#one of the smaller details in particular in act 5 made me go wow not a single original experience but

[yrlocalghost]

i finished isat

[drumpfwatch]

The Cohen Commentary

Last week, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen testified in front of congress three times. Once in public, twice behind closed doors. I’m shocked and surprised by the revelations we got, both pleased and displeased. So let’s go over in detail what happened.

First, full disclosure. My ADD made it very hard for me to sit through and focus on all seven hours of the public testimony. I tried, I really did, but at the end of the day I just couldn’t watch the whole thing with full attention and take notes like I did for the state of the union. That said, I did watch segments of it, had it playing in the background and popped in when things looked interesting, and watched a lot of the commentaries on it.

Second, I’d like to address Cohen himself briefly. I remember talking to my mom, where she said when she heard Cohen call Trump a “racist, liar and scum” that she couldn’t help but think of that “I know you are but what am I?” thing. The idea is that Cohen is a scumbag and of course, she’s right. He’s a lawyer, of course he’s evil. But I don’t think that entirely invalidates everything he says, especially when he presents further evidence for it, as we’ll see.

So the event begins with much pomp and circumstance and Cohen giving us his best “dun Dun DUUUUUUUN!” by revealing that Individual #1 in his arrest filing was none other than...DONALD TRUMP! Who’da fuckin’ guessed it! The details were so inconspicuous, who else launched an “ultimately successful run for the Presidency” in 2016! Shock and horror!

From there, the questioning begins, and let me just say it’s clear who’s actually interested in dealing with this. The democrats came off as professional, coordinated, and targeted. While the actual structure was stupid - 5 minutes for each representative to ask whatever questions they wanted and then they had to move on to the next representative, just when things were getting good - the coordination of the democrats served to counter that a little and they covered a lot of topics.

The republicans, meanwhile, mind as well have come out of a clown car with dunce caps on their head, because they only asked stupid, obvious questions. I think my favorite was asked by senator from Tennessee who asked if Cohen was just coming to this hearing for TV attention. When Cohen politely pointed out that he’s been on the TV since 2012 as part of Trump’s entourage, all he could do was play stupid. It didn’t work.

So yeah. That was funny.

I think we can take away three big things from the Cohen testimony. There are many more smaller things to be aware of, but these are the ones that I think are the most worth looking into.

The first is that we can say, without any doubt whatsoever, our President is guilty of financial crimes. Garden variety inflation and deflation of values, and of course misrepresenting the purposes of various funds. While this should come as a surprise to nobody that he’s done it in the past (we have plenty of exposes in that regard) this should be pretty damn shocking that he was doing this while working to become, and later acting as, the president. Cohen gave us solid physical evidence for this in the form of the checks he received to pay him back for buying Stormy Daniels’ silence.

It doesn’t matter if Trump “really” had an affair with Stormy Daniels. It doesn’t matter that he’s such a misogynistic pig that the idea of this is not all that surprising. Technically, it doesn’t even matter if Michael Cohen actually bought the rights to her story, under orders by Trump or not. That’s what the check was cut for, and that’s not how it’s recorded in the public logs of the Trump Organization.

That alone is enough for us to be concerned. Our president is committing illegal financial acts as President of the United States. This requires intervention or impeachment.

Thing the second was Russia, and what we learned was...interesting? It wasn’t the smoking gun for Trump “collusion” I was personally hoping for, but we now have more or less hard confirmation that The Trumby knew about it as it was being planned. Cohen testified that Trump was getting phone calls that the emails would be released before they were released. There’s no evidence to suggest he knew who was involved and how, and even some to suggest that he actually wasn’t - he’s described as being surprised by the news, which he wouldn’t be if he was working inside the scheme. So who knows. I’m still on the fence on how deeply Trump himself was involved with the network, but there is no doubt that his minions were masterminding this scheme.

Thing 2.5 is, of course, the Trump Tower Russia Meetings. I won’t spend much time on this, but we more or less got confirmation that Cohen was lying and so was everyone else involved in that stupidity. I will say that often times, little lies like these are gigantic flashing strobe lights pointing towards where actually bad things did happen, so the more we look into this, the better.

