#tucson interviewed

[zvaigzdelasas]

Emmanuel said he wanted to work in the U.S. and send money back to his family in Chiapas, Mexico's southernmost state. But soon after crossing into Arizona illegally, Emmanuel said he was detained by U.S. border agents and returned to Mexico.

Asked about his next steps, Emmanuel said he might return to Chiapas, noting that American officials told him he would face jail time if he attempted to enter the U.S. unlawfully again. He was one of dozens of migrants deported to Nogales during a recent Thursday morning in late August.[...]

Rosalis and her young daughters were also deported to Nogales that Thursday morning. The Mexican mother said she traveled to the U.S. border after a man started harassing her daughters in their hometown. She said she tried to explain to U.S. immigration officials why she came — to no avail.

These scenes in Nogales play out most mornings, volunteers said. Since President Biden invoked sweeping presidential powers to curtail access to the overwhelmed U.S. asylum system in early June, returns of migrants to Mexican border cities like Nogales have increased sharply.

The "deportations are 24/7," said Dora Rodriguez, a Tucson resident who travels to Nogales to assist deportees four days a week.

Mr. Biden's executive action has upended U.S. asylum law, which generally allowed migrants physically on American soil to request asylum as a way to fight their deportation. But under his June proclamation, migrants who cross the southern border between legal entry points are generally disqualified from asylum.

The new rules also scrapped a requirement for U.S. immigration officials to ask migrants whether they fear being harmed if deported, placing the onus on them to express that fear in order to be interviewed by U.S. asylum officers. The measures have led to a dramatic drop in those being allowed to access the U.S. asylum system. They have also allowed officials to more quickly deport migrants from Mexico, Central America and other countries where the U.S. conducts regular deportations.[...]

Deportations of migrants as a proportion of encounters at the southern border more than doubled after Mr. Biden's order, according to a recent court declaration from Royce Murray, a top immigration official at the Department of Homeland Security. During the first two months of the order's implementation, the department conducted 62 repatriations per every 100 border encounters, up from 26 repatriations per 100 encounters, Murray said.

1 Sep 24

[backwardswalks]

the passenger - screening and q&a with carter smith | horrorigins fest 9/28/24

so there was a screening of the passenger at horrorigins fest in tucson, az over this weekend that had a theater screening of the passenger and then a live q&a with carter smith afterward!

there were some really good questions and there's some video on horrorigins instagram (here and here, they haven't posted a full but i know there were several people recording and the festival is ongoing through today so they may post full video later) but some highlights:

he reiterated a lot of things that he's said in interviews about the script (so i won't go into detail about that)

he talked about his background at FIT and how benson's wardrobe was extremely intentionally chosen, and that the costume designer wanted to kill him bc the exact shade of his cardigan took three times to dye to get it right, it's also acrylic and very itchy (he has one too lmao)

he said that he gave johnny and kyle freedom to improvise on the script as much as they needed/wanted but that for the most part they stuck to it

burgers burgers burgers was a convenience store that they cleaned out and the stuffed animal place was in an actual empty mall that was "abandoned" (he mentioned there were like 7 empty malls they could have used, this one was completely empty so they didn't have to shut it down but idk if it was abandoned in the traditional sense)

he talked about the close ups and how much he loved kyle and johnny's faces and how he could shoot the whole thing in close up

the script was originally called "Randolph Bradley" which he did like but marketing didn't think would grab people and he also likes The Passenger for the movie they ended up making

i wish they had given the audience members mics when they asked their questions bc i'm watching the recording back to make sure i don't misquote something so i can't really hear some of the questions :( they also didn't upload the whole thing as of yet so the rest of this isn't verbatim but:

he agrees that at its core its a love story! when i asked my question i said "i wanted to touch on the love story comment from earlier" (bc someone else briefly mentioned it before asking a diff question) and he was like "i ALSO want to talk about the love story more!!" and was very excited that i brought up that "there's obviously a queer undertone to the film" and he just talked about what he saw in the script and how that came about, again said that jack stanley was like there's no romance but carter was like ummm anyway

he said that "this was the best thing to happen to either of them" (randy and benson) and agreed with someone who had described them as two sides of the same coin

he said that blumhouse also wanted them to lean into the weird romance aspect of it (or were okay with it), kyle was incredibly down to lean into the weird romance and was like "can we make it MORE gay"

afterward the fest went to a bar and mostly everyone went! so we actually got to hang out with carter just me and my friend and we talked a little bit more about the film and just other movies that he's enjoyed, we talked about his weekly newsletter, just random stuff like that. some highlights of that:

he said that kyle was all in on the queer undertone and was like can i touch johnny MORE

he said that there is a scene where benson touches randy again in a way that is similar in vibe to the scene in the mall parking lot where he touches his neck/wipes his tears but that they ended up cutting it because he (Carter) felt like it would undermine the emotional impact of that particular touch! he didn't expand on what the touch was or where exactly it went (he said it was after the teacher but didn't specify if it was after shepherd or mrs beard but i imagine he meant shepherd)

carter said that he would absolutely do a full up and down queer movie with kyle (if it was ever the right fit rather than writing a role for that reason)

it was really great and so interesting to hear his thoughts on the film and on filmmaking as a whole! he is really friendly and super nice and really knowledgeable. he had so much good stuff to say about the industry and he couldn't get enough of praising johnny and kyle both for their performances (rightly so) and what a good time he had making the movie.

