but it's a huge kitchen with staff milling around (less so) really highlights the nature of the problem. This is a dispute between a husband and wife, but played against a background of high politics, and the outcome may affect the whole country. (I also love Abbey saying she'll stay up with him when he goes to deal with the whole drugs-kidnapping situation. You can see how much they love each other, no matter how angry they might be).

With the major storylines in this episode being pretty heavy (the kidnapping plot involves Bartlet asking how many enemy casualties there will be, to which Leo responds 'Do you care?' and Bartlet says 'No' – understandable, but heavy stuff), it helps to have something to lighten the mood, and the lighter stories in this episode are brilliant. Everything between Josh, Donna and Joey Lucas is hilarious and adorable (I especially like Joey's exasperated explanation that she just didn't pay enough attention in airplane mechanics class when Josh complains because she was late) and while CJ sitting in wet paint is funny in itself, the joke it's setting up is genius. Ainsley has never met the President, so Sam decides to set up a surprise so she won't get nervous, unaware that she is drunk and wearing a bathrobe, dancing around her office in the Steam Pipe Trunk Distribution Venue. It is joyously ridiculous and wonderful.

It's hard to sum up a Part 1 without reference to Part 2, but the final scene between Jed and Abbey really does pull this together so that it leaves a lasting impression on the viewer by itself, even as most of the stories carry on into Part 2.

Bits and pieces

- This episode introduced the secret 'come to the situation room right now' code that has ensured if anyone ever tells me they want to introduce me to an old friend, I am likely to panic immediately.

- There's a lot of exposition in the cold open of this episode. Some of it is reasonably elegant – Josh complaining that Joey Lucas would have no way of knowing if anyone had an accent sounds offensive but is actually pretty funny. Some of it – Bartlet saying 'is Abbey in her seat?' and immediately following it up with 'I say, my wife's in her seat?' – is less so.

- I love Sam and Toby still writing the speech as Bartlet walks towards the room.

- The shipping news: Donna is trying to get Josh to ask Joey out, which it seems he still hasn't done even though she dumped Q ages ago.

- The further shipping news: Sam refers to Ainsley as a 'blonde Republican sex kitten'. I'm choosing to see this as a cute indication of the fact he clearly has a crush on her, rather than a horrifyingly sexist way to describe a colleague.

British people problems: I had no idea, before seeing this episode, that school uniforms were such a moral issue in the States. They make some good points. (I did go to a school for a while where you didn't have to wear the actual uniform as long as you had the right colours on, because some parents couldn't afford the uniform, but I have no idea if that helped the kids in that situation).

- Further British people problems: I am extremely grateful to this episode for explaining to me what the State of the Union is. (We have no such equivalent. We have the opening of Parliament, which probably comes close. The Queen also gives a three-minute speech after lunch at Christmas, but even the people who bother to watch it are in a food coma by then).

- Having said that, I have learned something of American politics over the years, and this should surely be Bartlet's second State of the Union, not his third – his first January speech would have been his Inauguration speech, not a State of the Union.

Quotes

Joey/Kenny: Joshua Lyman, you have the cutest little butt in professional politics. Josh: Kenny, really, that better have been her talking.

Sam: Where'd you get the bathrobe? Carol: The gym. Sam: There are bathrobes at the gym? CJ: In the women's locker room. Sam: But not the men's. CJ: Yeah. Sam: Now, that's outrageous. There are a thousand men working here and fifty women. CJ: Yeah, and it's the bathrobes that are outrageous.

Mrs Landingham (looking at a perfectly normal image on TV): Charlie, is it possible that CJ isn't wearing any pants right now?

Sam: Why are you moving like that? Ainsley: I'm blaming it on the Bossa Nova!

Tense and funny in all the right places. Four out of four bathrobes from the women's gym.

Juliette Harrisson is a freelance writer, classicist and ancient historian.

#The West Wing #Jed Bartlet #Josh Lyman #Donna Moss #CJ Cregg #Leo McGarry #Sam Seaborn #Toby Ziegler #The West Wing Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews #something from the archive #and timely since it is the SOTU tonight #and this is a better watch than Trump stroking his own ego

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howtohero · 5 years ago

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We recently ran a survey where we polled various superheroes to discover what they thought the worst parts of their jobs were and proud to finally be able to share our findings with you! (We would’ve had them sooner but somebody decided to take a two week nap under a bridge in schenectady {for the hundredth time, I was mugged and unconscious! Thanks for looking for me by the way!} Thanks getting back here in a timely manner!):

2% of superheroes said that the worst part of their job was the giant gelatin monsters, because they get goop everywhere and everything sticky. 11% said prank calls to their superhero hotline. “Uh… hi, I’d like to report a crime? Yeah it’s… uh… what was it again? Oh yeah! Uh, I’d like to a report a crime and it’s your outfit hahaha get new clothes you trash bag!” 15% said it was the constant pain that they are in because they made a deal with the devil and their soul is constantly on fire but that it is a burden they gladly bear if it means that mankind can be safe for even just one more day. (Dramaaaaaatic.) 27.5% said it was having their memories or friends erased or altered due to time travel shenanigans. 54.5% said supervillains.

Unfortunately, all of those people were wrong and that was a waste of everybody’s time. {Are you kidding me? I spent two weeks in a coma for this!} The worst part of being a superhero is obviously…

#200 Supervillain Teams

{That’s basically what the majority of those people said!} No it’s different!

A single supervillain is plenty dangerous on their own (most of the time) they’re only limited by their own imaginations and their access to resources. (In today’s economy and privacy obsessed cultural climate, you actually need a lot of money to steal a lot of money. It’s kind of like how you need experience in your field before you can get a good job in your field.) So when a bunch of villains put their heads together and pool their cash. Hooboy. Then you’re in trouble. In most universes, the villain to hero ratio favors the villains. This is due to a number of factors. Most people are selfish and when given extraordinary abilities, they will choose to use to benefit themselves as the expense of others. Being a villain is honestly way more fun than being a superhero, especially if like you making your own hours and pontificating in front of large crowds. Also, most villains will kill heroes but most heroes won’t kill villains. So if all of your enemies team up, or if everybody’s enemies team up, you’re going to be in trouble.

Villains are a competitive and dramatic lot, so when a bunch of them sit down for a brainstorming sess, things are definitely going to get out of hand really fast. They’re all going to keep upping the evil ante, as I will now demonstrate for you.

