#tl;dr fuck the government fuck bureaucracy

[transrevolutions]

the sisyphean endeavor of writing and giving speeches. you write a speech. you go up and give it to whatever local regulatory body you're dealing with. some people will commend it. others will reject it. and then you go home, and soon enough you must write another speech for them. and it must be better than the last one, so that they don't get bored of your rhetoric. you think you've used up all your ideas, because you did your best on the last speech, so now you have to come up with new ones. then you go up and give the new speech and once again some people will commend it and others will reject it. and then you go home, and soon enough you okay I think everyone gets the picture by now

[chicago-geniza]

went to Haymarket Overstock Sale got Many Books i have no space for & will need to haul across the city in short order finishing editing job at the last possible minute due to who i am as a person then going to look at five fucking apartments today & get the documents in order to change my birth certificate before missouri proposes any more legislation that will leave me with permanently mismatched documents. relatedly went on a 20-minute rant about realID and the increasing necessity of 2 factor authentication and credit checks (which require credit, which requires a bank account, which require two forms of ID and a legal address, and a PO box requires ID, and state ID now requires 2 forms of ID in addition to birth certificate) to access basic public services that have been digitized, not to mention accessing government assistance / social services (you have all heard my "i'm applying for food stamps, i don't have enough money for the bank to let me OPEN a credit card, so i don't have credit at all. i don't even have bad credit because i am *too poor to have credit* but you need to check my credit score to confirm my identity to access a social safety net program for people whose income is under $700 a month. what is your damage" spiel) - tl;dr yelled about how federalism was a mistake & it's not by accident "states' rights" is the tagline with which the civil war is taught, or that "the federalist" is called the federalist (because. have you read the federalist papers!), & the surveillance state that increasingly pushes vulnerable & marginalized people out of public life, outside the law, by means of byzantine bureaucracy--whether that's poor people, unhoused people, immigrants (especially undocumented immigrants), anyone on welfare (disabled, elderly, etc.), trans people, anyone with a history of incarceration or institutionalization, etc etc etc--is spreading unevenly DUE TO federalism and a lot of people who don't have experience with, uh, that kind of bureaucracy are used to exceptions being made, or pharmacies prescribing to trans patients whose legal name doesn't match the name on the scrip, or whose name doesn't match their gender marker, and the ways that ID/medicine/law/background checks for jobs (ALSO increasingly common)/background checks & requirements for rental applications are all going to converge in the next few years has such terrifying implications i'm like. well are we going to call the tent cities "bidenvilles" this time or will the cops just violently clear out anyone sleeping rough & try to solve stagflation with prison labor--

[ironclawpoint]

travis, jeane, and henry are shelter children: the abridged nmh3 headcanon for pals who havent killed the past

(and yeah there’s spoilers)

Who is Kamui?

In The Silver Case, Kamui Uehara is a legendary serial killer in Japan’s 24th Ward; he was arrested for the killings of several political figures in 1979 and suddenly broke out of prison and resumed activity in 1999. He notably had silver eyes. Plot twist: THIS IS A LIE, the 1979 Kamui and 1999 Kamui are different people (ish), and the No More Heroes Kamui is technically not this Kamui, even if he technically... is.

Danni, what the fuck.

Yeah man I know Kill the Past lore is fucked up.

How is this possible?

It’s a government conspiracy!!! The 1979 Kamui, also known as “Format” Kamui, had a personality type (obedient & with a lot of “criminal power” - aka capacity for chaos/destruction) that the Powers That Be determined would be really good for creating numerous controllable government sleeper agents to shift the balance of political power as they saw fit. This personality base was mass produced by imprinting it onto vulnerable young boys in the Shelters (Kamui Maspro) and later young girls (Ayame Maspro).

What’s a Shelter?