bonus:

carter was kind enough to sign my poster (which he reposted the picture of on instagram). (i go into more detail about this event and stuff here) he also gleefully took photos of the saint randy and saint benson candles i made (because i am insane) and said he was going to send them to johnny and kyle because they would love them. kyle also reposted the picture of me and my friend the festival posted of us with the candles so now i am just dryheaving in my room. <3

anyway! support your local film festivals!! without horrorigns this wouldn't have been possible so support local and indie filmmakers and local and independent film festivals! <33

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Electrons, not molecules

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then SAN FRANCISCO (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

When hydrocarbon barons do their damndest to torch the Earth with fossil fuels, they call us dreamers. They insist that there's a hard-nosed reality – humanity needs energy – and they're the ones who live in it, while we live in the fairy land where the world can run on sunshine and virtuous thoughts. Without them making the tough decisions, we'd all be starving in the frigid dark.

Here's the thing: they're full of shit.

Mostly.

Humanity does need energy if we're going to avoid starving in the frigid dark, but that energy doesn't have to come from fossil fuels. Indeed, in the long-term, it can't. Even if you're a rootin' tootin, coal-rollin' climate denier, there's a hard-nosed reality you can't deny: if we keep using fossil fuels, they will someday run out. Remember "peak oil" panic? Fossil fuels are finite, and the future of the human race needn't be. We need more.

Thankfully, we have it. Despite what you may have heard, renewables are more than up to the task. Indeed, it's hard to overstate just how much renewable energy is available to us, here at the bottom of our gravity well. I failed to properly appreciate it until I read Deb Chachra's brilliant 2023 book, How Infrastructure Works:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/17/care-work/#charismatic-megaprojects

Chachra, an engineering prof and materials scientist, offers a mind-altering reframing of the question of energy: we have a material problem, not an energy problem. If we could capture a mere 0.4% of the sun's rays that strike the Earth, we could give every person on the planet the energy budget of a Canadian (like an American, only colder).

Energy isn't just wildly abundant, though: it's also continuously replenished. For most of human history, we've treated energy as scarce, eking out marginal gains in energy efficiency – even as we treated materials as disposable, using them once and consigning them to a midden or a landfill. That's completely backwards. We get a fresh shipment of energy every time the sun (or the moon) comes up over the horizon. By contrast, new consignments of material are almost unheard of – the few odd ounces of meteoric ore that survive entry through Earth's atmosphere.

A soi-dissant adult concerned with the very serious business of ensuring our species isn't doomed to the freezing, starving darkness of an energy-deprived future would think about nothing save for this fact and its implications. They'd be trying to figure out how to humanely and responsibly gather the materials needed for the harvest, storage and distribution of this nearly limitless and absolutely free energy.

In other words, that Very Serious, Hard-Nosed Grown-Up should be concerned with using as few molecules as possible to harvest as many electrons as possible. They'd be working on things like turning disused coal-mines into giant gravity batteries:

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/02/06/this-disused-mine-in-finland-is-being-turned-into-a-gravity-battery-to-store-renewable-ene

Not figuring out how to dig or flush more long-dead corpses out of the Earth's mantle to feed them into a furnace. That is a profoundly unserious response to the human need for energy. It's caveman shit: "Ugh, me burn black sticky gunk, make cave warm, cough cough cough."

Enter Exxon CEO Darren Woods, whose interview with Fortune's Michal Lev-Ram and editor Alan Murray contains this telling quote: "we basically focus our technology on transforming molecules and they happen to be hydrogen and carbon molecules":

https://fortune.com/2024/02/28/leadership-next-exxonmobil-ceo-darren-woods/

As Bill McKibben writes, this is a tell. A company that's in the molecule business is not in the electron business. For all that Woods postures about being a clear-eyed realist beating back the fantasies of solarpunk-addled greenies, Woods does not want a future where we have all our energy needs met:

https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/the-most-epic-and-literal-gaslighting

That's because the only way to get that future is to shift from molecules – whose supply can be owned and therefore sold by Exxon – to electrons, which that commie bastard sun just hands out for free to every person on our planet's surface, despite the obvious moral hazard of all those free lunches. As Woods told Fortune, when it comes to renewables, "we don’t see the ability to generate above-average returns for our shareholders."

Woods dresses this up in high-minded seriousness kabuki, saying that Exxon is continuing to invest in burning rotting corpses because our feckless species "waited too long to open the aperture on the solution sets terms of what we need as a society." In other words, it's just too late for solar. Keep shoveling those corpses into the furnace, they're all that stands between you and the freezing, starving dark.

