#the proxy 2012

[thecavalrywife]

So I recently found out that Daisy Head was in The Proxy series, and the episodes were posted on Stuart Ashens' YouTube channel but I can't find some of the videos or they're private for me.

I'll try to work around 'cause I really wanna watch Daisy in it.

[ashensdotcom]

The Proxy (2012-2013)

[peach-coke]

Yesterday I watched some totally random horror movie called "Under The Bed", that my prime told me I'd probably like. Fair enough, it's horror, and there's brothers in it - That tracks.

But then it started. And it's just... Okay, so there's cool-guy big brother Neal, with his tousled blonde hair and his half-denim, half-leather jacket who got send away to avoid prison, ‘cause he set their house on fire, right? So he's coming back from his "exile", running right into a welcome-back party that his dad (who he has a strained relationship with...) and his new step-mom throw for him. Because, you know. Their actual mom died in the before mentioned house fire. Uh-Huh.

He then ditches the party (and the girl he "came back to" apparently) to run around the house, frantically searching for his brown-haired baby-brother Paul (which he alone calls Paulie. Unless he’s angry at him, then it becomes a very stern “Paul!”. Because of course.) screaming his name like a maniac for... Reasons? How would I know? Neal just needs to find him asap??

And when he does, they hug it out for a minute or two. Very important stuff? I get it, you're close. Thanks for taking like... Ten minutes of screen time to establish that. It’s only the first. Of many, many, many hugs to come.

They then BOTH ditch the party to hang around in a diner. And we have wonderful dialog like: "I really missed this." - "What did you miss more, the diner or me?" Yes. Normal brother things - Like come on LOOK AT THEM y'all are doing this to me on purpose at this point?

But then. THEN. Neal just whips out a fucking leather-bound diary with monster-scribbles in it and at this point I'm fucking certain that I'm just tripping on my pneumonia meds.

But IT JUST KEEPS GETTING WORSE?!? Sammy Paulie has weird premonition-like nightmares that come with an extra cool hell-filter

While Dean Neal is just out there being very normal, scribbling pictures of the two of them in his diary while his baby-brother is at school without him

Thorough the movie both of them just keep constantly reminding us about the fact that they're brothers (by saying it like, 20 times as if we could've missed it) and would never hurt each other and do everything for each other. They share beds and we get the actual Baby-camera-pan I’m just- while their dad is just out there like????? Y'all are weirdos maybe stop sleeping together (because this movie is actually about a monster under their bed and not them being weirdos lmao)...

...until Paulie gets hurt by the monster and John Dad forcefully separates them because he assumes it’s Neal’s fault. Obviously they can’t have that and sneak out and break locks to hug it out. I mean, they’ve been separated by a door for like, maybe half an hour in realtime. Can’t have that.

Dad is really not amused to find them like this. Again.

AND THEN THEY GEAR UP TO HUNT THE MONSTER UNDER THEIR BED (where Neal shows little Paulie how to properly hold a gun a screwdriver just because... hands??) 'cause what if they end up getting permanently separated because of it?! THE HORROR.

In the end Neal is absolutely ready to sacrifice himself to get his brother back from the nightmare-realm where they do some reunion-forehead-touching, Dad dies on his first hunt in the final confrontation and they beat the monster by throwing their mothers ashes at it (which was totally Paulies idea because you know - He‘s the smart one)...

TLDR this is not just a random Horror Movie, it's a canon divergent Winchester/Teenchesters Fanfic unfurling right in front of my salad and I AM OBSESSED and I need someone to watch this movie to confirm that I am, in fact, not losing my entire mind.

[neko-naruto]

dont make me go back to the pirates bay man

[genderqueerdykes]

thank you both for this, i was literally in the process of writing a post about this as i saw these.

i came out as bisexual when i was about 19 or 20 years old, in 2011 - 2012. this was such a difficult thing because everyone around me suddenly had very pointed opinions on me. suddenly i wasn't queer anymore, i was a straight person. i asked people why and they said well bisexual people are half straight, which makes you straight, which means gay people don't want to be around you. i was told nobody likes bisexuals because they're too straight to be gay and too gay to be straight

i had a literal personal dilemma because i didn't feel like that at all. when i was realizing i was bisexual i was realizing i was attracted to all genders in a queer way. i did NOT feel like my attraction to men, women or genderqueer people was straight in any way, shape or form. i've always fit in much better in both gay and lesbian circles. those have always been my home, and my community

in the early days of my transition, when "genderqueer" wasn't even remotely heard of, i had to try to transition into being a man to be seen as trans at all. i went from being forced into lesbian spaces to being forced into gay male spaces. nobody let me pick where i was existing. i was being pushed around. i liked both lesbian and gay male spaces, but i was being told when i could and couldn't occupy the spaces. and then when it came out i was bi everyone called me a traitor and said i was a straight person

my best friend at the time came with me to pride meetings and when her mom found out about that, and that i was bi, she told my friend she couldn't come to those pride meetings anymore, and that i was turning her daughter into a lesbian. her mother would not stop calling me a lesbian all throughout my life. from early childhood, she thought me and her daughter were dating because i was butch and she was femme and we were very close. her mom carried this belief into adulthood, asking her outright if we were lovers. her brother thought we were, too, and taunted us about it.

my own mom weaponized lesbianism against me. she hated how butch i was. she hated that i "looked and acted like a lesbian". she called me a butch and a bulldyke hatefully. she told me not to dress or look certain ways or else people would assume i, and her by some proxy, were lesbians. my mom was insanely butch so i don't really know why this was being leveraged against me but either way when i became a young adult and my mom was trying to force me to learn to drive (something i am terrified of doing due to having 2 dissociative disorders), she asked what kind of car i would ideally like. i said a truck. i was standing there in a purple plaid shirt and she just sighed and went "I knew you were a lesbian." she pointed out my shirt. she was weaponizing lesbophobic and butchphobic stereotypes against me, but either way, reinforcing that i was a lesbian in one capacity or another

i got so tired of my friends harassing me for saying that if i was bi that meant i was straight and i needed to stop calling myself gay because i wasn't, and that it was an "insult" to the gay community. note that nobody gave a singular flying fuck about the bisexual community at all. i was literally bullied out of identifying as bi, because my straight cishet male friends hated it, and my lesbian identifying GF was uncomfortable with it because it made me sound too straight.

the thing is, none of these people asked what being bisexual meant to me.

