#someone should write an unhinged article about the guy | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

persepholline · 3 years ago

Text

I've read that article about the romanticization of the Darkling and while I absolutely understand people who are pissed off/sad and I agree that it's shitty, I find LB's attitude towards Darkles stans very funny in a "girl what are you doing" sort of way because it's so petty like I've never heard of a bestselling author writing a portion of their fans into their books as a crazy cult before, it clearly hit a nerve

I'm new to the fandom but the feeling I get is she wrote something problematic ten years ago and became very embarrassed about it afterwards so she turned on the fans that liked it as a way to absolve herself. Especially since fandoms in general have become a lot more focused on discussion of what constitutes healthy/acceptable relationships to write about. And in a way I get it I had a huge Twilight phase in high school and afterwards I was super embarassed about it because of how problematic and cringe it was. But now with distance and more maturity I'm able to both still see why it was problematic and also why I was drawn to it (mostly the very unhinged representation of female desire) and like...it's really not the end of the world and no it never made me believe that breaking into somebody's room at night to watch them sleep was actually ok in real life lmao. This feels so obvious to me but apparently it needs to be said.

(More under the break this is turning into an essay, I've been thinking of this a lot recently)

And of course it's good to have these discussions about how historically romance tropes have echoed social dynamics of men's shitty behavior being romanticized and excused. But these days they often are so simplistic and focused on chasing clout that they become this weird new puritanism and moral panic about oh now women are reading novels it's going to make them hysterical or something

So you have these weird assumptions that you can't like a character and also be critical of their actions, or enjoy certain parts of a character and not others, or wish they were written differently and like them more for their potential (which I'm sure stings a bit for an author lol) - it assumes that if you like a character it means you would approve of their actions in real life, or that people just stupidly reproduce whatever they see on TV. That tendency to treat fictional characters like real people is the thing that actually worries me, to be honest, because it indicates a lack of distance and critical capacities regarding how stories are used and received. But people - fans and authors - are so scared of being called out as problematic and harassed for it that they're going to shy away from any nuance.

And yeah I think that it's good that standards of what constitutes an ideal relationship are evolving and becoming more feminist and communicative and all that and we definitely need more of that. But not all fiction has to be aspirational! Sometimes you just want to read about fucked up shit, because it's cathartic or fascinating, even healing at times because with fiction you are absolutely in control and can choose when to close the book. Toxic relationships in fiction can have an appeal specifically because they go to extremes of feeling that we don't want to go to in reality, in exactly the same way as horror movies or very violent action movies - which I don't see a lot of people besides fundamentalist Christians argue that they turn you into violent psychopaths (and that feels very obviously sexist). And for women, who are often taught growing up that love is the purpose of life, the "saving someone with your ability to love" can be a power fantasy in the same way that being a buff superhero who saves the day with their capacity for incredible violence can be a power fantasy for men. Still doesn't mean those women are going to fall in love with actual murderers or that those men are going to start beating up people at night. And love is scary, and weird, and weirdly close to horror at times, with all the potential for loss of self and being vulnerable and overwhelming feelings and potential for being horribly hurt and it should be possible for stories to explore that without anybody screaming about how this is going to Corrupt the Youth or something

And I mean I get it LB wanted to write a cautionary tale for teenagers, but it just did not work for reasons a lot of people have already written about - the fact that the Darkling is the leader of an oppressed minority and is the only one with a real political agenda to end that oppression in the first trilogy, the fact that he helps Alina come into her own power while her endgame LI is someone she keeps herself small for, that she's shamed for wanting power after growing up without any, a generally very wonky conception of privilege, and a lot of other stuff with yucky regressive implications to the point where stanning the villain actually feels liberating and empowering which is a surefire sign that the narrative is broken (unless it's a villain focused story lmao). But of course that Fanside article makes almost no mention of the political dynamics, it's all about interpersonal stuff which is an annoying trend in YA, there are those massive events happening in the background but it's made all about the feelings of the hero(ine) ; war as a self-development quest (which is kind of gross). Helnik is kind of an example of this too - I like them, I think they're fun ! But Matthias spends a big part of the story wanting to brutally murder Nina and her kind, and he mostly changes his mind because he finds her hot. Like you don't feel there is some sort of big revelation that his entire moral system and political framework is completely rotten ; it's all better because of feelings now.

As a teenager that kind of sanctimonious bullshit would have annoyed the hell out of me ; I read those books in my early twenties and I found the ending so stupid I wouldn't have trusted any message or life lessons coming from them. And I liked reading/watching dark stuff as a teenager, as a way to deal with the very intense inner turmoil I was dealing with - and I turned out fine ! Meanwhile I've seen several times women in very shitty relationships being obsessed with positive energies and stories ; they were so terrified of their life not being perfectly wholesome they ended up being delusional about their own situations.

Like personally I think the Darkling is a compelling, interesting, alluring character and also a manipulative, murderous piece of shit and that Alina should get to punish him (like in a sexy way) - but he's also the end result of centuries of war, oppression and trauma and reducing that to "toxic wounded boy" feels kind of offensive ngl ESPECIALLY since the books don't offer any kind of systemic analysis or response to oppression beyond "the bad guy should die" and "now the king/queen is a good guy our problems are solved!!!!"

In Lives of the Saints, we see how Yuri is abused extremely badly and almost killed by his father, and so when his father dies when the Fold swallows Novokribirsk, he thinks the Starless Saint has saved him. Later in KoS/RoW he's turned into this fanatic who explains away all the Darkling's crimes. The other followers talk about how the Starless Saint will bring equality for all men. Then the Darkling comes back and actually thinks his followers are pathetic, which feels again like a very pointed message to his IRL stans. Which is absolutely hilarious to me. Like oh no, if he was real he would not like you and think you're pathetic ! Yeah ...but he's not. Real. Damn right he would not like the fics where Alina puts him on a leash. I'm still going to read them. What is he going to do about it, jump out of the page ? Jfjfjjdhfgfjfj

Anyway I think the intended message is "assholes will use noble political causes for their own gain and to manipulate people" and "being abused/oppressed is not an excuse to behave badly." Which. Sure. But that's kind of like...a tired take, honestly ? A big number of villains nowadays are like this ; either they've been bullied as kids, or they're part of an oppressed group, or they have "good ideals but too extreme". This is not surprising because a lot of mainstream heroic narratives present clinging to the status quo as Good and change as chaotic and dangerous. And like sure in real life people often do bad shit because they're wounded and in danger. But if you want to do a story like that, you have to do it with nuance, talk about cycles of violence, about how society creates vulnerable people to be exploited, about how privilege gives you more choices and the luxury of morals, etc. The Grishaverse does not have this level of nuance (maybe in SoC a little bit but definitely not in TGT). So it kind of comes off as "trauma makes you evil" and "egalitarianism is dangerous" and "if you're abused/oppressed you're not allowed to fight back". And ignores the fact that historically, evil generally comes from unchecked privilege.

I guess my point is that there are many things I like about LB's writing, she knows how to create these really exciting character dynamics, and the world she has created is fascinating. But these stories are not a great starting point for imparting moral lessons. And her best characters tend to be, at least in canon, the morally grey ones. I hope one day she'll be at peace with the fact that she wrote the Darkling the way she did and leave his fans alone but in the meantime I'm just not going to take this whole thing seriously I'm sorry

#darklina #the darkling #alina starkov #aleksander morozova

78 notes · View notes

canchewread · 4 years ago

Photo

Author’s note: as an independent, anarcho-syndicalist analyst who currently doesn’t even have a Twitter account, my ability to do the work I do online hinges on word-of-mouth referrals and recommendations; if you like this article, please share a link to it someplace else on social media.

The Trump Suspensions, Big Tech and Section 230

If the truth is to be told, I've spent the better part of the past week and a half trying to put Trump and his coup attempt behind me; with a hyper-capitalist Biden administration on tap, and already trafficking in austerity mythology and neoliberal authoritarianism, my internal analyst's relevancy clock is ticking like a time bomb. Furthermore, I believe that the fallout from the actual chud insurrection on January 6th, has finally rendered Trump himself an impotent, and increasingly less relevant, figure in what I have repeatedly predicted will be an ongoing American fascist movement. Finally of course, after five years of writing “yes, this guy is literally a fascist” over and over, I've grown extremely weary of arguing about what fascism is, and isn't, with contrarian left types who don't realize they're still operating under the hypnotic spell of American exceptionalism.

Unsurprisingly however, the news itself hasn't really given a damn what I'd rather be analyzing, and the fallout from the chud riot in D.C., has utterly dominated the coverage and discourse; creating infuriating and irresponsible narratives about what is ultimately a clear cut act of politicized violence by far right, fascist extremists. Recently, I've been offering a lot of push-back on narratives popular among the more reactionary elements of the online “left,” but today I'd like to turn our attention to a popular “neoliberal” (but not necessarily Democratic Party) narrative being pushed by elite capital, and the cluster of companies we collectively know as Big Tech. Namely, the idea that in the wake of the coup attempt, billion dollar social media companies should be lauded for finally suspending the accounts of Donald Trump and thousands of his fascist cronies, on their various services.

Now, don't get me wrong here; this isn't going to be a rant about censorship, and I personally think it's an unquestionably good thing that Trump (and fascist organizers) have been driven off social media, but something smells like rotting fish in all this, and I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that greedy, crypto-reactionary Tech Bros running billion dollar social media companies, are at the heart of it. To understand my problem here however, the first thing we have to ask is “why was Trump suspended from social media?”

Obviously each of the various social media companies have released statements about their decisions, but we're not really here to waste our time dissecting what amounts to public relations and propaganda. On an extremely basic level, most people understand that Trump's accounts were suspended for using election fraud conspiracy theories to ultimately incite fascist violence, and inspire a chud insurrection that left five people dead. Reduced to its essence, this then leaves us with three major “justifications” for the Trump suspensions; spreading dangerous conspiracy theories, inciting an insurrection, and inspiring (lethal) violence – all very good reasons to suspend someone's Twitter or Facebook account, wouldn't you say?