(Scene 1 Act 1: Int. dungeon of some sort. There are skulls everywhere, there’s an actual demon chained to the wall, he’s very sassy and does not want to be there. In the center of the room there is a table, skull-shaped of course, There are several hooded and masked figures sitting at the table. The room smells of sweat and snake venom.)

Al “Da Boss” Marconi: I have called you all here today to finally put an end to those terrible, disgusting, super fools, that keep foiling our schemes.

Assorted villains: Huzzah!

Smuggles: I say we steal all of the dinosaur skeletons from the Museum of Natural History!

Tim the Fabulous Soul Muncher: Let’s replace them with live dinosaurs!

Professor Brain Scrambler: Let’s shoot the entire building with a de-evolution ray and turn everybody there into dinosaurs!!!!!!!!!!!!

The demon chained to the wall: Uh, that’s not how evolution works. Are you dumb? Don’t worry, we won’t judge. Just let us know if you are? You seem like a real moron to me. But what do I know, I’m just an immortal being who personally tortured some of history’s greatest minds.

(And then the demon chained to the wall was the first guinea pig for Professor Brain Scrambler’s de-evolution ray. End scene.)

And that’s just when I decided to end that conversation! Real supervillain meetings go on for way longer and you end up with a plot to turn the Earth into a giant dinosaur that can then be used to eat other planets. <Hey guys quick question and I swear it’s not a big deal. But why wasn’t I at that supervillain meeting. I mean I am the only supervillain you guys personally know. Like if I were writing about, I don’t know, a meeting of the scrawny blogger club, I would definitely put you guys in it. So what gives?> Not now Brainwave. <I mean if you needed a mad scientist, I’m a mad scientist. Did you know Professor Brain Scrambler isn’t even a real professor, he’s just wearing a real professor’s skin. Which I’m pretty sure doesn’t make you an accredited teacher but whatever. Like I said, it’s not really a big deal.>

Whenever you can you need to exercise your influence to try to prevent supervillains from teaming up in the first place. Whenever you’re fighting a villain, make sure not to mention anybody else that you’re fighting. Make them think they’re the only villain in your life. If they don’t know that other villains are out there, they can’t team up with them. Also, supervillains are very jealous and possessive. So if they hear you’re fighting somebody else on the side they’re going to get very upset and seek out the other villain and tell them that you’re a dirty two-timing superhero and then they’ll definitely team up to push your car into a river or something. I’d suggest keeping supervillains isolated from each other when they’re incarcerated as well. If you keep them with regular criminals, at worst they recruit a few new henchmen, but if you keep them locked up with other super villains you’re going to have a Legion of Really Really Mean People situation on your hands. However, this often is not feasible. There are only so many prisons out there that are equipped to hold superpowered criminals. But there are a few! More than one! Which gives us some room to play around here. You should try to work with other superheroes and these prison wardens to group villains together in the same prison that you think would never get along long enough to scheme together. For example, you could probably lock up Dr. Brainwave and Professor Brain Scrambler in the same jail without running into any issues. Because they hate each other. They hate each other so much. Also, police, superheroes, whomever, if you’re looking for wanted criminal Frederick Kaminsky aka Dr. Brainwave, he’s here. He’s in our basement and he won’t leave. I don’t know if that technically makes the rest of us hostages, I’m not like a lawyer [it doesn’t] but please come and pick him up. <Awww you mentioned me, that’s all I wanted. Thanks man!> Seriously, somebody come arrest him.

If you’ve colossally messed up and allowed a vast supervillain conspiracy team up to happen right under your noses then you need to get all hands on deck. Call every superhero you know. Even the the ones you hate. Even the ones who were dead last time you checked, they might be back now. Like I said, you’re already outnumbered so you need to call literally everybody you can think of here. Every noble-hearted magical creature and monster, every sympathetic quasi-deity, aliens that you’ve made alliances with over the years, heck even the members of that book club we had you join. Everybody needs to be on their A-game for this. If not, the villains could well succeed in wiping you all out and taking over the world. And we can’t give them that kind of satisfaction.

Once you’ve got your super army assembled, you need to begin a war on two fronts. Split your group into two teams. One team to actually go and fight the bad guys wherever they might crop up to perform evil deeds. It is unlikely that every villain is going to go everywhere at once, they’ll probably split up and pull off crazy evil schemes. So if you’re part of that team, be prepared for anything. I mean anything. 50-foot tall evil pants. (If your enemies are anything like mine, they have a wicked sense of humor. Trying getting the pants to tell a lie of some sort. I’m willing to bet that it’s rigged to burst into flames if it does. Nobody commits to a bit like a supervillain.) The ground turning into acid beneath your feet. (Pack a jetpack.) A dude with a blackhole in his chest. (Bring a really big cork). Anything.

The other group needs to start a whispering campaign to destabilize this villain alliance. Any team up between supervillains is relatively flimsy and a short term arrangement at best. As soon as the superheroes are all done away with, the villains are going to begin fighting amongst themselves for dominance. So if you can get that process started earlier, before all of the heroes are killed off or turned into monkey jesters, you could cause the alliance to collapse in on itself. You and your allies should start calling up your nemeses (don’t pretend you guys haven’t exchanged contact info at some point. I saw them at your last birthday party!) and ask them what the plan is long term. Ask them if they really want to share power with all these other villains, especially since they’re all highly likely to betray them. If you get enough villains antsy about the whole thing you can cause the entire thing to collapse and then you and your super friend can round up the injured and confused villains following the inevitable civil war.

Of course, not every supervillain team is the result of a large supervillain alliance. Some supervillains simply start out as a team, possibly because none of them on their own are really a threat. These villains have no independent resources to pool so even if they’ve got outlandish ideas, they’re pretty manageable. Here’s a list of a few other types of supervillain teams:

Gangs turned supervillains: These guys were a group of criminals before they got their powers. Unlike other villain teams, they don’t have their eyes set on world domination or the mass extinction of supervillains.

Mirror Universe Counterparts: These guys are just like your superhero team, but from another dimension and evil. To get an idea of what this might look like, take a magic marker to your team picture and draw goatees on everyone.

Cults: Cults are a lot like a regular supervillain organization. The leader is usually the only true supervillain, while the rest of the followers are just henchmen with creepy hoods.