Now, this is self-serving nonsense. The problem of renewables isn't that it's too late – it's that they don't "generate above-average returns for our shareholders" (that part, however, is gospel truth).

But let's stipulate that Woods sincerely believes that it is too late. It's pretty goddamned rich of this genocidal, eminently guillotineable monster to just drop that in the conversation without mentioning the role his company played in getting us to this juncture. After all, #ExxonKnew. 40 years ago, Exxon's internal research predicted climate change, connected climate change to its own profits, and predicted how bad it would be today.

Those predictions were spookily accurate and the company took them to heart, leaping into action. For 40 years, the company has been building its offshore drilling platforms higher and higher in anticipation of rising seas and superstorms – and over that same period, Exxon has spent millions lobbying and sowing disinformation to make sure that the rest of us don't take the emergency as seriously as they are, lest we switch from molecules to electrons.

Exxon knew, and Exxon lied. McKibben quotes Woods' predecessor Lee Raymond, speaking in the runup to the Kyoto Treaty negotiations: "It is highly unlikely that the temperature in the middle of the next century will be significantly affected whether policies are enacted now or 20 years from now."

When Woods says we need to keep shoveling corpses into the furnace because we "waited too long to open the aperture on the solution sets terms of what we need as a society," he means that his company lied to us in order to convince us to wait too long.

When Woods – and his fellow enemies of humanity in the C-suites of Chevron and other corpse-torching giants – was sending the arson billions to his shareholders, he held back a healthy share to fund this deceit. He colluded with the likes of Joe Manchin ("[D-POLLUTION]" -McKibben) to fill the Inflation Reduction Act with gifts for molecules. The point of fantasies like "direct air carbon-capture" is to extend the economic life of molecule businesses, by tricking us into thinking that we can keep sending billions to Exxon without suffocating in its waste-product.

These lies aren't up for debate. Back in 2021, Greenpeace tricked Exxon's top DC lobbyist Keith McCoy into thinking that he was on a Zoom call with a corporate recruiter and asked him about his work for Exxon, and McCoy spilled the beans:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/01/basilisk-tamers/#exxonknew

He confessed to everything: funding fake grassroots groups and falsifying the science – he even names the senators who took his bribes. McCoy singled out Manchin for special praise, calling him "a kingmaker" and boasting about the "standing weekly calls" Exxon had with Manchin's office.

Exxon's response to this nine-minute confession was to insist that their most senior American lobbyist "wasn't involved at all in forming policy positions."

McKibben points to the forthcoming book The Price Is Wrong, by Brett Christophers, which explains how the neoclassical economics establishment's beloved "price signals" will continue to lead us into the furnace:

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3069-the-price-is-wrong

The crux of that book is:

We cannot expect markets and the private sector to solve the climate crisis while the profits that are their lifeblood remain unappetizing.

Nearly 100 years ago, Upton Sinclair wrote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Today, we can say that it's impossible to get an oil executive to understand that humanity needs electrons, not molecules, because his shareholders' obscene wealth depends on it.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

[seat-safety-switch]

There's this super fancy steakhouse near my home, and I've always wanted to eat there. Their salad bar is beyond excellent, a friend informs me, and their grated cheese is actually from Italy. Expense aside, you'd think this would be an easy trip for me. You're wrong.

You see, this steakhouse is so fancy that they have a special employee whose job it is to park my car. As far as I can tell by watching their parking lot with high-powered binoculars, their "valet" will take your car from you at the entrance, park it for you, and retrieve it for you when you're done eating. This, presumably, saves you the dinner-ruining stress of gently turning your vehicle to place it into a parking space.

Personally, I don't mind parking. My own backyard is full of cars packed helter-skelter, with mere millimetres of space between them. I could probably park a bus in here, if I really had to, but it would take me a couple of hours to get it back out. That's not the problem. The problem is that the valet would have to drive my car, which means I'd have to explain how to drive my car to them.

In case you think that's not a problem, allow me to explain. Most carbureted cars have a single choke, which you pull out when the car is cold in order to help it breathe a little better. Mine has sixteen, which must be pulled, bagpipe-like, in a specific order as the engine is running in order to keep it from dying at the lights. Could I fix it? Not until they create a bottle of head-gasket fix that also cures giant holes in the block.

Sure, I could park a few blocks away and walk there, but the valet will smell the desperation on me. If I have a rusty, propane-spurting 1970s Chrysler product, maybe I'm an eccentric. There's fewer of those left than Ferrari 458s, which makes me a "vintage collector," at least in the eyes of the super-rich-people yacht-owning magazine I tricked into doing an interview with me last year. All that goes out the window if I show up on foot. Same goes for letting my dinner date drive me there: her Hyundai Tucson is, well, a Hyundai Tucson. Not eccentric at all. Practical. They hate that there.