Horrible dystopian toddler reeducation bunker where young children were kidnapped, forced to do menial soul sucking tasks in a sterile environment, and reeducated before being subtly planted back into society as sleeper agents. Thousands of kids from the 24th Ward were taken. 1999 Kamui and NMH Kamui were both products of the Shelter. Specifically, NMH Kamui is the “ultimate” Kamui Uehara, having successfully absorbed the memories of previous Kamui consciousnesses to become a quasi-godlike meta-aware and fourth wall breaking being, in conjunction with the mysterious powers of the silver eye he had implanted into his socket, which also grants functional immortality...

DANNI WHAT THE FUCK

YEAH I KNOW BEAR WITH ME.

Isn’t that kind of like the Coburn Elementary stuff in Killer7?

IT SURE IS! Coburn and the development of Emir Parkreiner as a Japanese sleeper agent in American politics is quite close to Kamui/the Shelters. I also headcanon that Coburn is an American iteration of the 24th Ward’s Shelter Project, as, essentially, the government in both Killer7 and TSC are invested in controlling the population via (often violent) social engineering.

So how do Henry, Jeane, and Travis play into this?

As of NMH3, Henry has revealed that he and his siblings fled from their serial killer father and were captured and brainwashed into believing they had separate lives. In this headcanon, I posit that the three of them have been manipulated and influenced to become assassins due to whatever conditioning they received at this event, possibly at another Coburn-like project or facility. I’m undecided on whether the father who raised Travis / abused Jeane is their blood relative and the same as the serial killer or not, as it’s possible Travis and Jeane were returned to him after conditioning.

first of all HENRY HAS A FUCKED UP GREEN THIRD EYE LIKE EMIR. LIKE, LOOK AT IT.

NMH Kamui, in Travis Strikes Again, notes many similarities between himself and Travis: he has similar fourth-walling abilities to the type of being that Kamui has become and, like him, has a large amount of criminal power. On their own this doesn’t necessarily mean anything except travis fourth wall break kill real good, but combined with all the other heavy Kill the Past stuff we’ve seen and Henry’s backstory reveals, it’s not too tough to read into Travis having unknowingly developed into a being on the same level of existence as Kamui: in other words, a self-aware viewpoint for the player.

“Ayamestock” or “Kamuistock” characters, due to their conditioning, are often found in dangerous careers and think little of bloodshed; they are also usually being moved around like chess pieces by higher outside forces.

We don’t know what the hell the UAA or Sylvia is doing as of NMH3. The UAA was no longer false as of NMH2, but why do we still need this bureaucracy / to have the fights taped and widely circulated on the dark web as of TSA? Not to mention that Travis is an “above-ground” assassin while there’s an underground... tl;dr, I suspect Sylvia of manipulating Travis as a pawn, as she has since NMH1, in a way that might involve the Emerald Order and whatever figures were originally manipulating Travis/Jeane/Henry.

The siblings’ separation also fits neatly into the concept of the Shelters: at least one pair of siblings was separated via the Shelter Project, conditioned, then adopted into different families for the sake of spreading out that influence.

Travis has issues with unearthing suppressed memories (perhaps due to tampering?) in NMH3, plus Henry’s experiences with Mimmy in NMH2 suggest Henry does as well.

We don’t know much about Jeane, but “failed” Ayames and Kamuis -- those who didn’t take up the programming well enough -- are usually people on the fringes of society who aren’t placed anywhere influential and have to reckon with their latent violent tendencies some other way, ie CRIME and MURDERS. With her brothers as possible Kamuis, it’s possible she was an Ayame candidate as well, but remained an outcast due to her lack of compatibility. Ayames are also known for being purer / more given to bloodlust as the Ayame project, taking place after the Kamui one, had perfected the conditioning process-- see: the fact that she nearly took Travis out.

Finally: it would be cool and I like it.

[manifestoonmoralmanlove]

Gormless Ch. 3 - Dimple Objection!

A well-meaning friend gave me a book series that is hilariously bad. The first book was Souless and my riffs were entitled brainless. This second book is entitled Changless and these riff are then gormless.

