#that was for me to draw one of the United States presidents

[doctorsiren]

may i humbly request a doodle of 42nd united states president bill clinton 🙏🙏

oops wrong bill

[genderqueerpositivity]

I absolutely cannot wait for this election cycle to be over because genuinely what the fuck. I keep drawing parallels to the 2016 election because there are just so many similarities, but what I haven't said much about yet are the ways in which things are worse.

Having the majority of people I know or randomly encounter be Trump supporting Republicans is absolutely wild now, because sometimes they will just drop the most unhinged comments you could possibly imagine into casual conversation as if they're simply commenting that the grass is green or the weather is nice today, and every time it gives me this bizarre sensation like I am somehow the one living in a different plane of reality.

The Democrats are intentionally bringing undocumented people into the country and giving them drivers licenses so they can vote in the upcoming November election, and unless Donald Trump wins and is allowed to carry out his mass deportation plan the United States will never again have a Republican Christian president.

Joe Biden has been using the US military to release chemicals into the atmosphere for the past four years which have the ability to affect the weather in order to trick the American public into believing that climate change is real.

The attack on Donald Trump at his rally was rally a plot enacted by The Deep State, a secret group of powerful liberals who are running the country behind the scenes, and they don't want Trump to win in November because he is too powerful for them to control.

Joe Biden was replaced by a secret identical body double when he allegedly had Covid several weeks ago, and the double is the one who really dropped out of the election, gives all of his speeches, and does all of his interviews now for him.

Those are just the ones I heard last week.

And the reactions I get when contradicting these wild takes range from rage to mocking to a bizarre persecution complex. In 2016 and even in 2020 I was able to have a lot of productive conversations with many people who disagreed with me greatly on major issues, and that is largely not happening this time. If I dare to disagree, they turn to anger, attack me personally, or cry immediately that I'm denying their right to free speech. When bringing up my actual lived experiences with certain issues, I've been dismissed immediately as emotional and brainwashed. There is no room for discourse or discussion anymore, it has broken down.

I know that we've been going out of our way to call them weird, but we're not really talking about fringe weirdo conspiracy theorists anymore, we're talking about your neighbors and my coworkers and your aunt and the guy behind me in line at Aldi. These people are everywhere, they're 100% serious about believing in this shit, and they're voting Republican in November come hell or high water, truth be goddamed.

You know, the lives of millions and millions of women, LGBTQ+ people, undocumented people, and other marginalized peoples are at stake in this election but it feels increasingly like reality is at stake too.

"Alternative facts" sounded outrageous seven years ago...now they've made it a way of life. Unless we can correct course, and rapidly, it isn't going to get better.

[aropride]

ok story before bed time. everyone gather around

you are me at age 13. you are an 8th grader who just realized he likes girls and recently had a gender crisis in the home depot lighting aisle. it is november of 2016, and trump has run for president for the first time. you are watching the map change over your dad's shoulder. you aren't really sure how it works yet but you are seeing a lot of red on there and you are very frightened. you just found out you have free will, like, last year, and you are only beginning to grasp the gravity of the situation- the situation being the united states of america in general- and it already is looking very bad.

when you wake up in the morning your dad tells you trump has won. he's too happy about it. you're skipping breakfast to make the bus in time. the sun's barely risen, btw, but you are 13 so you have little to no autonomy or rights, so you are in the fluorescent-light torment-nexus they call a "middle school" by 7:45am on the dot.

you see your friend as you're walking to your homeroom. he's a fellow gay emo middle schooler, he sucks, and he really likes to guilt-trip you into skipping class to hang out with him by telling you he's going to kill himself if you don't. you have other qualms with him, but this illustrates enough. he says hi, you say hi, there is a sort of thick dread in the air despite barely anyone in the building being old enough to vote and most everyone completely baffled by the concept of the "electoral college."

he asks how you're feeling. you say bad, and he agrees.

he looks you in the eyes and puts both his hands on your shoulders. he says, "don't worry about gay marriage. they can't get rid of it."

you don't say anything; he doesn't give you a chance to.

"i ran into the senate at subway yesterday and i asked them. and they said trump can't repeal gay marriage."

you do not know much about the government. you are not quite sure what a senator is. however, you know there are one hundred of them. you also know that the only subway in your little corner of maine is very small- there's, like, three booths to sit in. only a few people can even get in line to order at a time. you were born recently but you are able to draw some conclusions here:

1) there is absolutely no way that subway could fit 100 people inside of it at all,

2) there is no reason that the entire senate would be in a little town in maine the night after the election,

and 3) this guy is making shit up again, more than anyone's ever made shit up in their life.

you say, "okay. that's good." you are aware that gay marriage is not the only thing to be worried about, here. you are aware that this guy lies recreationally and it is not worth arguing the matter.

"isn't that great?" he asks. it is not great.

you go to homeroom and you do not stand for the pledge of allegiance (you never stand for it again). you go to pre-algebra. you listen to my chemical romance instead of paying attention. you go to english class, you go to study hall, you go to lunch. you go to social studies and your teacher lets you and your other gay friend (who doesn't suck and in fact you have crush-adjacent feelings for them) sit out in the hall to talk about the election, because you asked nicely. they do not try to tell you that they ran into the entire senate at subway.

you think about this interaction several times a month through the next two election seasons. you are a 21 year old man and you are still thinking about this. you are still imagining ways the entire senate could cram themselves into this tiny subway. you regularly share this story with new friends because you just cannot stop fucking thinking about it. he ran into the entire senate at a tiny little subway in maine at 7 in the morning. and they said gay rights were safe forever.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

This is one of the best articles I’ve seen yet on Trump, Trumpism, and the upcoming election. It’s directed at the right and centre-right (whereas most tumblr posts on this are directed at the left), but it’s saying – with detailed analysis and evidence – exactly what needs to be said, to everyone. This is not a normal election. How you vote this November determines whether you ever get the chance to vote in a democratic election again. This is not a game. Fascism is not a buzzword or a rhetorical device to hurl at anyone and everyone you disagree with. It is real, it is dangerous, and Trump is openly running on a fascist platform.

There are only two sides in this election: those who want the United States to be a fascist dictatorship and those who do not.

I live in Canada. I do not want to live next to a fascist state (especially since the Comservatives here are way ahead in the polls and their leader gives every sign of wanting to cozy up to Trump).

Please, stop this while you still have a chance.

Today we’re going to look at definitions of fascism and ask the question – you may have guessed – if Donald Trump is running for President as a fascist. Worry not, this isn’t me shifting to full-time political pundit, nor is this the formal end of the hiatus (which will happen on Nov 1, when I hope to have a post answering some history questions from the ACOUP Senate to start off on), but this was an essay I had in me that I had to get out, and working on the book I haven’t the time to get it out in any other forum but this one. And I’ll be frank, some of Donald Trump’s recent statements and promises have raised the urgency of writing this; the political science suggests that politicians do, broadly, attempt to do the things they promise to do – and the things Trump is promising are dark indeed.

Now I want to be clear what we’re doing here. I am not asking if the Republican Party is fascist (I think, broadly speaking, it isn’t) and certainly not if you are fascist (I certainly hope not). But I want to employ the concept of fascism as an ideology with more precision than its normal use (‘thing I don’t like’) and in that context ask if Donald Trump fits the definition of a fascist based on his own statements and if so, what does that mean. And I want to do it in a long-form context where we can get beyond slogans or tweet-length arguments and into some detail.

Now the response from some folks is going to be anger that I am even asking this question and demands for me to ‘stay in my lane.’ To which I must remind them that the purpose of history and historians is, as Thucydides put it, is to offer “an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the understanding of the future, which in the course of human affairs must resemble if it does not reflect it” (Thuc. 1.22.4). This is my lane. Goodness knows, I’d much rather be discussing the historical implications of tax policy or long-term interstate strategy, but that isn’t the election we’re having. And if hearing about these things that happened is unpleasant, well, Polybius offers the solution: “men have no more ready corrective of conduct than knowledge of the past” (Plb. 1.1.1). We must correct our conduct.

The author, Bret Devereaux, lays out the history of the rise to power of Hitler and Mussolini and draws out the lessons

What I want to note here are two key commonalities: First, fascists were only able to take power because of the gullibility of those who thought they could ‘use’ the fascists against some other enemy (usually communists). Traditional conservative politicians (your Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham types) and conservative business leaders (your Elon Musks) fooled themselves into believing that, because the would-be tyrant seemed foolish, buffoonish, and uneducated that such an individual could be controlled to their ends, shaped in more productive, more ‘moderate,’ more ‘business friendly’ directions. They were wrong; many of them paid for their foolish error with their lives (Victor Emmanuel III paid for it with his crown). Mussolini and Hitler would not be ‘shaped,’ – they would be exactly the violent, tyrannical dictators they had promised to be – to the total and utter ruin of their countries.