Ultimately, I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and do things the hard way. I've already applied for a job as their assistant valet. There's an employee discount, and I'm pretty sure that I'll be head valet once the bossman sees that I can fit like 700% as many cars in there as the old guy. It's just going to take a few weeks to get them back out again, which is even better for business.

[tavolgisvist]

I think one of the most interesting things about Linda’s photography is her journey. She started off in Tucson with Hazel Larsen Archer – she happened to go to Hazel’s class who said, ‘Get yourself a camera, take some pictures and come back next week’. So, that was the first lesson and Linda found it a lot of fun. Then when Linda went back to New York and got involved in the music scene. She began taking pictures for music magazines like Rolling Stone and Crawdaddy. She would be at the front at a concert taking pictures of music she loved and was knowledgeable about. She once told me about the time she was taking pictures of B.B. King, whose music she adored. She felt very privileged to be in that position. Another photographer next to her was a guy who was sent along to take photos, and he asked Linda, ‘Who’s this? Who is it I’m photographing?’ And she had to tell him, ‘It’s B.B. King!’ Her love of music and photography really came together then. After we got married, her photography started to focus on family life with the kids, horses, countryside and landscapes. Whatever situation she was in she would use it for her art, and her craft naturally developed that way. At one point she heard about cyanotypes and became really fascinated by the whole idea of printing photos herself. She loved treating the paper haphazardly and the whole process of putting it out on the balcony in the sun to develop: she thought it was magic. So, I would say she was excited about all her photography, because it was her life. Q: Which artists from the 1960s had the most profound impact on Linda’s photography? Paul: I’m not sure it was artists from the 1960s, but before that Dorothea Lange was a favourite of hers. Linda’s tastes were formed by looking at artists like Walker Evans, Ansel Adams, Georgia O’Keeffe – she was a big admirer of O’Keeffe. Growing up she knew Willem de Kooning as her dad was his lawyer, so there was a family connection. Of course, she had studied History of Art in Tucson, although she confided in me that in those classes it was often a typically hot Tucson afternoon and they’d be in a little dark room watching a projection, so sometimes she might nod off. I imagine current students might relate to that, too! But anyway, Linda had a pretty wide knowledge of art. That was one of the things we both had in common when we first met. I was enjoying people like Magritte, which impressed her. One of my big show-off moments was asking, ‘Have you seen my Magritte?’ <…> Her family had a love of art, and there was a lot of art in her life from a young age. Her grandpa had come over as an immigrant from Russia and he was a bit of a painter. There was this family story that her dad Lee had a picture by her grandad up on the wall and a famous art connoisseur friend of his said, ‘I’d like to buy that, who’s it by?’ And he replied, ‘It’s by my dad and it’s not for sale!’ Anyway, the point I’m making is that art was always there. Her dad was a big collector of very good art and ended up being a lawyer to quite a few artists like Robert Motherwell and Willem de Kooning, so there were always great pictures around. I think that was a big influence. Then going to college in Tucson and taking the Art History classes. <…> It might sound simplistic, but if you’ve got a good photographer’s eye you will spot a good situation and a good bit of lighting anywhere. For Linda, it was often to do with the lighting, and our daughter Mary does it now as well. She’ll move you around saying, ‘The lighting’s better here,’ and she’s always right. <…> Linda was a very strong animal-lover, really strong – people will say, ‘Oh I love animals!’, but with her it was very deep. She had a kind of Disney-esque view of animals, so no matter what animal it was, it was ‘cute’. If it was a frog, it was a ‘cute frog’. If it was a beetle, it was a ‘cute little beetle’ – like me!

(Paul McCartney, Feb 2023, interview for lindamccartney.com)

[reavenedges-lies]

Typing this as I listen to the podcast however this is posted after it's over.

Confirmed by multiple sources including internal that Muruelo is walking away from his ownership rights to the Arizona Coyotes

The Special Use Permit would've added about a year (8-10 months) to the land buying process with the already tight schedule

Muruelo Jr stated today that they would not be looking into a new site for an arena

The Letter of Intents to buy land that Muruelo had on other plots were found out to not be zoned for an arena. As such would've been up for referendum

We Do Not Know What Will Happen With The Branding and Records

This is closure- Now we start from scratch.

Once Official™ new ownership groups will be able to apply for a new expansion team

The NHL while stating it is not in expansion mode Atlanta is already a front runner and shoe in with an arena

We still just need a new arena, however the 5 year idea of getting the team back may not be feasible

The Roadrunners may not be in Tucson for much longer as they are still owned by Muruelo and will most likely be moved into his new Reno based arena that should be opening 2026.