Evil armies: As we’ve mentioned, some countries are unfortunately, led by supervillains. Meaning their armies are technically supervillain armies.

Villain families: This is just a regular family who bond by dropping spider-bombs into preschools or blowing up dams. It’s actually kind of sweet. You know what they say, a family who slays together, stays together.

Hopefully you now have everything you need to combat any supervillain teams that might rise up during your superhero career. Remember, supervillain teams need to be handled and dismantled as quickly as possible. So… heh… I guess don’t waste too much time reading this extra long post. Read this before the supervillains team up! Or have a speed reader read it and summarize! Any way good luck!

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sparky373 · 6 years ago

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My Brexit Post

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584 Over 5 million signatures. Hopefully you've signed it already. If you haven't, hopefully this post will help persuade you.

I've debated with people and shared a lot of posts about brexit but I figured I should actually explain my views.

I believe very strongly that we are better off in the EU than not. I honestly think the best course of action would be to ask the EU for an extension of a long enough time to carry out a Peoples Vote that would hopefully come out with remain as the dominant choice.

The position we are in now is precarious to say the least. We are on the cliff edge of dropping out of the EU without a deal. Some may say that's not a bad thing. I disagree. So let’s go through this point by point:

Trade Pretty much any expert who's looked at it says leaving the EU already has and will cause economic damage. Leaving without a deal would be far worse. Just by leaving we are weakening our position in the world. We will no longer be part of a 600 million strong trading block.

For those who don't understand why this is bad think about Unions. Before they existed labour conditions and pay were much worse than now. Unions prove that banding together in collective bargaining is much more effective that trying to strike deals on your own. The EU together is able to strike much more beneficial deals than individual countries on their own. Following that logic any deal we strike post brexit will not be as good as we had in the EU. Going into negotiations with larger economies like China and the US we will be at a BIG disadvantage and will get far less favourable terms than we currently enjoy.

May's current deal has us leaving the customs union and the single market. Currently we enjoy frictionless, tariff free trade with EU countries. And an exit that takes us out of those adds expensive barriers to trading with our largest import/export partner. Fees that businesses themselves will have to pay. (Hence why a lot of small & Medium businesses are worried about this)

Movement Given there are millions of british people living abroad in the EU. Free movement is something that has benefited UK citizens. Post brexit their future is uncertain.

Ever wanted to retire to Spain or France? We leave the EU and it gets much harder. Seen a job in the EU or been offered one? Prepare to have to go through visa processes that we don't have to at the minute. Want to visit non-EU countries? All our travel agreements are as an EU country so those will have to be redone.

But it works both ways. The UK relies on EU citizens coming over here to work. The NHS? All those jobs you don't want to do or think beneath you? Seasonal workers? propped up by EU citizens. It will be harder and there will be less incentive for them to come over post brexit even ignoring the seemingly rising xenophobia.

Laws People say we don't have control of our laws. We do for the vast majority of things. Parliament forcing amendments through so May had to get approval for the deal rather than negotiating in secret and forcing through something no one agreed with? Our government did that with their sovereignty. Some stuff does come from the EU. For example the EU working hours directive that stops companies making us work over 48 hours a week without our explicit consent. Tell me with a straight face a tory government would have implemented that without being forced to. And even the stuff that comes from the EU we have a say in. We are an EU member. That means we get a seat at the table and we get to vote on and if necessary veto EU legislation Those MEPs we send over. That’s their job. If they’re not doing it (*cough* Farage) it's not the EUs responsibility. It's ours. we vote those people out and replace them with people who will do their job just like with the UK parliament.

Leaving the EU means we'd still have to follow their regulations when trading with them. If we leave but stay in the single market or customs union we still have to follow their regulations. There's just one difference: We'd no longer have a say in making those laws!

What’s the phrase? Oh yh: You've got to be in it to win it.

When Washington D.C. is asking for statehood and complaining about taxation without representation, why are we actively trying to put ourselves in that position?

People seem convinced we'll leave and be able to strike the best possible deal with the EU. The best possible deal? We've already got it. Norway model? Switzerland? Turkey? Canada? WTO? All worse than what we currently enjoy.

Am I saying the EU is this perfect utopia? No Do I think the best option is to stay in the EU, have a say, and change it for the better from within? Hell yes.

More and more people are realising that leaving is not the right thing to do. So why are we still on a course to crash out with no deal?

The referendum There are many reasons Leave took the referendum: Some people have legitimate concerns, some people are racist, others voted not for brexit but as a protest, others because of all the fearmongering and lies. The argument that the country voted for our current situation is patently false. The referendum asked leave or remain (a stupidly simple question for such a complex issue)

It did not ask do you want to leave without a deal? It did not ask do you want to leave regardless of what the deal is?

Some people have legitimate concerns about the EU, fair enough but is it not better to stay and try to fix those issues than leave and cause uncertainty and major economic harm.

Some people, by their own admission on camera, voted leave not because they wanted to leave the EU, but as a protest against the government. They did not vote for Mays deal. They did not vote for no deal.

Some people voted leave because they believed the lies peddled by the leave campaign and the media. Many, when the falsehoods were exposed, said they would have voted differently. They do not want Mays deal. They do not want no deal.

David Cameron did not promise the referendum because he wanted people to have a choice about EU membership. He promised it because he feared losing seats to UKIP. The Tories played party politics with huge generational changes, thinking Leave wouldn’t possibly win, and they lost.

The media splashed the lies all over their pages not because they thought them true but because the wanted to sell papers and rich people didn’t want to be subject to upcoming EU legislation attacking tax havens.

All the big names and CEOs that told you Leaving was the best choice? The vast majority of them are moving overseas to avoid the harm. Funny that.

Let’s take a look at the lies: £350 million a week for the nhs? Lie we can put the money we currently pay into the EU to our own people? So far what’s being promised is less than now. e.g. stronger towns fund. Lie No one’s talking about leaving the single market or the customs union? Lie Brexit will be a breeze with no downsides? Lie We'll be better off on our own? So far it looks to be a lie Britain will still be open for business? Even before we leave we are already losing jobs as companies and organisations move to other EU countries so they can maintain access to that market rather than stay here.

The leave campaigns were fined for their lies A court declared that if the referendum hadn't been advisory it would have been struck down because of the lies So why are we still ploughing ahead?