i actually liked the lesbian community a lot. i really love other lesbians. i have always been attracted to lesbian and butch identifying people for as long as i could remember. i loved seeing strong butch women on TV, even if there were rude jokes. i loved the idea of being a masculine person who is sometimes a queer masculine woman. i loved the idea of being with femmes, i loved queer women and people who took femininity to the next level. i also loved seeing gay men when and wherever they existed. i always felt like i fit right in, and like i was seeing a reflection of a part of myself i needed help discovering.

i have almost always, as long as i can remember, identified as a gay man, and a lesbian, at the same time. my attraction to men, women, and people of all genders is queer no matter what gender of mine is involved. it doesn't matter. i have never felt "half gay half straight" which is why people weaponizing heterosexuality against me as a bisexual forced me to strictly identify as a gay man for almost a decade. it was painful to ignore my butch lesbian side, and to stop identifying as gay, because people would criticize how attractive i found women, and other people

if people had let me exist and explain what bisexuality means to me, they could've understood that bisexual is an inherently deeply queer attraction no matter what genders are involved, but NOBODY cares to listen to the bisexual. everyone LOVES to speak for us because we're just "straight people invading the queer community."

we've had it. bisexuals are queer. even if they DO identify as "half straight" they're STILL queer. let bisexuals define bisexuality. there is no one size fits all form of bisexuality. every single bisexual defines it differently and that's the point. it's a very complex identity with many layers that often relate to gender and presentation as well as attraction.

let bisexuals define bisexuality.

[sherbertilluminated]

Last night I was talking with my friends @teefigotem and @calypsopond about the pacing of the musical Les Miserables. I think Les Mis' libretto is one of the best foundations for a musical out there, but the first act has so much more plot and more iconic songs than the second, and I worry that top-heavy structure diminishes the ultimate impact of the uprising in the second act.

Caly and Maddy agreed that the 2012 film adaption had the right idea when it swapped the positions of "Do you Hear the People Sing" and "One day More." Transplanting the former to the beginning of Act 2 maintains the balance of revolutionary fervor (and iconic songs) between the two acts, and a serves as a payoff to the tension at the end of Act 1. While "Upon these Stones/Building the Barricade" begins Act 2 in the current libretto, it's high on exposition and low on enthusiasm. Since "Do You Hear the People Sing" has become an international revolutionary anthem, making it the opening of the uprising, rather than the prelude to it, builds on *ahem* that connection.

Just picture it: the audience returns to their seats, the orchestra hums with tension, and the lights go up on a somber street with a single voice—Enjolras, probably—singing. Students emerge from the set, workers join in, the turntable starts turning and it becomes clear that soon a barricade will be built in the street. The subsequent Marius/Eponine conversation that transitions into "On my Own" would still probably work here. In the span of fifteen minutes, the thesis statement of the revolting students turns into the reveal of the final barricade. It'd be pretty damn rousing, right?

The potential problem with this change is the lacuna it would leave behind. In the current structure of Les Miserables, "Do you Hear the People Sing" is an elaboration on Enjolras' claim that "they will come when we call!" and going directly from that rallying cry to a quiet romantic interlude flattens the rhetorical tension between romantic love and revolution "Red and Black" and makes Mairus seem a little silly (which, to be fair, he is. But Enjolras is not.) Although "Do You Hear the People Sing" is a little too bombastic for Act 1, before the uprising actually begins, there's still got to be some kind of transition. Something needs to foreshadow the violence to come. But what?

I proposed that the best transition would be a reprise of Stars. And that Eponine should get to sing it.

Since the Broadway premiere of the musical Les Miserables in 1987 and especially following the 2012 film adaptation, Eponine's character has been a locus for fandom attention and discourse. Because she's really compelling: despite being the daughter of the selfish, abusive Thenardier, she devotes her life to protecting Marius and ultimately sacrifices it for him. But the closest she ever gets to being understood is by the audience; even Marius, one of two people in the show to be kind to her (the other being Valjean), doesn't really understand the full extent of her devotion to him. And that devotion is powerful, whether as a proxy for audience members' own experiences with unrequited love or a representation of the bourgeousie's reliance on unacknowleged suffering. There's a lot going on with her in the musical. But there's even more to her in the Brick.

Unlike my esteemed Les Mis mutuals I'm definitely not informed enough to do original analysis, but I'm a big fan of the Javert/Eponine wolfdog theory. My introduction to it was with this post by @pilferingapples, although I don't know whether it originated somewhere else. The theory posits that Javert and Eponine, who are both compared to wolfish dogs for their ferocity and devotion to their idiosyncratic systems of morality, are character foils who represent the limited choices offered to people excluded from. I definitely don't know the op who suggested they trade methods of death (if anyone does, please let me know!) but that's also in the Brick. And while the musical adaptation doesn't preserve Hugo's canine/lupine symbolism, it keeps Eponine's one-sided committment to guarding Marius. And it keeps Javert's devotion to the institution of Law.

"Stars" is the hymn of that devotion. It's more sinister than Eponine's love for Marius, but in the grand scheme of things it's just as pathetic. Giving a short reprise of that song to Eponine not only explicates that parallel and gives new life to relatively-unused musical motif, it has the potential to tie together the action of the first act and add a new dimension to subsequent scenes.

Imagine if, instead of beginning "Do You Hear the People Sing" immediately after "Red and Black" or transitioning directly to the Rue Plumet, the scene changes to the outside of the ABC cafe. On the other side of the turntable/wall, Eponine is waiting. And worrying. She knows her father's going to rob a house tonight and that the girl Marius asked her to find lives there*. She can't let her father hurt him. She's smarter than him. She'll do whatever it takes to keep him safe, she swears—not to God or the stars, as Javert does, but to herself. The promise is shocking, because the audience heard that melody two songs ago and are just now discovering there is another way to be. There is another vow that can be made.

While she's singing, the ABC society files out the door. Maybe some hand out pamphlets or chat with people on the street. If the production wants to emphasize Eponine and Gavroche secret sibling bond, maybe they interact a little. But no one pays her too much mind. No one ever does.

The last person to emerge is Marius, looking a bit shaken. The timeline of the students' plans has been unexpectedly accelerated, he says. In case it's his last chance—nevermind why, 'Ponine, don't worry about me—he needs to see her once. You've found her, haven't you? Could you show me? Please? For my sake?

Consumed by shame and dread and the sense that he'll probably do something really stupid if she doesn't tag along, she agrees. And the stage begins to turn into the Rue Plumet, where "In my Life" begins. The whole interaction would take maybe two minutes.

