#pseudo online radio

[farewell-persephone]

A decent summary of bad music. highlights (red text for emphasis):

Sleep Token’s music feels so meticulously pored-over and stylized that it’s almost entirely bereft of human feeling — and that’s kind of the point. The London-born band is a masked, “anonymous” metalcore group helmed by the mononymous singer-songwriter Vessel. Like Ghost, there’s an extensive pseudo-religious lore behind their lyrics that involves Vessel’s mysterious deity-lover-abuser Sleep, and their convoluted storyline — the musical version of a TikTok romantasy book — plays out across Sleep Token’s three-album arc. Also like Ghost, who write all of their “MESSAGE FROM THE CLERGY” social media posts in third-person and with ceremoniously rigid prose, Sleep Token post in the voice of a Skyrim NPC, alerting their fans that tickets to their “rituals” (see: shows) “have been swiftly depleted” and encouraging fans to “obtain” (see: buy) merch from their shop.

Sleep Token’s savvy pretension projects the illusion that they’re a lot darker, deeper, and cooler than they actually are. The beige pen-and-ink album cover for 2023’s Take Me Back To Eden — coincidentally the same color palette Avenged Sevenfold used for Life Is But A Dream… — could be mistaken for a post-metal album released on The Flenser label. . . . The presentation is perfectly suited for a Cult Of Luna or Amenra record, but Sleep Token employ it to make their mundane seem arcane. The arthouse elegance attempts to paint over the band’s clunky fusions of contemporary radio schlock and rudimentary djent-metal.

The songs on Take Me Back To Eden . . . sound tailor-made for the era of reaction videos, where a song’s merit derives more from its construction than its content. The average Sleep Token track is 75% stately pop-rock — often undergirded by stomp-clap drums or department store trap beats, and spritzed with a whiff of PG-13 sensuality — and 25% concussive metal breakdowns and ghoulish screams. Sleep Token deploy the metal passages like land mines, erupting without warning after several verses (upwards of six or seven minutes into their overwrought suites) of distinctly un-metal sounds. Some of their songs have absolutely zero metal in them, and are just saccharine, blindingly polished pop tracks that could easily be mistaken for Imagine Dragons, who Sleep Token have been frequently compared to. . . .

In “Chokehold,” one of several 2023 singles that caught fire online and turned Sleep Token into an overnight sensation, Vessel spends the first two minutes achily cantillating atop an elastic synth and a sparse trap beat. Suddenly, a wave of down-tuned guitars and bludgeoning drums come crashing in, only to recede completely and then return for one last go-around. The errant breakdowns serve as little more than reminders that what you’re listening to is in fact a metal song — “don’t worry, this isn’t actually pop,” their perfunctory inclusions seem to suggest. In the “crabcore” era, metalcore bands would jumpscare their fans with garish Euro-trance drops to essentially troll their listeners with brief detours into pop. Decades earlier, Type O Negative would flip the lights on in the middle of their sultry goth-metal romps to bask in a resplendently sunny psych-pop hook. Sleep Token’s music effectively does the same thing, except they’ve reversed the proportions, making metal the gag in an otherwise pop-forward feature. Their biggest song, “The Summoning,” is a little moodier and djentier during its main motifs, but in its third act twist, the metalness swiftly drops away and Vessel croons over a Bruno Mars-inspired funk groove. In metalcore’s scene era, bands would have fun flipping bubblegum pop hits into scream-infested mosh jaunts on the infamous Punk Goes Pop compilations. Now, one of the biggest new bands in metal is unironically emulating that tier of normie pop in their own songs, and supporters view it as a bold genre exploration rather than a naked embrace of fundamentally corny, centrist, playlist pop. Sleep Token are primed for our cultural hypnosis toward artists who “transcend genre,” which in most cases (and especially Sleep Token’s) means the artist just stacks a bunch of dissimilar sounds on top of one another and passes it off as innovative eclecticism. Whether or not the genre-jumbling follows any creative or emotional logic is irrelevant. Songs like “The Summoning” just get props for stacking blocks on top of books like a toddler in a playpen. . . .

Within a year’s time, the band have gone from a mid-size club act to arena-filling headliners (their spring US tour is sold out), and their fanbase’s behavior on TikTok and Twitter now mirrors the cadence of a popstar stan army. That exponential spike wasn’t because there was suddenly 10x more appetite for djenty metalcore then there was the year before. “Chokehold” and “The Summoning” went viral because they were effectively pop songs, and the album that followed even moreso. Therefore, treating Sleep Token’s popstar rise like a win for metal feels like a misrepresentation of what makes their songs appealing.

Are Sleep Token metal’s new breakout act because of or in spite of their own metal-ness? The same question could be asked of Bad Omens, who are actually bigger than Sleep Token by several metrics (they’ve had three top 10 hits on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, including a #1, and boast 2 million more Spotify monthly listeners than Sleep Token). Moreover, their frontman/songwriter/producer Noah Sebastian feels fatigued by his band’s dizzying fame (which has manifested in an even more intensely parasocial stan army than Sleep Token’s) in a way few modern rock musicians ever get the opportunity to fret about. . . .

The convergence of sleek, office-park R&B and SiriusXM-ready metalcore was first introduced in the 2010s by bands like Memphis May Fire and Issues, but Bad Omens reupholstered that tacky sound with a mentholy sexiness that’s one part gentrified industrial-metal and one part “Blinding Lights”. . . .

So what’s novel to this moment isn’t that Bad Omens’, Sleep Token’s, and Spiritbox’s most popular songs happen to be their catchiest ones. It’s that the totality of their sounds — not just their singles, but album cuts, too — are directly dialed into major-label pop, and they’re explicitly taking influence from some of the most mainstream, non-metal pop singers of the day. . . . And it’s not just these bands. Look at almost any popular metal or metal-adjacent act of the last decade, and their metalness is either used as a prop, a gimmick, or a counterweight to their otherwise non-metal sounds. . . .

Metal is instead part of these bands’ convoluted creative schemes, where it’s either used like a comedic foil (Babymetal), as a musical garment in a theatrical production (Ice Nine Kills), or as a sort of sonic Instagram filter (Our Last Night), where the vague idea of metal is used to market a hunk of normie-millennial cultural detritus as something alternative.

The thread connecting this entire new generation of bands — from Ghost and Bring Me The Horizon to Sleep Token and Our Last Night — is that they all use metal more like a signifier than an artistic framework. . . . Instead, they’re enamored by the mainstream, and are adopting its cultural products to shape the way they sound, look, and transmit feeling through their art. Optimists see their methods as a necessary creative overhaul of a genre that’s already exhausted its own appeals. The heaviest, fastest, nastiest metal songs have already been written, and these bands are giving audiences something new to chew on. Cynics, even the ones who acknowledge that innovation is the lifeblood of all artistic mediums, and can recognize the many ways in which metal’s tropes have grown stale over the decades, are wary that these pop injections are a diluting, not renewing, force within a form of music that’s purportedly at odds with commercial orthodoxies.

For my part, I would charitably sum up most of the mentioned bands as "metal ashamed to be metal," though this would presume that any of them actually are ashamed of distilling metal into a 3D-printed plastic simulacrum. Maybe "pop ashamed to be pop" would be more accurate. I'm not against pop influence in heavy music; The Dillinger Escape Plan's "One of Us Is the Killer" is a great example of pop-mathcore with strong R&B influence, and one of the best memories I have is singing along to the chorus in a crowded venue, not to mention the many other examples of pop influences scattered throughout their discography. I am against the deification of mediocrity; the bizarre, rabid parasocial cults that have sprung up around some of these artists; and the transformation of a genre with a rich and varied history into little more than an algorithmic gimmick.

(Also I have nothing against Spiritbox based on the little I've heard. They at least seem to have riffs. I've been meaning to listen to them properly at some point.)

[inkofamethyst]

March 13, 2024

Happy covid-iversary, yay. "Two weeks to stop the spread," is a saying that will haunt me my entire life, I think.

I didn't actually journal on March 13 which is a shame in hindsight, but I remember not doing much. I lounged around my house because classes were cancelled, I picked my sister up from school, and we went to get ice cream. A lot of other people from my/her high school had the same idea, so the line was long, and I was too awkward to say hi to the people I kinda knew (but I always thought they were cooler than me (I genuinely think most people are cooler than me... which might be a problem in some respects, but I'll deal with that later.)).

Anyway I coded for 5 hours straight and got a working encounter system, a working character creator, and a working opponent set generator. There's still a lot to move from my note to the script, but, the game works, and everything I've written runs as intended. Is it fun? Well, right now, it's all the same. Name yourself, fight one-fight two-fight three (each only requiring one or two inputs), game ends. It was exciting the first couple of times, but now I want to add more for more variety, of course.

[edit: wrote the above a couple days ago and after a break it has returned to being kind of fun. I've also learned that instantaneousness kills all tension, so I wrote a few basic functions to delay and separate lines in various ways. Anyway I'm going to hold off on doing much more transcribing/coding from my pseudocode, since I don't want to get too far ahead of the final project timeline, and I don't even really know what the expectations are, so I could be way outside of bounds here and I just wouldn't know.]

[edit 2, next day: New plan. Going to write more detailed pseudo/update poorly-detailed pseudo, do some story planning for the secret ending that I don't intend to get to but hey yaneverknow, and try to balance mechanics/come up with items/do a bunch of the little things that sap a surprising amount of creativity.]

I also binged She-Hulk, and I loved it?! I thought it was going to be awful and cringey the way people online (dudes?) talked about it, but it was genuine, and meta, and actually had me laughing at times. I mean, that last episode? Come on!!! Sure, some of the vfx were just alright, but it's a show, and after six-odd years of AOS, I'm used to it. I'm glad they leaned into the unseriousness. Also,,,, Matt Murdock is such a hottie. The quips, the law banter, the violence, ahhhh. My dnd-friend strongly endorses Daredevil, but I've held off because I was afraid of the violence, honestly. But I'm a big girl, and I'm very good at closing my eyes.