The Roadrunners may also not be the Utah Hockey Club's affiliate team for much longer depending on their ties with the Smith group

"I'm sorry Coyotes fans that you can feel elation over losing the [poor & unstable] ownership"

Bettman needs to vet ownership better, and ownership groups need to make and keep local relations with political and community leaders

Petey called in from the ESPN Afterparty with many Cameos from reporters

Injury news- McDavid & Draisaitl are both very injured and the injury reports will probably be very deep on both sides

There will be an interview with OEL in the future by Craig S. Morgan

[gotham-ruaidh]

Little Bit Better Than I Used To Be

Catch up: Chapter 1 (Starry Eyes) || Chapter 2 (Save Our Souls) || Chapter 3 (Dancing On Glass)|| Chapter 4 (Merry-Go-Round)|| Backstage (1) || Backstage (2) || Chapter 5 (Danger)|| Backstage (3) || Chapter 6A (Love Walked In) || Chapter 6B (Without You) || Backstage (4) || Chapter 7 (Stick To Your Guns) || Chapter 8 (Time For Change) || Backstage (5) || Chapter 9 (Take Me To The Top) || Backstage (6) || Chapter 10 (Home Sweet Home) || Backstage (7) || Chapter 11a (Nightrain) || Chapter 11b (Nothing Else Matters) || Chapter 12a (Handle With Care) || Chapter 12b (I’m So Tired of Being Lonely) || Chapter 13a (Angel) || Chapter 13b (She’s My Addiction) || Chapter 13c (Patience) Chapter 14a (Where Do We Go Now?) ||| Also posted at AO3

Chapter 14B: Where Do We Go Now?

Soundtrack: “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” Guns N’ Roses, 1987 [click here to listen]

Now and then when I see her face She takes me away to that special place And if I stare too long, I'd probably break down and cry

- Guns N’ Roses, “Sweet Child O’ Mine” (1987)

Tucson || July 1988

It didn’t matter what Colum or the label or anyone else said – all recording studios looked the same on the inside.

Sure, there were always small differences. The really comfortable couches at Sound City in Los Angeles. Electric Lady in Manhattan still had the really cool paint scheme that Jimi Hendrix himself had designed. Muscle Shoals in Alabama oozed coolness.

But this studio, whose name he couldn’t and didn’t care to remember, nestled down a back street in Tuscon was…tired.

Almost as tired as Jamie.

The “quick three week tour” had stretched to eight weeks, with no end in sight. Theater shows had been upgraded to arenas. Playing to thousands and thousands of ecstatic fans. Pouring their hearts out night after night after night, and squeezing in radio promos and sound checks and business meetings during the day.

Fucking exhilarating.

Everybody wanted a piece of Print – their music, their story. Jamie still hadn’t granted too many interviews this tour, but the press ate up every word he said about sobriety and music and forgiveness. Insatiable for details about the woman he had met in rehab, and written all the new songs about, and refused to name publicly.

Print was making more money than they knew what to do with. The label had sprung for a private plane, and nobody in the band missed the rickety and smelly tour bus (except Claire, because it was still all so new to her, which Jamie added to the list of thousands of reasons why he loved her). Their hotel rooms were bigger. Catering in the dressing rooms was much nicer.

Fucking exhausting.

So many people wanted a piece of Jamie every day. Ian and Angus, to run through the new material that just kept pouring out of them. Colum, to talk ticket sales and adding second and third nights in each city. The suits from the label, who kept finding them in Dallas and Kansas City and Detroit, slapping Jamie’s back and pushing terrible ideas for duets with pop stars or contributing to a movie soundtrack or pleading to do the acoustic set in a special for MTV.

And on top of that, some dirtbag reporter from the National Enquirer had figured out who Claire was, somehow got a hold of her personnel file from the hospital, and tracked down her shitty ex-husband for an exclusive interview. Splashed her life all over the tabloids, complete with very grainy photographs of the she and Jamie together, holding hands, on a rare day off in Nashville when he took her to a few honky-tonks. The one saving grace was that thankfully, nobody at The Ridge had said a word about anything about her time there, or the time they shared together.

Claire took it all in stride. She always understood. Holding him in the bathtub of their suite in Denver as he shook from another panic attack. Smiling over a three AM hamburger at a diner in Topeka. Whimpering as he came off stage in Atlanta, sweaty and keyed up from singing about her, hoisting her in his arms for a long kiss against the lighting equipment at side stage, heart stuttering to see his eye makeup smudged against her cheeks.

The man he was on the last tour – unhappy, unfulfilled, so deep in an addition he didn’t care to acknowledge – would not recognize the man he’d become on this tour.

“In ’86, we played seventy eight dates. We had a number one record. I bought my house, and my motorcycle, and my car.” Quietly he sipped coffee in their suite in Seattle, watching the city wake up, running his thumb over Claire’s shoulder as she settled against him in front of the window.

“You had everything you had always dreamed of.”

He snorted. “I was a mess. All I could think about during every show was how to find a girl or a bottle or a baggie as quickly as possible. And the crew would always do that for me.”

The crew respected his – and Claire’s – request for no drugs or alcohol backstage this tour. What the techs and roadies and production crew did on their own time, in their own hotel rooms, with whoever they wanted to – Jamie didn’t care. But for everyone to help with, to respect, his sobriety was a gift. And he never stopped saying thank you.