Demographics If you look at the distribution of votes in the referendum it was overwhelmingly the case that older voters voted to leave while younger people voted to remain. The people that would have to live the longest with the result wanted to stay. While the people who wouldn't have to deal with it for long wanted to leave. If you look at eligible voters a fair amount of the older people have died since the referendum, meanwhile there are a lot of people who were too young to vote then that are now eligible. These are people who are having brexit thrust upon them without having had a say. The demographics have shifted; The vast majority of polls now show that remain would win if the people were asked again. You can understand why younger people think the older generation fucked us over.

ReMOANers There's a common brexiteer argument that remainers are to blame for the current situation. 'They didn’t accept the result and get behind it', 'They're sabotaging brexit'

To them I say: Shut Up

In any other situation if you see someone putting themselves on a course that will harm people you try to stop it. Even if they don't see it as harm. It would be antithetical of me to just let someone walk off a cliff, and people would judge me if I did. So why is this any different?

Ireland The Good Friday Agreement is the treaty that has kept peace in Ireland and stopped 'The Troubles'. The UK government is legally required to uphold it. No-one wants to see it fail. But that's what brexit will cause. Part of the agreement states that there must be regulatory alignment and no hard border. It is literally impossible to leave the EU fully and honour that.

Leave the EU completely, including the customs union and single market? Hard border, regulatory differences. Agreement broken

Have a border in the Irish sea? Divides Great Britain and Northern Ireland potentially causing a breakup of the UK which no one wants and causes a whole heap of issues (after all Scotland voted remain in their independence referendum after being promised by David Cameron that we'd stay in the EU)

Stay in the single market and Customs Unions? People will complain we didn’t leave fully, we still have to follow laws & regs but have no say in them

Stay in the EU? Agreement intact, best possible deal.

There's a reason why Ireland and the backstop have been and continue to be such a difficult topic. Because it is next to impossible to reconcile leaving the EU and keeping the Good Friday Agreement intact.

Membership fees People cite the fees we pay, as reason for leaving. They think we pay in more than they pay back. And yet those same people don’t say the same about spotify, netflix, internet, TV,... Because people recognise that there are more benefits to a membership than how much investment you get. The access to trade partners, the say in law-making. The economic and political benefits we get from being in the EU are massive and if anything are more than worth the fees we pay.

Theresa May Right now Theresa May is being a gigantic hypocrite. The (non-binding advisory) referendum? once in a lifetime, the people have spoken, brexit is the will of the people and must be carried out no matter what

Her defeated deal? Brought back to parliament as many times as she can get away with until MPs vote her way. Holding the country hostage against the cliff edge of no deal. Spewing hate that is getting MPs who don't agree with her assaulted in the streets

It is not undemocratic to ask people if they've changed their mind, especially when circumstances have changed. If anything it is supremely democratic.

The people voted to leave? They voted based on lies. They did not vote for Mays deal, they did not vote for no deal so how is it wrong to go back to the country and ask if they're ok with what has been negotiated or if they want to do something else?

In fact given people had so many different views of what brexit would be, none of the options for leaving commanded a majority.

The people want you to get on with brexit? Data says they don't.

If nothing else revoking Article 50 gives us time to work things out without the cloud of uncertainty and damage hanging over us. In a situation such as this is it not better to stay in a position of safety and keep the status quo, rather than jumping off a cliff and hoping there's a land of mattresses at the bottom?

Brexit was never going to be a good thing, the people telling you it would be lied to you. It's not a bad thing to admit you were wrong or that you fell for their fantasy. What is bad is refusing to admit when you're wrong to the detriment of yourself and everyone else .

The deal that we have at the moment ceases to exist if we leave. If we get out and then decide we made a mistake and want back in, then that deal no longer exists. We go back in as a normal member. No rebate, no opt-outs, none of the extras that we have now.

Hopefully these arguments will have helped you realise that we're better off in the EU and we should revoke Article 50

If not, then I don't know what to say and I doubt anything will change your mind.

Sometimes when something goes wrong in a plane, a fighter pilot refuses to eject thinking they can fix the issue. Right until they hit the ground. Don't be that pilot.

For those of you that have, I'll link to the petition again. Given Theresa May's stubborn refusal to even entertain the idea of a People's Vote, this may be our only chance at saving the country we all love.

For those who don't want to leave but don't think signing will do anything, even if it doesn't work at least you can look yourself in the eye and say you didn't stand idly by while the country went to shit.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584

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jessefferguson · 6 years ago

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My Double Life: 5 Years And Going

It’s been a LONG TIME since I wrote one of these, so I figured now was as good a point as any.

Words, spoken out loud, are funny. They can mean very different things.

Try this one:

I am still here.

and

I am still here.

Both of those are the best summary I can think of for how I feel today since today, May 21, is the 5th anniversary of when I was diagnosed with cancer. Five years ago, I sat in a sweltering doctors office in Washington, D.C. as he told me the results of my first biopsy. Five years later, I still have it.

After 5 years, I have two conflicting emotions: I’m still here (thank God) and I’m still (only) here. Five years later, not much has really changed but, also, everything has.

Over the 5 years, I’ve sort of lived a double life – that of a cancer patient and that of a political operative. Sometimes they overlap but, more often than not, they’re separate worlds.

By my best count, over the 5 years, I’ve had 4 surgeries, 33 days of radiation, upwards of 60 rounds of either chemotherapy or targeted therapy, about 75 blood tests, and 150 doctors’ appointments. And over the same 5 years, I’ve worked on 191 television ads, 311 polls, thousands of press releases and speeches, spent over $100 million (of other people’s money), and sent over 40,000 of my own tweets.

I continue to believe the same thing I did – and wrote about - 5 years ago, there are three keys to getting through this sort of thing: (1) Your family and friends; (2) Doctors who are the best; (3) Doing something with your time that you love to do. Even on the worst days of work, the fact that I was doing the work I wanted to do made it that much more possible to fight a disease I did not want to deal with.

WHAT’S THE LATEST WITH ME

I’m living and working from Brooklyn, still. I decided to stay here after the Clinton campaign ended rather than move back to D.C. for a bunch of reasons – closer to my doctors at Sloan Kettering and further from Trump at the WH. Both sounded like good ideas.