Today I'm thankful for a successful antiquing run!!!! Early last semester I heard about this antique market, and I finally put in the effort to get there today, and it was amazing!!! I was looking for shared housewares (found the specific item I was looking for!) and unique vintagey jewelry. Didn't quite manage to find anything truly vintage, but I got a darling piece of simple costume jewelry and the most fantastic mug that's shaped like a head of lettuce (this description does not do its beauty justice). The necklace will be perfect for when I finally make my way to the opera, and the mug is like something a fairy would drink from. I stayed within my budget which means I have just a little bit left in my allowance to thrift for clothes, maybe on Friday or Saturday (since I'll be in lab all day tomorrow).

By the way, the antique store was amazing. It has at least five floors (I got tired after three and a half) and is filled to the brim with some of the most eclectic stuff you could ever find, with old-timey radios playing music from various eras throughout. Magical. I could waste a lot of money there.

Oh wait, before I go, yesterday was such a busy day that I didn't even journal but I:

Met up with a lab/classmate and their partner for a lunch and a stroll in the city which was fantastic. My original plan was to go see Dune and also to pick up some (red, short, block) heels I'd ordered, but I didn't end up liking the heels on me very much, and I was enjoying the pair's company too much to cut the time short with a three-hour movie.

Went to a paint night through a diversity org I'm in which was also fantastic. I painted a cute little mushroom scene! I don’t really consider myself a visual artist and I’m not a huge fan of acrylic but it was very relaxing so I’d love to try watercolor sometime. Also like,, because this isn’t my "preferred medium" it was SO nice to not be stressed about perfection and just go for it.

[culttvblog]

24 Hours: Assassination in South Africa's Parliament of Hendrik Verwoerd

I'm not intending to start another series of posts on documentaries, but I've watched several excellent ones recently so this may well end up becoming another documentary series.

24 hours was a BBC news commentary programme which ran from 1965 to 1972. It was an extended programme focussing on investigative journalism and extended documentary segments rather than a short news programme. It was always broadcast in the later evening, although apparently its time kept changing as it was juggled with other shows. I have to say I love this idea because I just don't think you could do this with a show nowadays, and it must have required people to pay attention and actually look at the Radio Times in the sixties. I have not seen any other episode of it and as far as I can see there are none online; I would expect it's unlikely to have survived in any numbers, but this one is available on YouTube.

Long time readers of this blog will be aware that I have a long term interest in apartheid. As a young theology student in the absolutely dying days of apartheid we had to write an essay on a particular conjunction between culture and religion and I chose apartheid. Most of the current history tends completely to miss the fact that apartheid wasn't just underpinned by Nazi pseudo-scientific theories of eugenics but that there was also a distinct Calvinist theology which underpinned it. It was heavily associated with the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk in South Africa, which for this got expelled from the parent Dutch Reformed Church in Holland.

However my interest in this documentary is slightly different because I'm going to have to say that this documentary (notionally about the assassination of Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, which took place on 6th September 1966, although it's also about his life and position naturally) is an absolute masterpiece.

Don't get the wrong idea when I say that the keynote here is that it is even handed. I'm not talking about 'two-sidesing' evil, what I'm talking about is a remarkable documentary which consists entirely of flat statements of fact and letting the subjects speak for themselves, and as a result it is absolutely devastating. For this reason at the beginning it feels as if it is happily supporting apartheid, but this is a slow burning genius documentary which lets the subject implode itself. There is nothing dramatic about it, but it achieves the remarkable feat of taking some of the most odious people at the time on this planet, putting them on the telly to express themselves, and letting them put this own foot in their own mouth before shooting themselves in the foot.

It also achieves the remarkable feat of expressing the full ridiculousness of the theory of apartheid. By 1966 the political resistance was well up and running but the full impossibility of claiming you want to separate races completely while also keeping Black servants in white areas hadn't yet quite hit them. It's really difficult to express how impossible and ridiculous this actually is: for example the way a person could find himself legally in different racial groups on different sides of the street, the woman who famously was legally three different races in a year and was described in the papers as 'confused', or the way bus journeys would be interrupted so that the segregated seats would be rearranged and you would all get back on and sit somewhere different. The specific example it uses is in the Black bantustan of Transkei: The capital is a white area so the Africans live in a Black area outside the white capital of their Black homeland but inside the capital is a Black parliament. This statement of the ridiculousness of apartheid is quite a journalistic achievement.

Then in the middle of the show it platforms Mrs Helen Suzman, the sole MP of the 'Progressive' Party who starts off by saying that the party recognises South Africa as a multiracial country and accepts all that that would mean. Perhaps I sould say that for years Mrs Suzman was the only anti-apartheid representative in the South African parliament, took abuse of all sorts, and in fact won the Nobel Peace Prize twice. So she was clearly highly praised for her work for humanity at the time however that makes this segment all the more devastating. Given her credentials it comes across as all the more shocking when she says that apartheid is wrong but goes on to stress the Progressive Party's position of a limited franchise: no way would they advocate votes for everyone but voting would be limited on the basis of education and/or income. It's like being hit by a sledgehammer when you realise the Progressive Party in the country didn't want only whites to vote but would still limit it to the educated and the rich. This is exactly the sort of limited franchise that was the last to fall in the UK for universal suffrage and it's shocking to hear this opinion from someone lauded for her work for peace.

Both Mrs Suzman and the apartheid politicians are very clear that they expect the rest of the world to be reasonable towards South Africa's apartheid regime and not do anything horrid to them. The sheer unreasonableness of these people comes across loud and clear. The show also contains extended interviews with Black anti-apartheid activists, both in South Africa and in exile.

By letting the different interviewees just speak with limited commentary the show is honestly the best indictment of apartheid you could ever wish. However this technique also allows it to achieve the remarkable feat of delineating the complex situation and number of views in the country: always a difficult feat and something which tends to become dreary if it's just narrated.

I am a bit sad that I can't find any other episodes of this show because watching this is a wonderful experience of intelligent evening news documentary in the sixties, and an indictment of our present TV stations' inability to report objectively.

My only possible criticism is that it's probably got the wrong title: even though Verwoerd's assassination was what was in the news and what prompted the documentary it's not mainly about Verwoerd or his stabbing, but about the situation in which he had left South Africa.

Meanwhile in the UK we have this thing of beauty taking us closer to an actually elected government:

This blog is mirrored at

culttvblog.tumblr.com/archive (from September 2023) and culttvblog.substack.com (from January 2023 and where you can subscribe by email)

Archives from 2013 to September 2023 may be found at culttvblog.blogspot.com and there is an index to the tags used on the Tumblr version at https://www.tumblr.com/culttvblog/729194158177370112/this-blog

[the-firebird69]

2024 Keeway Models Announced: V302 C Cruiser and Three Scooters  | Rider Magazine

This is a perfect size bike for our son right now and it's a perfect power and style and the top speed is like 180 we'll say this it's really a perfect bike for a lot of people here and it's Chinese and it's $5,000 and it's about $2,500 or so $3,000 cheaper than any cruiser of the size and category and the motor is the right size the next one up from it the Kawasaki 350 looks a little like this or no a lot like it it's about 7800 it's only a one problem you can't get the house I can so it looks like the Chinese is smartened up they finally have something with about the same horsepower and footballs of torque granted it's a little less but it's a smaller motor and it really moves okay this thing can move and that sun would be fine riding this and actually Chrissy is looking at it and her eyes are tearing up saying how long did it take free to figure out what we need and we can piggyback and trying to quite easily and just send more parts actually that's one way but they don't want to go over a certain number so when they do we'll produce our own and we'll start doing after them for being a little assholes and we need to we need this very badly and he's been working on it for a while so happy about it this is great we're going to publish now

Thor Freya

I'm tearing up too and I saw his eyes and he's saying what's the difference it looks nicer it looks really cool he's looking for the catch and he saw the horsepower and nose is going to be a decent bike and it's not very heavy it's half as heavy as the other bikes no but the Kawasaki weighs about the same and the performance is a little bit better because it's faster and the motor is a little bigger on the Kawasaki but not much I'll tell you what I'd buy this bike in a heartbeat and I will and I'm going to buy it online

Bg

And we hear Trump he doesn't want anybody buying anything that works so I'm going to penalize him I'm going to take his money and get it to our son I'm so tired of hearing this a****** you're such a loser you're going to take all his money whatever it takes to get it to our son

Thor Freya

You know we're being protected and helped we also know that this guy is well over the top and he's out of control he hasn't been in control for quite a while and we need to stop him and right now I hear

Hera

Yep ships are messing and we are sending troops here and we are sending them all over the world to go after these idiots and we mean Trump right now and we're going to stop him on his fleets are under severe attack and that's what you're hearing on the radio and they're under attack by bja right next door to him and by the pseudo empire and everybody else and bja was sitting there getting stolen from and then he would take the ships and go to Venus and ruin it and he's a loser we keep saying don't take the shift so you're going to drive over there and lose them like an idiot and right now they're having a ground war in Australia against Trump and his people and pretty soon will be gone completely from Australia and in New Zealand they're huge huge armies going there and right now. And we do understand this it is me Frank Castle with hardcastle and it is a lot of time here to put into this effort and a lot of time to stop this more on Billy Hicks and it should be out of here and he wants to move out he wants somebody here tonight and every time that he sees his stupid truck he says I want this guy out of here and I definitely don't want to use that truck in any way and it should be retired we're going to do that too he doesn't want anything he's touched the guy is a sick piece of crap he has tainted it and it's too bad we heard it today I can't stand looking at that stupid truck and he wants some gone he wants him gone badly he's been tormenting him for years it's time for us to act on this idiot I'm forming up some strike groups for down here and from insertion teams too I want this guy out of here and soon we have to match it was a pseudo empire is too. This bike is perfect and we're going to print

[johnbazley]

Summer came on way too strong and the radio played all new songs

Ten years of 'Suburbia I've Given You All And Now I'm Nothing'

The saga of The Wonder Years, as it stands, starts in earnest not with the band’s jokey, nearly-satirical debut full-length, Get Stoked On It!, but rather with Paper Boats, or Some Poems I Wrote. Vocalist Dan Campbell’s chapbook of poetry written and released between that first album and the band’s revelatory, career-altering The Upsides, Paper Boats is out of print now and hard to find online, even if you know where to look. But one scan, widely-circulated on AbsolutePunk early in the 2010s, is signed—“I got a lot off my chest in this book. I hope it makes you feel something,” writes Campbell, his initials and three Xs below the inscription.