The final thing, and what I think is the most important one, is Trump asked Cohen to lie. Not directly, but in the way a mob boss does. I remember watching that particular part of it and thinking “Wow that’s some Godfather shit.” Cohen basically described it as “Trump doesn’t tell you ‘Don’t Lie,’ he’ll be at a meeting with the Russians about Trump Tower and he’ll say ‘There is no Russia Deal, right?’”

Which is just perfect. Like a Mob Boss going “I don’t like Mr. Jones, he keeps getting me in trouble. It would be very convenient if he were to have a most unfortunate accident” to his subordinates. Which, by the way, is recognized. Argue all you want that he never said “Lie to Congress!” that’s what those words mean, the intent behind them. There’s no reason to look a man dead in the eye and tell him “We’re not doing a thing” when you’re in the middle of doing a thing, especially if a day later the guy is supposed to go to testify to congress about whether or not you are doing the thing.

There’s no technical wiggle room here. Trump was very clear - Cohen needed to lie, and Cohen lied. How much Cohen’s own maliciousness was caught up in it is neither here nor there. Trump ordered him to lie to Congress for the sake of the congressional hearing not finding out about the Trump Tower Moscow deal. That’s obstruction of justice. I’m shocked Trump isn’t in the slammer right now, but I’m not surprised. We only have the testimony of Michael Cohen to show this, at least to the public, and that’s not enough, because Cohen has lied before.

And that brings me back to the Republican incompetence. The Republicans made arguments here and there about how this was a waste of time, about how Congress should be doing other, more important things, about how this was all calculated for attention, whatever. But the chief argument they had here was “Michael Cohen is a known liar. He’s lied to Congress before and is probably doing it again so why should we care?”

Think about that for a second. The best argument the Republicans had to dismiss anything - and everything - Michael Cohen said and presented, including this damning checks, was “Well he’s a dirty dirty lair so why should we listen to him?!”

Because at least with those checks it doesn’t matter what Cohen said. What matters is that he has the physical proof of it. If that checks and financial reports he submitted turn out to be not counterfeit, Trump is guilty of financial crimes that would put anyone else in Jail.

Cohen named a lot of names. The committee has said they’ll be going after them next. Wonder what titanic myths that squeeze out of Allen Weisselberg?

[unproduciblesmackdown]

primes And multiples of 8

oh Thank You this sure turned out to be a bunch of questions lol, what else is better for keeping occupied on go stupid sunday

2: Favorite book?

lbh i don’t have one 

3: Favorite fictional character?

oh god lmao i mean again when it comes to Favorite ___ i have no *real* answers but atm i keep just sitting here staring at the quant don’t i

5: What’s your favorite fictional ship? (Canon or otherwise)

even with the “i don’t have Favorite anything” factor even this is always like. my ass doesn’t know how to Not like, think up a good half dozen or more potential relationships or whatever and decide they’re all fun……im rarely like “wow even narrowed down to this one particular Media i live and die by this otp within it”…….boring answer but really like even if this was applied Just to some particular work where i’m [staring at a Fave] or whatever i still dunno if there’s anything where i’m not #about [multiple possible Relationships]

7: List 3 negative traits you have

ooh fantastic. let’s lump “Too: passive / avoidant / nonconfrontational” into one, rest in pieces u_u. #2 im a lil temperamental lmao like, bit too much sometimes. #3 despite number one there i also don’t have a world of restraint lmfao which is just like. how i be but can certainly be a downside sometimes

8: How does someone become important to you?

idk i virtually always meet ppl via Mutual Interest……my social sphere is mainly “friendly acquaintances” or whatever where it’s like i may or may not have talked to most of them in the past >[0.5 years]………just a process really of “we Keep Interacting” and “we like each other” lmao like. it’s both very not difficult and also. difficult lol

11: How do you decide when it’s time to cut someone out of your life for good?