Unfortunately for guys like Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey however, there are in fact some obvious problems with this narrative no matter which angle you choose to approach it from; let's start with the fact that Trump's social media feeds have been creating dead bodies and inspiring reactionary violence for years. It is no great secret that racialized violence and hate crimes have risen drastically in America (and the larger Pig Empire) since Trump launched his first election campaign with an explicitly fascist speech about Mexicans and migrants. What is far less often discussed however, even on ostensibly “liberal” news networks, is the ways in which Trump (and his tweets) have already directly inspired violence and murder in America and even abroad:

In addition to the surging national hate crime figures, a May 2020 investigation turned up at least “54 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault.” As ABC notes, “the cases are remarkable in that a link to the president is captured in court documents and police statements, under the penalty of perjury or contempt. These links are not speculative – they are documented in official records. And in the majority of cases identified by ABC News, it was perpetrators themselves who invoked the president in connection with their case, not anyone else.”

At least three different mass shooters (Pittsburgh, El Paso, Christchurch New Zealand) can convincingly be said to be have been inspired by Trump, or Trump’s rhetoric in some direct and observable way. Their total body count is eighty-four dead people who would likely still be breathing today, if Donald Trump had never logged on to social media or been given a platform to spread hatred and fascist ideology.

All of this is of course to say nothing of Trump’s peripheral involvement with and support for other groups responsible for right wing violence, like the Q-Anon conspiracy movement, or the neo-Nazi rioters who tore up Charlottesville and murdered Heather Heyer.

Naturally then, the obvious question becomes, if Trump was suspended for inciting deadly violence on January 6th in D.C., why wasn't he suspended for doing exactly the same thing before now? Hell, I'll do you one better; if Trump is suspended for inciting reactionary violence and murder, then why aren't guys like fascist provocateur Andy Ngo, and Wilks Brothers muppet Ben Shapiro (who himself has inspired an international body count) also suspended? Right, it simply doesn't track, and therefore we can conclude that Trump's social media suspensions really didn't have anything to do with inciting violence.

Alright, so be it, maybe you personally agree that “inspiring deadly violence and hate crimes” is somehow a loose reason to suspend a guy's social media accounts, whether he's president or not. Maybe, you figure that where Trump really crossed the line was purposely inciting a goddamn insurrection, and you're happy that Big Tech corporations understand the fine line between fascist murders and fascist terrorism. Unfortunately, that narrative doesn't track either because this isn't the first time Trump has tried to inspire an insurrection on Twitter; please recall the partially-AstroTurfed “Anti-Lockdown protests” in the spring, and in particular Trump's attempts to inspire an uprising in my home state of Michigan. Do you remember the “Liberate Michigan” tweet? The armed fascist militias occupying the Michigan legislature? The chud plot to kidnap and perhaps kill, the Governor of Michigan? Would it surprise you to learn that many of the same people who participated in those prior chud protests were part of the crowd that stormed Capitol Hill on January 6th? Is Jack Dorsey really arguing that Trump's insurrectionist tweets in the spring were fine, but his insurrectionist tweets in January are not because... more people saw the later on TV? Say what?

All of which of course brings us to the somewhat nebulous, “dangerous conspiracy theories” portion of the rationale for suspending Trump now, in the wake of the chud uprising. It's not much of a leg to stand on either however, because not only has Trump been pushing election fraud conspiracy theories for the past freaking year, but that isn't even the most dangerous and deadly example of his false reality narrative causing carnage in our society. You can take your pick, but I'd wager that both the Q-Anon conspiracy movement Trump has openly supported on social media, and the unhinged coronavirus conspiracies he propagated online for months and months, have much higher body counts than anything we saw on Capitol Hill. Why should anyone believe Big Tech companies care about conspiracy theories and how many people they kill, given their prior behavior up to this point? Please keep in mind that these are the same companies that decided not to suspend Trump's accounts when he was using them to threaten North Korea with annihilation; an act that could have easily lead to a catastrophic nuclear exchange if Kim Jong Un were half as un-moored from reality as our CIA-loyal media likes to imply.

Given all that then, what is the real reason behind suspending Trump's social media accounts? Again, it’s not that I'm concerned that a flatulent billionaire fascist manbaby lost some of his favorite outlets to spread fascist conspiracy theories, but why now, and not then?

To understand that, we're going to have to take a little bit of a detour here and talk about Section 230. What is Section 230? A portion of the American law that governs the internet, which ultimately indemnifies social media companies from legal liability for the crap other people post on their platforms. Without Section 230, victims of fascist violence organized on Facebook, could conceivably sue the pants off Big Tech companies for allowing that to happen. This is of course an existential crisis to gigantic tech firms that rely heavily on wildly unpredictable algorithms and automated processes to avoid having to hire moderators and actually keep an eye on what users are doing with their platforms. Furthermore, in the lead up to the 2020 election, both Joe Biden and Donald Trump talked about repealing Section 230, for (and this is key here) entirely different reasons.

Trump and his numerous allies in the Republican Party spent much of 2020 using the threat of repealing Section 230 as a cudgel against social media companies taking even mild action to combat these same dangerous conspiracy theories, and the spread of fascist ideology online. The GOP argument, disingenuously presented as a defense of free speech, was then that if Big Tech didn't let the fascists say whatever they wanted, regardless of its veracity or the potential consequences, they would open up companies like Twitter and Facebook to American libel laws. Of course, that's pretty laughable if we're talking about someone like Laura Loomer suing Twitter over her account being suspended, but Big Tech companies only have to look as far as Peter Theil's ultimately successful quest to destroy Gawker to realize it only takes one reactionary judge in a high enough chair, to sink their battleships entirely. Obviously then, you don't really need to be a genius to figure out Big Tech companies weren't excited about the idea of suspending Trump or his followers, because that would presumably result in an all-out assault on Section 230 from the sitting President of the United States and his (still quite influential) political party.

Ok, so great news for the Tech Bros right? Biden won after all, and barring a chud uprising on a scale not even I think they're capable of, he's about to become POTUS. Not so fast, because Biden and the so-called “centrist” neoliberal establishment in the Democratic Party are also threatening to repeal Section 230 for their own political advantage. The neoliberals too are disingenuously hiding their motives, this time behind a desire to combat hate speech and disinformation; truly noble goals, but obviously utterly irrelevant to rich white liberals who've spent the past five years conflating both Russian spies, and murderous fascist thugs, with leftists who want healthcare. Truthfully, this entire maneuver ultimately represents a ruling class, liberal elite attempt to arbitrate what is and isn't considered true, or newsworthy in the public discourse; a quest they've been furiously working on since the first Bernie Sanders political insurgency threatened to topple Democratic Party leadership, and naturally, throughout the bogus Russigate fever dream that dominated the first two years of Trump's presidency. Of course, even after Biden won the election, there really wasn't much reason for Big Tech companies to take this threat seriously; clearly the Republican Senate wasn't going to allow elite liberal censors to use a potential Section 230 repeal to dictate who can say what online, right?

Yeah, about that Republican Senate majority though; whoops. What if I told you then that the decision to suspend Trump's social media accounts sooner or later, was largely a forgone conclusion after the events of January 5th, not January 6th, 2021? What happened on January 5th? Joe Biden and the Democratic Party swept the Georgia special elections, effectively taking control of the American Senate, and putting folks like Zuck and Dorsey squarely in Biden's line of fire going forward.

Thus it can be said that the answer to both of our questions, “why wasn't Trump suspended before,” and “why is Trump suspended now” ultimately come down to who wields power in our society and our old nemesis, the profit motive. Companies like Twitter and Facebook don't really give a damn about disinformation, conspiracy theories or even Tweets that rack up their own body counts; what they care about is maintaining the warm embrace of legal impunity their business model depends on, and they'll do anything, to appease anyone with the power to remove that embrace, if they think it'll keep the gravy train going. Big Tech isn't fighting fascism, it's fighting oversight and the tyranny of having to pay live human moderators; there's nothing noble or praiseworthy about that, even if I'm still forced to admit that the censored neoliberal authoritarian alternative would be no better, and might be quite a damn sight worse.

Come meet the new boss; same as the old boss, indeed.

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

1 note · View note

migleefulmoments · 6 years ago

Link

Let’s talk about this video because the ccfandom is loosing their freaking minds over it. They are acting like children and it has me feeling some kind of way.

We have a video and several photos or screenshots-the video is always going to be a more accurate reflection on what is happening- the ccers know this, which is why they are focusing on the photos. It’s much easier to take a screen cap or a photo, spin it all out of context and build a backstory that works for crisscolfer. Videos are more telling of the truth- you have to lie about things that are plain to see- you have to scream “the sky is yellow” when everyone can see it is blue. This “focus on the photo, ignore the video” is a strategy the cc fandom uses a lot. If they can't use the photo then they make a gif- drastically slow down the video. It ends up changing the context and drama of the moment. I have talked about it a lot-I made a post (x)- but this is something they did with the interview Darren did with George Stroumboulopoulos where George asked about when he came out as straight. The video shows a much different story than the one they have fabricated to go with the photos.

Let’s be real...Abby -and nobody else- claimed that Mia tried to grab Darren’s hand and he “ignored her” because that is one of Mean Abby’s favorite tropes. When the video came out, it was clear that they weren’t walking close enough for her to even reach out. But Abby can’t let it go so she went in on how someone Photoshopped the pic to make them appear poised to hold hands.

based on this pic. So that means The Daily Mail, a HUGE UK tabloid, is doing Mia’s bidding. OKKAAAYY...Mia should run the world cuz she’s good. I mean, I can see how Abby thought this might be a real photo since you know, since Darren is in it TWICE. No Photoshop here folks, nope, don’t know what you are seeing. It’s not even a well-done Photoshop-I mean besides Darren being in twice, the line between full-body Darren and Mia is wavy and obvious. Nobody was trying to “trick” the cc fandom into believing it was a real photo. The pic is just compacted to get everyone in plus the up-close of Darren for their header/thumbnail. The Daily Mail’s knows them as a married couple- they have no reason to worry whether they were about to hold hands or Darren was ignoring her or whatever other BS the ccers can read into the photos.