“If only those reporters could see you now – Jamie Fraser swaggering off stage for an Evian.”

He smiled. “And to kiss this beautiful doctor who for some reason keeps following him around. Because he loves her, more than any man has ever loved any woman.”

He wanted to provide for her. To shelter and protect her. To never leave her side ever again.

She didn’t need him to do any of that, of course. They’d talked about it many times. But she wanted him to do that. And the fact that she chose him, kept choosing him…that was why they kept going. Kept each other sober. Kept holding each other up.

They’d agreed that this time on tour was for her to understand this part of him – and to help both of them decide how and where they would live once the tour was done.

Which is why the radio silence from Boston, four weeks after mailing the letter from Philadelphia asking, politely, just what the hell was going on…was so fucking crushing.

The stress of that – and the grind of touring – did make it just a bit more difficult every day.

Thankfully Colum had scheduled a week-long break at the end of the month. Angus was already planning a trip to Aruba with the two groupies, who truth be told had grown on the rest of the band. Ian was planning to spend the week with his wife, Jamie’s sister Jenny, and their kids.

And Jamie and Claire – well, they’d be getting married.

Only a few people knew, with good reason. Ian and Jenny, of course. Alec and Faith, in New York. Colum. Dougal MacKenzie and his wife Gillian, who had helped both Jamie and Claire so much at The Ridge. Uncle Lamb, who would officiate. And Claire’s friends Joe and Gail Abernathy, who had quite literally saved her life by getting her to The Ridge in the first place.

The service would be simple. Exactly what they wanted – what they needed.

And after that…well. They would truly be husband and wife.

But there was a lot to do – a lot to take care of – between now and then. Not the least of which was, wrapping up this recording session.

The time laying down acoustic tracks in Philadelphia last month was very well spent. They weren't so rusty. But the guys were eager to hear the songs in electric form. And since they were in Tucson, and Colum knew Bobby Higgins – who not only owned this studio, but who had also produced that really killer Ratt album in ’84…

“OK, Jamie.”

Jamie took a deep breath, and looked up through the glass at Bobby, hunched over the console in the control room.

“Ready for take two?”

Jamie looked left, to Angus – and right, to Ian.

“Yup.”

“OK – this is In My Veins, take two.”

Jamie grit his teeth.

Caught Claire’s eye in the control room.

She smiled.

He relaxed.

Angus counted in on his drumsticks, and then started the heavy beat like they’d discussed.

Four bars – and Jamie’s guitar and Ian’s bass joined in.

--

“That was really, really great, Jamie.”

Claire handed him a new bottle of water, cap already twisted off. He drank it in four deep gulps.

“I know you’re not shitting me. So thank you.”

Quickly she looked over her shoulder – Angus’ cheeks were being loudly kissed by the groupies, and Ian played around with his bass, and Colum and Bobby were deep in conversation in the control room.

“Where are you?”

She had pulled him away before, when the panic attacks were coming, and he knew she’d do it again right now if needed.

He wiped his mouth with the back of a sweaty hand. “About an eight out of ten.”

“Do you need a break?”

He met her eyes. “I need a meeting. Been thinking about my old friend Jack Daniels all day.”

“Did you see something?”

He sighed. “I’ve only played electric a handful of times since I got back from The Ridge.” He looked down at the gorgeous Stratocaster strapped across his chest, fist flexing. “I got this guitar because the black tone and white trim matched the label on the bottle. Stupid, I know. But it’s all I could think about today.”

“Not stupid. We’ll deal with it. You should call Alec. And I can find you a meeting.”

He leaned in, and kissed her forehead. “I love you. I’ll call him. And I need to sell this guitar.”

She nodded. “We’ll find a charity.”

He kissed her again. “I love you.”

She kissed him quickly, and returned to the control room.

Grateful that Jamie had turned away to talk to the guys, when Colum tapped her on the shoulder, and slid over an envelope postmarked Boston.

“Mail call. Do I want to know?”

She shook her head, folded the letter, and slid it into the back pocket of her jeans. “Is there a Yellow Pages I can borrow?”

[captainkirkk]

✩ WEEKLY FIC ROUND-UP ✩

All the fics I’ve read and really enjoyed in the past week-ish. Reminder: This list features any and all ratings and themes. Please look at tags and warnings on ao3 before reading.

The Magnus Archives/ What We Do In the Shadows (Crossover)

gaslight gatekeep girlboss by thepolysyndetonaddictsupportgroup

"Look, believe it or not, I had no intention of killing the Vampiric Council when I came here,” declares Nadja, sitting alone on the couch. “But Guillermo and I arrived at the first council meeting and did the whole, you know, the whole thing, the first day thing. Introductions and all that, yes hello wonderful to meet you, yes this is my bodyguard, yes he has slaughtered a tremendous number of our kind”--she flaps her hand absently--“normal first day things, you know? It was fine.” She pauses. “It got really fucking weird on the second day."