There are of course thematic objections to this plan. There's the argument that "Stars" ought to be a unique, distinct song like "Bring Him Home." But those motifs are reused in instrumental form after Javert's and the students' respective deaths, so I don't necessarily think they're scene- or character-specific. There's also the argument that the melody of "Stars" is altogether too rigid for Eponine's character. I think there are a couple moments that would work quite well with the emotion("and if they fall as Lucifer fell," for example) but if you really don't want Javert's and Eponine's motif to cross, the melody of "A Little Fall of Rain" ("and you/I will keep me/you safe") could work for this moment too.

There's also the argument that Eponine already gets "too much" attention in the musical adaptation and doesn't need. But I don't know if that's true either. She interacts with Marius in several short scenes, she's present for "A Heart Full of Love" and "One Day More," she goes on her errand to Valjean, sings "On my Own," goes back to the barricade and dies shortly after. She gets about as much stagetime as Cosette does, and a little less than Marius.

It's true that she stands out as a character, but that's because she's got such interesting writing and is so isolated in the narrative. And while it's important to keep her "on [her] own," for the plot, using shared motifs to emphasize her symbolic similarities with other characters might make her character fit more cohesively into Les Miserables' grander thematic narrative. It could even make "On my Own" that much more powerful if she has a little hope that saving Marius from her father might get him to like her, and subsequently understands that this is not happening. But there's a lot more to her than being Marius' rejected best friend** and this choice has the potential to make that clear onstage.

In conclusion: moving "Do You Hear the People Sing" to the start of Act 2 letting Eponine do a wolfdog reprise of "Stars" between "Red and Black" and "In my Life" would be sick as fuck and maybe resolve some pacing issues in the libretto.

*There is a moment in the show where she realizes that she and Cosette grew up together. I like it in concept but it's a little awkwardly-placed and integrating it into the unnamed Red and Black/In my Life transition song would be great. Overall, her interactions with Marius seem like afterthoughts in between the larger numbers, which isn't fair to either of them.

**And for the record: this not a post pitting her against Cosette! They are both good characters and I wish the best for both of them!

[wedgeantill]

12 o'clock in movies and tv shows:

Shrek 2 (2004)

Friday (1995)

Dark City (1998)

Gossip Girl (2007–2012)

Enola Holmes 2 (2022)

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Phantom (2023)

The Family (2013)

Donnie Darko (2001)

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

[crushedsweets]

what’s kate’s relationship with tim like??

pretty bad!

ok so. in my au, kate became a proxy at age 13 in 2008. tim was infected his entire youth, but 'masky' was developed at 21 in 2010 and became an official proxy at 23 in 2012. sooooo..

of all the different people tormenting Tim in the events of marble hornets, Kate was one of them. that one scene where he'd on the forest floor screaming and grabbing at the dirt and getting dragged around, I imagined Kate did stuff like that to him a lot. a 15 year old girl violently torturing some 21 yr old dude .... dragging him around and shattering his windows and beating his car with a rock and shoving pills down his throat and hell on earth in general.

so when he eventually submits to slendy and has to work WITH kate, he cannot stand her. she was apart in ruining his life, and at this point in the story, she is off putting. doesn't ever talk to him, makes noises, has been caught just sifting through corpses, always covered in grime, has never once took off her mask, etc.

he'd snap at her all the time, push her out of the way, grumble about how nasty she is, this and that. i think when toby comes along and gently befriends kate like a feral cat, tim would start to realize she's. just some girl. she's definitely gross and animalistic and cruel, but because of toby bringing her to the cabin, he's watched her scream and cry in agony as slendy punishes her. she claws at the floor and her skin and begs someone to put a bullet in her brain and she looks SO young and so scared and it'd be a massive reality check for tim.

and of course, kate would have strong distaste for tim as well. he's not nice to her, and she does not extend her trust easy. even when tim reels back and is gentler towards her, kates silent, cold, and standoffish. she'll never acknowledge her wrongs and the torture she put him through(albeit forcefully), but she isn't exactly.. mean? to him? he'll say goodmorning and she'll just watch him behind her mask. toby walks in and says goodmorning, and kate says goodmorning. tim's like damn ok .

i don't think they ever fully reconcile for what happened between them... im still deciding how i want tim and brian to ditch town, and if i want them to try and make amends cuz they were such outsiders to the main cast and often viewed the rest as worse than themselve... much to consider

[imagionationstation]

It’s a tough situation because on one hand, I think it’s completely fair to criticize both 2012 and rise. Both shows have their own flaws, and it’s only natural that one person may prefer one show over the other. Someone who likes 12 doesn’t have to like rise, and vice versa. I think people are allowed to hate certain media, and express that hatred, even if they don’t have a reason/a good reason for it. Are they worth listening to? Well, that’s another question lol.

I also don’t think criticism necessarily means someone hates the show. I myself am critical of 12 BECAUSE I love the show so much. I love looking at analyses for any show, be it 12 or rise, that look at why a concept or idea didn’t work as well as it could have. And I have to remind myself that people who criticize the show aren’t coming after me personally (usually). That being said, most rise fans who criticize 12 either don’t like 12 or haven’t seen it (probably only consumed clips at most). And the evidence they provide (if they even provide it) is usually out of context clips where they miss the whole point of the episode. Which is rough. 

I do feel like the hate 2012 gets is disproportionate, but that could just be on tumblr. Tumblr users (and ao3 users by proxy, since they seem to share users?) seem to favor rise a lot. If you go on a site like the technodrome forums, they seem to be a lot more critical of rise. But then again, some of their content is not for everyone. While I don’t personally agree with everything everyone says on there, I do like seeing different people’s opinions. 

On the other hand, it’s so hard not to be up in arms when someone criticizes 2012, especially when I personally feel their claims are baseless and can easily be argued. I remember when it started to consume my thoughts, and that’s when I knew I needed to unplug. But I understand that you’re not really in a situation where you can do that. I’ve found I get the most enjoyment when I interact with fandom in small doses. Now, I just laugh at 12 hate comments and how absurd they can be. Seriously, some of them are so funny, I started compiling a list. It’s a lot easier for me to let comments slide now and remain unaffected, and I think you’ll get there too. Hope you’re doing well.

You’re not wrong about this:

I think it’s completely fair to criticize both 2012 and rise. Both shows have their own flaws, and it’s only natural that one person may prefer one show over the other. Someone who likes 12 doesn’t have to like rise, and vice versa.

And this:

I also don’t think criticism necessarily means someone hates the show. I myself am critical of 12 BECAUSE I love the show so much. I love looking at analyses for any show, be it 12 or rise, that look at why a concept or idea didn’t work as well as it could have.

I love 2012 but I still rant about how I dislike certain elements or episodes. And when I know I’m being objective and fair, I’ll touch on elements about RISE as well (pending decent research done). I never said that anyone had to like any TMNT series.