Regardless of how the ccers rationalize that the video isn’t exactly what it looks like, no matter how they slow down the video or insist on ignoring the video and focusing on the photos and screen caps to prove that Mia was angry or Darren was angry or Darren wasn’t dressed up enough to house hunt, or Mia was nice to the friend but Darren wasn’t, or whatever the fuck they are trying to tell themselves, NONE of it matters. Their relationship is what it is. Period. What we know about it -or don’t know about -it has nothing to do with their truth. The ccers trying to prove to each other that it is a fraud is nothing but childish buffoonery. Even if their clues were intelligent and well vetted- newsflash they are a mess- it still wouldn’t mean anything because nobody ever knows what goes on behind closed doors -especially a stranger’s closed doors. It isn’t anyone’s business. It certainly isn’t our “right” to prove they are living a lie. We dont’ get to have an opinion on their relationship. The world is large and of the billions of people on Earth, we are each privy to the personal lives of a handful of people. We only have the right to know about our own life, those of our underage children and our partner.

Nobody has the “right” or the responsibly to prove a stranger is living a lie and to publicly out them. Unless they are doing something illegal -in which you call the police-it just isn't anyone’s damn business. Add in the small fact that they are getting all of their receipts and “proof” by analyzing the social media posts of people they don’t know, it really is unhinged, unhealthy, and fucked up.

Darren and Mia might be in a throuple with Ben or have a power exchange relationship or they might be asexual. They might be secretly Amish or Soviet spies...none of it is our business. Every couple protects the secrets of their relationship from the outside world and especially strangers. Abby and the gang of merry thieves are trying to to prove something that is unprovable in the best of circumstances- the “truth” underlying a romantic relationship. Even in the best of circumstances- like you actually KNOW the person involved- you won’t get the “truth”, but trying to digest all of this solely via social media is pitiful and frankly, they are either immature or insane.

This is the conversation that brought me here today:

ajw720 answered:

I think D was just in general mocking the entire process. The situation is so contrived, they are supposed to be “acting” casual like they don’t know they are being filmed when they 100% know they are being filmed. There is nothing casual about it. I would say D’s facial expression in the still photos tells us exactly how he feels as well as his hat asking to go to a galaxy far, far away. I would bet he would jet out of this universe immediately to get away from his PBB if he could.

It absolutely does need to stop and now. The ridiculousness factor goes up every day and d continues to be the one suffering.

Once again, Abby made up an entire backstory to the 20-second video and then set out to criticize how Darren acted based entirely on her made up story

“they are supposed to be “acting” casual like they don’t know they are being filmed when they 100% know they are being filmed”

Of course they know they are being filmed! It isn't rocket science Abby-they can see the man with the camera right there. They are acting “casual” because they are saying good-bye to a friend. What do you want- a tap dance? A formal farewell with a curtesy “we bid you adieu”? A song? “No it aint’ no lie, Baby bye, bye, bye”?

“I would say D’s facial expression in the still photos tells us exactly how he feels as well as his hat asking to go to a galaxy far, far away”

Here she uses the still photo to prove her point because the video shows the context of Darren’s facial expression and he isn’t upset or sad, he is just standing and listening. This is how Abby deceives her fandom in one-easy step.

Back to the comment I made yesterday but the idea that Darren is wearing Star Wars merch because he wants to make it known that the engagement post was not real makes my teeth hurt. According to Abby, ccDarren is MARRIED to a woman he detests but his biggest worry is that the ccers know that he didn’t actually write the engagement post and that he actually likes Star Wars, NOT Star Trek? I mean, he’s married, why would he care about the authenticity of an engagement pic? He clearly was engaged. Why would he care about a post made 18 months ago? All this proves is how obsessed Abby still is with the engagement but they are married. Let it go Abs...also BTW, a man can like Star Wars and Star Trek.

leka-1998

Since none of what’s happening there is natural in any way, I’d say if you only see her back it should be easier to flirt with her. The bad things start once she turns around.

If D were actually jealous of anyone there, it’d be of the jogger simply because he can just keep going and leave her behind.

This comment cracked me up because it is another case of the ccers making shit up and then getting upset about what they made up. Who said Darren was jealous of anybody? Oh right, you guys did. The Jogger said “hi”, they said “hi” back and Darren’s dance had nothing to do with “making fun” of the runner ...or if it did, he’s a dick.

klainecentric

Just watched the video of it and just before the pretend run D did, a jogger ran past them, I think the mocking was for the jogger running past them as they both glanced at the jogger seconds before then the mocking started. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Yes, that makes perfect sense. Darren mocked a jogger for jogging and saying ‘hi’ cuz he’s an asshole, isn’t he?

ajw720

@klainecentric yes he was technically mocking the jogger, but i think his reaction was based on the situation at large knowing he was being filmed.

I always love when when Abby has to come in a fix the situation because “Darren is a dick” is never the last sentence of her fanfiction. Sadly, she can’t think outside the box enough to get to “He wasn’t making fun of the jogger” because everything is black-and-white to her and she doesn’t “believe” in coincidences.

ajw720

What i get from this video, is once again, she is way more engaged in speaking with the “friend” than D and he is yet again mocking something and I would guess it has more to do with the process that being funny for his PBB.

Remember they are 100% aware of the photogs.

What she “gets” from this video is complete bafoonery: Mia was “way more engaged” with the “friend”, Darren was mocking “something” but not the jogger so he must be mocking “the process”. So Darren did a goofy monkey dance to mock the “process”? Um....ok...is he 3 years old? What grown up does a stupid dance in front of a paparazzi to mock the process of anything? If he is so committed to staying deep in the closet and forsaking his one true love that he married a women he detests and the only way he is “fighting back” is to do a 2-second long monkey dance in front of a paparazzi, then he is a putz.

#darren criss keeps things casual house hunts los feliz new wife mia swier #cc #ccers #ccer #cc fandom #cc blog #cc family #crisscolfer #darren criss #Mia Swier #Oh the fandom has lost their mind #House hunting

4 notes · View notes

elliotwarren · 6 years ago

Photo

🎊 happy birthday gabriel adams! 🎊

It was always his eyes that people noticed first. Well. That was a lie. If they got past his skin color, the way his fingers dug into his arms, the soft whispers to invisible things, it was his eyes. Silver, Meg always said, making him sound something special. Gabriel let a smile tweak his features and brushed dark, messy hair off his forehead. That was just as pointless as correcting Meg.

all art pictured was commissioned by me and are not free to use. feel free to dm me for specific credits.

I’m about to unpack a lot of shit and get way more intimate with everyone on this blog than I have previously, so I hope you’re mentally prepared for this. It’s going to be a hard read, but I’ve been wanting to talk about this stuff for a long time.

so almost every year I try to talk about my oldest character, Gabriel. This year, I wanted to dig a little deeper, and address myself as a writer. Within the last couple of years, I’ve had to own up to some shit with this character. I was a bad writer.

“No, Elliot, you weren’t bad! You were just - “

No folks, I’m not discussing my skill as a writer. I’m specifically addressing my treatment of people, representation, and stereotypes.

I was a shitty person.

cw for ableism, discussion of own health, suicide mention, drug use in a fictional character, and general shitty handling of mental illness.

I’m not super positive Gabriel started as Gabriel. The earliest I remember him was a novel I wrote my Freshman year - in 2006ish. I think I vaguely remember him existing as a something earlier on in middle school, but nothing concrete until later. My first ever novel! It was exactly 100 pages, front and back, written in black pen. It was a blatant rip off of an Anne Rice novel where vampires took over a city and killed and ate them in their court. I don’t even remember if that was actually the plot, but I do remember it being Anne Rice inspired, which is a whole other problem altogether. Towards the end of the novel, I asked my friends in choir class to check off next to character names to decide who died.

I think 3 out of 45 characters made it out alive. Also there were 45 characters. Many of them had scenes from their POV. Yeah.

Gabriel wasn’t the protagonist then, and he rarely has been until the last handful of years. He was just an edgy probably vampire guy who appeared at random with cryptic warnings, who periodically would get the protagonist out of trouble while also existing as a side antagonist. He did survive - although barely.

Later, I had the super unique wild idea to make him ‘crazy’. I took to roleplay forums, where other teenagers I barely knew told me that my writing was good and my character was interesting, and I plagued them with my edgy, cool, sometimes serial killer character that all the girls were into. Sometimes the guys, which I was cool with - after all, I had a lesbian couple as a friend in high school. You know, I was tolerant.

Made you uncomfortable yet? Me too.

Gabriel was the troubled white boy who heard voices and saw ghosts, somehow got by as a homeless teenager, and sometimes he killed people but it was definitely not his fault. He went on to win character of the month on a forum based around experimental testing inside an asylum. I was ecstatic. I took him everywhere, and people loved him. Not one person called me out. Not a one.

My freshman year of college, I joined a group on deviantart, where talented artists I’d admired from a distance were glad to have a rare writer, and after making a nervous start with another character I stepped in with Gabriel. The group was entirely based around the story line, as well as critique and self-improvement. I was ecstatic.

With the assistance of a roleplay partner - now my roommate - I went on to finish my first novel in years, with Gabriel as one of two protagonists. I still have it, somewhere, printed out in a binder. Pretty sure I left it at a friend’s house. It featured Gabe, and my roommate’s character, after Gabriel ‘accidentally’ almost killed her because of the voices and kidnapped her to his apartment in an attempt to fix his mistake. The novel ended with Gabriel realizing he was an idiot, and heavily implied that he killed himself via morphine, which he was also somewhat addicted to for no apparent reason.

At some point in the mess, I down spiraled. I was upset and miserable and something in my brain finally cracked. I’d been dealing for years what I later learned to be chemical depression, but a specific event in my life caused a complete and total meltdown. I stopped writing. I was constantly making posts to tumblr rather than talking to anyone about how I wanted to kill myself. I stopped going to class, stopped seeing people, and my roommate at the time heard me crying at night more than once. I was completely devastated, and I will never forgive that person.

Later, I made a bigger mistake and lost someone very close to me. In the last couple of years I’ve come to terms that I was definitely in love with her. I can never repair that damage. I snapped, for awhile, and became obsessive and gross and just a really shitty person.

I eventually realized college and the situations were killing me, and after 4 and a half years - so close to graduating, everyone said, not realizing I’d failed most of my classes - I made the decision to drop. I moved in with my old college roommate, bummed around their house, and intended to go back to work at a summer camp like I did every year. Except I got fired, for essentially being too old and likely for budget reasons, as I made more than everyone else there.

Obviously this was really good for my mental health.