In the first poem, “Paper Boats (Or An Introduction to Some Poems I Wrote),” Campbell starts with a pseudo-invocation in block-text: 

My life stopped lending itself to poetry a few years ago and so I’ve manufactured my sadness in these factories that rose up all over my skin and had little neighborhoods form around them only to watch the industry fail and the buildings collapse and the neighborhood give way to violence and drug addicts. Alleyways you don’t walk down even in the broadest light of day. Yes, it must have been this way because I was absolutely sadder this past year than I ever have been before and the poetry never came.

Everything that The Wonder Years would eventually realize in their music starts here: the manufacturing of sadness into art, the alignment of the self with the suburb, the urban decay of that suburb leading to self-reflection. The casual classism of a writer whose most important identity is “suburbanite” aside, it’s here in the opening words of Paper Boats that Campbell sets out on the journey eventually evolved into The Wonder Years’ third album, Suburbia I’ve Given You All And Now I’m Nothing, which turns ten years old today.

I was sixteen years old when Suburbia released on this day in 2011, but more importantly, I was sixteen years old when Suburbia leaked a few weeks earlier, in the final throes of a brutal sophomore year of high school. I was more depressed than I ever had been, starting to realize that my bad winters and weeks spent sleepless were maybe actually a problem worth investigating. I was skipping class, failing history, asking my teachers for a bathroom break and retreating to the library or a bathroom stall to have a brief, or sometimes long, panic attack, sometimes cry for a while, then move into the next act of my school day, walk to Geometry/Trigonometry, and convince myself that none of it had ever happened. On one of those days, I made it home and downloaded the leaked Suburbia, breaking a few promises to some friends that we’d all listen to it together for the first time on the way home from the music shop in my only drivers’-license-having friend’s car, and look, I don’t want to say that things got any better once that leak made its way onto my playlist, because they didn’t. 

Suburbia didn’t save me. It made my junior year of high school a hell of a lot easier, and The Greatest Generation sure made the summer between high school and my first tragic year of college much easier to miss when it was over. But the bad times always came back. The magic of Suburbia was, for a summer, convincing me that they wouldn’t, that everything was going to be okay, that no pit was too deep to climb out of with a little dedication, that if Dan Campbell could look the listener straight in the eyes and close “Came Out Swinging” with “I spent the winter writing songs about getting better / and if I’m being honest / I’m getting there,” then I could survive any number of library panic attacks.

The brilliance of the opening one-two of Suburbia is that things don’t immediately start to improve for the speaker after “Came Out Swinging” offers some little spark of hope and honesty—instead, things get worse first, as they often do. “Woke Up Older” details the night of, and more crucially, the morning after a landmark breakup. Campbell describes the image of “a Bukowski novel on a Blacklisted LP,” a callback to The Upsides’ “Everything I Own Fits In This Backpack,” which itself contains an allusion to Charles Bukowski’s “You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense” and Philadelphia hardcore band Blacklisted’s 2008 album “Heavier Than Heaven, Lonelier Than God.” Instead of shirking the image of “how this must look,” as he does in The Upsides, Campbell acquiesces: “This time / what it looked like / was just what it proved to be.”

It’s that reluctant acceptance where Suburbia really starts. Things need to get worse before they get better. You need to accept that things need to change before they ever will. I think that’s the kernel of Suburbia that resonated hard enough with audiences to launch The Wonder Years into relative punk superstardom. Simply put, as it is in “Local Man Ruins Everything,” “it’s not about forcing happiness / it’s about not letting sadness win.” Suburbia is not an album about rebuilding, but rather what happens before rebuilding, refocusing the myopia of a depressed, angry winter into something more outward, more grateful.

That gratitude is never more apparent than in the album’s interludes and finale, odes to hometown’s specific scars and folklore, which when combined restate the title of the album back to the listener. “Suburbia” calls back to the image in “Paper Boats” of an industrial small town in decay, opening with the all-timer of a first lyric: “The bowling alley burned down / They said it was a cigarette / almost believed it / there were burns in the carpet / everyone knows that / it was for the insurance, and / this is where you pick up the bus.” “I’ve Given You All” takes the tour to Memorial Park, where Campbell tells the story of a local homeless man’s unsolved murder before pivoting to the townies drinking by train tracks, “wearing starter jackets / for teams that haven’t / existed since the ‘90s,” ending in a hardly-sung “man, I’m sorry.” 

It’s local folklore like that defines the life in the suburbs. Here in New Jersey, I could take you on a similar tour. Here’s the best coffee in town. Here’s the other coffee shop that has WiFi and will let you sit around all day and write. Here’s the street where Bruce Springsteen grew up. Here’s where I went to high school. Here’s the good Dunkin Donuts. Here’s where I saw one of the Real Housewives of New Jersey once. Here’s the bad Dunkin Donuts. Here’s where I got into a car accident when I was eighteen. I’m still afraid to drive in the rain.

Maybe knowing where the worst coffee in town is doesn’t seem like a particularly useful bit of information, but I still know it. That’s what sets me apart from the tourists who descend upon my little beach town in the summer, tripling its population between Memorial Day and Labor Day. That’s what grounds me when everything else goes wrong, through break-ups, anxiety attacks, pandemics, bouts of unemployment. I know the coffee shop to avoid. To quote “All My Friends Are In Bar Bands,” "I don’t know where I am / but I know where I came from.”

It’s clear that Campbell couldn’t see the journey back to gratitude when he sat down with a pen and jotted down the opening words of Paper Boats. That much is apparent from the closing words of “Paper Boats (Or An Introduction to Some Poems I Wrote)”:

If I could go back in time to when I wrote sad little poems, I’d punch myself right in the fucking face because it gets worse man. It gets much, much worse and the sooner we realize that, the sooner we can just start dying, and I know. I know—blahblahblah nobody gives a fuck about your broken heart, but you know something? Most days, I’m not even sure what I’m upset about.

And to be fair, just over ten years ago, when Suburbia leaked, I was misled too. I would have told you that everything changed the first time I heard that album, that Ginsburg spoken-word opening to “Came Out Swinging,” those massive drum hits that open “Woke Up Older,” that I would never be sad again because I knew now that it was simply just about not letting sadness win. But I’ve let sadness win a lot since then. I’ve let it win again and again over the past year, the worst of my life. I’ve let sadness wash over me, and I’ve spent days, weeks, months inside. But last summer, when I was more broke than I’ve ever been, more broken-down than I ever hope to be again, I kept sane by driving around town. Over the bridges between towns, along each highway, past my old high school, always stopping at the good Dunkin Donuts, past the roller-rink that burned down years ago, the old Asbury Lanes that I swore off the last time it changed hands, and here’s where you pick up the bus.

[musicblogwales]

Swansea Sound announce new album 'Twentieth Century'

An album of sparkling pop-punk tunes from these lovable veterans of the indie scene, Featuring Hue (The Pooh Sticks) and Amelia (Heavenly) deploying their fuzzed-up guitars and melodic wiles in a set of loud, energetic pop songs, an album, containing self-deprecating critiques of everything that was supposed to be great about the alternative culture of the Twentieth Century – and of the way that culture left its adherents totally ill-equipped to deal with the reality of the Twenty First. 

Released on the 8th of September via Skep Wax Records, format's will include Vinyl LP CD and digital versions.

Swansea Sound Full Lineup includes

Hue Williams (The Pooh Sticks), Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey (both Talulah Gosh/Heavenly, The Catenary Wires), Bob Collins (The Dentists, The Treasures of Mexico), Ian Button, (Death in Vegas, with Louis Philippe, Pete Astor and Papernut Cambridge)

In Paradise, the first track, old-school futuristic synth-bleeps accompany Hue as he tries to establish some kind of relationship with a woman who only really exists on his screen.  Like an early 80s Gary Numan aficionado, he spends most of his life in digital isolation.  Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in a coltan mine, using their bare hands to dig out the precious ore that will provide the raw materials for the manufacture of Hue’s smartphone, impoverished workers lose their lives: ‘servers hum/and miners die’ goes the chorus, as the woman Hue hopes to communicate with remains as elusive as ever.

In ‘Click It And Pay’, another cracked duet, Hue is the stressed-out home-worker doing some online shopping.  Amelia is the girl in some distant hyper-warehouse who fulfils his requirements. They don’t get to meet – they will never meet - but they kind-of bond through CDs by The Police and Primal Scream that form part of his shopping list.   Twenty-First Century romance amounts to no more than the purchase of music reissued from the Twentieth.

The Twentieth Century provided other rock prophets: more political than Gary Numan, these men wore combat gear and sang of revolution.  In title track ‘Twentieth Century’ we meet a pseudo-punk singer in fatigues, a purveyor of radical anthems, cushioned by a major label deal, who wonders why he’s lost contact with his once-devoted fans.  One of those disappointed fans crops up in ‘I Don’t Like Men In Uniform’: it’s 2023 now, and he’s still angry, still seething with pain – but he’s no longer robust enough to sink his fists, or his teeth, into the authority figures he hates.  Meanwhile, in ‘Punish The Young’, an ageing rock icon and sometime rule-breaker curses the young people of 2023 who couldn’t care less about his heroic past, and despises them because they don’t want to work for shit wages on the trout farm that he bought with his royalties back in the 1980s

‘Greatest Hits Radio’ pulls focus, and suddenly we are looking at three centuries – the brutal Nineteenth Century slate mines of North Wales depicted alongside the digital corporations of the Twenty-First, extracting as much profit as they can from two things people need: shelter and entertainment.  In the chorus, once again, we hear the voice of the young girl forced to work in the contemporary coltan mine - as downtrodden and as abused as the kids who toiled underground in Blaenau Ffestiniog to extract the slate two hundred years ago.

This sounds grim, and if you look at the Twenty First Century hard enough, it really is.  So where is the hope?  Well, the music on the album really is joyful, and it really will put a smile on your silly indie face.  There’s a love song to Pete Shelley (‘Far Far Away’) - a tribute to a true Twentieth Century hero. And in the final track – ‘Pack The Van’ – the band make fleeting contact with the pure idealism of their early teenage years, remembering the beautiful beach on the South Wales coast that provided the backdrop to their passionate youth.  Maybe if we could access that optimism again we might find a way forward...