uhh not like there’s a strict analytical methodology here but i guess it’s like “hmm this person makes me p miserable / i do not even actually like having them in my life” lmao

13: What are your favorite lyrics currently?

ooh the “currently” Might make a Favorite question easier but i don’t even have Favorite Lyrics Currently lmao. it’s lucky if i’m even paying attention well enough to stuff to absorb the lyrics the first like dozen times i listen to a song and also i’m rarely like “oo Resonant” when it comes to lyrics anyway?? does it count if more than survive gets stuck in my head….even then it’s like. i always like the “of all the characters at school i am not the one who the story’s about” while Blatantly Being The Protagonist lmao b/c like…..idk i never like story structures where the protagonist is just like clearly kinda elevated like Obviously The Hero B/c They’re Better Than Everyone Around Them or something like more important / deserving than other people and i definitely find it harder to care about / connect with Protagonists / ~main characters~ who are treated like that. and obviously bmc is really not about that either lmao i appreciate that a lot

16: What is something you really want?

i think we can all agree our lives could be improved with money. also….in these times of covid…….. :| would want literal immunity for people……..april 2020……

17: If you could make a wish, what would you wish for if you knew it would come true?

i mean damn see above like. got the Wish Tiers like “personal things re: myself in particular” and “for people i personally know / smaller stuff i care about” but like damn in this day and age especially it’d be like well, Humanity Not Being Destroyed is kinda a thing isn’t it. can’t have any slightly more fun wishes b/c these [systems] will be like [exists and affects everything horribly]

19: How do you handle heartbreak? Is it something that’s easy for you to get over, or something you struggle with?

is it easy for anyone to get over!! i don’t have to deal with romantic heartbreak though which i guess is what it means. galaxy braining that issue lmfao

23: What do you want your future to be like?

man ties in with 16 and 17 but also like we sure exist under capitalism always don’t we, and it’s tricky when like “it would be nice to have a small personal apartment to live in wouldn’t it” is this fever dream for all of us. but it Would be nice. having the time and money for Making Food whenever you feel like, right. it’s always like “if i was in a situation where i could just bake something due to Feeling like it i’d probably be doing okay” lmao. love to have access to healthcare someday. it’s all like depressingly low standards that are also depressingly ~unrealistic~ lol like i do not Ponder the future much. i also don’t have like, longtime aspirations/dreams or even Not longtime ones so i can’t be like “would love to have a career in/doing ___” but also yknow im good with I Don’t Need A Dream Job, would just like jobs to be non-horrible and to have time to like, do shit on my own outside of that, b/c that’s what i like to do lol…..but then also it would be fun to like, one way or another, get to spend a lot of time putting effort into some kind of in-some-way-Collaborative Project / Endeavor and get to be really engaged. the idea of getting to be around multiple people who it’s fun to be around and it doesn’t feel super temporary is Wild like, intimidating to listen to “the bar song” b/c i’ll just cry after 3 seconds. also i just like to be around people like, used to think that being anxious and all i wouldn’t want to live in a city but probably the opposite’s true….yeah i like to have a space where i can be alone / unobserved but i also like to at any time be able to be Amongst ppl even if not interacting with them (and also im usually more relaxed interacting w/ strangers than ppl i know)…….but really i have no details i’m just fingers crossed that at any given time i’m more than a couple steps away from like the post about [body wearing the funniest hat you’ve ever seen] lmfao and like. would rather not die in a pandemic either

24: Have you ever met someone you never thought you’d become close to?

in an “and i was right” way, sure lol, but otherwise i don’t think so

29: Do you think zodiac signs can influence someone’s personality to an extent?

it’s like Not Really But How Would I Know and yet i’m gonna kill everybody doing the shit just treating it like alternate myer-briggs types like delete your tweets 

31: What does ‘self care’ look like for you? 

#selfcare idk. me passing out or making the effort of getting food? great to step outside and pet a cat i guess but also that’s just fun. i don’t have a real methodology or approach here either. is me reblogging ask memes to ask for attention / distraction self care? is Napping to reset the mood self care? you be the judge

32: If you could go back in time and re-live your life up to this point, knowing everything that you know now, would you make different decisions?

eh not really……tfw everything that is the way it is now including “knowing what you know now” is a result of everything having happened exactly the way it already did……..