Somewhere during the mess I started taking a look at self improvement, and turned back to writing. More specifically, what I was doing wrong. The more I wrote the more I started looking into developing Gabriel as a character, with an actual background I wasn’t making up to seem edgy as I hopped from forum to forum, and I started looking into how to write him accurately.

And I mourned all that time and all the damage I did and how many people who probably silently put up with my shit.

I spent years writing Gabriel as this deranged, unhinged being who hurt other people. Now I try to make up for it - I spend extensive time reading articles on mental illness, specific case studies, listening to interviews and doing my best to soak up every little detail I can.

Gabriel is schizophrenic, primarily experiencing mild visual hallucinations and occasional auditory hallucinations, typically in times of stress. He does not kill people - if he does, it has nothing to do with his mental health and more to do with that, once again, Gabriel is a vampire. Like me, he copes with depression and anxiety, born of a situation. I shifted Gabriel from being a shitty, ‘crazy’ white boy to a nervous, wary young man dealing with some shit that no one should have to deal with. I researched therapy, and coping mechanisms, and even found some that help me with my issues. I created Jamie, Gabriel’s psychiatrist and friend. I decided to cut some of the mayo out of my work and made Gabriel’s mother an immigrant from Mexico, and it’s been worth it! I get to research a fascinating, fun culture, and it has improved Gabriel as a character to have a culture.

I realized, at some point, that I’m asexual - and Gabriel is too. I’ve put a lot of myself into him. It’s been therapeutic, and I feel better about Gabriel as a character.

There’s been a lot of change over the years. Gabriel is an entirely different person, and it has greatly affected and I think improved my writing. More than anything, it has changed my outlook on everything, and I hope that some day I can some how make up for all the damage I did with presenting him the way I did. People with schizophrenia are no more likely to hurt or kill someone than anyone else, and many if not most serial killers are just shitty entitled white people. Like me.

It’s been a long time - at least 12 years, if not more. I’ve changed a lot. Gabriel has too. I hope that the next 12 years let me finally finish telling a story about him, and that the world as a whole stop tip toeing around mental illness. I wish someone had told me 12 years ago that making someone ‘crazy’ wasn’t cool or neat or unique, and that I was a super toxic, harmful person.

I’m never going to be writing a story about what it’s like to live and cope with mental illness. While I deal with it, it’s not really my story to tell. I’m never going to tell a tale about what it’s like to be the son of a Mexican immigrant in shitty white america. That’s not my job either. I might tell the story of being a queer asexual, because that definitely applies to me. But Gabriel is a vivid person to me, and I’m glad I’ve learned proper representation. I’m sure I’ll still make mistakes, and I keep waiting for someone to call me out on something. I wish someone had. I wish someone had said, hey, if your protagonist is also the villain and the only mentally ill person in the story, you’re a bad writer and you should feel bad.

That’s your personal call out, if it applies. I hope not.

Don’t be afraid of representation of the ‘touchy’ subjects. But do right by them. Talk to people from those situations, read stories by people from those situations whether it’s relevant or not, watch interviews, see movies. If you can’t do right by a culture or an illness or a person, that’s okay. But take a step back, work hard, and just go for it. Don’t be afraid to ask for opinions, critique, help.

Please. Learn from your mistakes.

I talked a whole fucking lot and if you read all of it, you’re a star. Good night.

#writeblr #writing #character development #gabe tag #about me tag #ok to reblog i GUES #s

5 notes · View notes

tinyshe · 3 years ago

Text

COVID Noncompliance Now Labeled Top ‘Terror Threat’

When you think of potential terror threats, what comes to mind? Did opposing irrational and/or illegal COVID measures make your list? Well, it recently got top billing on the Department of Homeland Security’s list of potential terror threats as we approach the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

Over the past 18 months, COVID countermeasures have become increasingly tyrannical, and we now appear to have reached a new high (or low, depending on your perspective). The U.S. government is actually viewing citizens who exercise their Constitutional rights as domestic terrorists, enemies of the state.

Dehumanizing Discrimination Against Unvaccinated

As reported by Daisy Luther with The Organic Prepper,1 “Shocking and dehumanizing discrimination against the unvaccinated is about to make life VERY difficult.” She is, of course, referring to the media and government narrative that if anyone gets infected with SARS-CoV-2, it’s the fault of some germ-ridden disease-spreading unvaccinated person.

Public officials and media pundits alike are seemingly intentionally fanning the flames of unveiled hatred against those who choose to not participate in the world’s largest medical experiment and get a novel injection that programs your body to produce a disease-causing protein, the full ramifications of which won’t be known for years.

Getting the shot is a patriotic duty, we’ve been told, and opting out is nothing short of a traitorous act, according to some. This kind of narrative is extremely dangerous, yet no one seems to care — not even the departments responsible for keeping this the land of the free.

As noted by Luther, the rhetoric now hurled at unvaccinated people would under normal circumstances be considered hate speech. Now, it’s promoted as virtuous, and reporting a statistic or published medical finding that counters the official narrative that masks work, lockdowns are effective and the COVID shot is safe and effective is considered hate speech.

Can You See the Psychological Operation at Work?

It’s important to realize that this insanity is not accidental. It’s by design, and part of a sophisticated psychological operation to drive people mad. I wrote about this last week.

The article is no longer available, as all articles are removed after 48 hours, but you can still view the video I featured, which explains how mass psychosis is induced using fear, waves of increasing threat, isolation and other dehumanizing tricks of the psychological trade.

Once a population has sufficiently lost touch with reality and embraced a “magical rationale” where irrationality is justified, they become capable of unthinkable horrors and abuses against people believed to be responsible for their ongoing anxiety.

By convincing everyone that unvaccinated people are to blame for the never-ending pandemic, the pandemic industrial complex prevents the masses from identifying and turning on the real culprits — the string-pullers and beneficiaries of the psychological breakdown.

“It has happened many times in history: when human beings were used as slaves and property, when human beings were the subject of horrific experiments when the media and people in power deliberately manipulated human beings to believe that other humans weren’t like them, and therefore, it was permissible to mistreat or abuse them,” Luther writes.2

“As the saying goes, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And repeat it, they are. I think, regardless of our stance, we can all agree that fervently wishing for bad things to happen to those who believe differently and dehumanizing them for their beliefs is pretty awful.

Don Lemon of CNN believes the unvaccinated should not be allowed to buy food or work. Does this mean he believes that they should starve to death? …

CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner says that unvaccinated people shouldn’t go to bars and restaurants. A doctor pondered the ethics of whether he could refuse to see unvaccinated patients in The New York Times.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s Big Kahuna of COVID, blames those not vaccinated for a new spike in cases … Alabama Governor Kay Ivey wants everyone to blame the unvaccinated for any cases of COVID that happen to occur …

That’ll really be helpful if someone unhinged loses a loved one to COVID and decides to seek vengeance on some ‘unvaccinated folk.’ After all, the governor said it was their fault. Speaking of which, Nick Cohen of The Guardian said that it was only a matter of time before ‘we turn on the unvaccinated.’”

Concerns for Lack of Vaccination Are Highly Irrational

Those who continue to pressure everyone to get vaccinated have simply failed to look at the most recent data, which clearly demonstrate that those who are vaccinated are actually FAR more likely to get COVID, and worse, contribute to the process of creating variants.

As recently reported by Israeli National News,3,4,5 recent data show Israelis who have received the COVID jab are 6.72 times more likely to get infected than people who have recovered from natural infection.

Among the 7,700 new COVID cases diagnosed so far during the current wave of infections that began in May 2021, 39% were vaccinated (about 3,000 cases), 1% (72 patients) had recovered from a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and 60% were neither vaccinated nor previously infected. Israeli National News notes:6

“With a total of 835,792 Israelis known to have recovered from the virus, the 72 instances of reinfection amount to 0.0086% of people who were already infected with COVID.

By contrast, Israelis who were vaccinated were 6.72 times more likely to get infected after the shot than after natural infection, with over 3,000 of the 5,193,499, or 0.0578%, of Israelis who were vaccinated getting infected in the latest wave.”

Penalties Large and Small Are Being Proposed

In addition to the penalties for lack of vaccination already mentioned in the quote above, Luther lists a number of others in her article, such as requiring unvaccinated people to:

Get tested daily at their own expense

Docking people’s paychecks

Charging students nonrefundable quarantine fees

Denying medical care at hospitals

Canceling private insurance or raising premiums by thousands of dollars a year

Suspending gun permits and driver’s licenses

Denying access to loans

Withholding government assistance and federal benefits like Social Security, VA benefits, subsidized housing and pensions

As noted by Luther, “The rabid contempt for those who think differently can lead nowhere good. For those who believe we should all get vaccinated or not, are you okay with this kind of dehumanization?”

youtube

In the video above, Project Veritas’ James O’Keefe exposes yet another double-standard that has become norm. Project Veritas has been accused of unethically doxing the rich and powerful, yet CNN a few weeks ago did the exact same thing to me.

CNN reporter Randi Kaye filmed herself ambushing staff at our corporate headquarters in Cape Coral, Florida, without blurring out the suite number. She then went to my home. As noted by O’Keefe, mainstream media routinely dox “the non-powerful” whose right to privacy is actually greater than government and media officials.

Project Veritas recently got banned from Twitter for publishing a video in which they confronted Facebook vice president Guy Rosen outside his home, asking questions about Facebook’s hate speech policy. So, to recap, Project Veritas got banned from Twitter for doing the exact same thing CNN did to me — but didn’t get banned for.

Artificial Intelligence Is Part of the New Battlefield

In mid-July 2021, surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a public advisory,7,8 calling COVID misinformation “an urgent threat to public health” that undermines “our ongoing work to end the COVID-19 pandemic.” The advisory calls for software algorithms to be deployed by social media platforms to “avoid amplifying misinformation” and strengthening monitoring of misinformation.

Similarly, at a recent Health Information Management Systems Society conference in Las Vegas, Hans Kluge, Europe region director of the World Health Organization, called for the use of “digital health” and artificial intelligence to fight misinformation. Artificial intelligence could also be used to identify communities with low COVID jab rates so that “swift assistance” can be launched in those communities.

According to STAT News,9 Kluge has “established a WHO unit focused on behavioral and cultural insights to understand the drivers of vaccine hesitancy and develop programs to counteract it.” Such programs include community outreach programs and identifying “champions” for the COVID jabs within religious communities, youth communities and the media.