In fact, I think I said the opposite in a previous ask 🤔.

But I think you can usually tell if the criticism is objective or not.

Is this analysis or post saying, “These were bad concepts/ideas” or are they saying “This is a bad show” because there’s a difference.

There is a very big difference.

I think people are allowed to hate certain media, and express that hatred, even if they don’t have a reason/a good reason for it.

Well. Sure. Absolutely. They can experience a hatred for it.

But can they go around ranting about a hatred for something that they have not researched/watched/looked into reasonably?

No. No, they can’t. Or, rather, shouldn’t. That’s not fair.

This does not deserve to be allowed to continue:

That being said, most rise fans who criticize 12 either don’t like 12 or haven’t seen it (probably only consumed clips at most). And the evidence they provide (if they even provide it) is usually out of context clips where they miss the whole point of the episode. Which is rough. 

If someone, anyone, RISE fan or not, wants to hate on the 2012 show, then I hope they’ve recently seen a few seasons at the very least.

I really don’t think that’s an unreasonable expectation.

And I have to remind myself that people who criticize the show aren’t coming after me personally (usually).

Unfortunately, I have deleted Asks before.

People hate the show.

People are offended by people who like the show.

I don’t know how big of a creator you are or what you do, but I get all kinds of attention for the stuff that I make compared to the stuff I reblog. And I post a lot of opinions on how great the show is.

And, when Anon is a feature, people aren’t afraid to give thoughts.

I refuse to turn off Anon as a feature, however, because there are sweet, kind, but nervous Tumblrs who would want to use the feature.

On the other hand, it’s so hard not to be up in arms when someone criticizes 2012, especially when I personally feel their claims are baseless and can easily be argued. I remember when it started to consume my thoughts, and that’s when I knew I needed to unplug.

Do I need to unplug? Probably.

Should I just ignore the fact that baseless accusations have existed so long that the fandom is probably built upon them and looks toxic 24/7 because no one stands up for the sweet boys? Probably.

Am I tired of that being the standard? Yeah.

Will I cause trouble for speaking up? Probably.

Should I sit back and stay in my lane? Probably.

Am I any good at not ranting when upset? No.

It’s kinda what I built my entire blog upon. Essays and rants. So.

I just laugh at 12 hate comments and how absurd they can be. Seriously, some of them are so funny, I started compiling a list. It’s a lot easier for me to let comments slide now and remain unaffected, and I think you’ll get there too.

I suppose that should be the hope 🧐.

And maybe one day, I’ll get there.

But, I’ve been deeply invested for this long. May want to give me a few years to turn that corner. My brain can be a stubborn thing.

Hope you’re doing well.

You too! I hope you find some comments to add to your list <3

[tic-toc-clock77]

ITSSSSS TIME FOR SOME PROXY HEADCANONS!!!!

Characters include; Ticci Toby, Hoodie, Masky, and Kate the Chaser

Masky

An unknown time after Marble Hornets, an amnesiac Tim Wright woke up in a forest with no recollection of where he came from or who he was. This was the manipulation of the Slenderman. When he awoke, he was with Brian, who had been rendered mostly mute probably due to shock.

The two wandered the forest and though, they had no clue who the other was, they seemed to become friends quickly. They walked 3 hours into the forest and finally seen Slenderman and they followed him without question to a small cabin.

Days bled into one another but he soon became complacent and rather content with the job of killing and bringing the bodies to the Slenderman. Living in the cabin was relaxing enough too.

His relationship with the other proxies was fine due to everyone minding their own business and getting the job done and the slashers didn't bug him due to him being a bit higher up and closer to Slender. So everything was good until....Toby showed up. Masky was neutral with him at first but as Toby became more and more relaxed and familiar with the cabin and forest dwellers, he got so fucking annoying for Tim to deal with.

But as of 2023, Tim Wright (assuming he has the same D.O.B. as his actor) would be 35 years old and though wiser and older, still a douche as he had grown accustomed to being.

Hoodie

Brian Thomas woke up roughly at two in the morning next to a man he'd never seen before...he really wouldn't know if he'd ever seen him before, he couldn't remember anything. He chose not to speak after seeing the Slenderman, who he'd assumed he'd seen before but he still couldn't place it.

He passed out again and woke up a bit later, soon enough he was following the man who introduced himself as Tim and then they followed the Slenderman together.

Days passed and he'd spend quite a bit of time in the forest, trying to relax..he barely spoke, he barely took off his mask but he was used to it. He slowly got used to the slashers and other proxies and tried to be relatively nice to them to make up for his lack of speaking and the fact that Tim was a dick to everyone.

As of 2023, Brian would be 34, older, wiser and still mostly unspeaking.

Kate The Chaser

She'd done it, successfully killed Lauren and proved herself worthy to Slenderman. She was the first proxy in 2012. After losing her humanity, she couldn't really deal with other people so she was given the role of the guard-dog, no longer needing to eat or sleep due to Slenderman's power, she would patrol the forest day and night.

Her relationship with the others is simple, she's almost entirely ignorant to the rest. She doesn't go out on missions, she just kills whoever comes by the cabin who isn't a worker.

Ticci Toby

Tobias Erin Rogers followed Slenderman closely, only 17 at the time. At first he was afraid, like a rabid dog ready to attack but also restless and scared. He wasn't certain how exactly a bunch of killers could function all together by living so closely but time went on and he got more comfortable, he started to act the way he used to with his sister. Him and his sister had always been loud and annoying when alone together, coming up with games to play.

Toby gradually started to get annoying, especially to Masky. His relationship with the others was causal but Tim was...special.

Annoying Masky felt like annoying his Dad and it made him able to joke around with him in ways he couldn't with his real dad. Of course, Masky hated it but due to Slender's rules he couldn't do anything about it.

As of 2023, Toby would be 27 (yeah, I'm ignoring that Kastoaway confirmed his early death and there's a reason for that on a certain post you'll probably come across on here), now 10 whole years older, he still annoys Masky but it's very rarely seen these days. He's more concerned with getting his life together and maybe leaving the main cabin with Clockwork to build a new one together but of course, he still works for Slender and can't live outside of the forest.

That's all, I hope you enjoy!

[arminreindl]

Kambara

Here I go again with croc stuff. Back to dealing with stuff thats longer established, let me tell you about Kambara, the oldest named mekosuchine and a genus that surprised me with the bulk of information behind it.

Kambara (which simply translates to "crocodile") is a genus of early mekosuchine that as of July 2023 contains four species, all from the Eocene of Queensland.