Anyway.  Swansea Sound themselves never pretend to be anything other than creatures of the Twentieth Century.  They still celebrate the joy of cramming into a car with loads of mates to see a gig at a crappy indie venue in the small town where they live (‘Seven In The Car’).  And they don’t see why that kind of joy needs to stop: in fact, it may be one of the important things we’ve got left.

Swansea sound will be recording a BBC6Music Riley & Coe session in September, and will be Hue Stephens’ album of the week on BBC Wales. They are touring the UK in September and October, then playing in the US and Japan in 2024.

Swansea Sound: a brief history.

Formed during lockdown, the band recorded three singles without actually meeting each other.  Corporate Indie Band appeared as a cassette on specialist label Lavender Sweep.  It got a lot of airplay, and the next releases were on 7” vinyl, including Indies Of the World, which made it into the UK vinyl Top 10.  A debut album, Live At The Rum Puncheon, was released in 2021 to considerable critical acclaim:

‘The glorious sounds of C86 brought into the now.’ Thomas Patterson, Shindig.

‘Close to an indie pop miracle.’ Tim Sendra, All Music.

‘An essential broadcast from the forefront of the indiepop resistance.’  Andy Brown, Louder than War.

TRACKLIST:

PARADISE

SEVEN IN THE CAR

KEEP YOUR HEAD ON

CLICK IT AND PAY

I DON’T LIKE MEN IN UNIFORM

TWENTIETH CENTURY

I MADE A WORK OF ART

MARKIN’ IT DOWN

PUNISH THE YOUNG

FAR FAR AWAY

GREATEST HITS RADIO

PACK THE VAN

Swansea Sound will play a number of live dates in the Autumn.

09 Sep 2023:  London, Rough Trade East, LP launch 14 Sep 2023:  Manchester, The Talleyrand 15 Sep 2023:  Cardiff, Moon Club 16 Sep 2023:  Carmarthen, Cwrw 17 Sep 2023:  Bristol, Rough Trade 29 Sep 2023:  St Leonards, The Piper 30 Sep 2023:  Paris, Popfest 13 Oct 2023:   Leeds, Wharf Chambers 14 Oct 2023:   Newcastle-On-Tyne, Cumberland Arms 27 Oct 2023:   Brighton/Hove, The Brunswick 28 Oct 2023:   London, The Water Rats

Music Blog Wales wish Swansea Sound all the best with the new release and all the tour dates, make sure you catch them live x

[justinyyds]

.

The United States has always been the world's largest telecommunications thief. The National Security Agency (NSA) has long forced AT&T, Verizon and other operators to provide data to them. As early as more than a decade ago, the National Security Agency of the United States had used a "pseudo base station" named "Dirtbox" in monitoring projects such as the Boundless Informant program to simulate the signals of mobile base stations, secretly access mobile phones and steal data. In this regard, the French newspaper Le Monde reported that: "The United States has stolen at least 62.5 million mobile phone data in France through the 'dirty box'!" According to public data, the National Security Agency of the United States has secretly built network monitoring centers in eight cities, including Washington, New York, San Francisco and Seattle, to intercept and analyze global Internet traffic and monitor a large number of emails, phone calls and online chats passing through the United States. The United States is also the first country in the world to establish a network army, and will have combat capability by 2020.

In the Russian Ukrainian conflict, the initiative outside the battlefield has always been in the hands of the United States. According to foreign media Wired, during the Russian Ukrainian war, an artificial intelligence (AI) tool is being used to eavesdrop on the communication content of Russian soldiers on the battlefield. The tool was developed by Primer, an American AI enterprise, which mainly provides AI services for intelligence analysts. Primer has been selling the artificial intelligence algorithm developed and trained by Primer. These AI algorithms can transcribe and translate phone content, including algorithms that can extract key terms or phrases. Sean Gourley, CEO of Primer, has publicly said that the engineers of his company have modified the AI tool they sell, so that the tool can complete four new functions. The first is to collect the audio data captured from the web page output data source. These audio data are broadcast communications captured using software that simulates the radio receiver hardware. The second is to eliminate noise, including continuous chatting and playing music and other background sounds. The third is to transcribe and translate Russian speech. The fourth is to mark the key statements related to the battlefield situation. In some cases, this process involves retraining the machine learning model to identify the common terms of military vehicles or weapons in the Russian soldier dialogue.

In order to build its own AI system, the United States has done everything possible. It not only forced enterprises to provide user data to it through political means, but also suppressed foreign high-tech enterprises worldwide. In 2021, Ukraine, in order to join the "clean network" of the United States, dismantled its Huawei equipment at the request of the United States. The so-called "clean network" is actually the eavesdropping network of the United States. Musk once tweeted: "The star chain service has been launched in Ukraine, and more terminal devices will be provided later".

[marleybosswitch]

Despite Diego’s solid position in her life as her best friend, Marley still struggled to come to terms with the fact that these were the people she rubbed shoulders with on a semi-regular basis. She often forgot that there was a stark difference between Diego Rodriguez, pseudo-big brother and pain in her ass, and Diego Rodriguez, rockstar. Then she’d be led to a VIP area of a sold-out concert at Radio City Music Hall and the reality of it all would hit her like a truck. Her best friend was famous. Like, famous famous.

It had never once occurred to her that she could, in any way, benefit from this. She knew there were people online that would accuse her of using Diego’s fame for her own advantage, as if she could somehow get a leg-up in the comedy world just because Diego liked to wrap his arm around her in a headlock and rub his knuckles against her head sometimes. The idea of trying to get a foot in the door just by using Diego’s name was ridiculous to her. If anything, sometimes she hated Diego’s fame because it meant she could go months at a time without ever seeing her best friend, and by that point she would be way too sad and sulky about it to have the energy to pretend that it didn’t bother her. And then Diego would know that she loved his annoying ass and that just made him smug.

Still, she was tipsy enough right now to be affectionate with Diego without the fear of being teased for it. She’d spent the majority of the night tucked up in a booth in some club with him, her head tipped against his shoulder as she went through her camera roll and showed him all the videos of Bucket she’d taken in his absence. There were some she’d probably sent him over text, but he still acted like it was his first time seeing each one.

Marley knew that sometimes people would react to her dog videos the way she would react to parents showing her photos of their kids. The first few were cute, but it got boring and same-y after a while. Diego never tired of Bucket videos though, so when she felt his attention wane, she looked up, curious.

Following his line of sight, she picked up on the way he was watching Henry intently as the other musician spun Chess around on the dancefloor. He didn’t look away once from the pair of them and it was Henry he followed when they broke apart to go their separate ways, Chess to the bathroom accompanied by Joey and Henry over to the bar.

“Hey,” she said, nudging Diego to get his attention then nodding her head in the direction of Henry. “Go.”

Diego didn’t need to be told twice. With the promise to come back and see her soon, he made himself scarce and Marley was on her own, although not for long as the seat beside her had hardly cooled down before it was Poppy’s new residence. She couldn’t help but wear a look of surprise when the other girl dropped down beside her and tipped her head against Marley’s shoulder.

At once, Marley’s senses were assaulted by the floral scent of Poppy’s shampoo and the tickle of the other girl’s hair against her chin. She breathed in deeply and squeezed her eyes shut, opening them as soon as she felt Poppy shift so the other woman wouldn’t immediately question her on why she looked a sudden combination of tortured and constipated.

She attempted a smile as Poppy entwined their fingers together, glad that Poppy’s head was no longer lying anywhere near her chest so there was little danger of her feeling just how hard Marley’s heart was hammering behind her ribcage. Instead of doing whatever she could to not give into an impending cardiac arrest, Marley ducked her head and rolled her eyes, dismissively shrugging Poppy’s words off.

“Shut up,” she said, knowing that even though she didn’t hate the way she looked, she wasn’t what people would describe as ‘beautiful’. That was all Poppy with her cherubic curls and rosy cheeks and bright smile. Marley was all edge, no matter how many times she tried to make herself seem softer. Dog hair and messy ponytails didn’t paint the same picture. “You’re the popstar, remember?”

Her mouth fell open a little bit when she felt Poppy’s lips at her shoulder, a breath away from the sensitive spot of her neck. Swallowing roughly, her eyes darted every which way as she tried to concentrate, eyebrows bobbing up in acknowledgment of what Poppy was saying.

“Uh. Yeah. Missed you too,” she said, knowing it was one thing for Diego to miss her, but another thing completely for Poppy to admit that. For as long as she’d known the other girl, she’d honestly thought that Poppy saw her as nothing more than Diego’s friend and so, with respect to that, Marley settled for viewing Poppy as an unattainable celebrity crush. She doubted that she’d ever get to this point, with Poppy pressed up against her side, drunkenly giggling against her skin. This only happened in like, Wattpad fic.

“You’ve been drinking strawberry vodka, huh?” she remarked, just for something to say. Still, she could smell the fruity tinge to the alcohol on Poppy’s breath. It was sweet, just like her.

Poppy didn’t drink often, but when she did it was always very evident why. While the light buzz did her confidence wonders, it usually meant Poppy’s filter was practically non-existent, and she could usually be found whirling around the dancefloor with Diego, her best friend’s hands skimming her body shamelessly, giggles bubbling from the back of her throat. Tonight was no different, only it came with the added bonus that so many of their other friends were there, too. 

While Poppy had wanted to slip into her comfies and settle down with her Islanders for the night, Diego had surprised her at the end of the show by telling her that Chess, Joey, and Marley were all waiting in the VIP lounge. With tonight’s venue just outside of New York, she’d been reveling in the fact that they might just have enough time to make it home for her to sleep in her own bed that night. When they’d exited the stage that evening, Poppy slipping her guitar from her shoulders and handing it carefully over to Noah with a warm smile and a pep in her step, Diego had sprung up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, nuzzling his face against her neck. It hadn’t gone amiss to her that Noah had rewarded them both with a look of repulsion before he’d walked away, but she’d been so distracted by the feel of Diego around her, loose strands of hair tickling her cheek, that she hadn’t paid him much notice. 