Already, Kluge’s team is working with an artificial intelligence tool called EARS (Early AI-supported Response with Social listening tool). It mines blogs, news articles and online forums in 20 countries and analyzes the narratives it finds.

It can then anticipate how the information will spread, and what the effects of the information might have. While not stated in the STAT article, it seems reasonable to assume EARS is also capable of predicting which narratives would most effectively counter the concerns people express on these mined platforms.

Chosen propaganda narratives can then be pumped out using bot farms, such as the one imaged below.10 It may be shocking to some to realize that many of the “people” who are in favor of the official COVID narrative are not real people at all.

There are tons of fake profiles run by bot farms on all social media platforms that generate massive amounts of propaganda, including accounts with blue checkmarks.

The blue checkmark is supposed to designate that a user’s identity has been verified by Twitter and is “of public interest,” but clearly, the authentication process lacks in some of the basics, such as making sure the user actually exists in physical form and has physical control over the account in question.

Anti-Digital Hate Group Promotes Digital Hate

A central cog in the network fanning the flames of hatred and attacks on people whose only sin is the desire to make decisions for themselves is a group called the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

It’s founded by a British national and unregistered foreign agent named Imran Ahmed, who is also a member of the Steering Committee on Countering Extremism Pilot Task Force under the British government’s Commission for Countering Extremism.

According to Ahmed, anyone who questions the rationale behind lockdowns, mask wearing or the safety and necessity of a COVID-19 injection may be prone to violent extremism, and the reason CNN trekked hundreds of miles across central Florida in search of me is because Ahmed has labeled me a top COVID misinformer.

According to its website, the left-wing Center for Countering Digital Hate prides itself on ‘researching, exposing, and then shutting down users and news sites it deems unacceptable in the digital sphere’ … That seems potentially dangerous, considering we know very little about the CCDH. ~ The Drill Down

In the CCDH’s initial report, “The Anti-Vaxx Playbook,”11 I was identified as one of the six most influential “anti-vaxxers” online that must be silenced. This was followed by “The Disinformation Dozen”12 and “Disinformation Dozen: The Sequel,”13 in which the list of targets doubled from six to 12.

These last two reports are what everyone — politicians, attorneys general, social media platforms and “blue checkmark influencers” — are now using to “prove” I am the most-dangerous and prolific superspreader of misinformation on the net.14

Whose Interests Does CCDH Protect and Promote?

When you think about it, isn’t it rather curious that government officials are actually targeting and violating the Constitutional rights of American citizens based on the opinions of an unregistered foreign agent who runs a tiny little “pop-up group” funded by dark money?15 As noted in a July 20, 2021, Drill Down article:16

“When a report goes viral in the news cycle, it only makes sense to question where it came from — especially if that report has influence all the way up to the Oval Office, affecting public health policy, while also having dangerous implications for free speech.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate … released a bombshell report earlier this week. It was picked up everywhere and had the following revelation: The majority of COVID misinformation came from just 12 people … But could this be a wily gambit by outside interests to justify the Biden administration’s censorship partner-up with Big Tech?

According to The Federalist, ‘The Center for Countering Digital Hate is an obscure international group reportedly based out of the United Kingdom and Washington, D.C., that works as an adviser to multiple governments and elite-run institutions about digital technology and regulation.

Users and news sites it deems unacceptable? That seems potentially dangerous, considering we know very little about the CCDH.

Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) expressed his concerns on Twitter with the following post: ‘Who is funding this overseas dark money group — Big Tech? Billionaire activists? Foreign governments? We have no idea. Americans deserve to know what foreign interests are attempting to influence American democracy’ …

No one knows who funds them. No one knows who is driving their research. But their findings are being used in censorship efforts under the guise of controlling misinformation?”

Violating Bioethical Principles Puts Lives at Risk

The sad irony is that government officials are really the ones contributing to unnecessary death and suffering by not adhering to bioethical principles that are enshrined in law. These laws exist for a good reason. They protect people from unnecessary harm and unwanted medical risks.

As an experimental trial participant, which is what everyone is at the moment who accepts a COVID shot, you have the right to receive full disclosure of any adverse event risks. Based on that disclosure, you then have the right to decide whether you want to participate.

Adverse event risk disclosure should be provided at the level of detail disclosed in any drug package insert. However, the COVID shots have no such insert or detailed disclosure, and adverse event reports are even being suppressed and censored from the public.

Instead, as explained by the FDA,17 since the COVID shots are not yet licensed,18 rather than providing a package insert, the FDA directs health care providers to access a lengthy online “fact sheet” that lists clinical trial adverse events and ongoing updates of adverse events reported after emergency use administration to the public.

A shorter, separate, online fact sheet with far less information in it is available for patients — but, provider or patient, you still have to know where to look up each of the vaccines authorized for emergency use separately on the FDA website to access those fact sheets.19

Adverse event risks must also be communicated in a way that you can comprehend what the risks are. This means the disclosure must be written in eighth grade language. In clinical trials, researchers must actually verify participants’ comprehension of the risks.

Failure to disclose these adverse effects, which is likely occurring in nearly every COVID injection case, results in an inability to give true informed consent as the person was never informed of all of the already well-established risks.

As just one example of many, Marie Follmer, in an interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,20 said no one ever warned her there was a risk of myocarditis. Her athletic son, Greyson, took the shot and is now unable to do much of anything and she fears he might die.

She admits not doing any of her own research, blindly trusting what she was told. Now, she distrusts the whole process, including doctors, as all have so far refused to acknowledge that there might be a link to the shot, and no one knows how to make him better.

Most importantly, the acceptance of an experimental product must be fully voluntary and uncoerced. Enticement is forbidden. It’s downright impossible to argue that the public messaging and incentives ranging from free junk food to million-dollar lotteries do not constitute coercion.

At the end of the day, if you decide you want to participate in a medical experiment, whatever it might be, that’s up to you. But everyone else also has that same right to choose.

If you find aggression mounting against an unvaccinated friend or family member, thanks to the current indoctrination that encourages savage and irrational behavior, think of something you absolutely don’t want done to your body, and then imagine being forced to do it just to maintain your right to enter a grocery store, buy insurance or keep your job.

Source: COVID Noncompliance Now Labeled Top ‘Terror Threat’, Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola August 25, 2021

0 notes

murdocklovespage · 7 years ago

Text

The Characterization of Karen Page

I’ve sat on this post for over a week in the hopes that my mind will cool off from the Punisher (which I really liked, btw), but here we are, and I’m still really curious about how everyone feels about the characterization of Karen Page in the last two series she’s been in.

It’s clear that the writers from the Defenders and the Punisher had a common goal:

Let her continue to be a badass in her career.

Make it apparent that she’s not focused on propping other people up - she does what she thinks right whether people think it’s important or not.

Have her she speak her mind. No more bullshit, have her tell people how she actually feels.

Awesome.

But here’s the thing. She feels completely different from her Daredevil character to me- and not in a good way. I’m talking about the way she responds to Matt about his being Daredevil (whether she’s just worried about his real life or not, I don’t think that she would actively try to get him to stop being DD, I’m sorry.) And in the Punisher, I feel like she is basically trying to get herself killed. Maybe it’s because she’s depressed over Matt’s death, the fact that she’s alone (Foggy seems to be uninvolved in her life from what we can see in the Punisher), and everything that’s happened with Frank, but I really doubt it.

Look, I want to be clear. I LOVE Karen Page. I love the ways in which she differs from her comic book character (which, thank God, because, wow. Her poor character was just butchered from the start.) I love that she doesn’t fly off the handle when Matt screws her and Foggy over in season 2 and after the whole Hand/Stick/Elektra business. She focuses on what she thinks is important and is done putting up with his bullshit. I love that she takes information and digs until she finds something relevant and important to whatever they’re trying to solve.

She made herself an asset in each season of Daredevil. I know I can’t expect much from the Defenders; she’s just there to be there just like all of the other “non-hero” characters from Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist - with the exception of Colleen Wing and Misty Knight. And in the Punisher, she is the reason Frank finds David Lieberman, leading to such an amazing broship I can’t even talk about them without smiling.

But after that is where I get aggravated.

They bring Karen back in because Lewis Wilson set off a bomb and then wrote her a letter. Because “she has championed the common hero before.” Alright, that’s plausible. But why in the HELL would she make herself a target by writing an article that fuels his hate? She tells Ellison they should publish the letter with her reply, because, “I want to tell him and everyone else how this makes me feel.” You’re a journalist, Karen. It’s not about telling people how you feel. Do the writers of this series not get that? But I’ll suspend my disbelief here and understand that she wanted to write an editorial with her name on the byline since the letter was written directly to her. Fine. But she argues with Ellison about publishing the article, when he is trying to tell her that they go through the FBI first. She tries to get him to see that it could help the case when it is not even close to her call to make. Seriously? Lives are at stake here.

Lewis is clearly unhinged, so she needs to be the one who reacts intelligently. He had just blown up an office building, and he literally threatened the Bulletin, why would she come out calling him a coward? How would it go if the man bombed her place of work instead of going after Senator Ori. Can you really tell me she wouldn’t think that was far too negative a possible outcome?

To me, the reasoning seems to be about pride. She’s offended that Lewis was infatuated with her as a writer and a person. She didn’t like that he thought she was sympathetic toward murderers (because, just Frank, duh). She knew that by calling him out and then going on the radio (why?) she was going to infuriate him. It wasn’t any plot to draw him out for the police; it’s just a plot device to get Frank involved. Then she tells Frank NOT to kill him for her? Really? Because that’s the most predictable thing from this entire situation. Because the guy is going to come after you and you know Frank won’t let that happen, Karen.

The stupidity can’t stop there. Why in the hell would she show up to the same location of Lewis’ only other target? For the article? REALLY? Would Ellison ever let that happen? Would she be that obtuse? She knows shit hits the fan faster than she could imagine- she was shot at when she was in a damn courthouse for God’s sake. She knows that the police and/or hired security wouldn’t be enough to prevent someone from getting to her.

Yes, she is a badass in the situation, and one of my favorite parts of that entire series is the Frank/Karen wire-cutting scene followed by him using her as a “hostage” to get out, but I can’t get over the fact that it really never should have happened.