37: Have you ever been surprised by someone staying in your life?

i’m like Only surprised by it

40: What makes you feel confident?

thinking abt the tweet(?) which is like “when ur walking around in public pretend crazy in love is playing”……being around the lgbtqs obviously…..feeling able to Be Funny b/c like. that depends on the people i’m around too lol.

41: How do you show you care?

love languages……..uh i will do Favors. acts of service or whatever lol. i also like to give gifts. compliments??? idk it’s hard to judge this lmao i will cheer someone on, usually figuratively lol…….Liking A Tweet idk. an attempt was made

43: Which of the seven deadly sins do you feel represents you the most?

we need better sins. am i vainglorious for being opinionated / stubborn. "being not cishet” probably would be considered lust, and that’s a pretty important thing lmao. lust for life….the illicit sexual desire of being An Lgbtq…… i feel like i can be impatient, so i supposed that’s wrathfulness……hard to choose just one and yet again also. the list bites

47: What are you passionate about?

easily a lot of stuff that i find Engaging b/c i’m just sort of like that but i mean. easy answer is just: [interests]

48: Have you ever started to try learning about a subject only to realize it’s not something you enjoy?

not really……if i’m trying to learn something myself i probably had some level of “already knowing i like it to some degree” to even have the motivation in the first place

[rerwby]

RWBY Volume 4 Commentary Play-by-Play

Chapter 1:

Kerry talks about how each episode had a ‘fuck you’ shot, which is a particular shot that was difficult to create across all departments.

I’d say the whole volume was a fuck-you shot to the fans but

In a little conversation about how much they’ve planned in the show, Kerry talks about how they’ve actually been hanging on to team WTCH (Watts, Tyrian, Cinder and Hazel) since the beginning.

I’m leaning towards believing this since Salem was one of the first things conceived for the show, so her team would follow. Makes you wonder if Miles was always gonna have his “crazy” Tyrian though or if that came later.

I doubt it because I don’t believe Monty would make characters as boring as Hazel and Watts right from the start.

Regarding Oscar and his story this volume, Miles and Kerry had more rewrites with him than with anything else in RWBY, trying to figure out the right way to present it. At one point, Oscar’s first major scene was going to be in chapter 7, instead of 4.

Yeah it’s not breaking news to say that they did the opposite of what would be a good idea.

Mentioned in the commentary, but in more detail in the special features, is the fact that CRWBY had a rough start to the volume due to the new production pipeline, which continued for several episodes.

According to Miles, the Petra Gigas was originally supposed to appear in the Emerald Forest during Volume 1. It was supposed to be a part of the giant nevermore/deathstalker fight, as was a giant Bourbatusk.

Wondering how they would have fit 4 whole monsters in that fight, but I guess that’s why they ended up splitting two bad guys between teams instead.

On that note, they talk about how incredibly different the original 4 episodes of Volume 1 were compared to what we got, and that Fennec and Corsac were originally Volume 1 villains.

Just saying that I believe this. They said that Roman originally played a smaller part in Volume 1? How was this possible? Insert more villains.

On the origin of the Geist, Kerry talks about how, at the time Monty was working on the White trailer, he and Miles were thinking of ways for it to make sense, and came up with the idea of a poltergeist Grimm. They say that particular Geist is called an Armor Gigas.

So Weiss fought a Grimm in her trailer it turns out. Idk how to feel about that. In a way it makes sense because, as we’ve seen with Winter’s summons, the Schnee summons are light versions of Grimm. It makes little sense though when you consider that the Geist inhabits inanimate things and therefore the armor isn’t a natural feature of the Grimm.

The crown on Jaune’s shield was first inserted by layout artist Rachel Doda when creating the storyboards. Kerry thought it was a perfect touch and decided to include it in the official design.