Note that these men were not exactly subtle about what they wanted to do. Mein Kampf is not a subtle book. But they both knew how to promise violence to their followers while prevaricating to their temporary allies; be wary of the fascist who promises violence in his rally speeches but assures you that, if you just give him power, he won’t hurt anyone (except the people you don’t like) – because it is a lie, of course.

Second: once these fascist leaders were in power it was already too late to stop them. Precisely because fascists had no respect for democratic processes and the rule of law – things they had declared openly in seeking power – once in power, they were unconstrained by them and swiftly set about converting all of the powers of the government into a machine to keep them in power. And the conversion from democracy to dictatorship was remarkably swift, in Italy, Mussolini marched in October of ’22, rewrote the election rules in November of ’23 and by December of ’24 had effectively dropped even the pretense of democracy; just two years. Hitler was faster: appointed chancellor in January 1933, by March of that year he had suspended constitutional protections and ruled by fiat; just three months.

The time to stop an authoritarian takeover of a democratic system is before the authoritarian is in office, because once they are in power, they will use that power, to stay in power and it becomes almost impossible to remove them without considerable violence (and difficult to do even with considerable violence).

That, however, creates a tricky situation. With most political ideologies, voters can adopt a strategy of judging by outputs: “if you don’t like the current government’s policies, let these other fellows here have a go at it and see if they do better. If not, you can always vote them out next time.” But with fascists and other authoritarians there may not be a next time and this strategy fails: by the time the actions of the fascists make it clear they are dangerous, it is too late to vote them out.

This is why it is important to listen carefully to what fascists say and what they promise and most importantly to take their threats of political violence and authoritarianism seriously.

Which is not to say that everything on the right is fascism (just as not everything on the left is its own authoritarian variant, communism). Ronald Reagan was not a fascist, nor was George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush or John McCain or Mitt Romney. They were conservatives within the liberal tradition (again, ‘liberal’ here in the old Jefferson-Locke-and-Washington sense). Most Republicans today are not fascists, although a distressing number appear ready to repeat Franz von Papen’s mistake of assuming they can achieve their goals through an alliance with fascists. Only the devil wins such a devil’s bargain.

How is one to tell the difference? Listen to the things they promise to do and understand that they make speak out of both sides of their mouth: promising violence to one audience and then toning down their rhetoric to another. But politicians speaking from within the tradition of liberty don’t need to speak that way because they don’t promise violence in the first place.

Listen for the promises of violence, the promises to suspend press freedoms, the promises to persecute political adversaries and when you hear them believe them.

I strongly recommend reading the whole article, as the author goes on to lay out two of the more common definitions of fascism and analyze, point-by-point, how Trumpism fits them.

There is a reason why some Republicans, even some of the people who were in Trump’s inner circle in 2016-2020, have jumped ship now. The Republicans who are willing to vote for Kamala aren’t doing it because she’s conservative – they’re doing it because they’re anti-fascist. It would be deeply ironic if people on the left who have been calling themselves anti-fascists for the last eight years proved to be less so than those Republicans. This may be one of the most crucial moments in American history. Take it seriously.

[cecilysass]

Why I Think The X-Files Isn’t Really As Much About Watergate and Governmental Conspiracy As Everyone Claims, Maybe Including CC

This one’s really nerdy, get ready.

Media covering the X-Files has always emphasized how much the show capitalizes on a post-Watergate worldview, a paranoia about government and belief in high-level conspiracy. I think CC signed on to this interpretation entirely. So much so that he sure kept on feeding those conspiracy plot lines in the mytharc—even when every other plot line was going hungry. 

So much so that in the revival, he really created a problem for himself, which the media picked up on. Government conspiracy nuts in 2016 no longer were hot sensitive 90s guy outcasts like Mulder or quirky cuddly little nerds like the Gunmen. Government conspiracy nuts in 2016 were media savvy right wing commentators manipulating the masses, getting presidents elected through willful misinformation.  The revival series tried to address this head on with Tad O’Malley, a character who represented this new development. But it was definitely a sticky issue: the sociopolitical context of the original show was gone. Was the show relevant any more?

I would argue yes, or at least it could have been. I would argue that the interpretation of the XF as a show primarily about conspiracy at high levels of power and governmental manipulation is a flawed one to begin with. I think this take makes the show way too thematically narrow, limits it, and obscures the show’s more important appeals.

In the 1990s, media coverage of the show almost always mentioned Watergate the historical event. Sometimes coverage discussed how Watergate was directly referenced on the show (Deep Throat, meetings in parking deck, CSM and Diana both living in the actual Watergate), but also Watergate’s specific effect on creator Chris Carter, who specifically cited it as a formative event. Often it was claimed that the show’s popularity with audiences was rooted in post-Watergate suspicion of government.

I think this could have been true generally speaking, although I always thought it somewhat overestimated the impact of Watergate on the XF’s target audience. Consider that in 1997 many in the key 18-49 demographic would not even remember Watergate especially well, or at all. If you were 30 in 1997, you were 6 when the story broke in 1973. I’m sure that could have left a mark on you, but I also think it might have been something that simply left a much bigger impression on Boomers the age of Chris Carter himself.

Me? I was in college in 1997, and I was nonexistent / unborn during Watergate. So I didn’t remember it, and it held no personal significance in my worldview regarding the United States. I don’t think it ever would have occurred to me to trust that the government was telling me the truth all the time, and I wouldn’t ever be shocked to learn I was being intentionally misled. As a late Gen Xer growing up in the Reagan administration with post-Watergate ideas floating in the air, I just assumed the worst from the get-go.

So I admit: sometimes the earnest speeches from Mulder and Scully about the Truth and being lied to from men in power and a government we purport to trust seemed a little repetitive and obvious to me. It’s taken me a while to realize that these speeches are voicing something very specific and historically real, the furious indignation of Boomers that we can’t trust our institutions. I think I felt like, yeah, okay, okay, I get it. I never had the same kind of trust in institutions to lose in this respect, but this was a major betrayal for people my parents’ age.

All of this to say, I don’t think that the conspiracy worldview and the appeal of the paranoia about government was a big part of the draw for me. I’m not saying it wasn’t for many or even most others. But my instinct about storytelling is that that is a little too abstract or bloodless of an appeal to really hook most viewers anyway. Like, you might be interested in conspiracy to get you to watch initially, sure, but that’s probably not going to keep you watching for years. And it’s really not going to be enough to motivate you to tune in to a revival series in the 2010s.

So what was the big hook for viewers? You’re probably expecting me to say MSR, and if so, I’m going to surprise you a little. I do think that was part of it for some percentage of viewers, but I think it is more complex than that.

I think the show tapped into a late 20th century urge for individuals to become part of something greater than ourselves. Something we might think of as numinous or transcendent. Maybe something meaningful and good (like a quest for truth) — or maybe something that will look down and judge us, for good or ill. Something that means that we are not lonely in the universe. This puts X-Files squarely in an overall 1990s angels and aliens otherworldly trend. 

(Personally, and this could be an only me thing, but I can never quite separate out Tony Kushner’s Angels in America and The X-Files in my mind; Angels debuted on Broadway the same year X-Files first aired, and I was exposed to both at about the same time. They’re both about apocalypse and personal crisis and the end of the millennium and the transformative power of authentic relationships with others. I could do a whole thing on this.)

The desire for transcendence is the part of the show that is summed up by Mulder and Scully watching lights together in the sky, by Mulder’s wonder at seeing ships or aliens, by the entire notion of “I Want To Believe,” by the idea expressed in the last episode of the original series that both Mulder and Scully share—that the dead aren’t lost to us, that “they speak to us as part of something greater than us - greater than any alien force.” Mulder says to Scully that if “you and I are powerless now, I want to believe that if we listen to what’s speaking, it can give us the power to save ourselves.” There’s definitely a part of the show that is about little lonely human beings finding how they fit in a big, unfeeling universe.

The show's interest in conspiracy figures into this. Because after all, what are conspiracy theories but reassurance that there is some meaning behind everything after all? That there is some powerful system running the show, even if that system might be kind of evil. A grand organized secret an individual can actually uncover, rather than a bunch of random haphazard incompetence and chaos. I think this is part of the show's interest in transcendence, but only one part.

And there’s also part of the show that’s about a hero who is wracked with loneliness and alienation — and then two heroes who are wracked with loneliness and alienation—finding a kind of salvation in Truth, in Justice, in Trust, in Partnership, and, ambiguously, Love. (Sometimes Mulder sounds more like a 19th century Romantic hero than anything else.) This makes it a little allegory about late 20th century individualism and alienation and desire for meaning and authenticity and connection with others. 

I think what appeals to people emotionally in the show is that part of us that wonders: is there a universe that pays attention to me? Is there anyone who listens to me and who really, really knows me? Does anyone besides me care what is true and what is a lie? Will I find those who are lost to me and repair the parts of me that are broken? Is there anyone who would give up their life for mine?