The first of these are Kambara murgonensis (Crocodile from Murgon) and Kambara implexidens (Interlocking Teeth Crocodile), both of which found at the same locality in Murgon, Queensland. The bones of both were in fact so intermingled that it was initially assumed that they represented a single species with highly variable anatomy, before the second species was recognized 3 years later.

There are a couple of differences between, but two are easiest to point out. For one, although being in the same size range (3-3.5 meters as adults), Kambara implexidens was a little more gracile. Furthermore, and the defining difference between them, K. implexidens (left) had interlocking teeth like a crocodile (bottom left), but K. murgonensis (right) had an overbite like an alligator (bottom right).

The next species named after these two was Kambara molnari (Molnar's Crocodile), but it's only known from much more limited material, the holotype being a lower jaw. Still some interesting information from this can be gathered. Which is that K. molnari seemingly represents an intermediate between interlocking dentition and an overbite. K. molnari wasn't found near Murgon, but in a different basin in Queensland, in the lower layers of the Rundle Formation.

Also from the Rundle Formation we have the most recently named and geologically youngest species, Kambara taraina (Crocodile Crocodile). Yeah the name is a bit redundant, but the logic of basing the species name on the  Darumbal dialect as a proxy for language of the Bailai People is a nice one. Anyhow, K. taraina is a return to form as it is also known from good material like the first two, stemming from yet another large fossil bed possibly representing a mass death site. It had interlocking dentition like K. implexidens, BUT, unlike the oldest two species it did not coexist with the other Rundle Kambara. Instead, K. taraina came after K. molnari had presumably gone extinct.

Shown below the paratype of K. taraina, the holotype of K. implexidens and the holotype of K. molnari.

I won't get into phylogeny too much other than that its usually thought off as one of the earliest branching mekosuchines, but details vary. Lee and Yates found that Australosuchus may be more basal, while Ristevski et al. recover Kalthifrons as the earliest branch, in both cases Kambara is only the second branching. There is one slightly odd alternative. Rio and Mannion do find it as the oldest branching mekosuchine....but also regard neither Quinkana nor Australosuchus as members of the clade...and further seemingly find "Asiatosuchus" germanicus to nest within Kambara? And then there's 2 out of the 8 trees by Ristevski, which show Kambara as a close relative to modern Crocodylids. But neither of those results match the current concensus and Rio and Mannion in general has a lot I disagree with.

Much more interesting is the postcrania and the implications for the lifestyle of Kambara. Now while we have a lot of bones from the rest of the body, given they were found in literal bonebeds, we don't know much about it. Crocodile fossils that aren't skulls are rarely described in detail. But there's still some information out there. Important here are Stein et al. 2012 and Buchanan's PhD thesis (which included the description of K. taraina, the one part that was formally published). Both looked at the postcrania and found that there are some differences to modern crocs. To keep things brief, while the anatomy is not nearly as derived as in a fully terrestrial croc, it does seem to suggest that Kambara would have had an easier time performing the crocodilian highwalk (shown below).

Again, this does not necessarily mean it lived on land, if anything the circumstances of the animals death seems to imply the opposite, but its still interesting. Buchanan suggests that this could have been used to walk through shallow water or bottom walking, and Stein et al. do point out that some adaptations of the limbs could also be advantages while swimming. The most important part to suggest that Kambara still lived in the water is the skull tho (well and it being found in freshwater habitats). The skull looks still remarkably like that of your generalist croc, somewhat flattened, nostrils on top, raised eyes, all that kind of stuff. So it presumably hunted like a modern croc and lived like a modern croc.

The exact lifestyle remains obscure tho. Again, generalist seems like the best supported hypothesis, but we don't know what kind of difference interlocking teeth and the overbite make. Theres some speculation of course. Mook for example proposed that an overbite functions like carnassial teeth in mammals, slicing and breaking, whereas interlocking dentition is better for gripping. While the difference in robustness between K. murgonensis and K. implexidens isn't that great, it could be suggested that the more robust species sliced and broke larger prey while the more gracile one dealt with slippery fish or struggling animals. Muscle attachments are also important, and those seem to show that the most recent species, Kambara taraina with interlocking teeth, had the greatest bite force and thus may have fed on larger prey than all its predecessors. But again, a lot of this requires further looking into.

We do have one singular piece of evidence for diet. The shell of a turtle from the Rundle Formation clearly bearing the tooth marks of Kambara. The bite marks show that the turtle was bitten multiple times, likely in an attempt to position it better in the mouth to bring it into position with the crushing back teeth or to swallow. Fun fact, this behavior is referred to as "juggling". But as you can see from the first figure, the Kambara in question was a bit cocky and picked a turtle way too large, eventually giving up. Sadly the turtle was very injured, and tho the wounds healed slightly, it eventually died from an infection.

For the last section I briefly want to cover some last notes on Kambara murgonensis and Kambara implexidens, more specifically their coexistence. Now I covered the potential difference in hunting and prey preference already, but theres some other stuff to consider. For example, although found in the same locality, it is possible that this cohabitation was not the status quo. Given it is a mass death site at a locality that is known to have undergone wet and dry seasons, it is not unreasonable to assume that these animals died during a drought (another point against terrestrial life too, as they could have just left otherwise). Now even today crocs will gather in large groups in such situations, trying to make the most of dwindling water sources. This could mean that both species typically inhabited different biomes and only came together because they were forced to. The same might have also happend to Kambara taraina, causing increased aggression and explaining the many injured specimens found. Anyhow, it is also a possibility that they weren't divided by species, but by size, age and maturity. Buchanan points out that there are different habitat preferences between nesting females and juveniles, subadults and adult males in modern saltwater crocodiles. Big males prefer open water, nesting females areas with denser vegetation and subadults should avoid both as they threaten hatchlings and could be eaten by cannibalistic males. So that could also factor into the distribution of Kambara. And notably, it is pointed out that the Murgon site preserves both hachlings and egg shales, but seems to lack animals of intermediate size, which could suggest it was a nesting site. Below a picture of an American Alligator and an American crocodile, simply because they remind me of Kambara and are an example of crocodilians that overlap in range, yet aren't super different like lets say Muggers and Gharials.

Alas Kambara suffers the mekosuchine curse, which is to say even with overwhelming material not much is actually published. Two bonebeds with all sorts of material, yet only 5 papers to its name, generally just accounting for the type description of each species + the humerus paper. A lot of the info presented is actually from L.A. Buchanan's PhD thesis, which did include the description of Kambara taraina. However, since the completion of the thesis in 2008, only the description of the species was actually published. Entire chapters dealing with pathologies, postcrania and potential ecological inferrence are all are only present through the thesis, which has thankfully been uploaded in 2017.