I mean to say I have entitled them gormless! Not that my riffs are dumb, and the effort I spend on them stupid since I’m the only one who enjoys them. HAHA!

The story is SUPPOSED TO be about how a badass lady wearing a rad-looking carriage dress hits baddies with her umbrella and bangs her hot werewolf husband.  In reality it’s mostly poor attempts at being witty, flirty, and superior.

For the last book check out the brainless tag.

If you want the TL;DR version but want to read these new riffs anyway?

This story is set in supernatural Victorian steampunk England.  Alexia is our NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS protag.  She is a soulless, which means she’s able to negate the abilities of vampires and werewolves by touching them. She’s recently married a big oaf, named Lord Connel Maccon.  He’s the manchild in charge of the supernatural police with a zillion dollars and he’s totes super hot too ok.  Their relationship is mostly arguments about how Maccon can’t tell her fucking anything.  Alexia has also recently become head of ~Soulless affairs~ in Queen Victoria’s government.  She has a dumb friend named Ivy, a gay vampire friend named Akeldama, a family who’s evil because they do the same shit as her but while being blonde, and most importantly Alexia is better than everyone cause…cause.

Last time on Gormless:

There’s some mysterious force that’s turning the Vampires and werewolves into humans. Alexia is in charge of figuring out that deal, she is doing a bad job.  Her husband is in charge of the Supernatrual Police (BUR) so he’s probably going to have to do something too. Maybe.

There’s a dude named Channing who wants to punch and have sex with Alexia, and Ivy is getting married to some rich slub, even though she’s in wub with Maccon’s servant Tunstell.

Chapter 3 - Dimple Objection

So Aleixa and her husband Connal Maccon stir post-colitis where they actually do some talking but with little of that bullshit sparring they do. I WILL TAKE CLUNKY EXPOSITION OVER SNIPPY FLIRTING ANY DAY! I could do without Maccon referring to Alexia as “Woman” and “Wife” but I think that’s just something that irrationally bugs me.  They get to talking about the humanization problem.  Maccon talks about how werewolves used to rule Egypt but then a ~plague~ came through that killed most of them, and that this plague still shows up now and again.  

Alexia admits that during her research, she didn’t bother to read any of her father’s books on Egypt because Greek and Roman books are much more interesting to her.

Damn I wish I could read books I found cool for my job, instead of actual relevant research.

In fact it borders on racist when she says direct quote:

“Alexia had always been more interested in the classical world.  There was something unfortunately fierce and passionate about the Nile and its environs.  She was much too practical for Arabic with its flowery scrawl when Latin, with all its mathematic precision, made for such an attractive alternative.”

Yeah Egypt, one of the birthplaces of tedious bureaucracy is way fiercer than the Greek city states like yanno Sparta constantly waging war with one another.  Or like the Romans who like never fought nobody.  Also Latin ALWAYS MAKES SENSE as a language and the Arabic people never were very math-orientated, R16H7?

Stop pretending you know anything about actual history you bigoted dolt!

So they fuck again in another fade to black sequence.

Alexia wakes up again to find that her husband is gone without saying anything AGAIN! He was engaging in this bullshit writing technique before you married him girl, I don’t know whats to tells ya.

She goes down for supper (she lives on a nightly schedule cause werewolves I guess) and some of Maccon’s brigade is there.  She has to squeeze and squeeze to get anything out of Lyall, and Lyall acts like it’s SUCH A BOTHER to have to explain to Alexia that her husband pissed off to some other vague place on some urgent matters.  He just says southern Scotland and gives no context and that’s fine? Alexia thinks it has to do with her bringing up that Alpha werewolf who died mysteriously.  So now we have to have oh so sextacular Channing pout that Maccon’s not there. And every single time he’s brought up they have to shoehorn in some horseshit about how he’s just the most fuckable.  I.E

“Major Channing’s pretty mouth twisted at that.”

Though at some point Major Channing says the ~incident with the boat~ that brought them back is that apparently AROUND EGYPT his whole crew had their supernatural abilities sapped for several days, and while their powers returned they came back anyway cause that shit shady.