I think that the desire to connect with others is a really basic human drive, and it’s most obviously foregrounded in the show the Mulder-Scully partnership. Even romance aside, we see from the first episode that these are two people with distinct worldviews who want to communicate, who see something in one another, who are hungry to be understood by one another. They ultimately see the other person as someone who reflects and affirms who they are. The partnership is definitely the emotional hook of the show, whether you see that as a romantic ship or not, and it thematically echoes the show’s overall themes of wanting there to be more in the universe. 

When the show was at its most emotionally devastating, it was one or both of its protagonists losing a relationship or connection that was important to them, or it was their frustration that their efforts were not meaningful on a larger scale: grief over a loss, a coverup that meant Justice wasn’t served or Truth was concealed.

When the show’s moments were most emotionally triumphant, they were always moments of overt connection, usually between Mulder and Scully, both more dramatic (“you’re my touchstone”) and subtle (reaching out to take a partner’s hand in Pusher or Field Trip). When there were moments of triumph concerning the government conspiracy, it felt more allegorical, like information (Truth) getting free, not progress made in specific governmental reform or anything. 

(And honestly, the moments of triumph against the conspiracy were pretty few and far between. We left the original run of show with the protagonists on the run, pretty sure there was going to be an alien invasion in coming years that had been facilitated by complicit human conspirators, so this conspiracy thread of the plot apparently didn’t even seem like the most important and emotionally satisfying story to resolve.)     

CC wrote a NY Times piece addressing the changing landscape on conspiracies in 2021, discussing why he was skeptical of a new UFO report. He was perceived as having the authority to write this because he created a show that quintessentially addressed government conspiracies about visitors from space.

But for me, the question of whether the government was hiding evidence of extraterrestrial life was really not the main takeaway from TXF. At least no more than the question of whether there needed to be an investigation into the undue influence of witchcraft in Scotland was my main takeaway of Macbeth.

I do acknowledge that I may have been in the minority. Maybe this is not how most people felt. But I also wonder if sometimes the urge to make the show primarily about political paranoia became a distraction from what it did best—these larger, more universal themes. I wonder if that is partly what was so frustrating about the storytelling of the revival.

[manorpunk]

1️⃣

In the White House press briefing room in the year 2069, the presidential lectern was alight for the first time in decades. On the dais, hidden behind thick blue curtains, a series of lenses came to life, powered by thrumming machines the size of cabinets. In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, The light from the lenses reflected along an array of precision mirrors, engineered down to the nanometer, reflecting and warping the light, directing every beam to a spot just behind the lectern. A shimmering orb of color began to grow and take shape. It was a hologram, the first of its kind in quality and fidelity, but needing time to form. With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me… The hologram grew, like a multicolored egg, until it took the shape of a body - a woman’s body, thin but not too thin, tan but also pale, tall but not too tall or too short, a work of perfection as delicately engineered as the machinery that created it. The Mary Jane shoes, the pleated skirt, the puffy blouse with Juliet sleeves. The cherry-red hair with a big white bow on top. The baby blue eyes with little white five-pointed stars for pupils. For better or for worse, the USA’s decades-long interregnum was drawing to a close. As He died to make men holy… With a thrum of light, the hologram was now displaying at one-hundred percent fidelity. The first president of the American League, a rough and discordant coalition of states that had emerged from the fall of the United States federal government, newly embodied with vague and untested powers in the transition out of provisional government, was an anime girl vtuber. Let us die to make men free, While God is marching on! She smiled. It was a wide, sharp smile, like the letter v, brimming with barely-concealed pride, the smile of someone who was always up to mischief, but never too much. She turned her head, letting the cameras see it from every angle, waving and winking as the booming chorus of Glory, Glory, Hallelujah faded into the background. “And we’re back, folks!” she said. Her voice was light and airy, like a rich pastry or a strong dose of anesthetics.  “In case you’ve been living under a rock for these past few years, I’m Sunny Roosevelt: winner of Miss Vtuber North America 206X, named ‘America’s Cloth Mother’ by the GLN Worldwide Weekly, and now, your president!” The ‘living under a rock’ comment wasn’t a rhetorical gesture; a non-negligible amount of people in the former USA had spent the past few years under some form of rock, whether that was an apocalypse bunker, abandoned basement, or literal rock. “Folks, I know it’s been a rough couple decades for America. There was mass infrastructure failure, natural disasters, zombie COVID, falling real estate prices, and I’m pretty sure most of Florida’s still underwater. But that - ends - here!” she thumped her fist on the podium. “Because I love America. I love America so much I am kissing America with tongue. To all my loyal voters, followers, and subscribers, my promise to you, now that I’m here…” her eyes narrowed and slanted sharply as she gripped the podium and leaned closer. “...big things are coming.”

[clownsgirlghost]

yo can you draw 34th united states president dwight d. eisenhower that would be sick

I LAUGHED SO LOUD U HAVE NO IDEA

(i started to draw it the second i got the ask.)

also sprunki since thats my shit rn..

this is deadass one of the most randomest ask i have ever seen, its insane man.

u lowkey remind me of that one dude who would commission people to draw white american women buying bread💀😭

holy shit, tho ur for now on one of my fave ask's person ever, love you man <3

ALSO! really sorry it looks like that, i could have done much better but this is the first time i draw realistic digitally😔.

[mariacallous]

Tens of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in Georgia in the South Caucasus in recent weeks to protest a controversial proposed new law that many fear, if passed, would be the death knell of a once-promising young democracy and drive the country firmly into Moscow’s orbit.

The “foreign agents” law would require organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence.” It is modeled on similar legislation that Russia enacted in 2012 and has used to cast independent media and civic society groups as doing the bidding of foreign governments and to crack down on dissent.

Georgia has been convulsed by bouts of street protests in recent years over the proposed law and other actions by the ruling Georgian Dream party that critics fear could consolidate its power and draw the country closer to neighboring Russia, a deeply unpopular move in the former Soviet nation where an overwhelming majority of the population supports joining the European Union, according to opinion polls.

Georgia was offered long-awaited EU candidate status by the bloc last year, which could be placed in jeopardy if the foreign agents legislation is adopted. In a statement last month, Brussels’s diplomatic service urged the country’s leaders to “adopt and implement reforms that are in line with the stated objective of joining the European Union, as supported by a large majority of Georgia’s citizens.”

On Thursday, Georgia’s ambassador to France resigned in protest over the proposed legislation, becoming the first senior official from the country to do so. “I no longer see my role and resources in this direction: the move towards Europe,” said Gotcha Javakhishvili in a post on social media.

The law was first introduced in February 2023 but was quickly withdrawn in the face of massive street protests in the capital, Tbilisi. It was then reintroduced in April of this year. Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, who is independent of the Georgian Dream, has promised to veto the legislation if passed, but her veto would likely be overridden by the government’s parliamentary majority.

“It seems clear to me, anyway, they have made a decision to go the path of one-party rule, of shutting down basically all checks and balances on executive power, and this Russian law is the last instrument that they need to put in place,” said Ian Kelly, former U.S. ambassador to Georgia.

The protests this time around are markedly different from earlier iterations, though—but not because of the demonstrators or their demands. What makes the latest round of unrest different is the level of violence and intimidation meted out against protesters and civil society as well as the government’s apparent determination to pass the law, which is due for a final reading on May 13, despite the public outcry and condemnation from the European Union and the United States.

Security forces have used water cannons, rubber bullets, and tear gas in a bid to disperse crowds of demonstrators in the capital, Tbilisi, while protesters have reported being violently assaulted by groups of men dressed in black in what they say appear to be premeditated attacks.

In recent days, civil society activists, journalists, and their relatives have reported receiving menacing phone calls from anonymous callers threatening them in Georgian and reciting their home addresses in an apparent bid to intimidate them, said Eka Gigauri, executive director of Transparency International Georgia. Gigauri said she had received dozens of calls from unknown numbers in recent days but declined to answer them.

On Wednesday evening, four government critics, including two members of the United National Movement opposition party, were attacked by unknown assailants outside their homes and in the street. Overnight on Wednesday, posters featuring the faces of prominent civil society activists, journalists, and opposition politicians branding them as enemies of the country and foreign agents were plastered near their homes and offices across the capital.

“What happened during these two days is just an unprecedented level of targeting,” said Eto Buziashvili, a former advisor to the Georgian National Security Council based in Tbilisi.

In 2019, when police used water cannons, rubber bullets, and tear gas to disperse protesters, it sparked a national outcry and further protests calling for snap elections and the resignation of the interior minister, Giorgi Gakharia.