Nevertheless, its a fascinating animal and I hope I made some people curious. Wikipedia page: Kambara - Wikipedia

[hairpintvrns]

IVANA 'VANYA' LI. 30. she/her.

VITALS.

FULL NAME: ivana li

NICKNAME: vanya. van. vali. vee. anything v-sounding. like va—[sirens]

GENDER & PRONOUNS: cis woman, she/her

AGE / DOB: 30 / march 8, 1994 (pisces ☼ aries ☾ aries ↑)

OCCUPATION: it coordinator at blue harbor high school / freelancer

NEIGHBORHOOD: cardinal hill

LENGTH OF TIME IN BLUE HARBOR: local — moved 2007, left 2012, returned 2018

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: single

SEXUALITY: lesbian

CHARACTER INSPIRATIONS: poppy li (mythic quest), root (person of interest), penelope stamp (the brothers bloom), gwen sanders (the english teacher), wilhelmina pang (saving face), brad bakshi (mythic quest), ivan (intermezzo), vanya (brothers karamazov), tbd!

SUMMARY. ( note: substance abuse, mental health )

ivana (henceforth vanya!!!!) is the only daughter of marlene, a public school teacher, and ivan, a "man in uniform"—she doesn't know what he does for a living, if at all—who left the family when vanya was three years old. born and raised in her early years in some suburb of reno, nevada, the mother and daughter lived a relatively quiet life despite the former's burgeoning addiction and mental health issues. in the absence of a firm hand to hold, vanya turned, as any millennial had at the time, to video games and computers. her relationship with tech was squashed when the pair had to move around the continental united states... a rather tumultuous three years (to put it lightly) but all is well! because! her mom finally lands a permanent job as a math teacher at the blue harbor elementary school! in the absence of her former bff microsoft encarta (rip queen) and a real knowledge of internet proxies that could've worked on public school computers, vanya instead turns to chess.com and becomes something of a local figure. she continues her (half-decent) chess career all throughout college in chicago, where she meets damian—the last in the long line of ex-boyfriends, and now her best friend. #gaylesbiansolidarity. in 2018, vanya moved back to blue harbor to be with her mother and spent the next three years in semi-hibernation doing odd jobs (name a location in town and she's probably temped there) and IT gig work (where she makes more bank). when damian arrives in 2021, she decides to take up a full-time job as an IT coordinator—a one-stop-shop for all your IT needs, hey it's a small school district ok—mostly to bug him during office hours. in the interim, she's been vibing. no smoking, no drinking, no drugs, just high on life 💕 but also someone pls get her to sleep.

FULL BIOGRAPHY. trigger + content warnings apply.

PERSONALITY & HEADCANONS.

found out she was named after her dad (ivan -> ivana... groundbreaking) when she was eight years old, after looting her birth certificate amid the papers her mother asked her to sift through while she filled out a tax form. has gone by "vanya" ever since to give her some distance from the name, but also because it sounds... cooler.

diversity win! worst tech bro you know is an asian lesbian.

woman in stem (derogatoryaffectionate). girl who got into CS for the money only to find the job market so saturated that she now resorts to contract work instead? hmm more likely thank you think 💕 her CS work ranges from developing silly lil front-end dashboards or any client-facing landing pages for local businesses (+net) to writing custom docker images for AI projects courtesy of some pesky multinationals (—net). as for which corps, she has signed ndas... do you want her to get shipped off to silicon valley or something???

her tagline in life is "everyone's always judging capitalism. but what are you going to do? die poor?" etc. that said. she does hate Big Tech. she profits from it tho and redistributes it to. ah… herself. i never said she isn't a hypocrite

she does have a few things she cares about. her mom. her bestie. the weaver ridge girlies/thirlies/boys r on thin ice. and, uh... are you familiar with… ducktales?

takes up random hobbies when she decides she's interested in them. the results aren't always fortuitous. last failed attempt: woodworking. (sad small violin for lumberjack lesbians everywhere.)

honestly only has 3 real skills. the three c's, if you would. computer science, chess, and being a cu—[i am whisked away into the night]

she will read just about anything. nonfiction. policy memos. building codes. training manuals for dogs (she's half-convinced she's a dog whisperer ATP). even fanfiction for fandoms she doesn't even go to. the worst beta reader you will ever know is the understimulated girl who went to nerd college.

tone-deaf in a way that's kind of grating. please do not invite her to karaoke night.

does not have any social media beyond instagram (to follow Hot Singles in Her Area), reddit (has 50k+ karma and everyone thinks she's a tech nerd from italy and dedicates herself to the bit by adding a beard to her avatar and logging in on cet hours), and upwork/github (has a perfectly respectable headshot and everything)!

her current FIDE rating is at a respectable 2106, and holds a WFM title that she'd gotten back in college. doesn't have any real interest in taking up the open titles and has been,,,, humbled by the competition really over the past few years. it's not as if she has no interest in the sport anymore, or no longer follows the competition circuit. but the light has died out... but also never say never...

CONNECTIONS. TBD still! but hit me!

[yudvinpricestoryland]

Hello, friends, I've been wanting to make such a post for a long time.

So, when my strange-story finally comes out, it doesn't matter in what form (a comic book or a machinima series) and the question arises what the author smoked while creating it, I'll just remind you about this post.

Sources of inspiration for

" Irreversibility " or what once irreversibly blew the author 's head off and stuck in the very :

1. In the flesh 2013-2014

2. The Road 2009

3.Blasphemous 2019

4. Hannibal 2013-2015

5. The Handmaid's Tale 2017 - present

6. Silent Hill 2006

7. Attack of the Titans 2013-2023

8. Ergo Proxy 2006

9. Tokyo Ghoul 2014-2015

10. 1+1 2011

11. Innocent 2012-2020

12. The Kingdom of Heaven 2005

13. Mr. Nobody 2009

14.The Evil Within 2014

15. Persepolis 2007

16.Blade Runner 2049 2017

17. Twilight 2008

18. Flowers in the attic 2014

19.Resident Evil Village 2021

20. "V" for Vendetta 2006

21. AHS : Apocalypse 2018

22. Berserk 1997

23. Pathologic 2005

24.Might & Magic Heroes VI 2011

[arbitrarygreay]

I keep referencing this scene from 1x8, so might as well make it easier for my self.

1692 Salem Witch Trials

1735 War for Independence (Our world: 1775-1783. The Molasses Act was passed in 1733, but was apparently routinely ignored before the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, and the resulting tensions ramped up until the riots began in 1772.)