To me, this is just about the writing. I want to love Karen, and for the most part, I do. But I don’t want her to be the person Frank shakes his head at and has to say, “why are you going after him like this?” I want what’s best for her. And that is for her to be viewed as an intelligent being rather than someone who makes stupid mistakes for NO REASON.

Please, I’m begging you guys, prove me wrong. Turn me back around toward my happy feelings of the goddess that is KP. Because I don’t want to sit in front of my TV yelling “what the fuck are you doing, Karen? WHY?”

#Karen Page #The Punisher #The Defenders #Daredevil #Frank Castle #Analysis #the Punisher Analysis #The Punisher Spoilers #Punisher Spoilers

55 notes · View notes

peterposition-blog · 5 years ago

Text

Political Circus

What a disappointing time we are living in.

Following the acquittal, both President Donald Trump and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi held their own press conferences. Both of them were absolutely ridiculous. Both of them full of fighting words. It’s just sad.

“It’s Bullshit!”

It’s funny how now that he was able to manipulate his Republican senators into voting that he was not guilty for the clear abuse of power he committed, Trump went on a barrage of words against the Democrats, the entire impeachment process, and specifically Nancy Pelosi and Mitt Romney.

His conference, which he deemed a ‘celebration,’ felt like a WWE promo. It’s so frustrating and depressing to see our President acting like this.

He held up a copy of The Washington Post with the words ‘acquitted’ as he said to First Lady Melania Trump, ‘Honey, maybe we'll frame it. The only good headline I've ever had on The Washington Post.’

To summarize the incredible speech that I would hope never to hear again from someone that is President of the United States, here are some of the most absurd quotes.

‘And we were treated unbelievably unfairly, and you have to understand we first went through Russia, Russia, Russia. It was all bullshit.‘

‘They made up facts. A corrupt politician named Adam Schiff made up my statement to the Ukrainian president. He brought it out of thin air. Just made it up. They say, he’s a screenwriter, a failed screenwriter.’

‘We did a prayer breakfast this morning, *and I thought that was really good. In fact, that was so good it might wipe this out. But by the time we finish this, we’ll wipe that one out, those statements.* I had Nancy Pelosi sitting four seats away, and I’m saying things that a lot of people wouldn’t have said, but I meant every word, okay?’

*Note: All he cares about is headlines, headlines, headlines. He’s still the same reality television star he’s always been. Yuck. Back to his quotes.

‘Then you have some who used religion as a crutch. They never used it before. An article written today. Never heard him use it before. But today, you know, it’s one of those things. It’s a failed presidential candidate, so things can happen when you fail so badly running for president. Say hello to the people of Utah and tell them I’m sorry about Mitt Romney.‘

‘Adam Schiff is a vicious, horrible person. Nancy Pelosi is a horrible person. And she wanted to impeach a long time ago when she said, I pray for the president. She doesn’t pray. She may pray but she prays for the opposite. But I doubt she prays at all. These are vicious people.‘

‘People are very angry that Nancy Pelosi and all these guys — I mean, [Jerry] Nadler, I’ve known him much of my life. He’s fought me in New York for 25 years. I always beat him, and I had to beat him another time, and I’ll probably have to beat him again, because if they find that I happened to walk across the street and maybe go against the light or something, let’s impeach him. So I’ll probably have to do it again because these people have gone stone cold crazy. I’ve beat them all my life and I’ll beat them again if I have to.‘

‘Iowa. And he was talking about the fiasco. The Democrats can’t count some simple votes yet they want to take over your health care system. Think of that.‘

‘You could say it but this is sort of a day of celebration because we went through hell. And I’m sure that Pelosi and crying Chuck [Schumer] — the only time I ever saw him cry was when it was appropriate. I’ve known him for a long time, crying Chuck.‘

‘I want to apologize to my family for having them have to go through a phony, rotten deal by some very evil and sick people, and Ivanka is here and my sons and my whole family.‘

I can’t recall the last time we had a President that spoke like this. Unhinged. His ego really jumped out here. It’s so sad. This man is the one running the country. And he is here basically having a big old laugh at his political opponents like the typical bully he is - knowing damn well that he got away with abuse of power. He got away with it.

Pelosi Pokes Back

While I don’t think fighting words back-and-forth are what either the President or the Speaker of the House should be doing, I still think that Pelosi’s was a little more warranted. She was basically bad-mouthed by Trump all day, so it was human nature to speak out.

She had also been stomped on by some of the media and people on social media for ripping the State of the Union speech papers. (Something that I also found a little distasteful to be honest.)

In her speech, she said the following.

‘As required by the Constitution of the United States, the President is to submit in writing or in person, his statement of the State of the Union. What happened instead was a President using the Congress of the United States as a backdrop for a reality show, presenting a state of mind that had no contact with reality whatsoever.’

‘It was quite appalling to hear the President say the [130], at least, million families in America that are faced with pre-existing medical conditions – a benefit that is afforded to them in the Affordable Care Act – that he was protecting that benefit, when, in fact, he has done everything to dismantle it.‘

‘So, it was, in my view, a manifesto of mistruths, of falsehoods, blatantly, really dangerous to the well-being of the American people if they believed what he said. So, again we do not want the chamber of the House of Representatives to be used as a backdrop for one of his reality shows with unreality in his presentation. And, by the way, a serious breach to start shouting ‘Four more years,’ on the Floor of the House, totally inappropriate.’

(NOTE: Yet she ripped the papers, c’mon Pelosi)

‘I don't know if the President understands about prayer or people who do pray, but we do pray for the United States of America. I pray for him, President Bush still, President Obama. It is a heavy responsibility. I pray hard for him, because he is so off the track of our Constitution, our values, our country, the air our children breathe, the water they drink and the rest. He really needs our prayers. He can say whatever he wants, but I do pray for him, and I do so sincerely and without anguish.

‘I thought what he said about Senator Romney was particularly without class, when he said ‘Some people use faith as an excuse to do the wrong things.’ It’s so inappropriate at a prayer breakfast. You want to go to a prayer breakfast, pray on the school vouchers, woman's right to choose, all the things that that is the right audience for, God bless you. It is a prayer breakfast. That’s something about faith. May not be something I agree with, but it’s appropriate. But to go into the stock market and raising up his approval thing and he's mischaracterizing other peoples’ motivation – he’s talking about things he knows little about: faith and prayer.’

‘I tore up a manifesto of mistruths. It was necessary to get the attention of the American people to say, ‘This is not true, and this is how it affects you.’ And I don't need any lessons from anybody, especially the President of the United States, about dignity – dignity. Is it okay to start saying ‘four more years’ in the House of Representatives? It’s just unheard of. It is unheard of for the President to insult people there who don't share his views, as well as to misrepresent – present falsehoods. Some would use the word lie – I don’t like to use the word lie – about what he is saying. So, no, I think it was completely, entirely appropriate. And considering some of the other exuberances within me, the courteous thing to do.’

‘Now, all presidents have guests – constant guests – that was not a State of the Union. That was a state – his state of mind. We want a State of the Union. Where are we, where are we going and the rest. Not, ‘Let me just show you how many guests I can draw. And let me say how I can give a medal of honor’ – do it in your own office. We don’t come in your office and do Congressional business. Why are you doing that here? In any event I feel very liberated. I feel very liberated. I feel that I have extended every possible courtesy. I have shown every level of respect. I say to my Members all the time, there is no such thing as eternal animosity. There are eternal friendships, but you never know on what cause you may come together with someone you may perceive as your foe right now. Everybody is a possible ally in whatever comes next. ‘E pluribus unum.’ From many, one. We don't know how many we’d be or how different we’d be, but they want us always to remember that we were one. And they, our Founders, had their differences, as do we. Again, I extended the hand of friendship to him, to welcome him as the President of the United States, to the People’s House. It was also an act of kindness, because he looked to me like he was a little sedated. He looked that way last year too, but he didn’t want to shake hands. That was that. That meant nothing to me. It had nothing to do with my tearing it up. That came much later. I’m a speed reader. I just went right through that thing. So, I knew what was coming when I saw the compilation of falsehoods, but when I heard the first quarter or third I started to think there has to be something that clearly indicates to the American people that this is not the truth. And he has shredded the truth in his speech. He’s shredding the Constitution in his conduct. I shredded his state of his mind address.’

Yikes!

Dangerous Ego

It’s no question that our country is completely divided right now. Our government is completely broken. A clown is using our government to boost his ego, to be in the history books. At least, he will be in the history books as an impeached president. And if common sense and good prevails, as the worst president in history come November.

One Truth One Lie

During his impeachment victory celebration speech, Trump said the following line.

‘We’ve gone through more than any president or administration, and really, I say for the most part, Republican congressmen, congresswomen and Republican senators, we’ve done more than any administration in the first few years.‘

There is definitely one lie there and one truth. Any guesses? Ha!

See at least I’ll give him that. No, that. That first part. Only the first part!

You can watch Speaker Pelosi’s speech by clicking here. You can watch President Trump’s speech by clicking here.

0 notes

ts1989fanatic · 7 years ago

Text

Taylor Swift's 15 Best Songs: Critic's Picks

From her beginnings as a country artist to her reign as a global pop star, Taylor Swift has become one of the defining artists of this century -- and that’s in large part thanks to her masterful song craft. Each era of the singer-songwriter’s career has included intricate, instantly memorable musical moments that it’s difficult to narrow down the best of the best to just 15. Yet these songs represent Taylor at the top of her game, whether it be through an extended heartbreak anthem or hilarious declaration of independence.

Here are Billboard’s picks for the 15 best Taylor Swift songs, from her self-titled debut through 1989.

15. Taylor Swift, "New Romantics"

A bonus track off 1989 that out-popped the bubblegum pizzazz of most of the standard track list, “New Romantics” finds Swift gliding alongside gooey '80s synths before pogoing on the chorus with a slew of declarative statements. “Heartbreak is the national anthem -- we sing it proudly,” she states, making “New Romantics” a spiritual cousin to the “miserable and magical” time she had on “22.”

14. Taylor Swift, "Fearless"

A song like the Fearless title track demonstrated why, even as a teenager, Swift’s songwriting was miles ahead of her country contemporaries. The lyrics include several Swiftian hallmarks -- dancing with a romantic partner in the parking lot becomes dancing with a romantic partner “in a storm in my best dress”! -- but that opening line, “There’s something ‘bout the way/ The street looks when it’s just rained/ There’s a glow off the pavement,” effortlessly creates a sense of whimsy and romance that not many artists can pull off.