Now, accusations of more sinister tactics are afoot as the role of the unknown assailants dressed in black has drawn comparisons to pro-government thugs known as titushki who were allegedly paid for by the embattled government of Viktor Yanukovych to cause disruption and attack protesters during the Ukrainian revolution in 2014, Buziashvili said.

After a 2003 uprising known as the Rose Revolution, Georgia embarked on a dizzyingly ambitious reform program under the presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili, who was then a darling of Washington’s. He sought to stamp out corruption and put the country on a firmly Western trajectory, tilting it away from Moscow, which fought a short but shocking war with Georgia over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008.

Saakashvili was imprisoned in 2021, accused of abusing power while in office. His supporters see the charges as politically motivated.

The Georgian Dream, established by the eccentric Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, came to power in 2012 promising a less confrontational approach to Moscow while paying lip service to the country’s aspirations to join NATO and the European Union.

Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Moscow in the 1990s, served as prime minister for just over a year, stepping down in 2013, but has widely been viewed as the one still calling the shots behind the scenes as the Georgian Dream has undermined the country’s hard-won democratic gains and poured salt on the relationship with the United States.

“The person who seems to be driving all of this is Bidzina Ivanishvili,” said U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, speaking about the foreign agents law.

In October, the Georgian government accused the United States Agency for International Development of trying to foment a coup in the country.

The Georgian government’s claims echo similar allegations made by Moscow over the years that have accused Washington of pulling the strings in a series of pro-democracy uprisings in the former Soviet Union known as color revolutions, including in Ukraine.

“I think it’s Russian disinformation. It’s a deliberate effort by Russia to stoke divisions in the country,” said Shaheen, who has a long-standing focus on Georgia.

On April 29, in a rare public address infused with conspiracy theories, Ivanishvili—who formally serves as the party’s honorary chairman—depicted the country as wrestling for its independence against shadowy, unnamed foreign forces, describing Georgia’s nongovernmental organizations as a “pseudo-elite nurtured by a foreign country.”

Although Ivanishvili’s personal wealth is equivalent to roughly a third of the country’s gross domestic product, he is “borrowing from the Orban and Trump playbook, highlighting how the urban elite is running counter to Georgian traditional values,” Kelly said, referring to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and former U.S. President Donald Trump.

In March, a senior member of the Georgian Dream announced a raft of constitutional amendments cracking down on LGBT rights and banning any public efforts to promote same-sex relationships, echoing Russia’s “gay propaganda” law passed in 2013.

In the April speech, Ivanishvili explicitly referenced parliamentary elections set to be held later this year as a motivation for reintroducing the foreign agents law and the anti-LGBT legislation, noting that it would force civil society to “expend the energy” ahead of the vote, saying it would leave them “weakened” and “exhausted.”

Kelly criticized the Biden administration for not taking more concrete steps to deter Georgian politicians from pursuing the legislation. “Right after April 29, they should have started the first round of imposing costs, and the really easy one is, ‘You’re not welcome to get a visa,’” he said.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller condemned the violence against protesters on Thursday and called for a “full independent and timely investigation,” but Kelly said that such statements don’t go far enough.

“It’s useless. It’s worse than useless,” he said. “I don’t know if they really take us seriously.”

[mysteriouslytransparentwitch]

Hello Mysterious, I hope all is well and continues to improve with you.

You don’t need to post this ask,but I just wanted to express my thoughts on the expansion of the far right across the world, in relation to your last post about France and Macron.

1. Putin

2. Trump and GOP

3. Elon Musk

4. Nigel Farage

5. Marie Le Pen

6. Venezuela president Maduro Moros, plus Argentina’s president Milea.

7. Canadian conservatives now far right party.

8. Corporate right wing media in Europe, North America across the globe.

9. Money, laundered, bit coin or otherwise.

10. War in Ukraine.

All ten are connected, with the source being Putin. He’s been involved since 2015 when he stole Russia’s state money and the oligarchs money. He’s rumoured to be the richest man in the world at one point, and what better use of that resource than to fund a world in your vision of the future??? What we’re witnessing today are the dying throes of this evil heinous collaboration. Putin was very much behind the Conservative Brexit movement in Britain and behind Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. Not to mention putting trump in the White House. Those were his successes. Putin desires the dissolution of the EU and NATO, a united Europe. Trump was espousing those wishes when he was ‘President’. Elon and Trump are his voice in the west. Maduro was pushing to start a war in South America for oil rich land in Guyana, and was blocked by Blair and Clinton recently. The Guyana president visited Britain when all diplomacy failed on his part. I’m originally from Guyana so I was paying attention to those moves.

Putin has been funding far right causes all across the world for at least a decade now. And he should be reaping the rewards of his hard work. But sadly, no.

The media companies don’t mind the marriage and getting in bed with Putin to consummate the unholy alliance. Money is money is money. Let it rain. They don’t even draw the line at promoting his blatant propaganda as they are doing right now in bashing Biden in the US. The US citizens have to wake up and make the right decision on November 5th.

Yes I believe you when you say Macron will have a fight on his hands in November. It will be directly as a result of the upcoming US elections and its results. All are connected. Sow doubt and fear in France, bring violence to the fore. See??? this could happen to you in the US, a civil war…. But what would you have Macron do?? Submit to the far right and plunge Europe into a proper World War 3? IMO Le Pen will always do as Putin asks, she is his wh*** he just has to say the word and she will obey. And proximity to Russia is also a factor in this. Again as in the US the media is heavily involved too. Right now they are flirting with WW3 in Ukraine. My guess is that war won’t end until after November 2024. A LOT of decisions will be made after November 5th. Just my opinion and observations. Thanks for listening.

I sincerely think that Macron and Lepen are ready to sell the French system for money. I'm serious this time. The complicity of journalists is beginning to be revealed. I can only see an explosion of the 5th republic.

I sincerely believe that the financial system wants the skin of the population. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, you know me.

There's too much of a weird connection. We talk again about links and traffic with Kadafi (Libya)

I need to sit down seriously and look at my cards

[late-to-the-party-81]

Who vibes for Vibranium?

AN: Have a little short and sweet, sort of cracky Stucky sexual shenanigans story. Enjoy!

Beta’d by @metalbvcky but all errors are my fault.

Likes are loved, reblogs are golden

Mood board by me and dividers by @firefly-graphics

Join my tag list here

Master list | Stucky Bingo Master List

Summary: Steve likes to be indulged. It's a good thing Bucky likes to indulge him. Even if he's a thieving little big brat sometimes.

Relationships: Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers

WC: <1k

CW: AU: Not Canon Compliant, teasing, suggestive dialogue, Super-Soldier sexy shenanigans, discussion of impact play, discussion of bondage, Steve Rogers is a little shit, Soft Top Bucky Barnes, Bratty Bottom Steve Rogers, Fade to Black.

Bingo Fills and Challenges:

@stuckybingo I4 - Vibranium

“Come on, Buck. It’ll be fun.” Bucky pulled a face at Steve’s wheedling tone. He wasn’t convinced.

“Fun? Just sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.”

Steve sidled up to him, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s waist, looking into his eyes and doing his best Little Shit ™ pout. “Don’t you miss being able to hold me down. Like really stop me from moving.” Steve nuzzled into Bucky’s neck and Bucky let out a huff. 

“I miss it,” Steve continued, letting his teeth scrape over Bucky’s throat. Bucky closed his eyes and tried to think of the Presidents of the United States. “I miss feeling all helpless under you.” Steve’s fingers slipped up under the back of Bucky’s shirt and started to draw light patterns over his skin, making him shiver. “One vibranium arm can only do so much and I can’t work out a way for you to use my shield to help.”

“Steve,” Bucky cautioned. “This isn’t really a conversation about informed consent if you’re trying to get my dick to make the decision and not my brain. It’s cheating.”

Steve raised his head with a grin. “Is it working though?”

Bucky rolled his eyes, knowing he’d already lost the fight. “You’re such a punk, you know that?”

“But I’m your punk, and you love me.”

“Unfortunately so,” Bucky agreed. “Now, if you wanna do this, first you gotta hand ‘em over.”

Steve let go of him and practically skipped across their apartment. How a 6”2’ supersoldier could move like that Bucky didn’t know, but he couldn’t say it wasn’t stimulating to watch. It was also kinda cute, the way that Steve was getting giddy at the thought of doing something ‘kinky’. 

As two queer guys who’d grown up in the 30’s, neither were strangers to things that were nowadays termed as kinky, but no matter how long they’d been together, and how many different things they’d done, Steve was always enthusiastic, as though it was his first time, every time. 

When Steve returned from his little sojourn into his study, he was practically vibrating - ha! - with energy and he passed over his new toy with a grin.

“Do I even wanna know where you got these from?” Bucky asked. Of course this was the question that made Steve look a little embarrassed. His neck flushed pink and his left hand came up to brush over the hair at the back of his head. 