For just under a year, I’ve been on a clinical trail and it’s getting some pretty good results. It’s a targeted therapy drug and I’m one of the first to apply it to my unique disease. It’s unlikely to result in me being “cured” or “cancer free” but it’s definitely shrunk the disease in my skin tissue and throughout my head, neck and chest. It’s also brought down the swelling. The swelling issues are far from gone, but they’re better. The best case is that it continues shrinking things; the next best case is it stops anything from getting worse again. Either way, it’s turned my condition to a chronic one, for now. I’ll take it.

Every three weeks I do the same routine. I book a someone to come clean my house for that morning and I take a car down to Sloan Kettering. I take a blood test. The doctor and I talk about medical stuff for a few minutes and politics for a few minutes and then he sends me for treatment. He’s not from America and has a healthy interest in all the crazy things in our politics.

It takes them about 2 hours to prepare the drug, so I have found a corner in the hospital that is usually empty for work — open the laptop, put on the head set and get to work. It’s my own cancer-center-based mobile-office. I have edited TV scripts and polls, held conference calls, did a radio interview and even convinced a donor to contribute – all from a table in a hospital waiting room. Last week’s discussion was about the placement of a media buy. It’s amazing what you can pull of when people don’t really know where you are.

The drug I’m on is an easy one – targeted therapy. It’s like a smart bomb of chemo that only goes to the cells that have the disease. The worst part is the IV, which I barely notice anymore and after 30 minutes, I’m out. On the road home to a clean house with the mild side effect of an uneasy stomach for a few days. Compared to the other drugs I’ve been on, this is like a piece of cake took a walk in a park.

How long will I stay on it? No clue. But it has made this condition chronic. If you offered me a deal today — get this treatment every 3 weeks for 30 minutes and the disease stays under control, I’d sign in a minute. I’d sign it for the next 10 years. For now, I’ll stay on it unless or until it stops working – then I’ll try something else.

WHAT HAPPENED SINCE 2016

As you may remember from my last blog post, just before election 2016, I had spent the previous 6 months working while dealing with the return of my disease.

On election night 2016, I did venture out. It wasn’t something I did often but I wanted to be with the team that night at the Javits Center in Manhattan. I could, now, try to pretend that I had doubts about the outcome of that night to try to make myself look extra smart, but that would be bullshit. I didn’t; I thought we’d win.

The beginning of that afternoon and evening were great. We were monitoring voting and doing the work we needed to do and I was also seeing some good friends who I had been away from while I worked the last few months from home.

Then, the results started and the mood changed. My heart started to sink, but I kept hoping. Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and others poured in. We knew we needed to hold Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to make it work.

While we waited for those results, I got up to go to the bathroom. As I stood at the urinal, a friend who had better sense for numbers and data than I do, approached the stall next to me. We looked at each other with the same forlorn look of despair as if our confidence was waning. He said “I just looked at the latest data from Michigan; it’s gone.” And with that, I found out we had lost in a way befitting the occasion -- standing at a urinal.

Whether you believe we lost because of a mission from Russia or a miss in Michigan, or any other reason, one thing was clear: we lost the electoral college. It was over. And while I stared at my peers and colleagues – friends who had hired me and friends who I had hired – I couldn’t stop thinking, “What’s next?”

Despite what you might see or hear, the group who I worked with on that campaign were some of the smartest, most talented and most committed people I’ve ever had the privilege to work with. As I stared at all of them, I wonder what was next for them. As I thought about it more, I worried what was next for me.

At one point, I wandered away and ended up sitting in the middle of the massive loading dock in the Javits Center with 4 senior staff from the campaign. There where shipping boxes, fork lifts, and one table with a few plastic chairs in the middle. We all just kind of stared at each other. Someone would say something about what we should do or what we should say and we’d all agree but, for the life of me, I couldn’t tell you today what anyone said.

As the night ended, I was one of the last ones to leave. I’m not really sure why, I just couldn’t. I kept finding someone else to talk to. I was trying to be a bit of team cheerleader – as best as was possible at that moment.

At around 4:30am that night, I left the Javits center along side two reporters I had gotten to know. We walked for a bit and then they got into cabs and drove off. I just started walking. And walking. I was thinking about what had happened and what it meant for the country. And, if I’m honest, what it meant for me. I had cancer and had just devoted two years of my life to trying to win the presidency – and had failed. I just kept thinking, maybe even crying a bit, and walking.

When I looked up, it was 6 am and the sun was rising. I had walked from the Javits Center at 36th street down almost to the World Trade Center. Much like I did while wandering around the streets of Washington on May 21, 2013, I had done lots of thinking. But now it was November 9, 2016, and it was time to go back to work. I took a cab home, slept for a few hours, and opened my laptop.

WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING SINCE

Since the campaign ended in 2016, I’ve been “consulting.” I’m still not sure what “consulting” means but it’s what I’m doing. I’m working on my own for a variety of political projects on a variety of important issues, trying to lend my experience to things where I think I can do something interesting and make a difference in the insane moment we’re in right now.

My work has ranged from the fight over the tax plan and some new digital campaign innovations, to a new polling project and an advertising campaign and others. It’s all kept me busy and kept my mind going – in the fight and doing what I love to do. The work is good cause it’s meaningful, it’s the work I want to be doing, and the variety of projects appeals to my attention-span-of-a-fruit-fly-nature.

It’s also allowed me to speak up a bit more about what I think, which has been quite a change. For the last 15+ years, I’ve always represented someone else – the DCCC Chairman, Secretary Clinton, etc. Now I’m speaking more and writing more in my own voice.

I still feel somewhat like a hermit. I live and work in my Brooklyn apartment. I get out more now than I used to, but, nothing like I did when I was healthy. When you’ve been dealing with this as long as I have, you start to lose track of what looking, feeling and being normal would be like. I get to the deli almost every morning and they know to make my eggs and have my iced coffee ready. Others around know me too. Life is easy and that’s important for me right now. One of these days, I’ll be up for making it harder again – but not yet.

THE HEALTH CARE ISSUE

The first project I took on was to help some friends with the coalition fighting the Obamacare repeal legislation. It’s been a hard-waged battle over the last 16 months to improve health care for people instead of letting it get dismantled.

But it’s also been the first time my double lives overlapped a bit. When the Affordable Care Act passed Congress, I was at my office near capitol hill, celebrating with everyone else. But it didn’t really mean anything to me. It was a good thing, but it wasn’t personal.