Oh golly, if only Alexia had questioned any single fucking military person BESIDES THE FUCKING HEAD OF IT she would have found that out.  GREAT!

After dinner she’s fussing with her hair and one of Maccon’s servant ghosts shows up. The ghost says that her husband left her a message to go to a hat shop in London cause like it’ll advance the plot nudge nudge.

Like what’s the fucking point of having everything so infuriatingly vague?  There better be a serious plot point later about a person working at their house who’s a traitor and that’s why they can’t fucking tell any whole truths to one another. But I highly doubt that’s going to be the case.

Since it’s a hat shop, and her friend Ivy always wears ugly hats, she decides to invite her friend out hat shopping.

Ivy is moping that she didn’t get enough visitors congratulating her on her engagement. Only 25 people came over! The other girl had 27 visitors!  This is framed as Ivy being an irritating attention whore.  But like Alexia you can’t fucking judge that shit. In the last book outright stated that your wedding was a masterpiece of social engineering, and that your dress changed the course of English fashion. It might as well ended with ALL THE HOT WEREWOLF MEN ALSO PROPOSED TO HER ON HER WEDDING, AND THEY HAD TO DIG A TRENCH TO REDIRECT ALL THE JEALOUSY TEARS FROM ALL THE LADIES WHO COULD JUST NEVER HOPE TO BE AS COOL AND HOT AND PERFECT AS HER!  If you only had 25 visitors Alexia you would be throwing a tantrum instead of quietly pouting like Ivy. Therefore Ivy is a saint in comparison.

SIGH!

So they go out to the hat shop and just as Ivy is about to pick up the ugliest hat, they are interrupted by Madame LeFoux.  I know this will somehow be ruined at some point but like I’m pretty sure Madame LeFoux is...well me.

She’s described as a woman who dresses masculine, but does not hide her figure, her hair is brown and cut short and boyish, she has cute dimples when she smiles, but the most obvious tell is that Alexia describes her, “Probably the most beautiful female she had ever seen.”                        

(A gif of spongebob riding a seahorse, with a glamrous wig blowing behind him. The tagline reads, “Bitch, I’m flawless.”)

Okay, okay she doesn’t look exactly like me.  She’s also supposed to have a small mouth, green eyes, and big old cheekbones and I don’t have those. Kudos for actually describing what the hot people look like in your story.  So I suppose I’ll set aside my vanity, and simply consider this one the new and improved MacDougall until proven otherwise. I have one weird caveat to this. When she says that LeFoux has dimples she makes a special note that, “Normally Alexia objected to dimples, but they seemed to suit this woman.”

(Gif of a spit-take.)

I’m sorry but THE FUCK?

SURE THE DEFENDANT HAS A ROCK-HARD ALIBI, BUT THEY HAVE A PHYSICAL FEATURE TYPICALLY CONSIDERED CHARMING AND ADORABLE! I REST MY CASE!

Does she think they’re too ~PRECIOUS~ or something? WHO HAS A PROBLEM WITH DIMPLES!?

But, she doesn’t elaborate of course and it’s pretty obvious the author is into them with how frequently she brings them up.  LeFoux tries to convince Ivy to pick out another hat, and Alexia notices there appears to be some kind of lever underneath the ugly hat that Ivy was eyeing up.  There are other signs of like movable bookcases, and trapdoors and shit.  So she kinda says this shit under the radar to LeFoux and LeFoux, under the radar confirms there’s something ELSE at this place.  LeFoux also correctly guesses that she is speaking to, the one, the only, Lady Maccon.

And at that moment, BLAMO! AN EXPLOSION! A CLIFF-HANGER OH BOY!

Say something nice faps:

This book has like the 1st scene where Maccon and Alexia are like…humans with each other.  They snuggle and don’t verbally spar.  They just talk about exposition and work.  Alexia makes a sassy comment about someone they mutually know and Maccon remarks that she’s great at improving his mood.  Like a normal sweet couple!