“I - uh - may have found them in the cache of recovered HYDRA hardware that Fury keeps in the upstate warehouse.”

“Steve Rogers,” Bucky let out, teasingly. “Are you telling me that you - the great and righteous Captain America - stole these Vibranium handcuffs?”

Steve startled “No! Not stole. Just - umm - borrowed.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow and Steve had the good grace to look slightly cowed. “I mean - we might give them back?”

“If they help me beat your ass without struggling to keep you still they are definitely not going back,” Bucky retorted, failing to get the right tone of authority into his voice.

“You promise?” Steve asked slyly and Bucky shook his head in mild disbelief at his bratty boyfriend.

“The fucking audacity,” he said to no-one in particular, and then “Get in that bedroom, Rogers and strip. You’re getting ten for your cheek, and if you aren’t ready when I get in there, then it’s an extra ten.” 

“Oh no,” cried Steve with faux despair. “Whatever shall I do?”

“Nothing, if these work.” Bucky took a step closer, drawing himself up to his full height, despite that being two inches less than Steve’s. It had the desired effect though - science might have taken Steve out of his little body, but it hadn’t taken the memory of being in that little body out of Steve. Steve shrank down, now reacting to Bucky’s domineering aura. “You’ll do nothing except cry those sweet tears as I turn your ass red because you won’t be able to get away from me. You won’t be able to stop me. Now - do I have to tell you again? Get in there and strip.”

Steve turned, scurrying into the bedroom as fast as he could with his cock doing its best impression of a flagpole between his legs. 

Smiling to himself, Bucky looked at the cuffs, inspecting them and working out how they opened and closed. The last thing he wanted was for them to get stuck, even if the thought  of Stark being mentally scarred for life having to come and help remove them was amusing as hell.

“Time to see if these work,” he muttered to himself, before calling out “Ready or not, here I come.”

Over an hour later

“Yup,” Bucky said with a smile as he stretched out. “Those definitely work.”

Steve groaned and buried his head into Bucky’s side, while lying on his stomach. “My ass is on fire,” he complained.

Bucky sniggered. “Quit your whining, you big baby. You only have yourself to blame. And you’ll be all healed up in an hour. Two, tops.”

As Steve huffed against him and threw an arm across his stomach, Bucky picked up the cuffs from where he’d deposited them after removing them from Steve’s wrists. He turned them over in his hands, pondering.

“I wonder,” he said, “if we got a metal footboard whether these would magnetise strongly enough to it that I could use them to keep your legs apart…”

Steve let out a moan that wasn’t entirely one of despair. “Buck, let me recover before you start trying to turn me on again.”

With a smile still on his lips, Bucky leant over and places a kiss to the top of Steve’s sweaty head.

“Love you, punk.”

“Love you too, jerk.”

Tag list: @christywrites, @alexakeyloveloki, @doasyoudesireandlive, @galactusdevourerofworlds, @crayongirl-linz, @mightstill, @nicoline1998enilocin, @km-ffluv, @wheezy-stucky, @kmc1989, @kombatfather1796

[dynamitegun]

You know how Ashley's entire arc in ME1 revolves around her family being ostracized by the Alliance for her grandfather's actions during the First Contact War? (This is the part of the date, where they go to the bathroom and never come back, btw)

I always felt the scapegoating of General Williams was especially horrible because he was thrown into an unwinnable battle. The Turians gained orbital superiority over Shanxi, and began striking anything that put up resistance.

Faced with either complete destruction, starvation or capitulation, an entire colony of civilians under his care Gen. Williams made the choice to surrender.

And apparently putting innocent lives before some pigheaded sense of honor? Paria for the rest of his life. Hell Ashley claims he'll go down in history beside Benedict Arnold (Who betrayed the infant United States to England during the AWI*) and Vidkun Quisling (The Nazi puppet leader of occupied Norway during WW2) when asked about his reputation.

*It's slightly my complicated then that but now isn't the time

He made a tough decision and people didn't like the outcome.

But the reason I bring this up is because I've always draw parallels with Shanxi being besieged and another battle that it reminds me of.

Bataan.

If you've never heard of it? So long as you're not Filipino or American I can't blame you. In those darkest days after the U.S entered WW2 an entire American army was to find itself fighting a forlorn hope on the Bataan peninsula 30 miles west of Manila after the Japanese invaded the archipelago.

For three months the American and Filipino forces fought a delaying action, waiting for reinforcements that were never to arrive. Bombed day and night as their guns fell silent. Artillery crashing down on them as their stomachs grew lighter from hunger. Day by day they were pushed backwards until almost completely out of supply and men having been fought to near exhaustion, their officers made the difficult choice to surrender.

That fell to Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright, highest ranking officer left in the Philippines. Before his meeting with his Japanese counterpart, in telegram to President Roosevelt he explained his reasoning. I want to highlight a phrase he used that I think word for word describes Williams position perfectly.

"There is a limit of human endurance and that limit has long since been passed."

Something we're all familiar with as Mass Effect fans is having to make hard choices as a leader, that sometimes there isn't a 'Right' answer. Yet hidden in the lore of ME1 is probably one of the hardest choices in the series that we have nothing to do with.

But we understand.

[thecurioustale]

A Supreme Court Ruling that Should Not Be Enforced

I think the Chevron Defense ruling last week is the most dangerous decision by the Supreme Court this year, as it will immediately begin to disrupt the the entire federal executive's ability to function and will directly lead in the coming years to the dismantling of environmental protections, worker protections, regulatory oversight, and much more.

But today's ruling on presidential immunity is, by far, the most unconstitutional ruling of this term, and one of the most breathtakingly unconstitutional rulings I have ever seen or learned about by the US Supreme Court. It is up there with Citizens United (corporations are people), Plessy vs. Ferguson (segregation in schools), and Dobbs (stripping people of acknowledged constitutional rights).

I understand the need for individual officeholders to have blanket immunity from civil litigation (so you sue the organization, not the person) and even some qualified criminal immunity for that officeholder's official activities. But what the Supreme Court did today, in its 6–3 ruling, is declare that the US president need only declare or construe or even simply believe that they are acting in an official capacity, and, therein, they are immune from all criminal liability unconditionally.

The President of the United States is now above the law. Full stop.

For years I have wondered where we should draw the line on lawless behavior and extremism from our courts, especially the US Supreme Court. The thing about our rule of law is that you have to accept the outcome of court cases; if you don't you are basically calling for violent revolution whether you realize it or not, and at an absolute minimum you are calling for chaos and unrest.

I have always asserted that Neil Gorsuch's votes on the Court should not be recognized, as his appointment to the Supreme Court was the result of a power grab by Mitch McConnell. But of course as more time passes this becomes more and more unlikely. And Kavanaugh and Barrett's appointments I have no choice but to accept as legitimate, so even if Gorsuch were not counted this ruling would still have been a significant 5–3 majority.

Citizens United was real close for me to delegitimizing the ruling majority on the bench at the time, and the more recent Dobbs ruling actually crossed my personal line and made all of the justices who signed it unfit to hold their offices, but I figured that it would still be better to resolve the problem by passing a federal abortion rights law when Democrats next have the opportunity and continuing to try to flush the fascist judge problem out of the judiciary through maintaining control of the White House and Senate and appointing new judges over time.

But this ruling, now, raises the possibility by at least an order of magnitude that our constitutional system of democracy and rule of law in America will be dismantled by the next sufficiently extreme or unscrupulous Republican president, be that Trump himself or whomever else.

Just to give you an idea of the landscape that we now live in, Joe Biden could, at this moment, order military special ops teams to assassinate Donald Trump. Hell, he could do it himself: He could walk up to Trump and pull the trigger. And he would be completely immune from criminal prosecution for it now or ever. And that's just the beginning.

If not corrected, this will be used someday to overthrow our democracy. And by then it will be too late for us to do anything about it through peaceful means.

In 2020 I worried that, even if Biden won the presidency, it would just be four years of calm before the real storm began. At the time I wasn't thinking about another Trump presidency but rather the committed fascists high in his party who want to succeed him. Cruz, DeSantis, the usuals. Trump is a buffoon with very little self-control, but a lot of these other people are smart cookies. In 2024 my worry remains relevant: We are one step closer today to handing the fascists our country.

If I were the president at this moment, I would declare this ruling invalid. Because it is. Not only does it have no basis in the Constitution, but it upends some of the most fundamental assumptions of our Constitution and our whole legal regime. I would go before the public and say "This ruling is illegal. This ruling gives me the power to assassinate anyone I want; to run criminal enterprises from the Oval Office; to commit fraud and extortion and embezzlement of your money as taxpayers; to imprison my political opponents, shut down the free press, and forcibly remove from office any judge or police officer with the gall to rule against my actions or try hold me accountable. This ruling makes me a king. That is what makes it illegal. As the leader of the executive branch of our government, I have a duty not to enforce an illegal and unconstitutional ruling, and I am directing all federal agencies to similarly disregard it. Neither I nor any other US president should be placed above the law."