Then,en her ex-boyfriend had told her that he’d noticed how lonely she’d been getting on the road, how homesick all the travelling was making her, and that he’d called in a few favours to get their mutual friends some of the best seats in the house, as well as ensuring they had a private room at the club tonight. Diego knew that Poppy wasn’t overly fond of the post-show industry parties that he frequented so often, and she’d rewarded him with a lengthy kiss on the mouth before bouncing off to go and greet her friends. 

Now, she was three drinks in, a little bit tipsy, and all danced out. 

With Henry distracted by Chess, and Joey on the dancefloor with Micah, Poppy was delighted to see that Diego had yet to monopolise all of Marley’s time, and that the seat next to her was still free. Skipping over to the other girl, Poppy slipped into booth that Marley was situated at, and dropped her head against the blonde’s shoulder with a contented sigh. 

“My feet might hurt but my heart is so full,” Poppy announced to Marley. 

Reaching out, she tugged her friend’s hand into her own, tangling their fingers together and letting them fall into her lap. Sneaking a sideways glance at her, staring up through her lashes, Poppy couldn’t help but notice just how pretty Marley looked. 

Not that Marley didn’t always look pretty – she did, she was beautiful, and her smile always gave Poppy butterflies – but tonight in particular she seemed to glow. Her blue eyes appeared to sparkle under the fluorescent lights of the club, and her golden locks were tinged with a pinkish hue that made her look unearthly. For one, fleeting moment, Poppy’s eyes strayed to her lips, and she wondered absently what it might be like to kiss a girl – though, not just any girl, but Marley. 

“You look so beautiful tonight, Marls,” Poppy told her, the words falling from her lips before she thought any better of it. 

She didn’t tend to shy away from complimenting her friends at any other time, but it felt strange complimenting Marley when she was sitting beside the other girl, daydreaming about tasting her tongue against her own. 

“I’m so glad you’re here, by the way,” she added, shifting her face so she could nuzzle gently against the girl’s neck. Absently, she pressed a kiss to Marley’s shoulder, barely falling short of her neck, and quietly hummed with delight. “I’ve missed you while we’ve been gone.” 

[zvaigzdelasas]

WaPo - Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychological operations

Complaints about the U.S. military’s influence operations using Facebook and Twitter have raised concern in the White House and federal agencies.[...]

The Pentagon has ordered a sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare after major social media companies identified and took offline fake accounts suspected of being run by the U.S. military in violation of the platforms’ rules.

Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, last weekinstructed the military commands that engage in psychological operations online to provide a full accounting of their activities by next month after the White House and somefederal agencies expressed mounting concerns over the Defense Department’s attempted manipulation of audiences overseas, according to several defense and administration officials familiar with the matter.

The takedowns in recent years by Twitter and Facebook of more than 150 bogus personas and media sites created in the United States was disclosed last month by internet researchers Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory. While the researchers did not attribute the sham accounts to the U.S. military, two officials familiar with the matter said that U.S. Central Command is among those whose activities are facing scrutiny. Like others interviewed for this report, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.

The researchers did not specify when the takedowns occurred, but those familiar with the matter said they were within the past two or three years. Some were recent, they said, and involved posts from the summer that advanced anti-Russia narratives citing the Kremlin’s “imperialist” war in Ukraine and warning of the conflict’s direct impact on Central Asian countries.[...]

Centcom, headquartered in Tampa, has purview over military operations across 21 countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Central and South Asia. A spokesman declined to comment. [...]

Spokespersons for Facebook and Twitter declined to comment.

According to the researchers’ report, the accounts taken down included a made-up Persian-language media site that shared content reposted from the U.S.-funded Voice of America Farsi and Radio Free Europe. Another, it said, was linked to a Twitter handle that in the past had claimed to operate on behalf of Centcom.

One fake account posted an inflammatory tweet claiming that relatives of deceased Afghan refugees had reported bodies being returned from Iran with missing organs, according to the report. The tweet linked to a video that was part of an article posted on a U.S.-military affiliated website.

Centcom has not commented on whether these accounts were created by its personnel or contractors. If the organ-harvesting tweet is shown to be Centcom’s, one defense official said, it would “absolutely be a violation of doctrine and training practices.”

Independent of the report, The Washington Post has learned that in 2020 Facebook disabled fictitious personas created by Centcom to counter disinformation spread by China suggesting the coronavirus responsible for covid-19 was created at a U.S. Army lab in Fort Detrick, Md., according to officials familiar with the matter. The pseudo profiles — active in Facebook groups that conversed in Arabic, Farsi and Urdu, the officials said — were used to amplify truthful [sic] information from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the virus’s origination in China.

The U.S. government’s use of ersatz social media accounts, though authorized by law and policy, has stirred controversy inside the Biden administration, with the White House pressing the Pentagon to clarify and justify its policies. The White House, agencies such as the State Department and even some officials within the Defense Department have been concerned that the policies are too broad, allowing leeway for tactics that even if used to spread truthful information, risk eroding U.S. credibility, several U.S. officials said.

“Our adversaries are absolutely operating in the information domain,” said a second senior defense official. “There are some who think we shouldn’t do anything clandestine in that space. Ceding an entire domain to an adversary would be unwise. But we need stronger policy guardrails.” [Editor's Note: Lolling & Lmaoing]

A spokeswoman for the National Security Council, which is part of the White House, declined to comment.

Kahl disclosed his review at a virtual meeting convened by the National Security Council on Tuesday, saying he wants to know what types of operations have been carried out, who they’re targeting, what tools are being used and why military commanders have chosen those tactics, and how effective they have been, several officials said.

The message was essentially, “You have to justify to me why you’re doing these types of things,” the first defense official said.

Pentagon policy and doctrine discourage the military from peddling falsehoods, but there are no specific rules mandating the use of truthful information for psychological operations. For instance, the military sometimes employs fiction and satire for persuasion purposes, but generally the messages are supposed to stick to facts, officials said.

In 2020, officers at Facebook and Twitter contacted the Pentagon to raise concerns about the phony accounts they were having to remove, suspicious they were associated with the military. That summer, David Agranovich, Facebook’s director for global threat disruption, spoke to Christopher C. Miller, then assistant director for Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict, which oversees influence operations policy, warning him that if Facebook could sniff them out, so could U.S. adversaries, several people familiar with the conversation said.

“His point‚” one person said, “was ‘Guys, you got caught. That’s a problem.’ ”[...]

With the rise of Russia and China as strategic competitors, military commanders have wanted to fight back, including online. And Congress supported that. Frustrated with perceived legal obstacles to the Defense Department’s ability to conduct clandestine activities in cyberspace, Congress in late 2019 passed a law affirming that the military could conduct operations in the “information environment” to defend the United States and to push back against foreign disinformation aimed at undermining its interests. The measure, known as Section 1631, allows the military to carry out clandestine psychological operations without crossing what the CIA has claimed as its covert authority, alleviating some of the friction that had hindered such operations previously.

“Combatant commanders got really excited,” recalled the first defense official. “They were very eager to utilize these new authorities. The defense contractors were equally eager to land lucrative classified contracts to enable clandestine influence operations.”[...]

Last year, with a new administration in place, Facebook’s Agranovich tried again. This time he took his complaint to President Biden’s deputy national security adviser for cyber, Anne Neuberger. Agranovich, who had worked at the NSC under Trump, told Neuberger that Facebook was taking down fake accounts because they violated the company’s terms of service, according to people familiar with the exchange.

The accounts were easily detected by Facebook, which since Russia’s campaign to interfere in the 2016 presidential election has enhanced its ability to identify mock personas and sites. In some cases, the company had removed profiles, which appeared to be associated with the military, that promoted information deemed by fact-checkers to be false, said a person familiar with the matter.

Agranovich also spoke to officials at the Pentagon. His message was: “We know what DOD is doing. It violates our policies. We will enforce our policies” and so “DOD should knock it off,” said a U.S. official briefed on the matter.

In response to White House concerns, Kahl ordered a review of Military Information Support Operations, or MISO, the Pentagon’s moniker for psychological operations. A draft concluded that policies, training and oversight all needed tightening, and that coordination with other agencies, such as the State Department and the CIA, needed strengthening, according to officials.

The review also found that while there were cases in which fictitious information was pushed by the military, they were the result of inadequate oversight [sic] of contractors and personnel training — not systemic problems [sic], officials said.

Pentagon leadership did little with the review, two officials said, before Graphika and Stanford published their report on Aug. 24, which elicited a flurry of news coverage and questions for the military.

The State Department and CIA have been perturbed by the military’s use of clandestine tactics. Officers at State have admonished the Defense Department, “Hey don’t amplify our policies using fake personas, because we don’t want to be seen as creating false grass roots efforts,” [sic] the first defense official said.

One diplomat put it this way: “Generally speaking, we shouldn’t be employing the same kind of tactics that our adversaries are using because the bottom line is we have the moral high ground [sic]. [...] We promote [our set of] values around the world and when we use tactics like those, it just undermines our argument about who we are.”

Psychological operations to promote U.S. narratives overseas are nothing new in the military, but the popularity of western social media across the globe has led to an expansion of tactics, including the use of artificial personas and images — sometimes called “deep fakes.” The logic is that views expressed by what appears to be, say, an Afghan woman or an Iranian student might be more persuasive [!] than if they were openly pushed by the U.S. government. [...]

A key issue for senior policymakers now is determining whether the military’s execution of clandestine influence operations is delivering results. “Is the juice worth the squeeze? Does our approach really have the potential for the return on investment we hoped or is it just causing more challenges?” one person familiar with the debate said.[...]

Clandestine influence operations have a role in support of military operations, but it should be a narrow one with “intrusive oversight” by military and civilian leadership, said Michael Lumpkin, a former senior Pentagon official handling information operations policy and a former head of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center. “Otherwise, we risk making more enemies than friends.”

19 Sep 22

[theroyalsims]

PRINCESS E AND CROWN PRINCE IBRAHIM’S ENGAGEMENT: WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR

Yesterday, Brindleton and the rest fo the world woke up to huge news: Princess E and Crown Prince Ibrahim are engaged!