Or: Nadja and Guillermo seize control of vampiric politics, puppeteer world powers, and have the hottest of hot girl summers.

Unfortunately, they also really miss the stupid assholes they're in love with. With no way left to find them, they have no choice but to consult an Archivist.

DC/Danny Phantom Crossover

Teenage Hero Burnout #56: Interview With A Ghost. by STOVE

Red Robin, (aka Tim Drake) decides to host a YouTube series called "Teenage Hero Burnout'' after he makes a video by the same name talking about his own experiences. He interviews current and past heroes who started their careers as teens and discuss how it shaped their outlook on heroing & life in general.

(This fic is a one-shot. Teenage Hero Burnout is a hypothetical series that I will not be writing, but others are welcome to write their own episodes.)

All For the Game

One More Time (With Feeling) by elesary

Andrew Minyard went to sleep next to Neil Josten in their bed in Denver six years after graduation. He woke up on plane to Tucson between Wymack and Kevin, on their way to recruit Neil Josten, striker sub.

boyfriend privileges by mostly_maudlin

Andrew knows he treats Neil different. So why is it so bothersome that everyone else seems to know it, too?

Five times Neil gets boyfriend privileges, and one time it doesn't piss Andrew off.

SVSSS

The Peace Between Divine Pec- ah-hm sorry - uh…Peaks by AceOfDivineChlorophyll

Well, being kidnapped and tied up had to be the worst part of Shen Qingqiu's day right? Surely it couldn't get worse even if he was being presented to some new and upcoming demonic warlord as tribute after all it would all be mote when Luo Binghe escaped the Endless Abyss right? Well... unless the demonic warlord in question WAS Luo Binghe.

Thankfully... it might not end up going at all how he, or the demons, thought it was going to.

invasive blindfold removal surgery by postcardorigami

Part 1 of side effects may include indefinite photosensitivity

Oh, he thought absently, dizzily. Oh. I love him. I really, really love him.

That wasn’t a new thought—Shen Qingqiu had always known that he loved Luo Binghe. Thinking otherwise wasn’t a concept that had occurred to him. He’d loved him as a fictional character, as a sticky and eager-to-please disciple, as a troubled young man. He loved Luo Binghe the same way he loved the world around him: easily, wordlessly, endlessly, and in full acceptance of all faults and flaws.

But this- this felt like-

I think, Shen Qingqiu thought, for the first time in this life or the one he’d left, I think I’m in love with him.

And- and then-

I want to tell him where I come from.

or Shen Qingqiu, in order: hits the ground, pulls himself back up, and comes out. About several things.

Dreaming of Gardens in the Desert Sand by TGP

Huan Hua Palace master Luo Binghe never thought there'd be any reason to worry about the master that threw him away all those years ago. Surely, he was safe and cared for by the martial siblings he'd so thoroughly enamored.

Luo Binghe was wrong.

(Or, the one where the Jinlan City event doesn't happen and Luo Binghe's plan to slowly show he can be a righteous cultivator actually goes as he expected, with consequences he did not)

starry-eyed by shoutowo

"Shi-Shizun,” Luo Binghe says, going cross-eyed in an effort to see what Shen Qingqiu just placed on his forehead. “What is this?”

“A star,” Shen Qingqiu explains, while not explaining at all.

or, Shen Qingqiu has a sticker sheet.

Clone Wars

(you were) meant to save them by cjwritesfanficnow

The building was only five stories. With the gravity on Melida/Daan, it should’ve been over in seconds... but he—

just—

kept—

falling—

And then there was nothing around him, but he was still falling, down down down, infinitely, through space, stretched thin, twisted and pulled and the Force curled so tightly around him that he couldn’t tell where he ended and it began, and then—

And then he was falling straight out of a clear sky and down down down—

Onto another battlefield.

-

In which Obi-Wan is abruptly transported from the civil war on Melida/Daan to the Clone Wars.

(Alternately, in which I noticed how few clones there are in all my other fics, and this wouldn't leave me alone.)

Tactical Engagements by elwenyere

Even before he managed to open his eyes, Obi-Wan felt the tug against the base of his neck, the snarled thread of energy that only ever meant one thing: something had gone very, very wrong.

-----

Or, Cody, Obi-Wan, and the 212th are sent to Ringo Vinda with Anakin and the 501st, and it changes the field of engagement.

[pestiferous-plywood]

"I failed. I'm not an Assassin. I ruined my life for nothing." - Jared Lee Loughner

Throughout Jared Lee Loughner's psychological evaluation, Loughner's former psychologist detailed his behavior amid his assessments as, "Logical, alert and oriented, organized and goal-directed thinking. "Competent when maintaining eye contact for long periods of time".