Iunno what fatal flaw to focus on here. Is it how this makes it sound like Jaune’s god damn weapon model design was THAT important that Kerry noticed? That it implies melting Pyrrha’s armor down was a last-minute thought? That the plot hole of Pyrrha fucking disintegrating and therefore leaving no armor or cape for Jaune was made entirely because Kerry liked how a shield looked?

Chapter 2:

In regards to the infamous map, Kerry mentions that in one version of the script, RNJR was going to lose the map in a fight of some sort. A similar was also supposed to happen in Chapter 6 involving Tyrian, but decided against it because of how busy CRWBY already was.

So instead of losing it for a reason they just lose it for the sake of it. Cool.

According to Miles, Jaques is loosely based on Jack Frost, something they try to hint at in the way he keeps his study.

The name kind of gave it away without any other hints.

Kerry says that writing the final scene of chapter 2 was the first time he cried while writing. Likewise, Miles said he lost his shit while performing mocap for the scene. Apparently everyone who worked on it had a pretty strong emotional reaction to this scene.

 Wow. The people working on this show were seriously so disillusioned that they thought Pyrrha’s relationship with Jaune earned that kind of reaction. Not even gonna mention how the existence of the recording makes no sense, especially since Pyrrha signs off on it. Why would she do that on a generic fighting guide. I can’t believe how attached these people were to the Alpha Hets.

Chapter 3:

On the topic of writing RWBY with multiple different storylines all taking place at the same time, Miles called it a ‘scary experiment’ but is happy overall with how it turned out.

I can’t say anything more than what’s been said on this.

I also have nothing to say on the technical stuff. I’m really not versed enough in it.

Miles talks about how they tried to have Salem feel a bit motherly, and not overly cruel, because she’s “better than that” and that she has a certain way of talking to each of her lieutenants.

She seemed pretty cruel to me lol. They need to have Salem do more before they announce these kinds of intentions, because now they’ve just given us a preconceived notion and they won’t have to write it that way.

Chapter 4:

Apparently Yang’s eye color was decided because of Taiyang’s and Raven’s eye colors. Red and Blue making purple.

This might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.

Burnie is apparently very invested in voicing Taiyang, and takes it very seriously. He would go over the script with Miles and Kerry before recording sessions and they talk about how Burnie will listen to Yang’s lines and efforts, and try and make Taiyang’s similar, as a way of representing how Yang was influenced by her Father. It’s also mentioned that Joel is similar when it comes to portraying Oobleck.

Wow! Joel and Burnie, two voice acting veterans who formed RT, are invested in their roles? Don’t get too shocked by actors who actually try, guys!

When it came to naming all the villages in Anima, they wanted to keep the theme of Mistral being heavily inspired by Eastern influences, so they named villages after the Japanese names for certain flowers.

Blah blah magical mystical Asia land

Originally, the inn and the pub were the same building, but were separated when they couldn’t figure out how to fit Raven into the scene.

Can you imagine if we had to see RNJR somehow not notice Qrow like twenty feet away from them? Thank god he sat in that pub across the street.

Chapter 5:

Miles says he cried while writing Blake’s reunion with her parents, and that the Belladonna’s are some of his favorite characters.

I mean iunno that scene didn’t scream emotional to me but I also have daddy issues so

Fennec and Corsac, as mentioned earlier, were characters originally conceived pre Volume 1, being the 2nd and 3rd Faunus thought about after Blake.

Makes you wonder if by the time of their conception, Faunus were a thing or if Monty was just making up furry OC’s.

Chapter 6:

In the charity scene, Koen says that there are around 100 different, unique people in the room, each with differing clothing.

Jfc guys went kinda overboard there. Didn’t look like 100+ when I watched it.

When describing Henry Marigold to concept artist Erin Winn, Kerry told her to draw a ‘posery, imposter Neptune’.

That’s about what I guessed yep. Now is there a reason for it to be Neptune? To show that Weiss grew past her affection towards him? Or because it was the first person who came to mind? Who knows.