1800 First Mexican War, 1810-1812 Second Mexican War (Our world: 1846-1848, after the Texas Revolution in 1836 and Mexico's own independence from Spain 1810-1821. In our world, the Louisiana Purchase was in 1803, leading to the Lewis And Clark and Pike Expeditions that decade. The UK supported Tecumseh's War in Indiana in 1811, rolling into the War of 1812, but which was the tail end of the Sixty Years' War era 1754-1813 of struggle between the UK, France, US, and Natives over the Great Lakes area.)

According to non-canon After The Storm, the Cession was created in the 1830s.

American Civil War 1840-1842 (Our world: 1861-65. As said above, in our world the 1840s was when the Mexican–American War took place.)

1908-1911 World War (Our world: WW1 1914-1918, Roaring 20s, Great Depression 1929-1939, WW2 1939-1945)

1940 The Hague (Our world: Notably, Geneva is not listed in this timeline, indicating that if Geneva was still a site of political importance, it wasn't to relevant witches. There were, however, also Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. The 1899 conference led to creation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and its housing, the Peace Palace, opened in 1913, also hosting many of the international organizations The Hague is known for today.)

1961-64 Chinese Civil War (Our world: 1927-49, with the US only making some minor moves about the Taiwan Strait.)

1960-present Proxy Wars (Our world: Cold War 1946-1991, NATO 1949, Korean War 1950-53, Vietnam War 1959-1975, Cuban Missile Crisis 1962, Moon landing 1969, Iranian Revolution 1979, Panama Invasion 1989, Gulf War 1990, Somalia and Bosnia/Herzegonia 1992, Haiti Invasion 1994, Kosovo 1996)

No mention of a Cold War or War on Terror (the latter not being surprising, given that it was replaced by the Spree)

Alder mentions the following locations as a part of "the early days" in 1x1:

Gibraltar (Great Siege 1779-83 stemming from Spain supporting the US in the Revolutionary War)

Tripoli (based on needing to have lifespan proximity to Gibraltar, this is about the Barbary Wars in the early 1800s between Ottoman Tripolitania and the US/Sweden)

Solomon Islands (rediscovered by Britain in 1767, Christian missionary work in the mid-1800s)

Alder's reminiscing from 2x9:

Bay of Bengal "running red with British blood", could be colonial or World War era.

Anatolian Plateau, probably about the Turkish War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire 1919-1923 after WWI, with Ankara becoming the new capital. Ankara is too far inland to be practical for the sea-based conflicts in the Barbary Wars and Aegean Sea conflicts. But there was also the Turkish "low-level civil war" 1976-1980.

Vienna, one summer, uhhhhhhhh probably World War events

Some other timeline notes:

1992 the Martyrdom in Liberia (Our world: immigration from the US with intent to colonize beginning in 1822, republic established 1847, coup in 1980, new republic in 1985, first Civil War 1989-1997, during which Greenville was destroyed.)

1994 Batan's bottles show up in Sudan (Our world: Sudan independence from Britain and UK in 1956, coup by al-Bashir in 1989, US sanctions in 1993)

1995 Batan's bottles show up in "in Minsk during the Belarus partition" (Belarus declared independence from the USSR in 1990, Lukashenko in 1994)

1997 First confirmed Spree attack

Some point in the 2000/10s: Bridey and her unit were in the Andes

Seven years ago (2012), per 1x6, Petra was in Belarus and encountered "The Balkan Composition".

The Balkan Composition was first deployed in "the Battle of the Urals", per 2x3

Willa and Quinn were stationed in Norilsk (a Russian city, west of the Urals) as a part of a siege at some point.

So what we see is that up to the World War, Alder's witch military mostly sped things up by a few decades (with the weird exception of the late 1700s/early 1800s, including Thomas Jefferson's presidency). Then, it seems that American hegemony would then delay/reduce much of the "modern" conflicts, or shift things around. Certainly, it seems that there was likely a large shift in the history of Eastern Europe and repercussions in East Asia.

[moon-bun-bun]

I'm gonna ramble about my creepypasta AU from like 2012-2014ish I used to rp with a friend over my flip phone bc we where GENUINELY just insane <3

Some key things to keep in mind: we didn't really watch marble hornets at this time so masky and hoodie where (unfortunately) very much old fanon the rare few times they showed up. A lot of this AU was influenced by old deviantart web comics, mainly Pasta Monsters and The Seer. And lastly, we where like 12 when we made this so don't expect high art 💀 you're allowed to laugh bc genuinely it's so awful

This AU MOSTLY was centered around our OCs (of course). Mine was Banana, a repurposed warriors OC 💖 of course in usual middle schooler fashion, she was immortal and couldn't die, and she knew every single creepypasta amd everyone knew her and she was some special proxy y'all know the deal, if I remember to draw her again I'll rb or something with her bc I still love her dearly <3

Some key things abt this AU that I can remember off the top of my head in no specific order:

- Slenderman didn't have a mansion, he instead had an entire castle?? I have no clue why we decided a castle but that's what he had

-no one but slenderman lived in this castle. Not even his proxies, everyone else has their own houses, except Banana who has a big tree that grows diamond fruit

-how do people not fond a massive castle out in the forest? Easy. It's not in the forest, there's an entirely seperate realm they all live in and you access it by a random portal in the woods

-we genuinely deligated Masky and Hoodie to just sorta babysitting this portal. Actual proxy work? Never heard of it, they just watch a portal for days on end. Expect Masky sometimes, he got to babysit Banana because she caused ✨️problems✨️ constantly. We very much characterized his as the shy uwu nervous Masky the entire time

-proxies got their special proxy names Via warriors cats naming ceremony, we had a moment with another OC that was an extended rp of this moment. I do not know how we talked abt it like it was the most serious and genius thing in class the next day

-Jeff was one of the most prominent characters, he did not like Banana what so ever and she at some point made it her life goal to be the most prominent nuisance in his life. Multiple times as some form of punishment for both of them causing some issue or just fighting in general, Slenderman would make them go live together in the human world as normal people in suburbia or some shit. This happened VERY often and I choose to still use this plot point as the set up for conversations and jokes about them to this day

-the neighborhood they lived in was completely oblivious to the fact that these where two known serial killers, EXCEPT one of their neighbors who was hell bent on exposing them. No one believed her ever.

-how do they live as normal people? Tbis is where the pasta monsters influence comes in, I believe it was called an illusion form in that comic? Whatever it was called, that's the logic we used. Jeff looked like a Normal Guy and Banana instead of being a cat, was in fact a human girl, who for whatever reason we decided kept getting mistaken for some random orphan girl named Daisy

-despite this AU taking place in (at the time) modern times, old times orphanages and asylums where still in operation and was another very prominent plot point we used (to the extent of the knowledge we had as 12 year Olds of these places) banana and Jeff ended up in the asylum in padded rooms and straight jackets a lot

-this has no bearing on the plot what so ever but I know we referred to the police as "the popo" and ONLY the popo for the entire duration of the rp. All 2 or 3 years of it.