13. Taylor Swift, "Mine"

The lead single from Speak Now, Swift’s follow-up to the Grammy-winning Fearless, is more muted than its predecessor’s “You Belong With Me”and “Love Story,” and understandably so: It’s a song about not just finding love but maintaining it when the meet-cute has drifted into the past. When that final chorus hits and reaffirms the caring at the heart of this Taylor Swift song, though, it’s one of her most moving moments to date.

12. Taylor Swift, "Tim McGraw"

Taylor Swift sure has come a long way from the first track on her first album, huh? Although “Tim McGraw” sounds nothing like her pop stylings, the charming debut features the same type of vocal resonance and clever wordplay that have become calling cards for Swift. Plus, the fact that she pulled off the line “When you think Tim McGraw/ I hope you think of me,” and then proceeded to become even bigger than Tim McGraw, is something to marvel at.

11. Taylor Swift feat. The Civil Wars, "Safe and Sound"

The bad news is that one of the very best Taylor Swift songs, the dark, devastated “Safe and Sound,” is not featured on any Taylor Swift album. The good news is that we live in a playlist-friendly culture, and that this collaboration with The Civil Wars for the first Hunger Games soundtrack can be included in any mournful collection of your choosing. A song about protection amidst terror, “Safe and Sound” features Swift’s voice at its most shattered, her best efforts pummeled by the marching drums outside her door.

10. Taylor Swift, "Our Song"

What if Swift had resisted the allure of pop music and committed to a lifetime of fiddle-filled country jams? We’ll never know the answer, but “Our Song” is a gloriously twangy testament to what Taylor once was, before her lyrical ability to find music in everyday life was translated to a different genre. Here, the bubbly words give way to the lush arrangement, which encapsulates the exuberance of first experiencing the world with a romantic partner.

9. Taylor Swift, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"

Years after its release, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” remains bitingly funny, an eye-roll of a pop song about a boy who just doesn’t get it through his thick skull that it’s time to move on. Swift deftly balanced sarcasm with the sincerity of the hook and nails one of her first pronounced attempts at mainstream pop (which became her first single to hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart).

8. Taylor Swift, "Teardrops on My Guitar"

Poor Drew: The object of Taylor’s affection in “Teardrops on My Guitar” has a soon-to-be superstar longing for him and he’s totally unaware. The standout from Swift’s debut LP boasts the type of nuanced songwriting that would eventually make Swift a sensation, and while the “I secretly like him but he likes her and he’ll never know how much I like him” dynamic is repeated throughout her catalog, “Teardrops” captures that resignation within a handful of striking images, most notably the title phrase.

7. Taylor Swift, "Blank Space"

There aren’t too many pop songs that turn on a dime in the middle of the second verse, but just as her unhinged character in the “Blank Space” video unravels midway through, so does Swift at the song’s center, diving into self-deprecation and mocking her well-documented romantic history outside of music. “Blank Space” works as far more than satire, though: snappy and uncluttered, it’s a fantastic sing-along dotted with quotable moments (“I can make the bad guys good for a weekend,” “Boys only want love if it’s torture”).

6. Taylor Swift, "Love Story"

It takes guts to name a song something as bold and straightforward as “Love Story,” but Swift’s breakthrough single makes good on the “story” part of the equation by unfolding a modern-day parable that somehow never slips over the edge into full-on cheese. Perhaps it’s the earnestness of Swift’s performance as a heroine searching for an escape route with her Prince Charming and finally realizing that reality can make room for their tale. Out of the millions of love stories in the history of pop music, “Love Story” stands out.

5. Taylor Swift, "Mean"

Simply put, a pitch-perfect rebuke of bullying. The Speak Now single posits that living well is indeed the best revenge, as Swift bashes her early detractor by predicting that her future is bright, while their future only contains minor victories (and a huge helping of meanness). Swift sings “Mean” in first person, but it’s not really for her -- this is a song for people who feel belittled and beaten down by others, who look to someone like Swift for uplift and assurance. “Mean” is designed to shout along with cathartically, and it succeeds.

4. Taylor Swift, "State of Grace"

A bulldozer of an opening to Red, “State of Grace” is Swift’s most sonically towering track ever recorded; it’s a good thing that its author headlines arenas, because no small room could contain this song’s might. Instead of relying on lyrical detail, Swift stacks guitar lines upon propulsive drums and lets the whole thing rip; instead of opting for a wordy chorus, the hook here echoes with conciseness: “I never saw you coming/ And I’ll never be the same.” At nearly five minutes in length, “State of Grace” stays exhilarating start-to-finish and will be one of Swift’s most enduring non-singles ever.

3. Taylor Swift, "Dear John"

One of the (many) reasons any man should think twice about screwing over Taylor Swift: She is capable of penning a visceral, eviscerating takedown as potent as any hip-hop diss track. “Dear John,” a mangling of ex-beau John Mayer, is nearly seven minutes of simmering anger -- but it never feels exploitative or unyielding, instead exploring the feeling of being taken advantage of and punctuating each chorus with a sorrowful “I should’ve known.” Swift uses “Dear John” to turn the gut-punch of being led astray into a clenched fist and declaration of survival. “I took your matches before fire could catch me,” Swift spits at her beloved-turned-enemy. And we, the listeners, simply get to sit back and watch the fireworks.

2. Taylor Swift, "Style"

“Style” is all about the details: the hints of the guitar lick in the verses, the echoing vocals of “out! of! style!” on the chorus, the tension in Swift’s voice when she debates telling her guy that it’s time to leave, the way “James Dean/daydream” and ��red lip/classic” are perfect rhymes positioned on top of each other, the release of the “take me hooooome” on the bridge. On an album filled with very good-to-terrific pop songs, “Style” is the most finely manicured, the most well-produced, the most fully realized -- and still, the most affecting. Decades from now, musical anthropologists will study how pop could be this perfect.

1. Taylor Swift, "You Belong With Me"

Throughout the twists and turns of her career, Swift has changed sounds, collaborators, personas and approaches, but has not -- and perhaps will never -- eclipse the magnificence of “You Belong With Me.” Credit the song’s simplicity, echoing the thematic concept of “Teardrops on My Guitar” but amplifying the high school heartache and polishing the hook so that it never floats back down after leaving the ground. There are so many things to love within “You Belong With Me,” from the high heels/sneakers dichotomy to that double handclap during the bridge, but more than anything, it’s quintessential Taylor, the ultra-relatable protagonist who can sum up complex feelings in a vocal run or quick turn-of-phrase. “You Belong With Me” has been her defining song for years, and that’s because it’s her best.

ts1989fanatic I guess it’s all in the eye of the beholder or ear of the listener to decide what your own top 15 Taylor songs are. I have to say that most of these would make mine, maybe not in the same order as this list but close.

As for the article itself it’s nice to have someone acknowledge Taylor for her writing ability without slamming her for something or other in the same piece.

16 notes · View notes

45news · 5 years ago

Link

I am not a crook.Some 46 years ago, President Richard Nixon made that infamous declaration during a press conference in Orlando, Florida. While the quote is not exactly another "ask not what your country can do for you," his five words, perhaps more than anything else, came to define an era of American history. Today they are printed in countless history books as a study in irony, corruption, and holding our leaders accountable.Now, nearly half a century on, the murmurs of impeachment have started once again. And although no one can know the future, we very well may be listening to the words -- or reading the tweets -- that will write the chapters of our future history books. Here are seven quotes from the past week alone that students could be reciting in classrooms half a century from now.1\. "In the course of my official duties, I have received information from multiple U.S. government officials that the president of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election." -- The whistleblower complaint, declassified Sept. 26Over the past week, reports of an anonymous intelligence officer's concerns about President Trump's July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the White House's attempted cover-up of the call, went from speculative to declassified. The now-public letter begins strikingly by accusing the president of the United States of pushing a foreign leader to investigate his potential 2020 political opponent.While the identity of the whistleblower remains closely guarded, that likely won't last forever; in the words of The Washington Post, "no one expects his anonymity to last as long as Deep Throat's did." However, his name -- and place in history -- could likewise be a future AP History test question, depending on what happens next.2\. "You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now." -- President Trump, Sept. 26You are never really off the record -- just ask the Watergate conspirators. Speaking at a private event on Thursday, President Trump was caught on tape yearning for the good old days when spies were executed. Even as a "joke," the quote is shocking, something more along the lines of what a dictator might say rather than the leader of the free world.House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has argued, though, that Trump's quote was intended to get out: "That kind of incitement to violence is only going to chill other witnesses when they come forward," he said. The whistleblower already reportedly fears for his safety, and the possibility of retaliation from Trump loyalists.Then there is the fact that, as The Week's Joel Mathis points out, Trump is "the president of the United States ... We must take his words and ideas seriously."3\. "I will be the hero! These morons -- when this is over, I will be the hero." -- Rudy Giuliani, Sept. 26Perhaps more than anything else, irony gives a political quote its staying power. And while this one might not be as short and sweet as Nixon's famous line, there is a certain poetry to Rudy Giuliani's insistence of his innocence to The Atlantic.The former mayor of New York turned Trump's personal lawyer, Giuliani has been lashing-out at critics for a week. His statements, though, could potentially lead investigators to information that could make both him and his boss vulnerable. Giuliani, after all, is tangled in the Ukraine web, having allegedly attempted to "seize an unsanctioned diplomatic role [in the country] for himself," as The Washington Post reports. Likewise, in the transcript of Trump's call with Zelensky, the American president pushes his Ukrainian counterpart to coordinate with Giuliani on dredging up Joe Biden-related dirt ... multiple times.Giuliani's insistence, then, that he will "be the hero" in this narrative seems doubtful if there is any veracity to the White House's own transcript of Trump's call. An alternative Giuliani quote from The Atlantic interview that might also find its place in textbooks could be: "If this guy is a whistleblower, then I'm a whistleblower too. You should be happy for your country that I uncovered this."4\. "If that perfect phone call with the President of Ukraine isn't considered appropriate, then no future President can EVER again speak to another foreign leader!" -- President Trump, Sept. 27 Republicans are clearly struggling to spin the whistleblower complaint into a nothingburger, seeing as most aren't exactly prepared to call it "perfect."Even with Trump's claims that the call was completely "appropriate," the White House seemed to treat the conversation differently. The New York Times reported late last week that "current and former officials said the White House used a highly classified computer system accessible to only a select few officials to store transcripts of [certain] calls," including the July call with Zelensky. Why? Well, the whistleblower has alleged that the administration tried to bury Trump's conversation with the Ukrainian president -- something that wouldn't likely have been the case if the call were considered "perfect" and "appropriate" by the administration, too.5\. "If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal." -- Robert Jeffress, quoted by President Trump, Sept. 29Sometimes it's not what you say, but what you quote. On Sunday, Trump tweeted a claim by Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress, who speculated that if Trump is impeached, "it will cause a Civil War."Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) slammed Trump for sharing the claim, tweeting, "I have visited nations ravaged by civil war ... I have never imagined such a quote to be repeated by a President. This is beyond repugnant." But it also might be more than just an eye-popping pronouncement: "This tweet is itself an independent basis for impeachment -- a sitting president threatening civil war if Congress exercises its constitutionally authorized power," tweeted Harvard Law professor John Coates.6\. "Like every American, I deserve to meet my accuser." -- President Trump, Sept. 29On Sunday, Trump claimed in a Twitter thread that he should be allowed to meet "the so-called 'Whistleblower.'" According to Brooklyn public defender Scott Hechinger, that's "grounds for impeachment, evidence of consciousness of guilt, active obstruction of justice, and just plain old unhinged and terrifying."It's also incorrect; as Hechinger adds, "the 6th Amendment Confrontation Clause does not entitle someone to 'meet' their accuser. If this was a criminal proceeding, an order of protection would already have issued. The Constitution allows -- in a criminal trial -- the right to confront on the witness stand."Trump's insistence that he meet the whistleblower also plays into a general theme of trying to expose the identity of the intelligence official, which many critics say is an intimidation tactic. It could also be literally life-threatening; the whistleblower's attorney has said "our client will be put in harm's way" were his identity to become known in the way Trump is publicly pushing for.7\. "Arrest for Treason?" -- President Trump, Sept. 30If you stop and think about it, "Trump Raises Idea of Arresting House Chairman for Treason" is an astonishing headline.While Trump's musings about arresting Schiff became an instant Twitter meme, the reality of the quote is more worrying. Trump claims that Schiff gave a summary of the transcript that "bore NO relationship to what I said on the call [with Zelensky]," although the Times writes that the summary indeed "appears to be drawn from several portions of the call, including statements from Mr. Trump to Mr. Zelensky."Joked Aaron Rupar of Vox: "What stage of authoritarianism is 'leader publicly calls for imprisonment of his political opponents'?"I'll leave that answer up to the historians.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2nbFZfx