Tyrian’s jacket, despite being one of Kerry’s favorite design aspects, was a real hassle for the animators and the rigging team, so much so that he was animated without his jacket on, and then would add it afterwards.

I remember when capes were in Kingdom Hearts. Then they realized they were too much work so they removed them to avoid continuity errors and such. It was a smart and humble move, because the capes looked cool. I guess Tyrian’s jacket was just really that awesome though.

Chapter 7:

The original plan with Ozpin was to not reveal him as having anything to do with Oscar until the very end of the Volume.

Just gonna keep reminding us of that huh guys?

This episode was the first time proper reflections were used in a mirror in any Rooster Teeth production. Before they would simply fake it.

well that is a legitimately very interesting fact

When it came to Tyrian swearing, some thought went into whether they could get around it, originally having him say witch instead. Ultimately, Miles and Kerry decided it was the right time for things to get a bit more mature.

Best decision they ever made, thank god.

I love the idea of Miles being all modest and going “ah yes time to be mature.”

Chapter 8:

Miles says the whole campfire scene was probably the most difficult thing in the Volume to write, simply due to how much they needed to cover. Also, Kerry says more people worked on this scene than any other in the Volume.

The RWBY writers struggling with exposition?

The two brothers was Miles’ idea, and his first major contribution to the series, obviously one of the first parts of the show that was conceived.

And it was made known that Miles conceived one of the worst parts of the entire story. And he just copied it from a Grimm Tale.

Miles was the one who wrote the majority of Blake scenes in Volume 4. When she’s slapping Sun, Miles only intended it to be soft slaps on the shoulder, so he was quite surprised by the end result.

 Isn’t this why you, like, direct your scenes? To avoid miscommunication like that?

Chapter 9:

Apparently there were several colour combinations the were tried with Ilia that “did not work”.

Apparently the animation crew’s passion is graphic design.

All the patches of mud on the ground were originally water puddles, but Kerry forgot that while the scene was being animated.

Again, directing.

Chapter 10:

In the scene with Nora being bullied, Miles jokes about that if you feel bad about it, those other kids likely died the next day. To follow that up, Kerry then mentions that they actually considered to have one of those kids lying face down on the ground in the background during the attack. Damn.

Idk how to feel about this but it is kind of disturbing that Miles would be so quick to make that joke.

According to Miles, they actually described Ren’s father in the script as “A handsome Hanzo looking motherfucker”.

guessed everyone who knows of overwatch’s existence

One of the ideas they had that didn’t make it into the episode involved Ren’s father going to see the mayor. Since he’s a hunter, and he had just returned from a hunt, Li was going to talk to the mayor about how they didn’t find any animals and it was almost as if they had been spooked away, and that they should get a Huntsman to come and investigate.

That probably would have made some sense.

According to Kerry, Jaune and Ruby’s moment was originally going to end with them hugging, but was cut due to time and Kerry not wanting people to “worry”.

So Lancaster gets shot down completely, cool. Cool thing of a creator to do. How dare we imply Ruby and Jaune are close after all they’ve been through.

Chapter 11:

Recording Tyrian’s efforts in this episode was a ton of fun according to Miles.

Yeah I bet Miles loved Tyrian.

Kerry’s “proudest accomplishment of this Volume” was having the photo of Whitely on Jacques’ desk be face down after Ironwood slams down on it.

Cool?

Kerry talks about Sun’s abs (as you do) and actually reveals that, contrary to popular belief, they didn’t remove them, but instead Sun’s model was made to be more muscular and they would be picked up by lighting and shadows instead.

Pretty sure Sun’s torso is a tube with the new models.

Chapter 12:

When talking about the fight, it’s mentioned there were several different versions of it. They don’t go into detail, but Kerry does mention that Qrow was originally supposed to do something, but Miles reminds him it’s something they can’t talk about.

God, what is left for Qrow to reveal? We got his weapon’s forms, his Semblance, his transforming thing, what else? Tbh my bet’s on Ozpin’s cane. They planned for him to use the cane but decided against it because of their artifact bullshit.