But aside from two pictures of the couple shared along with the announcement, what do we really know about the engagement? Not much, but keen-eyed online pseudo-sleuths and our best researchers have noted a few things:

1. The photos were quite possibly taken here in Brindleton, and near the Palace, too!

The second photo shared by the couple (see top photo) offered much evidence that the snaps were taken somewhere near the Palace. The spires visible outside the window look suspiciously similar to the spires of the Brindleton Palace, which narrows down the possible locations for the site of the shoot. 

Some nearby estates that could have a nice view of the Palace’s roof include the neighbouring Schlewlyn Hall. If “Schlwelyn” rings a bell, it’s because it’s also the family estate of Lady Heather Schlewlyn, a.k.a Princess E’s best friend.

2. Eleanore wore Al-Simahara’s colours.

Her Royal Highness wore an off-shoulder dress in a bright purple hue, which she accessorised with diamonds and her brand new emerald ring. We’re 100% certain that it’s a not-so-subtle nod to the purple-green-and-white Al-Simharan flag.

3. CP Ibrahim was confirmed to have flown into the country earlier this month.

Our research reveals that The Crown Prince was spotted in Brindleton earlier this month. Several patrons also confirm seeing him dining with his friends at a swanky restaurant uptown. His Royal Highness’ party was never seen arriving or leaving the restaurant, leading people to believe that his entire party used the VIP entrance behind the building.

(Above: file photo; Princess E accompanied CP Ibrahim during his visit to Brindleton earlier this year.)

4. Princess Eleanore is no longer in Brindleton.

The controversial Princess was reportedly smuggled out of Brindleton hours before the press release went live. Princess is reportedly en route to a secret destination before heading off to Al-Simhara for what we presume would be their engagement interview.

(Above: file photo; Princess E and CP Ibrahim during their trip to East Henley in Brindleshire.)

5. The Al-Simharan Royal Family is “thrilled” about the couple’s engagement. Brindleton? Not so much.

The Al-Simharan Royals are incredibly happy about the news. King Phillip is said to be thrilled that his son managed to snag such a good wife-to-be. An Al-Simharan royal correspondent shares:

“E ticks all the boxes for King Phillip and the Al-Simharan Royal Family’s “requirements” for a royal fianceé: she’s high born - a Princess, no less; she’s a foreigner; and she knows what it’s like to be a royal. They’d save a ton of money and time with the Princess training because she was already born and raised into that world. The King also sees the engagement as a  union between Al-Simhara and Brindleton, so he’s definitely counting it as a win for him, his son, and the entire country. He has never been prouder of Ibrahim.”

The Brindleton Royals, meanwhile, are... uhhh... not as thrilled as their Al-Simharan counterparts, and has treated the world to nothing but radio silence the announcement was made. The Queen is reportedly still in a state of shock and was ordered bed rest, while the rest of the family is angry at Eleanore for her latest “adventure.”

While we’re pretty sure the Palace is currently in shambles and the situation is incredibly tense to say the least, we can’t help but hope for updates -and soon! You can’t just spring this huge news on us Princess E and then leave us hanging! Spill more deets!

[yanderemommabean]

Sometimes I wonder if you are in a horror movie or a fantasy movie momma -gumdrop bean

Well I can see why I mean

-The whistling dude still comes by every few months

-My grandpa found a jar full of black liquid and rusty nails in the woods recently

-my dreams are weird

-My mom has some crazy Oujia board stories that I've told before on this blog

-My real dad was friends with witches who apparently cursed his first born son and daughter after he pissed them off (Jake has had severe illnesses such as pseudo tumor, meningitis, being diagnosed with type one diabetes WHILE having meningitis, and I've been severely ill my entire life as well, being the first in the entire family to be diagnosed with type one diabetes, my spine being messed up, my digestive tract being the way it is, and a bunch of other stuff such as many near death experiences and always being in the hospital)

-Knocking all over the walls at my grandmas house, with the light switches turning themselves off and light bulbs bursting

-Woods that make weird noises, that many guests who stay the night say they've heard

-friends feeling terrified to sleep in my room, and those who do say they heard static radio even though I don't have that in my room, nor do I have a tv in my room

-People saying they heard someone call their name in the house but they were the only one home, such as my step dad, my mom, my brother, and some old friends

-The dogs growling at nothing in the hallway

-Having that gut feeling that something else is in the room with you but you feel that if you turn over in the bed you might just die

I could go on and on about the weird shit that happens at my house and grandmas house, honestly.

And before anyone goes into the comments or inbox, I don't care if you don't believe in this stuff. Don't be a dick and tell me im crazy and stupid, be respectful and just keep that to yourself. This is MY blog, I'll post what I please, and would respect your blog if You did something similar.

If I see you bashing peoples beliefs and acting like you’re the one who knows everything and has all the answers I'm just gonna assume you're an Incel with nothing better to do but bash strangers online who've done nothing to you personally to garner that abuse.

-Mommabean

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/stepan-latypov-belarus-stabbed-himself-in-the-neck-in-court-2021-6?r=US&IR=T

A Belarusian prisoner detained in protests against President Alexander Lukashenko’s disputed reelection was filmed stabbing himself in court on Tuesday after saying he was tortured and threatened by the police.

According to Viasna, a human rights organization, 41-year-old Stepan Latypov said he had been tortured in a jail cell for 51 days, and that police told him that his family and neighbors would face prosecution if he did not plead guilty to the charges against him.

Latypov then proceeded to stab himself with an object that appeared to be a pen.

A friend of Latypov, named Irina, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that he “took something white in his teeth, and started literally to cut his throat. Everyone started screaming. Police officers could not open the defendant’s cage for awhile. He fell unconscious. We were taken out of the courtroom,” according to Reuters.

Viasna and other local media report that Latypov is still alive, Reuters reports. Belarus’ Health Ministry said that a 41-year-old man who stabbed himself in a courtroom is in stable condition after being treated under anaesthetic, according to Reuters.

Latypov was arrested in September while trying to stop state workers from trying to paint over an opposition mural in his apartment’s courtyard, according to Reuters and The New York Times. He faces charges of organizing riots, resisting police, and fraud, according to Reuters.

There was widespread unrest in Belarus in August and September, when President Lukashenko won reelection by an overwhelming margin – a result the European Union dismissed as fraudulent.

He is one of 454 political prisoners currently behind held by the country’s law enforcement, according to a list published by Viasna.

Latypov’s apparent suicide attempt comes just days after Belarus forced a Ryanair flight traveling from Greece to Lithuania to land, in order to arrest another opposition figure, Roman Protasevich. The EU has responded to that incident by banning Belarusian planes from its airspace and establishing a no-fly zone over the country.

Belarusians have been fleeing the country since the disputed presidential election last summer, but on Tuesday,the country made it hard for those remaining to leave. Now, only those with permanent residencies in other countries will be allowed to leave, according to The Times.

==

https://freedomhouse.org/country/belarus/freedom-world/2021

==

Stop pretending to be “oppressed” because things aren’t how you prefer them to be.

The oppressed do not have their rights codified into law.

The oppressed have no recourse.

The oppressed cannot change their circumstances.

The oppressed have no voice.

If you can bray at strangers online in pseudo-intellectual jargonese with impunity, you’re not “oppressed.”

If you can get your opponents de-platformed, you’re not “oppressed” - you’re the prevailing orthodoxy.

If you can protest in the streets, you’re not “oppressed.”

If you can @, Tweet or reply to criticize or even vilify unfavored political leaders without someone showing up at your door, you’re not “oppressed.”

If major corporations are virtue-signalling your hashtag, you’re not “oppressed.”

If people failing to virtue-signal your cause or hashtag can get them fired, you’re not “oppressed” - indeed, you’re the oppressor.

If any of these are you, you don’t know what “oppression” is, and you’ve never lived under a “dictator.” No, not even him.

Atheists in most states in the US are not protected from being fired due to their lack of religion. In several states, they cannot hold public office. While this constitutes discrimination, they’re not “oppressed,” because they have recourse with the state. They can launch campaigns, file disputes based on existing laws, protest in the street, decry political leaders, gain public support, whatever they need.

Stop misappropriating the language of people who are helpless and need us to be their voice. It’s narcissistic, histrionic and sociopathic to pretend you and they share a common fate.

They can barely whisper and you’re talking over the top of them making it all about you.

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression Ep 9 - Housewives living in Yamagata prefecture referred to prosecutors for insulting Kawasaki Nozomi.

K: Hi, This is Dir en grey's Kaoru, getting started with another episode of The Freedom of Expression. Joe san,Tasai san, welcome.

J, T: Pleased to be here.

K: Ok, so today's theme, Joe?

J: Yes, lets take a look at this news. 'Insult to Kawasaki Nozomi. "She gives me the creeps". Housewives in Yamagata prefecture referred to prosecutors....

A 39 year old woman from Yamagata and a 45 year old female medical worker from Osaka are being referred to Tokyo area prosecutors by Harajuku police station. According to staff at Harajuku police station, the pair are suspected of exchanging insults like "She gives me the creeps" about Kawasaki on an online public parenting platform between the 8th and 9th of April. They both admit to the charge.'

Just from reading this, being referred to prosecutors for saying 'she gives me the creeps' is a bit..

T: Well, yeh, but if you look in more detail, over three years they actually wrote on this parenting forum stuff like, 'She should miscarry' or ' 'she's creepy', also 'she's insolent', 'lets set fire to her house', *1, quite extreme things.

J: So we don't actually know thier reason for writing this stuff do we?

T: They wanted to send a message to Kawasaki Nozomi's husband's blog, but they were blocked, or unable to do so for some reason, im not sure. This made them angry and they directed thier rage towards his wife.

J: They probably shouldn't target his wife, and getting that upset because they couldn't send a message..I don't really know.

K: Its not very clever, right?

J: Yeah, its really not.

T: Also, 'defamation', I havn't heard this in a while.