#Blogger

0 notes

worldtopnewsoftheday · 5 years ago

Link

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2nbFZfx

#Blogger

0 notes

tendance-news · 5 years ago

Link

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2nbFZfx

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

mrmichaelchadler · 6 years ago

Text

Cinepocalypse 2018 Preview

Dark days in the real world often call for an escape into even darker worlds in cinema. As many people are continuously startled by the world around them, from the terrifying increase in school shootings to the atrocities currently happening on the U.S. border, it makes sense that the horror genre feels more vibrant and alive than ever. Two of the most critically acclaimed films of the year—“Hereditary” and “A Quiet Place”—are undeniably horror films, no matter how many people want to claim they’re not, while other genre indies like “The Endless” have also garnered attention. This is all to say that this feels like the perfect time for a horror film festival like Cinepocalypse.

Starting at the Music Box Theatre this Thursday, June 21st, Cinepocalypse employs something of a shock and awe approach to the genre, offering fans an overwhelming amount of content for a relatively-short festival. There are world premieres, retro events, special guests, and horror hits from other festivals. It’s an ambitious slate of (mostly) indie offerings from around the world, most of which have little in common other than the horror brand. As someone who has seen a great deal of this year’s offerings, it’s the range of the programming that’s impressive. There are slasher pics, brutal dramas, relationship nightmares, sci-fi experiments, and even a movie about Nazi puppets. There’s something for everyone. Here are a few highlights, chronologically.

“The Domestics” (June 21st, 7:30pm)

Mike P. Nelson’s brutal vision of a world gone mad feels just right for the first note conducted by Cinepocalypse in 2018. Owing an undeniable debt to “The Purge” and “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “The Domestics” actually reminded me more of post-apocalyptic video games like “Fallout,” imagined futures in which the world is overrun with enemies and formerly safe havens are deadly. Nelson’s vision doesn’t take place in the traditional landscapes of post-apocalyptic horror, which often crib from George Miller or Ridley Scott, working with, well, domesticity as its background. It's more about average American neighborhoods and Midwestern landscapes that have become suddenly, unexpectedly violent. In other words, it's kinda perfect for 2018.

In a future dominated by rival gangs with names like The Gamblers and The Sheets, we meet a couple (Tyler Hoechlin & Kate Bosworth) on the edge of sanity. They had been communicating with loved ones via ham radio but the signal has gone dead and they have decided to now take a road trip through Wisconsin to Milwaukee to see what’s going on. The journey takes them through territories dominated by violent men, many of whom now see people as property. There’s an interesting social commentary simmering beneath “The Domestics” that feels timely (if too underdeveloped), but it’s mostly just a brutal cinematic punch to the face, anchored by genuine performances from Hoechlin, Bosworth, Lance Reddick, Sonoya Mizuno, and more. It’s rough around the edges in certain places, but it undeniably sets the tone for an event like Cinepocalypse. (Get your tickets here.)

“The Ranger” (June 22nd, 2:30pm & June 26th, 9:15pm)

Fresh off its SXSW premiere, comes this throwback from writer/director Jenn Wexler, another film that feels a bit first-draft in places but that struck a nostalgic beat for this viewer. If you’re like me and grew up watching the cheesy slasher pics of the ‘80s, you may feel similarly about this twist on the “cabin in the woods” genre. Instead of teenagers away at camp, “The Ranger” features punk rock kids running from society to a remote locale. And instead of an escaped mental patient, the killer here is an unhinged park ranger, the antithesis of the punk ethos. Some of “The Ranger” feels undercooked, but I have to admit to enjoying seeing a subgenre that doesn’t really exist like it used to and that once dominated the world of horror. Given how much of Cinepocalypse is designed to tap that nostalgic vein, those who fondly remember the slasher subgenre, should probably check this one out. (Get your tickets here.)

“What Keeps You Alive” (June 22nd, 11:59pm)

The talented Colin Minihan (“It Stains the Sand Red”) brings his latest to the Music Box for its Midwest Premiere and it should produce gasps in the Friday night midnight spot for those willing to stay up late. Performances aren’t often the hook to bring in viewers at horror festivals but Hannah Emily Anderson and Brittany Allen are great in this SXSW hit as a couple named Jackie and Jules, who go on a trip to one of their childhood haunts on their one-year anniversary to a remote cabin Jackie went to as a child. From the beginning, something feels off as Jackie seems distant and different. It’s that common point in a relationship when one person reveals something new about themselves through the lens of their past. And what Jackie reveals is shocking. I almost wish I could go down to the MB for when Minihan pulls the rug out from viewers on what they think they’re watching just to hear the gasps. You should be there. (Get your tickets here.)

“Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich” (June 23rd, 11:59pm)

Most people willing to read an article previewing horror films at something called Cinepocalypse probably have seen a “Puppet Master” movie or two (or ten). Starting in 1989, the “Puppet Master” series became a staple in the straight-to-VHS (then DVD) horror market, releasing so many (maybe intentionally) awful sequels to the movie about killer puppets. Well, the era in which nostalgia is king has finally gotten around to those maniacal puppets with a full reboot written by S. Craig Zahler of “Brawl in Cell Block 99” and “Bone Tomahawk” fame, and starring Thomas Lennon, Michael Pare, Barbara Crampton, and Udo Kier. Yes, it’s a cheesy, gorey, insane, ludicrous movie about killer puppets who were trained by the Nazis to eliminate enemies of the Third Reich first, and so that’s what they do at a remote hotel. (The hate crimes aspect of "The Littlest Reich" feels purposefully provocative in a way that horror rarely is nowadays and used to be so often in the '70s.) Lennon is surprisingly flat, playing it a bit too straight, but there’s more than enough to like here for people wondering if this may resemble the brutal insanity of the final act of “Bone Tomahawk” but with puppets as the bad guys. Spoiler: It does. (Get your tickets here.)

“Empathy, Inc.” (June 24th, 5pm)

There are a few films at Cinepocalypse this year that feel inspired more by “Black Mirror” than traditional horror and the best of those that I’ve seen is Yedidya Gorsetman’s “Empathy, Inc.” Zack Robidas plays a venture capitalist who watches his whole world fall apart when a deal goes bad. Forced to move up with his in-laws, he desperately grabs at a lifeline when an old friend (Eric Berryman) comes to him with a new project in the always-hot world of Virtual Reality. The tech is called XVR (Xtreme Virtual Reality) and is the product of a company called Empathy, Inc., which allows users to literally step into the shoes of someone who has less than them. Privileged, well-off people are always talking about the perspective gained by those are further down the social ladder, but what would they do if they could literally live the lives of the less fortunate? The concept of “Empathy, Inc.” is brilliant, and Gorsetman has a strong sense of storytelling, even if the film does kind of write itself into a corner or two in the increasingly crazy final act. Still, it’s the kind of unexpected World Premiere that genre fans hope to find at a fest like Cinepocalypse. (Get your tickets here.)

Retro Titles w/Special Guests!

Threaded through the week-long run of Cinepocalypse, you’ll find a handful of really fun retro titles, selections that reveal the quirky personality that drives this festival. You’ve seen acknowledged classics at the Music Box before at one of their many festivals, but have you seen “Howard the Duck” in 70MM? Have you seen “Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight” on the big screen? What about “Judgment Night”? And the biggest guests of Cinepocalypse 2018 have to be the great Ernest Dickerson, traveling to Chicago to present "Juice" with a Q&A, and the incredible Lana Wachowski, who will discuss the phenomenal "Bound" with Cinepocalypse fans. (Get your tickets here.)

from All Content https://ift.tt/2ytPYBG

0 notes