And believe you me, I would be tempted to go a lot further, including appointing six new justices on the Court and no longer recognizing the old six. But for the sake of the country and the way we do things in this country I would limit myself to the above action of refusing to recognize this one ruling.

I understand that this opens a Pandora's box. That's how the fascist resurgence in this country has worked: Republicans will do something completely unreasonable (like gumming up judicial nominations), forcing Democrats to break norms just to get the people's business done (like eliminating the judicial filibuster), which Republicans then turn around and exploit to their advantage (as by using their time in power to appoint whomever they want to the courts). But I think this is the way it has to be. We can't let this ruling stand. The other problems—Citizens United, Dobbs—can be fixed through legislation. This one can't, except maybe by a law that specifically declares that a president is not above the law, which I'm not sure would itself be constitutional. In any case, another problem with that is that fascists are selective in their application of the law. They have no problem ruling in favor of conservatives, but will never permit that exact same legal reasoning to then benefit their ideological enemies.

But yeah, this is bad. The Chevron ruling will begin to erode our federal executive in horrible ways, and this immunity ruling sets the stage for nightmarish conduct by a future president.

I didn't watch the debate the other day, or any of the analysis after the fact. I know who I am voting for, and, on some level, I didn't want to have to watch Biden's inevitably uncharismatic performance. And then everyone started melting down and crying that the sky was falling, so I went and watched a short clip of Biden's worst moments, and I get it. That performance goes beyond the stutter that often wrongly gets conflated with dementia. But in this case he clearly lost his train of thought and he did it on-stage in front of millions of people. That's a rough day.

I still don't think the mate is senile. I have seen plenty of people have the meltdown that he had, and I have had that meltdown myself. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. But even if Joe Biden were hunched over in a wheelchair drooling out the side of his mouth, I would still vote for him, and gladly. Because not voting for him is a vote for Trump, and I would not vote for a candidate who spent the whole debate lying and who himself is a traitor, an egomaniac, a convicted felon, a con artist, a failed coup plotter, and an ethically bankrupt, intellectually stunted manchild. And because, moreover, he has run a good administration. He has good people around him, and can be ably succeeded by Vice President Harris if needed. When you vote for a president you are voting not just for an individual but for a team, and that team's ethos, and I have no doubt which team, which ethos, I support. We are asking the wrong person to drop out of this race.

Anyway! President Biden is going to speak to the public tonight about this court ruling. I don't know what he will say. I don't expect anything meaningful a la refusing to enforce the Court's ruling, but it sure would be nice. President Trump should be prosecuted for his alleged crimes on January 6 (which is the trial most directly impacted by this ruling), crimes of which Trump is unambiguously guilty and which are "alleged" only in the blindfolded eyes of Justice for the sake of due process. America needs this accountability, or we will suffer terribly for want of it in the future.

[trohmantics]

Where My Demons Hide pt 2; chapter one

Masterlist

Italics represents Korean

Pairing: BTS × Named female character (poly)

Genre: Zombie apocalypse, horror, found family-ish?

Rating: MATURE; MINORS DNI

Warnings: Each chapter will have blood, death, and weapons in them. Triggers will be noted in each chapter. In this chapter, Skyler draws a weapon on JK, cursing, begging, just a mention of past child abuse.

REQUESTS: OPEN

A/N: it's taken a little longer than I anticipated, as I had surgery. Thankfully I'm now on the mend and back to writing! Just as a warning, the timeline and ages of BTS aren't entirely accurate. This is set in present day, COVID never happened, but the outbreak starts like COVID. BTS are between 24-29, with Skyler being 24.

As always, constructive feedback is always appreciated! Feel free to send me questions, theories, drabble requests, etc.

****Emergency Presidential Announcement****

The screen shows the president behind his desk, visibly upset and shaken. The room was dim, the American flag backdrop looking hastily hung. The room itself seemed in disarray, and the few visible people seemingly paying it no mind, similar looks as the president evident on their faces.

The camera slowly zoomed in, capturing the look of defeat in the president's face. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, possibly to steady himself, before looking back at the camera.

“My fellow Americans, I come to you tonight with an urgency that I have never felt before. A darkness has spread across our great nation and the world, a darkness I never imagined could manifest in such a horrifying form. A highly contagious virus, originating from a research facility overseas, has escaped containment. Initially, it was believed to be a flu-like illness, but we were wrong—so tragically wrong. As we tried to contain it, we discovered a little more about it. A few days ago, it started turning the infected into something inhuman, something monstrous. It spread rapidly through direct contact, and even air in some cases. Countries once regarded as our allies are now battling for survival, their militaries reduced to mere shadows of their former selves. We received reports of mass casualties and chaos in cities across the globe—from London to Tokyo, from Berlin to Moscow. Nations have fallen, one after the other, succumbing to this unprecedented horror. Here in the United States, our military bravely engaged in containment efforts, but they too were overwhelmed. Major cities have become battlegrounds, while rural areas fall victim to panic and despair. We have lost our way. I stand before you now to share that, despite our best efforts, we are no longer in control. This is not a moment for false hope. There is no miraculous vaccine on the horizon, no hero rising to save us. My heart is heavy as I convey to you that we have reached a point of no return. The government can no longer guarantee your safety. We cannot shield you from what is out there anymore.”

The president’s voice cracks, tears welling up in his eyes. He looks directly into the camera, the weight of his words hanging heavily in the air before continuing.

“I urge you—please, take this time to say goodbye to your loved ones. Hold them close. Tell them you love them. Share memories. Share comfort. If you believe, pray; pray for your families and friends, and pray for all of humanity. For the reality we face is one that few can endure. We are on the brink of something unimaginable. I can only express my profound sadness for all that we are losing and for all that has already been taken from us.”

The screen splits, one side with distressing images of chaos: panicked citizens, military troops overwhelmed, infected individuals staggering through the streets, the flickering lights of cities succumbing to darkness. The screen returns fully to the president, now visibly breaking down, struggling to maintain composure.

“Please, in these final moments, remember the good times-the laughter, the love. Know that you are not alone, even in this despair. As we face the end, know that my thoughts are with you, my fellow Americans.”

Suddenly, a loud crash is heard off-camera and the president’s expression shifts from sorrow to terror. The broadcast begins to flicker and distort. Screams echo in the background, and the camera shakes violently. The president stumbles back, eyes wide with fear, before the transmission is abruptly ended.

The screen goes black, power shutting off. A chilling silence fills the air, broken only by  distant sounds of chaos—snarls of the infected, sirens, screams, and the distant roar of flames.

_______

Four months. Four months since that final broadcast. Four months since civilization collapsed. Four months of doing whatever it takes to survive. 

After society collapsed, Skyler spent a week in her apartment, rationing her canned goods and bottled water. Eventually her resources started to run out, causing her to leave safety and stealthily make her way to town, where she found an abundance of weapons, clothing, and freeze-dried food. There was also a lot of survival gear.

Despite all the racism and sexist attitudes she received for being half Korean and a woman, Skyler had never been more thankful to live in a small conservative area as she had been in that moment. 

Now, four months later, she was miles away from the area. She hoped if she could get to her grandparents farm, where she would have all the tools and resources to survive on her own, that she would flourish. Maybe, if she was lucky, she would also find her younger brother there. She wouldn't get her hopes up, though. 

Skyler pulled her shoulder length brown hair into a low ponytail so her hair would stay out of her face. The last thing she needed was to have a blindspot. She pulled on her hunting clothes as well as her steel toe waterproof boots. 

She secured her crossbow across her back, and kept two pistols with silencers in their holsters. She also had a machete she kept on her right side at all times, and a few knives in her bag for skinning/scaling, gutting, and cutting meat. 

She finished getting dressed, and her items together. She was running low on food, and she knew there were a few outdoor stores in this new town where she could scour in hopes of food and supplies.

She was grateful to find a small secure building to use as a hideout for a few days before continuing on. 

___

Skyler's journey to the outdoor stores was unsuccessful. Two were burnt down, and the third was crumbling, zombies stalking the area. She was disappointed, but decided to look somewhere else to get a few days worth of supplies.

She stayed in the shadows, succeeding in avoiding the zombies as she found a small store. 

It looked to be old, one that probably existed there longer than she had been alive, and was in what most would deem a poor area. It would most likely have the necessities and no more. It definitely wouldn't have the survival gear that she was hoping for, but she could at least get some food and a few bottles of water until she could find somewhere with survival items.

It was easy to get in, no locks or blockages. After a quick sweep, Skyler found that it was all clear.

She began putting non-perishable food in her pack, attempting to steer away from cans as they take up too much room and are heavier. She stuffed her bag with small packets of tuna and chicken, jerky and other dried meats, and meat sticks. She also grabbed a few ramen packs that she knew she could eat dry. 