Seven years later, when repeal of it failed – repeal that would undercut protections for people with pre-existing conditions like I have – it was a very different moment. In fact, when the first repeal plan was pulled from the House floor, I was actually sitting at Sloan Kettering getting my chemo. I was on the phone talking with someone working with me while in the hospital room getting treated as a news alert came across my computer screen.

I don’t often invoke my own personal health care situation while working on the issue because it shouldn’t be about me. I’m fortunate and would be able to get the care I needed if I had to. But sitting there at age 37, with an IV bag dripping a toxic chemical designed to keep me alive into my arm, I certainly had a different perspective than I had 8 years earlier as an otherwise-healthy, overweight 29 year old who saw passage of the ACA as a good reason to go to the bar and celebrate.

FIVE YEARS AND COUNTING

Once and a while I think about what I could be doing if I was fully healthy. I get sad. Maybe I get mad. As I approach 38 years old at the end of this year, more and more of my friends are having their first or second child and I’m forced to think if my life would be different if I hadn’t gotten this diagnosis five years ago. For sure, it would be. But, in the end, you play the cards your dealt and make damn well sure it’s a game you enjoy. You could win big or you could lose your shirt, but either outcome has to be worth it.

Five years ago I was diagnosed with a disease that probably should have killed me. Five years later, I’m still here. When I put it that way, it actually brings a smile to my face. I know talking about having cancer isn’t something that normally is joyful but being able to do what I love while living with the disease sure beats the alternative.

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inkfic · 6 years ago

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Please look below for the full text of the Mistress of Flame’s letter to Windblade.

My dearest daughter,

I suppose it is time to give you the explanation you so clearly crave—not just the explanation for why I have indulged all but the worst of your brother’s excesses, but even the explanation for just how you came to be and the power you possess. Fear not, my child, you are not a product of prophecy, but you were marked by Solus to be hers from birth.

It is difficult to be a ruler and a parent. There are matters that will eat into your time with your children, no matter how pure or determined your intentions, and as a royal child, as you well know, there are expectations of behavior that are unfair for anyone else. I have striven to embrace both roles to the best of my ability, but there are times when I have come up short, especially with you. Firstborn children are often the ‘experimental’ children; there are things I learned with you so that I could be a better parent to Hot Shot and Lightbright. It is not fair to you, but there are not training classes for parenthood, especially royal parenthood. I barely saw my mother all through my growing years, and I was determined to be more of a presence in my children’s. In that, I succeeded, but for all of my intentions, I have hurt you with some of my choices and decisions, and while I cannot expect forgiveness for that, I do hope for understanding.

You were born on the spring equinox, and for the first time in a century, there was a solar eclipse just as you came into the world. Solar eclipses, as you know, are sacred to Solus, and so there was already gossip that Solus had marked you to be special in some way. The fact that you were born with the Forge’s Mark only fanned those flames. I too had been born with the mark, as had my mother, and so on through our mother’s line. Because we are the only ones that have such a tradition, naturally the assumption is that the Mark means that Solus has chosen the next Leader of Flame, but in raising you and your siblings I have to the conclusion that it means she has marked you to rule, not necessarily just Caminus.

You see, Lightbright was born with the Forge’s Mark as well, and she will be my successor.

Your father loved you deeply. He had come from the artist’s guild as the Court Glassmaker, and my mother had decided to make an alliance with the guilds by arranging our marriage. I liked him well enough, and he me, but we were not in love. He spent most of his days making glass and working with the Temple to create more and more beautiful things to highlight the glory of Solus while I learned how to rule at my mother’s elbow. I ascended the Throne of Flame when you were but two, and your father was only my consort, but he preferred it that way. It meant he could spend time with you and his glass and be content.

Then, when you were four, the First Seer came to us with a vision. You would be a great ruler, but not here, and you would leave behind a legacy of Solus that some would think that she had come again in you. At first, we were thrilled and flattered, but as the civil war in Cybertron began to get bloodier and Carcer grew more aggressive, your father grew more and more concerned for your future. Neither land was appealing to marry you to (since at the time those were the only ones we would have considered), and if you were to rule another country, we would need to have another child, and Solus was not helping us conceive.

Finally, the tension grew too much and your father snapped. Working with some of the rogue witches that had been drummed from the Temple for blasphemy, he attempted to enact a ritual that would have stripped you of all magic in an effort to change your fate. He wanted to protect you, my darling. He wanted you to be safe and happy. Solus stepped forth and stopped him, but for the ritual to succeed, you needed to be present, and so you had to watch your father die.

I am so, so sorry for that.

I married your step-father not long after that—we had been friends and I liked him, and he was good with you. You needed to have a father, and I needed another child to rule after me if the First Seer was correct, and so it made the most logical sense. You had changed since your father’s death—you had been bubbly and extroverted with everyone you met, and it often amused me to see how easily you could charm the most stodgy of our courtiers simply by playing with your dolls and asking to meet every animal you came across, but your father’s death left noticeable traces. You were quieter and more reserved, and you preferred to stay to the places that you knew. It broke my heart, but that was also a season of Carcerian aggression, and so your needs were pushed aside for the country’s.

When I became pregnant with Hot Shot, I was forced to slow down. Unlike my pregnancy with you, his carrying was a misery and I couldn’t understand why. I was in good health, I ate good food with regularity (5 small meals instead of 3 large ones and a tea ceremony), and I walked and exercised. It was one of the most beautiful summers I could remember, but I was forced to spend most of it in bed for my confinement. You were my solace during that time. With your games and animal friends, I was entertained, and having me to yourself brought back some of the playfulness I feared you had lost forever. You were in the room when I began labor, and it went so badly that my midwives and nurses quite forgot you were there.

When it seemed that Hot Shot would be stillborn, you pushed your way between the anxious, panicking attendants and laid your hands on my belly. ‘Don’t be scared, Mama,’ you told me, and then there was a jolt. Hot Shot exited easily and though he was sickly, he was alive enough to wail his anger at the injustice of a cold world.

But what I later discovered when I had ordered his star-charts was that he had indeed been fated to die, and that death would stalk him his entire life. He is to die before his twenty-sixth birthday. He has been so much sicker than you and Lightbright--I know Lightbright got the red pox when she was only a babe, but her fire magic ensured both her survival and the fact that she did not become pockmarked and scarred. Hot Shot frequently suffered the shits, he barely managed to survive nervous fever, and if he became sick with grippe or ague, it would almost certainly turn into lung sickness. While he was younger, I did my best to keep him separated from anything that might turn into an illness, and this meant I often had to keep him from you, since even by then you had a tendency to haunt healing halls in an effort to be useful.