That's all I can think of at the moment, there's. A lot more that I'm missing here and whenever it crops up I'll just rb with more details or smthn bc I genuinely rlly like just putting whatever the hell we where on into words 💀💀

[mariacallous]

On October 26, Georgians went out to vote in much-anticipated parliamentary elections, hopeful that the day would see their country remain on its democratic path and maybe even freeze oligarch former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili out of power.

The last dregs of that hope vanished shortly after the polling stations closed. Premature jubilation over the exit polls published by what remains of Georgia’s independent media was soon replaced by despairing silence as the first official results were published.  

Exit polls had the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party trailing at around 42 % of the vote. The final results from the Central Election Commission catapulted GD to nearly 54 %, giving the regime a solid governing majority but falling short of its stated aim of securing a unilateral constitution-amending supermajority. 

For the last three decades, Georgia has remained a democracy, albeit a flawed one. Though elections were held, the playing field was engineered to allow strongmen leaders to dominate. But their removal at the ballot box remained a possibility.

Russia recognized the potential of subverting Georgia from the inside through democratic means for Moscow’s benefit. The 2012 election, which saw the Russian proxy billionaire oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili break through and capture political power, marked the beginning of a comprehensive and iterative agenda of regime building. 

Ivanishvili transformed the system so it still looked like an electoral democracy. But in practice, the crucial ability for the electorate to remove the leader was gone. 

Russia’s long game in Georgia, which intensified with the start of Ivanishvili’s rule, sought to transform Georgia’s political system and society to bring them closer in alignment with Moscow. Elections are a central pillar of this effort. According to political scientist and Russia expert Timothy Frye, Putin needed to strike a balance between cheating too much and looking weak, or not interfering enough to secure his desired outcome. “Fraud is a much blunter tool than many realize.” 

Like Putin, Ivanishvili has succeeded in this tradeoff. However, the 2024 elections posed unique structural challenges that upset the careful balance of the extent of fraud necessary to win elections.

For the first time in a decade, the Ivanishvili regime faced credible challenges to its electoral legitimacy. To win the October 26 elections, the regime had to skew the playing field so harshly that it had to sacrifice plausible pretenses of genuine popular support. 

This can be seen in the distribution of the results. The “Russian tail” describes an unusal pattern of votes for Georgian Dream, deviating from a normal distribution. Graphics illustrating this bizarre pattern, especially in rural areas, appeared online almost immediately after the elections. This shape strongly points to the likelihood of mass manipulation of votes, including ballot stuffing and so-called “carousel voting”; however, such claims require further proof. 

President Salome Zourabichvili, widely seen as the only remaining independent constitutional institution in Georgia, has called the elections “totally fraudulent” and “a result of Russian special operation.” The four major opposition parties that crossed the 5 % threshold condemned the elections as unfree, unfair and not reflecting the will of the Georgian people. They pledged to boycott parliament’s work and refuse to cooperate until the regime concedes and launches an investigation into electoral fraud and reruns the elections under more exacting international scrutiny. 

This is important insofar as the presence of Russian tail could be attributed to the regime’s successful voter mobilization campaign in rural areas. Indeed, the regime has an extensive network in rural areas that includes local officials, law enforcement, and the party apparatus, who run sophisticated schemes of carrots and sticks to maximize voter turnout.

Local election watchdogs and observation missions have concluded that the playing field was so systematically distorted and fraudulent manipulations were so widespread that the elections failed to reflect the will of the Georgian people. A local observer mission, My Vote, run by a coalition of leading Georgian civil society organizations, claimed that they had uncovered a fraudulent scheme, supplementing more traditional methods of voter mobilization. 

The fraudulent scheme, according to the election watchdogs, involves the mass harvesting of personal documents (ID cards) and personal data of mainly opposition voters. Harvested personal documents were then used for a carousel voting scheme facilitated by the control of two key election officials at the precinct level: one would control the flow of voters into the polling station, while the other operated the electronic voting machines.

If verified, this scheme could also explain why the opposition received fewer votes than in previous elections. Confiscating the documents of prospective opposition voters had a double effect: it demobilized those voters and decreased the opposition’s overall support while contributing to the increase in votes for the regime.

It remains uncertain whether these allegations will ever be properly investigated. Georgian Dream vehemently denies the need for investigation into ballot fraud of any scope. International observer missions, without passing ultimate judgment on the vote’s legitimacy, have criticized the heavily distorted playing field and the environment of systemic intimidation. This air of pervasive intimidation, clearly visible to even short-term observers, lends plausibility to the widespread manipulation schemes alleged by the opposition and civil society. 

Georgian Dream’s propaganda created an all-embracing aura of fear of an outbreak of war with Russia in the lead-up to the election The threat to outlaw and prosecute the opposition and everyone who voted for them amplified this anxiety.

The opposition and civil society made a fatal mistake by failing to combat this fear-mongering head-on. They struggled to convince voters that new technologies to verify voter ID and count ballots guaranteed voter secrecy, which was especially egregious when voters arrived at ballot stations could barely cover the ballot paper and the regime’s officials could through the thin paper to see who they had voted for. Many who voted, including myself, could attest that secret voting – a hallmark of modern democracy – was systemically disregarded.

The Georgian Dream’s opponents framed this election as a referendum on whether Georgia should pursue integration with Europe. The EU made it clear before the elections and confirmed afterward that Georgia will not be able to pursue its European aspirations with the course of the current regime.EU institutions and member states are reluctant to recognize the elections as legitimate. They, joined by the U.S., are voicing increasingly harsh criticisms and are actively demanding measures to restore the integrity of elections, offering a glimmer of hope in this challenging situation. 

However, the Ivanishvili regime is not alone. It has support from Russia and its allies, both outside and inside the EU. 

Tbilisi insists that it still aspires to EU membership. Nevertheless, the EU it aligns with is that of Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán and his allies. Orbán was the first to congratulate the regime on its apparent victory and soon after arrived in Tbilisi to solidify his support. He reassured Georgian Dream that they could survive the legitimacy crisis. Sadly, their hopes are not delusional. Fellow strongman, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, getting away with his contested victory earlier this year proves just that. 

Georgians, with their unwavering spirit, will continue their never-ending fight against Russian imperialism and their place in the European family. However, they will not be able to succeed against Russia’s long game alone.