Skyler headed to the back, kneeling to look at options for water, thinking of maybe grabbing a few larger bottles, when she just barely heard the front door close. Her pulse quickened, and she was on high alert, searching for anywhere she could exit unseen. 

Luck was not on her side.

While kneeling, she could just make out black hair over the tops of the shelves. She heard heavy breathing, as if whoever came in was finally able to breathe. She and the unknown person were silent and unmoving for what felt like hours, before they started to slowly move. 

Skyler slowly moved, staying low to the ground, leaving her bag. She didn't want to, but if she couldn't scare whoever it was away or agree to go their separate ways peacefully, she would have no choice but to kill them. Humans were just as dangerous as the dead these days. 

Both silently moved through the store, Skyler catching up enough to see that the unknown visitor was a young man with shaggy hair, and a tattooed sleeve. She quietly readied her crossbow.

He stopped at her pack, head tilting slightly, as Skyler pressed the top of the loaded bow into his back and retreated a few steps. The young man stiffened and quickly raised his hands, chest heaving in fear. 

“Turn around.” Skyler instructed, her voice not wavering. 

He stood still for a moment, before slowly turning. 

The first thing Skyler noticed was his eyes. While they held fear, she noted in another time they must have been lively and full of happiness. 

She noted a lip ring on his lower lip, and paired with the tattoos he would have looked intimidating, if not for his boyish looks and fear in his eyes.

“I mean no harm! I was just- we ran into a small horde and I got separated from my friends!”

Skyler stared at him in disbelief. Of all the people for him to run into, he runs into someone who can speak Korean? 

Should she be willing to speak to him, help him in his little quest? He seemed friendly despite the fear, and it would be easy to help. Besides, Skyler is so lonely…

On the other hand, if she helped, he could be a hindrance. He didn't seem to have any weapons or supplies, and fending for someone else as well as herself could lead to her demise. Besides, what would happen if they found his friends? Best case she walks away, all alone again.

While arguing the pros and cons of speaking his native tongue and helping, he took her silence as not understanding him. 

He tried speaking in broken English.

“I.. not bad? Just, alone? No, lost! Friends away from-” 

“Shut up.” Skyler interrupted, startling herself with how standoffish she was being. Bow slightly lowering. “I don't know what the fuck you're saying. You,” she pointed at him and then the door, “Need to leave. Now.”

“I don't.. I not mean? No hurting you! Just need help find friends! Monsters ran me here.” He said desperately. “You know BTS? I'm Jungkook!”

Skyler looked him up and down, sure, she had heard of BTS on the radio before the outbreak, she didn't live under a rock. However, she never looked into them, only ever hearing one or two songs on the radio. 

“Who the fuck is BTS?” Skyler said, still trying to get him to leave. “Look dude, I don't care who you are. You need to get the fuck out. Now.”

She grabbed the shoulder of his shirt and moved him in front of her, pushing him towards the door. 

Jungkook dropped to the floor bowing and holding her pant leg, sobbing and begging in a mixture of broken English and Korean.

“Please! I just…I need help. Please help me. Don't put me alone. I'm alone and I miss my brothers!  Please, I don't want to die.”

Skyler's heart stopped and she seemed to forget how to breathe as she took in the scene in front of her. Instead of seeing Jungkook, she was back in the past, to her brother begging her not to leave him alone with their abusive parents, pleading to take him with her when she was made to leave the final time. 

She left out a shuddering breath and turned her head, blinking back the hot tears that formed in her eyes. She put the bow on her back, and slyly knelt down to grab Jungkooks hands, helping him stand again. She dropped his hands as soon as he was fully standing. 

He looked at her with wide, fearful eyes, ready to have to go alone. 

Skyler scanned his face, her heart clenching every time she thought of leaving him behind. She took another deep breath, slowly letting it out. She couldn't trust him fully, but she could try to help him. Maybe she would just need to keep a distance, in case he dies or wants her gone if they find his friends.  

“I'll help you” 

[thetruearchmagos]

Democracy Manifest

Elected Government In The United Commonwealth

Well, thank you @theprissythumbelina for giving me the kick I needed to get started on this topic, I hope you enjoy what's to come! Otherwise, I'll Tag @athenswrites @caxycreations @hessdalen-globe @nerdexer @the-ellia-west @avrablake @coffeewritesfiction @vyuntspakhkite-l-darling

A/N: This took... so long... But I can't say I'm not happy with it!

The House

The Parliament of the United Commonwealth is the highest legislative body of the UC, comprised of 5,227 elected Members representing the over four billion citizens of that polity. From its seat in Parliament House on the Weslich island of Sudpulau, this body, the single largest legislature in the 12 Worlds, passes the laws of the Commonwealth.

The Vote

Elections to Parliament are held every four years, with the exception of by-elections which occur to satisfy vacancies. They occur on a one-person-one-vote, secret-ballot basis using a 'Single Transferable Vote', and are open to all adult (>18) citizens who have been citizens for at least two months. Elections are overseen by the Electoral Activities Bureau, an independent public body, which manages the continents spanning infrastructure required for elections and draws the term's electoral map prior to every election.

The Member

Seats are open to any adult citizen who wishes to run regardless of any demographic, with the only restriction being if one is currently under a criminal trial or is incarcerated. Members are not bound by any term limits, and the only barrier to their Seat is the vote of their constituency.

The Three

Three individual Members dominate the House.

Firstly is the Chief Minister, Head of State and Government of the United Commonwealth and voted in by a simple majority of members.

Next is the Leader of the Opposition, bestowed with a simple majority of non-Government Members. Their lot is to hold the Government to account at every turn, patiently awaiting their turn on the opposite Bench.

Finally, is the Speaker of the House, approved with a simple majority and presiding over the business and conduct of Parliament in its frequently lively discourse.

No term limits apply on any of these offices, and all can be revoked with a vote of no confidence from the whole House, or the Opposition alone in the LoO's case.

The Benches

The vast majority of Members are, however, not seated in a formally recognised office; Unlike many national Parliamentary systems, at present no further formal Cabinet exists beyond the CM, a state of affairs viewed with increasing skepticism.

Instead, backbenchers on either side are as a rule 'organised' on a highly ad hoc basis, shifting with Party and Coalition tastes and the wider circumstances of the Commonwealth.

First and foremost among these organisations are the Parties.

Parliament's Members are nearly all affiliated with any of numerous political parties, though parties themselves are not recognised organisations in the eyes of the government de jure. They may range in size from a thousand or more members spread across member states, to a dozen or so, and have been founded and internally organised along an infinite number of ideals.

Both the LoO and CM are almost always the 'leaders' of their respective party, though the way appointments to either office are decided on is at every party's discretion. Party leaders outside either office are nonetheless still key elements of the political ecosystem, guiding their members into and between Coalitions.

A universal feature of all major parties are Party Whips, Members appointed within their party's ranks and charged with ensuring that their colleagues cast their vote precisely as their Leader wishes. Though not imbued with any unique power within the House, beyond its chambers they can hold the life and death of any politician's career in their hands, and are commonly seen as the right hands of their respective leaders.

Aside from these two positions, the actual make up and structure of political parties is highly diverse, and often highly fluid, reliant as much on circumstances outside the House as in it. The criteria for membership, its exclusivity, and internal Party appointments differ greatly between Parties, which form, merge, die off, or reform themselves in an unending state of change. One could at any point found a Party of their own for any reason if it suited them, and the only restriction they'd need worry about is the will of their constituents.

However, no Party in history has ever achieved a unilateral majority in the House, and thus forming a government is an exercise in Coalition building and breaking above anything else. Coalitions, like the parties that make them, are not bound or recognised by any rule of Parliament, and so the rules and dynamics that define them change with every government and election. Chief Ministers as a rule come from the largest Party in the largest Coalition who can agree to vote for them, but ultimately no law dictates that a minority Leader could not hold that office.

Finally, comes Committees. As above, Committees themselves are not strictly recognised bodies, but are formed and governed on an as needs basis according to long established precedents and expectations. Typically, Government, Opposition, and House Committees exist simultaneously on any range of subjects, with the latter including Members from both groups. While Committees are never necessary for relevant legislation to pass, deference to their existence and decisions is a political inevitability.

Though Independent Members exist, they are a rare occurrence outside of the most 'recently democratic' member states. Where they do appear, however, they usually rely on a combination of their own extremely great charisma, some specifically and highly localised appeal, and Party apathy to gain and hold their Seats. Still, unseating such Members is often an uphill and unpopular struggle. Once in the House, Independents typically have a very difficult time intruding themselves into the business of Parliament, and where they do tend to make their case on issues distinctly relevant to their constituencies.