I do not know where his resentment sprang from. I wish I did. I wish I could have spotted it from the very beginning so I could have crushed it. It has caused the both of you--yes, the both of you--so much pain over the years. At some point, he got it into his head that you and I both thought you far better than him, and he resented us for it. Maybe because he was so much more ‘troublesome’ as a child, or perhaps because his medical needs delayed his magical development to such an extent that he never developed the power that the rest of us had. Perhaps he even thought you had more independence than he did. That would be true, but not for reasons you or he could control.

I allowed his marriage to Thunderblast to stand because I knew he would never have the opportunities you and Lightbright did, and because I felt he deserved happiness before his inevitable death. I wish he had chosen a more brilliant, more compassionate partner, but certain events have caused me to reconsider Thunderblast’s character. She is braver than I thought she was.

He has done too much ill to you for me to ask you to forgive him, but I hope--in light of these revelations--that you can consider it.

There are several reasons why I chose not to agree to the betrothal with Elita, and I hope you will understand after I tell you what they were. You see, my negotiations with Elita for the signing of the treaty took place at a very particular time--you had completed your training in the Temple three years prior but you were still working with it and visiting all corners of Caminus as part of the immediate disaster relief group, and Elita had just taken power after an incredibly bloody coup. Carcer does not have a line of inheritance established the way we do; instead, in the very heart of Vigilem, a poll is taken of one of their most sacred artifacts. Then, the result is contested. Violently. Elita was the survivor of that contestation, and she was determined--is determined--to make Carcer far more stable, politically.

To showcase that, she made the overtures for a treaty. The Northern Reach was to deemed ours without any question, an advancement against years worth of incursion, and that any Carcerians attacking Caminus through the Northern Reach would be deemed traitors. It was not a popular declaration on her side, but it opened the opportunity for peace talks.

That whole spring and summer, you were away, dealing with wildfires and disease outbreaks in the West, and I made all of the negotiations. Around the end of July and early August of that year, we had created a treaty that was fairly benign to Caminus and strides ahead to Carcer. I was confident it could be upheld, unlike previous treaties, because it asked for so little. I was preparing to send Lord Afterburner to act as my representative, but Elita demanded a royal person to be there and sign the treaty in Carcer. It was not an unusual request, but you hadn’t returned yet and I didn’t want to remove you from such a vital mission. I explained my request for a delay, and in the meantime, her representative--Lord Obsidian--began to go over the treaty with a fine-toothed comb, and he started finding little discrepancies and other issues of semantics. Those issues persisted even after you returned, until Lord Obsidian finally declared that the treaty was fine in late September.

I had suspected they were stalling, but I was unsure why. I had intended to send Lord Afterburner with you--he was the only diplomat with both military experience and Carcer experience--but his wife was having trouble with their third child and ultimately miscarried. In good conscience, I could not separate him from her at that time. In hindsight, I wish I had. It might have saved you from heartbreak.

We heard about the assassination attempt two weeks after it happened. That whole time, I was informed, you had been in Elita’s custody and she was keeping you safe, personally. I went about sending a contingent of our guards to keep you safe on your return, but the messenger hastened to tell me that Elita had requested that you stay until the group that had attempted the assassination was brought to justice, or what counted as justice to Carcer. You would be more vulnerable on the road because of the geography of the mountains, not just to potential attackers but to winter storms, and so, despite my unease, I allowed it.

I regret that now.

I believe Elita either arranged for that attempt or took advantage of it to delay your stay until the mountain passes closed. That whole winter, I heard nothing from you, and my worry grew by the day. I attempted to call you with magic, through mirrors and flame, but my attempts never got through. Still, I reasoned, the distance and Elita’s protection spells could prevent that. Her caution was legendary by that point.

When the mountain passes cleared, Elita’s first request to me was not about your departure, but rather if she could keep you--as the consort to the Liege General. I know that consorts in Caminus have very little status, but her missive (written in her own hand), promised that you would have a certain amount of power and security. If your betrothal could be included in the treaty, she said, she might be able to talk her nobles into giving us better treatment. There was just a catch--as a dowry, she wanted the Northern Reach. It had long been contested ground, and the people there were a mix of Carcerian and Camien anyway. It would be easier for Carcer to hold, and any Camiens who lived there or wanted to would be granted Carcerian citizenship.

I was appalled. The protection of the Northern Reach had been the entire point of the treaty, and now she was asking me to essentially give it away. Marriage arrangements can take years, for good reason. For her to spirit you off and then demand your hand in marriage without letting you come home was troubling and it made me angry. Still, I was cautious. By that point I had been on the throne long enough to not react on my first impulse. Then I received your letter.

You told me how much you loved her and that she had promised you two could be married and how much you were looking forward to it. Elita had allowed you to work on the filtration system for the city of Vigilem, and since you had fixed it, like you had here so long ago, deaths from rice water fever and nervous fever had gone down to nearly nothing. Elita had promised that Carcer was an entire country of projects like that, and how desperately you wanted to marry her.

Your love for her would have touched my heart, except now I saw Elita’s gambit for what it was. She had manipulated circumstances to keep you nearby, and then she had worked to make you fall in love with her. I do not know if she felt the same. Maybe she did. It did not remove the manipulation.

So I refused. Somehow that refusal took two months to get to her, and then it took another month for it to take effect. In the denial of her offer, she took the treaty off the table entirely and sent you home. You were heartbroken and despondent, like when your father had died, and for a while I grieved with you and wondered if I had made the right decision. Somehow you, more than your siblings, always bore the cost of my decisions.

Then you finally told me about it, on the eve of your departure to Eukaris, and one tiny detail confirmed that I had done the right thing. You told me that Elita loved raspberry leaf tea and served it whenever the two of you were together, to the point that you were drinking it constantly. I knew you two had been lovers, and this reveal chilled me.

I’m not certain if you ever realized it, but Elita had been trying to get you pregnant. If she had, the marriage would have been forced to go through. Somehow you didn’t get pregnant, and I think that the Mother Superior had given you a discreet contraception charm before you left. If she had not, then your life may have been very different.