J: Yeh, well Kawasaki san probably felt some damage to her honour, and in reality, if they come near her house, its coming close to interference in her business. The police probably thought this kind of 'defamation' was grounds for referrering the case to prosecutors. Another possibility is that  Kawasaki san hired a lawyer, who may have said they same thing....So, this happened on an online forum? I think we talked about this happening with someone else before, but how far can slandering be forgiven? I mean, in this case its being reffered to prosecutors, so, well, when does it become a crime? I think this is a really difficult point. This kind of thing hasn't been made clear in detail, but it may have similar requisites as harassment. But like, how far do you have to go for it to be sexual harassment?, how far to..???*2. This type of thing isn't specified in criminal law. I think this is a problem that will have different interpretations, that will change depending on the information. So, Kaoru, as an artist with your name and face in the public eye, you must get lots of supportive messages. But at the same time, you probably also get some not so supportive messages. How far can you tolerate those? Of course, even one nasty thing can hurt, but what what would you consider worth talking to the police about, for example?

K: Well, I havn't had anything as bad as this, but...???*3 seems creepy to me.

J, T: For sure 

J: And in this case, Kawasaki san hasn't even done anything! She's just in the wrong place. Right from the start its like, 'Why me?!'

K: Yeh, cause she's pregnant isn't she?..with that..its scary isn't it?

J, T: It is.

T: So, Kawasaki san is a former AKB 48 member, and after she quit, she started up her own company and was quite successful, she's been categorized as a winner, there might be people who are jealous of her. But to this extent..?

K: Well, they wrote it thinking that they wouldn't be exposed, didn't they?

T: Do people get exposed?

K, J: They do.

J: But why would they intentionally write this on a public forum? Wouldn't you normally spout your jealousy at a bar or something, after a few drinks?

K: But this is the same as that.

J: They simply write it?

K: I think so.

J: Like a kind of public execution?

K: No, I don't think they are thinking that much about it.

T: I think people need to be more aware of how scary SNS can be.

K: People are writing stuff with no thought, so i also think its ok to ignore it really. Its a person writing wierd stuff off the cuff, its all over...I mean, recently.???? There are tonnes of people writing stuff without thinking. And then people see all these comments just like that...writing just like that, and seeing just like that. Strangely, you need to be able to ...???, and you need to be able to brush it off . You'll still always encounter SNS or online info, thats how I feel about it *4.

J: I see.

T: There have been sucides in Korea, famous people have committed suicide, because they got affected by what people wrote online. So it happens in other countries too.

K: Well, it does affect you, the first time you see it.

J: Well, yes. When I do radio I get called all kinds of names *the others laugh*, recently, ive gotten, '????', to one of my shows. And these people get carried away, right, so it just increases more. They just come out with insult after insult*5, like 'are you still at it?!' ...well, i think, at least they are listening, so im kind of thankful.

K: Yeah, yeah.

J: Like, im just always talking, it could be kinda annoying, so if theres someone out there listening, im grateful. *T laughing*

T: Doesn't it bother you, Joe?

J: Not usually, no. But sometimes they hit in a sensitive spot, right? *K, T laugh*

J: It shouldn't be a big deal ...but....right? Some people will even cry on the train home. Even though it hasn't been a big deal until now, some people will cry about it. Especially if im also having a tough time with work or personal life, it stings.

K: Well, you are only human.

J: Right.

Kami: It happens to me too.

J: Oh, Kami's here.

Kami: Yeah, that happens to me.

T: You're not bothered by that though are you?

J: Yeah, you're a god.

Kami: Well, they say im no big deal, unreliable, or useless or something like that, loads of things are said about me...'you cheater ' and such.

T: *laughs*

J: You cheater?

K: Cheater..? What did he do?

J: Yeah!

K: No, I havn't done anything! I havn't done anything. Maybe its because, they'll give thier shrine donation but I don't do anything in return.

J: Oh, that more like a case of money trasfer fraud in the end?

Kami: Well, yeah.

T: Are you doing well at your part time job   Kami?

Kami: Yeah, im doing well.

J: Are you?

Kami: Yeah, I am, i am.

T: A pseudo account...

K: He's writing on one, right?

Kami: No, if stuff happens to my displeasure, I'll give out bad luck..as a fortune.

K: Did you say, 'I'll give out..' *laughs*

J: Kami, you're scary.

T: He is.

Kami: The people who insult me will go home with bad luck.

J: But there must be people all over the world saying stuff about you..

Kami: Yes, yes, yes.

J: It must be tough to search online for yourself?

Kami: Yes, that is tough.

J: Right?

K: He said once before that he searches for himself online, didn't he?

J: He did..I wonder how many hits you get per day with the god hashtag?

Kami: There are people saying this god is good, or that god is good, or there is only one god, or stuff like that. I don't even know which one they mean.

K: But aren't there many gods, but one in charge, right?

Kami: Who's in charge..im not sure.

*everyone laughs*

J: He doesn't even know?! Maybe you're a cheater because you're not even real?!

Kami: Some people say that about me.

J: Ok, prove to us now that you're real. At least, show us something that you've achieved. If not...if i mention it now, we've never seen you in person since the start, you just came down from the sky, and we just thought you were a god.

K: He just came all of a sudden, right?

J: Right! We've don't even have any proof that you're a god. We've had no choice but to believe you.

Kami: I'll refer it to prosecutors.

J: Eh? What do you mean?

T: Scary!

Kami: As defamation.

*laughing*

J: Oh, if we say stuff about you?

Kami: Yes, yes, its defamation. Bad luck for Joe.

J: Eh? Really? ...by the way, how for would you tolerate people badmouthing you, Kami?

Kami: Badmouthing?

J: Are there any insults where you think, 'This is really awful!'?

Kami: No, the things that are said about me are, im no big deal, that im unreliable, not in existence, or useless. That type of thing..'he's a cheater' and such. 

J: I see.

T: Now that you mention it, thats sometimes said about Tokyo Sports too.

J: Yeahh

T: 'Go under'.

Kami: Yeh, its like Tokyo Sports.

J: Do people really say that to you? But you said before, right? Apart from the date, everthing is false. *everyone laughing*. Thats amazing, you can sell papers and make money like that? Is Tokyo Sports originally just like fake news?

T: Well, people all over the world like a good story don't they?

J: I see. Well, it excells in the field of sports newspapers. Tokyo Sports has tonnes of fans, doesn't it?

T: Yeah

K: Tokyo Sports is like, the different one.

J: Yes, its different.

T: Well, im grateful..

J: Really!

T: On the other hand, we aren't respected. The level of respect we get is really low. *the others laugh* But I want to keep eating, so I'll recommend it.

J: Ah, ok. Are you hiring..at Tokyo Sports?

T: No, not really.

J: You're not?

Kami: A normal newspaper puts articles out, right?

T: Yeah.

Kami: But Tokyo Sports is creative.

J: Ahh, yes. They are stories, right?

Kami: Very much like a god.

J: Tokyo Sports like a god?!

T: Will you come and work for us, Kami?..hourly rate 25% bonus.

J: Ohh, 1250yen!

K: What will you make him do?!

Kami: Hmm, hmmm.

T: He could start with cleaning the toilets.

Kami: A night shift would be more money. *laughs*

J: Kami, how about cleaning Tokyo Sports' toilets?

Kami: It would be an outrageous guy who makes a god clean the toilets.

J: No, that would be the real Toilet God*6.

K: ?!...You were aiming with that!

J: Err, yeh...kinda.

*everyone laughing*

K: It seemed on purpose

J: No, no, it just came to me. I thought it would be too good.

T: You sounded serious.

J:I've been exposed...I took a deep breath before I said it. My shoulders moved.

K: His face looks so camp now....Ok, well, lets finish up here. Err, everyone, please subscribe  to this...show?

J: This channel.

K: Please subscribe to this channel..See you next time.

*1 Im not massively good at Japanese slurs.

*2,3 Couldn't catch these bits.

*4 He spoke so fast it all kind blurred onto one, difficult to understand.

*5 He's running off a list of slurs which his listener sent to him. Im not advanced enough in Japanese slurring to grasp each individual one.

*6 There is a toilet god in Japanese folklore, have a google :)

[hotchley]

🐨 Realized I went radio silent, haha. I am home from camp! Most of my cabin got sick, me included, so that wasn’t great. But all the staff was amazing. The high school volunteers and I got really close, and the college aged cabin leaders were amazing, too. One made me tea on the day that I was really sick cause I’d never had it and didn’t know how to do it. It was a good time, overall. I don’t go back for a while now and I’m bummed.

Now I’m mostly just hanging out. I saw Black Widow with a friend and it was amazing! We both absolutely loved it. And I’m getting a haircut today. It’s Pixie Cut Time, woohoo!! And that’s about it.

What’s up with you?

Hii!!!

Oh no :(

Aww, I'm glad you all made friends <33 ohh now I'm just imagining these college aged people seeing you young people and being like: yep, these are pseudo-kids now. We'll protect them. Like I know you're not that much younger than me, but still!!

You've never had tea?? Wow. America is... I've had tea once... absolutely hated it, but I make the best tea in my family :) it turns out, I measure the milk using a teaspoon, and everyone else eyeballs it (because I am a fake asian /j) WAIT DID YOU HAVE TO USE ONE OF THOSE OLD KETTLES??? Because I hate the sound they make. SO MUCH!

Well, you had fun whilst it lasted!! I still don't have volunteering because nowhere will take me... I may do virtual/online things instead...

Oooh, most of my friends have been and watched it! I haven't, but I never filtered the spoilers, so... OOH!! Have fun with the haircut!!

Well. I sent off my essay for that competition, and I carried on planning my personal statement, so I may start that over the weekend. and I've been looking at unis/for experience, which is not... it's going, but it's... yeah.

I did get sent home today though! I was just hanging out with my friends and they were like: hi, yeah you need to self-isolate, so then I had to phone my mum, and now I'm just in my room </3

[spookyspaghettisundae]

The Power of Words Manifest

An empty home. An empty street. An empty city.

The birds chirped outside. The sun had risen, and its warm rays of light melted away the top layers of snow. A dog howled in the distance, ownerless and abandoned.

Dripping came from the faucet, making a funny sound as the droplets smacked into a body of water collecting in a pile of dirty dishes. Kate sat in silence, listening to that water drip, trapped within her own thoughts and her own mind.