Despite the author’s propensity for the sexy male leads to be temperamental idiots, she’s not above making fun of them and makes jokes at Channing’s expense.

We get some intrigue. I guess.

LeFoux is super-hot, and I actually think she won’t be directly demonized in order to intrigue the female readers who are less than 100% hetero. Like I kinda hope she doesn’t just hit on Alexia all the time, cause everybody does that anyway. Like I kinda want LeFoux to flirt with Ivy, who gets flummoxed but is into it.

[aces-to-apples]

high-key can’t stand how seemingly everyone in the star wars universe acts like the entire separatist movement is Evil™

like, yes, i know the whole war was engineered by the sith. i know that. you know who didn’t? most of the separatists. i mean, yes, obviously dooku and the banking clan and the trade federation and the assholes on top knew that it was, for the most part, a power play, but basically everyone else who joined the CIS? they didn’t know that.

so it just really bugs me that in canon the separatists are all talked about like they’re the worst people in the galaxy, but they left the republic for legitimate goddamn reasons dammit. the republic became this bloated, inefficient system of government so bogged down in bureaucracy and politics that it was practically incapable of functioning in any meaningful way.

like yeah no shit so many poor non-influential planets and outer-rim systems joined up, the republic didn’t care about them and probably refused to help them when they needed it. of course they were drawn in by the idea of being separate from the death throws of a dying republic.

which also reminds me of the neutral systems as well and how they’re treated, like, god knows i’ve never agreed with a single thing that’s come out of satine kryze’s mouth, but the way the jedi and the republic treated the neutral systems was bullshit as well, because they also had a point.

the neutral systems were just that–neutral. they wanted to stay the fuck out of the political dick-measuring nightmare that was the clone wars, and they were looked down on for it. because they refused to make a highly-politicized moral judgment on the planets and systems who said “the republic isn’t treating us right and we’re not going to put up with it anymore” or the ones who said “the republic is flawed but so are all governments and we’re scared that this millennia-old institution will crumble if so many people suddenly leave”

also, and i hate to be That Guy™, but like. politically speaking? the republic kinda started the clone wars. in a very technical sense, they fired the first Official™ shot that kicked everything off. they invaded geonosis. yes, it was to rescue a senator and a couple jedi from being executed by rabble-rousers and a goddamn sith, but. c’mon. you think most of the other separatist planets and systems knew that or, quite frankly, cared? in their eyes, they tried to leave the republic, to regain some kind of independence and self-sufficiency, but instead of letting them go, the republic preferred to start a goddamn war.

tl;dr why’s everyone gotta act like that shit was black and white when it was all a galaxy of murky greys and very few absolutes like shit i’d’a supported the separatists too

[dragkingandreweldritch]

my main thoughts:

1. people with acute radiation sickness are not actually radioactive holy fuck, I cannot believe they probably just made that mistake and had a fireman's wife act like a stone-cold idiot (the nurse told me not to touch my sick husband? guess what I'm going to do first thing when I see him) for the sake of a dramatique miscarriage subplot

2. every scene with the mining boss dude was iconic, had been at the same level of resigned to the system versus everyone being super keyed-up like "do what I say or I'll shoot you/throw you out of a helicopter" and the main science people somehow not understanding they live in a soviet bureaucracy despite being longtime government employees

(according to Masha Gessen, who's rather an authority on these things, the miner's attitude was more accurate to the eighties, versus the more OTT threats being more in line with Stalin's era)

3. tl;dr watching three episodes of this nonsense just made me really want to watch a bunch of actual documentaries on Chernobyl, so if that interests you, I highly recommend The Battle of Chernobyl, Surviving Disaster: Chernobyl (which also focuses on Valery Legasov, the main scientist character in the miniseries), and the Seconds from Disaster episode about the meltdown

WHOMST has watched the Chernobyl miniseries and wants to nerd out about it with me, bc I finally started it and I have...thoughts.