I’m sorry for your heartbreak, truly. But I do not think a marriage with her would have been happy. You have been through a great deal, and so the one thing I feel you deserve is a happy marriage. It may seem odd that I would choose Starscream of all people to give you that happy marriage, but several factors were in play.

First, you were attracted to him. I will be the first to tell you that attraction alone does not make a marriage, but it helps. From what I saw--how you tended to his needs and served him at dinner--and from what I heard from others (the Mother Superior noted how easily you reached out to touch him in comfort when he was upset), I knew that you were attracted to him. Some people, like your siblings, show their attraction in typical ways, such as being tongue-tied or easily embarrassed in front of those they’re attracted. You, dear heart, show it by caring for them. Many, many times over the past few months you have shown your care for him, whether it was stitching up a cut on his forehead and falling asleep with him or tending to him in the aftermath of an internal attack. Yes, I know about those!

Second, you two work well together. I heard about your tour of the greenhouses, and he--in his own strange way--is protective of you. He was very clear about his desire to keep you out of the loop of the negotiations, not out of disrespect (which is what I initially thought), but rather, so that he could win you over on his own. I’m not certain if he’s capable of such a courtship, and Afterburner thinks he is not, but I can admire the impulse.

Third, he understands where you come from when you make decisions. I believe you are more cautious than him, which makes sense. Impulsive diplomats do not last long, and your training made it clear that rushed work is sloppy and frequently has to be redone. Better to play the slow game and do it right. He would not be someone who sends you to negotiate and then publicly goes against anything you worked out. I am not sure that you understand him, entirely, but the tragedy of war would warp the brightest minds, and you do not have that experience to fully navigate it. Tread carefully, is all I would say to that.

I do have my concerns. No partnership heading into marriage is going to be perfect, and there is always the risk that marriage will bring out the worst in you both. For what it’s worth, I think you guard yourself scrupulously enough that you would recognize if he’s influencing you badly.

He has a temper. He is not shy about showing it, but I wonder if his history with Megatron and the rest of the war taught him about when using your temper helps versus hurts. I know you are uncomfortable with displays of anger, even your own, but you must remember that not all anger means something. You two will have to negotiate safe ways for you both to display anger without it being taken as a challenge or a threat by the other. I would recommend that you find a way to control his violent impulses. I would not normally go for such spells, but he might give in to the impulse and regret it later, because his prior training informed him that was how he stayed alive but is not helpful now. Blood is helpful in that regard.

Remember, too, that good conquerors rarely make good kings. Starscream, according to our Intelligence, was not a conqueror as Megatron was. He was an excellent commander, if too brutal and ruthless for our taste, but he never--apparently--had the same taste to take the way Megatron did. He was also the first one to take the brunt of Megatron’s anger when something did not go as intended. Our Intelligence reports were very clear on that. I will see if my Intelligence chief will consent to declassifying some of that reporting to get you a copy. It may help fill in the outline he has created for himself.

He will need you to show him what civilization looks like. I have it on good authority that Cybertron is still relying on law drafted in times of war as the primary source of law, and while that was acceptable, his betrothal to you is a marker to the rest of the world that he intends to end the detente between his people and the remaining Autobot faction. The first thing he should do is invest in creating a new law system, one with explicitly stated rights for his people. Just because Iacon is a thinly-veiled monarchy does not mean that rulers and nobles can do anything they like. That was what got Cybertron in trouble in the first place--as did that ridiculous democracy system the secular Primes created. It is better to raise someone to rule than vote someone into power who has no experience or education in what it takes to truly lead a country.

I do not mean to preach at you, dear heart. But you need to remember that despite the revoking of your secular citizenship--you will always be a princess but no longer have the legal protections of your rank--you will always be a living symbol of Caminus in Cybertron. Your behavior and your choices will always reflect on us, and so you must live up to that symbolism. You must be beyond reproach. No longer can you indulge in excessive drinking, wild or loose behavior, or gambling. Whatever charities you choose to patronize must be transparent in their goals and methodology. Whatever you choose to partake in will reflect on you and thus on Caminus. Act for our welfare when you can. You are a diplomat on permanent assignment there.

Your behavior will also reflect on your husband. Many a ruler have been moral failures, but because their spouse was morally upright, a bit of that was borrowed by them. If Starscream behaves badly, your correct behavior will soothe anxious watchers that Starscream is not that bad. It creates stability in the court.

Be wary of the people you accept in your circle. As a married lady, do not spend time with unmarried peoples in a social context without married chaperones. Do not pass clandestine letters or anything that could be construed as flirtation. Dress appropriately. It may be time to retire your hakama.

Be as apolitical as you can. Starscream can be political, and should be, but his people chose him to rule them. They expect politics from him. They did not choose you. Do not offend their political sensibilities. Whatever work you take on, be sure it benefits all. Food production, medicine, communal gardening--none of these are things that could be seen as political. Do not engage with law enforcement, the courts, or the writing of laws. At best, you will be seen as an interloper. At worst, you will be seen as a schemer who manipulates Starscream and the court to her choosing.

When you have children, be as involved with them as you can. No one would fault a mother, and their childhood goes by too quickly. When they are old enough, take them to Caminus. They should know their heritage.

The other aspect of your role as Starscream’s Lady is that you will be his hostess. Once Iacon is no longer on the edge of starvation and famine, you will entertain, and often. These occasions are excellent ways to shore up alliances and turn potential foes to your advantage, and so you must plan and prepare them accordingly. Try to find a steward who has experience in creating such events. You cannot be expected to do everything--the servants will resent you if you do--and so you must have a trusted executor. I have already begun to look for them to create recommendations for you in time, but if you could find a Cybertronian steward, that would be best.

Maintain our Camien traditions as best you can. No matter what you do, you will always be seen as a foreigner, and though you may be tempted to do your best to assimilate, the people will see your difference as clear as your tattoos, and so there is nothing to be gained by abandoning your traditions. Raise your children to speak our tongue and read it, and teach them the rites of Solus. You are our representative. Maintain what you can.

Please forgive your sister. She thought she was acting in your interest, and it has hurt her deeply that you did not believe her. The longer you maintain your silence against her, the more it will take to repair the relationship, and you cannot afford to ostracize her forever.

Your loving mother

#frozen heart saga

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