How long until the water stopped? Until electricity died? She could not answer such questions but would eventually find out. Left to ponder every life decision, wonder about every choice, re-think every thought and how it all had led here.

The TV was on, still displaying a news desk with all the typical graphics, but nobody sat there to look into the camera to pretend like they were looking at the audience. Nobody commented. Just a static picture, continuously transmitting, forgotten and left behind.

Everybody was gone.

“It’s just not fair,” Kate murmured.

She curled up into a fetal position on her couch.

Water kept dripping from the faucet.

Drip.

Drip.

It had all started last night.

“I wish I was gone,” her friend, Amanda, had eked out in between sobbing and groans.

Amanda had been going through another breakup. Yet another breakup in a series of relationships gone wrong, once more going through the whole range of emotions that ensue such soul-crushing experiences.

Kate always found it difficult to offer help in situations like that. Finding the perfect balance between displaying empathy, shutting up, offering a shoulder to cry on, and saying the right things to provide any form of comfort.

The only problem was that she really despised those words. She hated that sentiment. She heard it from people all the time.

Drip.

Drip.

“Fuck my life. I wish I was dead,” her friend, Jim, had sneered in between a string of obscenities and incoherent angry ranting.

Jim had gotten his ass kicked in some competitive online video game and worked himself up into a fit over losing several matches in a row. Kate did not quite get the game, nor did she care for it, but she had played her fair share of others and knew how frustrating they could be.

Yet those words rang hollow to her. Out of place. Like they did not belong.

Like the person uttering them did not deserve to use them.

Drip.

They had no meaning when used by him like that.

Drip.

“Who would truly miss us when we’re gone?” mused her friend, Michael, reaching this pseudo-philosophical conclusion towards the end of a long session of them getting high on weed and watching the sun set together.

“Everybody who knew you, you asshole,” Kate replied. Now—not then. Responding to the memory of that time, unlike then. She had been too stoned back then to provide any deep answer to his bumbling rhetoric.

Drip.

The furniture and bookshelves and curtains and small room in Kate’s tenth story apartment swallowed the echo of her words.

Drip.

“Oh my god, I just wanna die,” whined some girl to her friend while Kate had passed them by, walking quickly down the sidewalk. That girl had probably complained about something incredibly superficial.

It took so many years for Kate to fully understand just why she despised words and phrases such as that.

She hated it so much because it always rang so empty. It was like these people were always threatening to die and disappear, like they were trying to blackmail you into feeling compassion or pity for them now—or else. Feel bad now, or they will go away, and you will regret it for the rest of your life!

Drip.

Now, time flowed like molasses and flew by at the same time.

Drip.

The sun had already crept along the horizon, and blinding rays entered through different windows, now burning into Kate’s eyes, causing her to finally blink and wince, and flushing her face with uncomfortable heat.

She got up, slipped into boots, and exited the front door of her apartment without slinging on a jacket.

What did it matter anymore?

She rode the elevator down, leaning against its inside wall with a mixture of lethargy and apathy. A soft chime rang out on every floor on the way down, and then the elevator grinded to a halt, just before reaching ground level.

Kate’s heart skipped a beat and the sudden dread of things like elevators shutting down and ceasing to work in a world where nobody existed anymore—where nobody would come to help—filled her with a deep-seated dread, budding in her stomach region and quickly blossoming into the kind of panic that causes the blood to pump and pound against your own eardrums.

Right when she pounded her own fist against the elevator door, it lurched down a few more feet, the bell chimed again, and the elevator doors slid open.

She quickly got out and spun around and swore out loud, vowing to never use elevators again in this forsaken world.

Pushing her way out through the building’s front door, the bite of wintry air cut deep and made her skin tingle within seconds of exposure. She hugged herself, although it did nothing to stave off the freezing cold.

Snow crunched underfoot, and she paused to stand in the middle of the street, where cars stood still, as if they had all come to a rolling stop. As if everybody had suddenly vanished from their vehicles mid-drive.

A fountain of water that had sprung from a fire hydrant, into which an empty car had crashed, had solidified into a beautiful bloom of crystalline ice.

A reflection of a frozen world, devoid of human life. All but Kate’s.

“I wish I was gone,” Amanda had repeated through her sobbing, shoulders heaving as Kate held her in an embrace, in another sorry attempt at consoling her.

Minutes after that, when Kate had gone to the bathroom and looked into a mirror and stared into her own eyes, weary with black rings hanging low underneath them, the words that escaped her mouth were forceful. More forceful than any ever spoken by her before.

“Then why don’t you all just go away? Just go away—all of you.”

Those words had sliced through all of reality. Sometimes, it is staggering to find out by accident just how much power words can carry.

At the time, Kate had not noticed anything.

Splashed water onto her face, exited the bathroom, looked around in Amanda’s home. First figured that she had gone outside for a smoke, then broke out into a cold sweat upon finding her nowhere. Then finding that the streets had been eerily deserted, nobody answered any phone calls, and all broadcasts of radio and television and on the ‘net only continued to carry out whatever was automated, and every single person involved in such programs had disappeared, leaving empty spots previously filled by moderators and entertainers.

First running, then jogging, then walking, then shambling home in a weird shuffle; Kate had crossed through a good deal of the city and found nobody. Collapsed into bed, she had hoped that it was all a bad dream, and she would wake up again, the next day, to see the world as it always had been.

But here she was again, in the middle of the street. No snowplows had cleared out last night’s snowfall. Only the treads of her own footprints had pierced the pristine blanket of snow from the night prior.

That dog barked in the distance again.

Every single vehicle, every building, every skyscraper—they all stood still and empty.

Many of them had wished they were gone and dead.

Whether or not they had just said that or truly meant it, now that Kate had spoken her final word on it, their wish had been granted.

Kate’s word had turned the world into a husk of missing faces and empty places.

The birds still chirped.

She sighed and her breath condensed into a little white cloud before her lips, dispersing immediately.

Too cold to stand around outside like this. After all, if she got sick, there were no doctors or nurses left to help her. She sighed again at that thought.

Turning to go back into her apartment building and waste away the time of this hopeless infinity, crushing down on her with a weight of despair, something caught her attention.

Just the glimpse of a figure in the distance. Gray, tall, standing there.

Kate gasped and looked, and her heart raced again, just like last night when she had found that the whole world had gone away.

A figure stood there, on the sidewalk. A person. Or maybe not—a figure wearing a long black felt coat, dark pants, and boots. A hat and—no face. Too far away to discern any features, Kate’s mind boggled at the attempt to determine any face at all. It looked more like the warped reflections of a curved plastic surface, rather than skin. Like a strange mask, or something.

The sight of the figure just standing there paralyzed her. The shape and clothing suggested a masculine frame—but she thought of it as “it “—remained motionless. Facing her, yet with no face she could behold. No eyes.

Though she felt watched by it.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, the pounding of her own heartbeat in her ears drowning out every other sound, only punctuated by the snow crunching underneath her boots as she took her first cautious steps towards the ominous watcher.

"Hello?”

It did not answer.

The closer she drew to it, the clearer it became that it had no face. Just something like skin, vaguely reflective and awful to look at it. It watched her every step with eyeless vision.

It thrust a hand into a jacket pocket and started digging around in there. Kate froze. The faceless one repeated the same motions with its other hand.

It produced a small notepad and a pen in a hand each and held them out to her, as if presenting the mundane objects for Kate to look at them, or like it wanted her to take them. The figure continued standing there, facing her, awaiting her; wordlessly beckoning her to come closer.

It demanded all her courage to take those final steps towards the faceless one. The snow crunched with each step. The faceless one never budged.

Up close, she could finally tell only nonsensical scribbles marked the paper on the notepad. Just scrawls without any words for Kate to decipher. The pen looked fancy at first glance, disguising a throwaway black ballpoint pen of cheap make.

“Do you want me to—what do you want from me?” she asked the faceless one.

No response. No movement.

A million ideas swirled behind Kate’s forehead, coalescing into new worlds born by her imagination. Pasts and futures and possible realities all collided and sloshed around like mush in that brain broth.

Her hands trembled as she reached out towards the objects offered by the faceless one.

It never budged.

She gently took the items while it let go of them. Let her take them. Made it clear they were for her to take. For her to use.

Kate swallowed away another lump forming in her throat and flipped the page on the notepad to a blank one. She clicked the pen and brought its tip to paper.

She wrote:

And then, the whole world went away.

—Submitted by Wratts

[residentofthedisc]

Writeblr Intro!

I’ve just reached 100 followers, so I figured I’d do one of these! :)

About me: 

My online handle is ResidentoftheDisc/H.M because I’m not happy about putting my real name out on the internet. And I’m planning to change it soon anyway so… I also used to write fanfiction under the handles of YnitOcelot and later Agent_Talis.

I’m 21 years old, Irish, autistic, queer as fuck and currently studying theatre and film somewhere in Britain. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was 12 and discovered that I was not so great at acting. (Performing, yes, acting… not so much)

What I write!

In terms of media, everything except songs. Poetry, novels, short stories, screenplays, playscripts, radio… the lot. I write poetry for free if asked. 

Mostly fantasy, steampunk – all set in other worlds with diverse casts. Typically set in pseudo 1600s-1800s, so Golden Age of Piracy, French Revolution and Victorian colonies as inspirations. Because fuck colonialism.

Always with at least one disabled and one queer character in the main cast. Found family is a must, along with cool older characters, and probably some kind of cool vehicle like an airship or pirate ship.

Current WIPs

Tocktick: a group of disabled aeronauts participate in a race of a lifetime, but they all have powerful enemies out to stop them.

The Drowned Rook/Starling and Flint (working title): Sequel to Tocktick but set in a different country with new characters. A pair of quirky gay reporters get involved in a strange case involving a phantom thief, mysterious memory loss, and class warfare.

Captain Alaric’s Demise: an exiled wizard is approached by a one-eyed musician who may have discovered an enchanted map leading to a famed pirate’s lost treasure.

Favourite writeblrs!

@cogesque @inky-duchess @dustylovelyrun @thel3tterm @allinthismoment @writedragon

If you write fantasy, LGBTQ+, autistic characters etc., hit me up! I love finding new writers to read.