In summary, while the Charter of Parliament never established any further positions beyond the Speaker, Chief Minister, and Leader of the Opposition, the House has in the century since built for itself a long and deep institution of customs and traditions with which its internal business is regulated and managed. Such a 'laissez faire' approach to politics mirrors well the UC's generally fluid approach to government at large, and very much conforms with the original intentions of the earliest theorists and politicians who had established the Commonwealth long before. While at times these institutions have faltered in the face of politicial crises in the past, they have survived, and seem set to continue to survive.

The Legislative Process

While Parliament has an absolute and final say on the passing of Bills into Acts of Parliament and thus the law of the land, it is not the only body involved in the legislative process.

The first step in this process is the introduction of a Bill into Parliament. Any Member can introduce any Bill they wish at any time, but this right is also held by both the Commission of the UC, its independent executive body, and the Council of Ministers, comprised of member states governments' cabinet executives.

After this, Bills may legally be immediately passed into law if a majority of Members vote in agreement. Such an event is, however, exceedingly rare, and no Member of any affiliation is likely to cast their vote before a Bill undergoes an intensive debate.

The Bill in question is first submitted to the most relevant House Committee for initial investigation and debate. This might involve summoning and interrogating government or private individuals, alter and negotiate over the details of Bills, or even introducing their own Bills with a complete background onto the floor.

This begins an occasionally recursive loop of Bill debates, failed votes to pass, and returns to Committee for further alterations. Considering the sheer number of Bills on the floor at any given time, most such debate takes place in the numerous sub-chambers housed within Parliament House's vast structure, returning to the main chamber only for final votes.

Assuming a majority of Members vote in favour of it, the Bill passes into the Council of Ministers for a final check. Effectively acting as a 'semi-Upper House', the CoM only rarely invokes its right to dismiss a Bill for further debate with their own recommendations, a power which can only be used on any given Bill once. Typically, though, the Council will have made its intentions known well before this stage, and so Bills which are handed to it usually sail through without alteration.

Thus, as far as 'speed' is concerned, the time it takes for a Bill to pass ranges from days, to years, to, of course, never. The lack of a 2/3rds supermajority requirement for any action at all at least limits that angle, and the intensity of debate and diversity of potential views that exists leads to a long but undeniably thorough and expansive legislative process.

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Further Details...

On Members

The equity of Parliament's ranks under the law is for the most part well established in reality. Sheer wealth at either a personal or party level is rarely corroborated with electoral success, especially given the UC's wide reaching and strict financial transparency laws. Nonetheless, a number of factors can serve to shape the electability of a candidate beyond how skill and ideological appeal.

More specifically, the tendency to favour candidates based on race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, or gender is more common in regions and their societies which are relatively new to the United Commonwealth and its own brand of social and cultural 'liberalism'. In societies where the UC's social and political culture have become more entrenched, such influences hold less influence than individual charisma, oratorical skill, and of course how they align with the political movements and issues of the day.

On Committees

The fluidity of Committes has at times been both a strength and a weakness, and is always bound by prior traditions more than anything else.

For all intents and purposes, the notion of any Committee's 'legitimacy' relies on the mutual consent of the House at large. The size, partisan diversity, and proportionality of a Committee are never set in stone, and in truth any specific Committee lives and dies within the term it was made in, becoming unrecognisable as changes in the make up of the wider House lead to renegotiations of its status.

In order to prevent the endless expansion of the number of Committees that this anarchic system often threatens to cause, many political Parties have reached agreements outside the House on a list of issues for which House Committees, are to be established on a long term basis. These include those on the Armed Forces, Security and Intelligence, and Foreign Affairs, among other significant issues of government. The size and authority of such 'Standing Committees' is thus largely guaranteed between governments, giving a much needed sense of order and continuity to the whole affair.

Every House Standing Committee is mirrored by Government and Opposition Committees on the same issue, and inter-party negotiations are dominated by the allocation of Committee seats to each represented Party. The latter two represent the interests of their respective halves of the House, and all three have their membership apportioned according to each Party's size.

In addition to these Standing Committees are an ever changing number of Provisional Committees, referring to those which lack the 'official' agreed recognition of the Parties 'in writing' but which nonetheless function with their consent and participation. These may come into and out of existence with time as issues surface or die out, and those of particular longevity may find themselves on the list to become Standing Committees in full. Provisional Committees might include Inquiry Committees, or Regional Committees aligned to areas suddenly facing crises.

Once the proportions of Committee membership have been parceled out, how Parties hand out their Members across roles is left to their discretion, unless the negotiation process prior had specified some limited requirements. Seniority, expertise, and a Member's constituency and its concerns are all regular considerations, amongst others, and of course the internal politics of that Party.

Aside from this, however, Parties and Members are free to associate with each other in whatever groups they wish to. It is, however, generally considered 'bad form', or political suicide, for anyone to declare that any already agreed upon Committee is irrelevant or not recognised, or to attempt to usurp their legitimacy by convincing others to join their cause. The agreements mentioned above universally condemn such activity, and any Party looking to engage in it is liable to find itself ostracised from the business of the House and evicted by their voters, who often are informed enough of political culture to express displeasure at spoiling 'their' vote.

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And that's a wrap! Depending on if anyone has any further questions, my own actual motivation and time, and whether I get any further ideas, I might write a second part to this post. If I do, it'll either go into the history of how this system formed over time, or maybe a specific case study on some political ideologies, movements, and parties. Or I won't. Who knows.

[deadpresidents]

"You know very well, sir, for you were familiar with my views while I was President, what my estimate of [Ulysses S.] Grant was, and I don't know anything that has since occurred that has caused me to change my mind the slightest. I know Grant thoroughly. I had ample opportunity to study him when I was President, and I am convinced he is the greatest farce that was ever thrust upon a people. Why, the little fellow -- excuse me for using the expression, but I can't help pitying him -- the little fellow has nothing in him. He hasn't a single idea. He has no policy, no conception of what the country requires. He doesn't understand the philosophy of a single great question, and is completely lost in trying to understand his situation. He is mendacious, cunning and treacherous. He lied to me flagrantly, by God, and I convicted him by my whole Cabinet; but that even would have been tolerable were it the only instance, but it was not. He lied on many other occasions.

I tell you, sir, Grant is nothing more than a bundle of petty spites, jealousies and resentments. And yet they say Grant is a second Washington. Only think of it, when you compare him with Washington or Jefferson where is he? Why he is so small you must put your finger on him. He, a little upstart, a coward, physically and intellectually, to be compared to George Washington! Why, it makes me laugh. I have more pity for the man than contempt, for I have no spite against him. But I fear for the country when such a man is likened to the father of his country. Why, just look at the inaugural of Washington. He speaks about his fear and trembling in accepting the Presidency, even after all his experience and success. But this little fellow Grant, an upstart, a mere accident of the war, a creature without the ability to comprehend the philosophy of a single great question, says in his inaugural, 'I know the responsibility is great, but I accept it without fear.' Is that like Washington or Jefferson? Pshaw! It's monstrous to think of.

Grant, I tell you, sir has no ideas, no policy. Why, Washington considered that a man's greatness was measured by his morality, by the standard of his soul. And I have always considered that the more soul a man had, the more developed the soul or intellect within him, the more Godlike he became. But, sir, Grant has nothing. Physically and mentally and morally he is a nonentity. Why, sir, his soul is so small that you could put it within the periphery of a hazel nutshell and it might float about for a thousands years without knocking against the walls of the shell. That's the size of his soul.

Just look at the man sitting at a Cabinet council. He has no idea, no policy, no standard, no creed, not faith. How can he guide the people? How can he impress any great improvements or moral ideas upon the nation? He has no object to look forward to, no leading aim to draw the people towards any particular end. He sits there with his Cabinet. One member has bought him a house in Philadelphia, another has given him $65,000, another has given him a carriage, and so on. It is degrading to the office of President of the United States to have such a man there.

They talk about his generalship. Well, he was a mere incident of the war. Men and arms were supplied in abundance, and his forces were so massive that they simply crushed out the rebellion. It would have been done had Grant never been born. Therefore he was a mere incident. But the little fellow has come to think he is somebody really. I can't help pitying him when I think how well I know him and what an infinitesimal creature he really is."

-- Former President Andrew Johnson, delivering a scathing attack on President Ulysses S. Grant, shortly after Johnson left the White House, during an interview with a correspondent from the New York Herald, June 27, 1869

[blaintism]

kind of insane crossover au came to me in a dream wherein I realized a character from resi 4 dresses exactly like kurt and i had to draw it. and I really liked the idea of putting them in this situation even thought it makes zero sense. if you don't know the plot of the game (i assume most of you don't) kurt would be the president's (yeah of the united states) son who was kidnapped and blaine is a character sent to rescue him. and it's one of the best video games of all time btw

this is extremely niche and pretty much just For Me but i spent a while on it and like how it came out so here. take it