At one point during an interview with Loughner, Loughner accused Tucson shooting victim, Gabrielle Giffords' recovery as "fake". Days later, Loughner doubled down, accusing Giffords' appearance on his television as "Not the real Gabrielle Giffords". Loughner's psychologist combatted Loughner's inconsistencies littered throughout his accusations, resulting in a breakthrough. Loughner admitted, "I was fucking with you before. I just wanted to see what you would say." When questioned about this comment, he exclaimed "Well, she's dead to me." Loughner's subsequent disappointment regarding Gifford's recovery was neither subtle, nor virtuous. "I failed. I'm not an Assassin. I ruined my life for nothing."

Following this evaluation, Jared Lee Loughner was formally diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia.

(Jared Lee Loughner videotaping Pime Community College library. No relation, I just find this particular section of the video iconic.)

[oliverreedmasterass]

Roxanne - 4k words, Jake insists that everyone should participate in a new drinking game, bets are made, and things almost immediately descend into chaos

Heat Above - 4k words, the guys get up to some hijinks and hair trouble on the set of their Heat Above music video 

It’s Been - 3.8k words, Jake picks a pointless fight with Josh and it takes them one week to finally let it go (oddly enough, based on the Barenaked Ladies song, One Week) 

Argh - 3.5k words, Jake, Josh, and Sam are all little kids, indulging in a fun and dramatic game of imaginary pirates

Sunshine - 2k words, 12 year old Jake meets his famous Gibson SG guitar for the first time

It’s Giving - 4k words, my interpretation of what happened backstage before the guys took the stage in Tucson, slaying the house down with their stage makeup

Stage Fright (pt. 1) - 2.7k words, the guys have to work through some nerves before playing new music at the Sacramento DIG show

Stage Fright (pt. 2) - 3.5k words, the aftermath of the last show of the DIG tour, some angst, and a stressful trip to In N’ Out

They Say It’s Your Birthday - 4.4k words, Danny and Sam take the twins to a karaoke bar to celebrate their 27th birthday

Welcome to My Crib - 2.8k words, Greta Van Fleet gives a home tour for Architectural Digest 

Thirst Tweets - 2k words, Greta Van Fleet react to Thirst Tweets for Buzzfeed 

New York Runaway - 800 words, the GVF group chat is popping off when Sam disappears to New York without any explanation 

Sam Kiszka Sees God While Eating Spicy Wings - 7.9k words, Sam goes on Hot Ones and frankly kinda terrifies Sean Evans

GVF Masterclass Group Chat - 1.2k words, a look at the group chat between Oliver Reed, Cal A Bungah, Chip Bunker, and Dr. JMK

Booze Run - 3k words, the GVF guys come up with a game to make their booze run a bit more entertaining

The Greta Van Fleetles - 3.2k words, GVF go on America’s Got Talent, impersonating one of the most popular bands of all time

Addressing Your Questions and Concerns Pt. 2 - 7.6k words, Literally what the title says lol 

Clowning Around - 4.1k words, Oliver Reed is alive, he’s just stuck in a witness protection program because he accidentally stumbled across a ninja clown crime ring

Rising With the Demons Above - 5.2k words, Greta Van Fleet witness a demonic possession and, of course, end up making things like 20x worse

Ready for the Garden - 1.8k words, Jake reflects on his success, and how Greta Van Fleet finally played Madison Square Garden

Turkey Day - 4.3k words, Jake decides he wants to host Thanksgiving this year, and Josh is immediately skeptical that he's up to no good 

Prime Suspects - 8k words, The GVF guys find themselves caught in a heap of trouble. The problem is, they can't quite work out what they did.

Growth - 2.4k words, Danny will go to great lengths to ensure that he can grow facial hair

Nardwuar Vs. Greta Van Fleet - 2k words, The members of Greta Van Fleet agree to do an interview with the Human Napkin himself, Nardwuar, and find themselves ridiculously unprepared for his interview style.

Hexed - 27k words, Jake physically can’t stop singing and dancing and it seems that there must be some dark magic involved. Will the guys be able to get Jake back to normal before their show?

Summer of 69 - 39k words, Greta Van Fleet somehow manage to travel back in time to the Woodstock Art and Music festival

The Frozen Light - 48k words, In the quiet town of Frankenmuth, a string of missing persons cases opens a wider question about who is to blame, drawing a deep divide between the town and its hidden supernatural residents. 

Battle of the Bands - 29k words, A young Greta Van Fleet find hope in a local battle of the bands competition to finally catch their big break.

Episode 1 - 5k words, Josh struggles with writer’s block, Jake is certain he’s being haunted, and Sam and Danny are engaged in an intense prank war

Episode 2 - 6.7k words, The members of Greta Van Fleet deal with loss: Josh loses his beloved notebook (which Sam attempts to find) and Jake and Danny get hopelessly lost in the woods

Episode 3 - 5.9k words, After an incident involving Jake's amp, he's determined to win the cash to buy a replacement. Meanwhile, Josh and Danny choreograph a dance for a music video and Sam's clumsiness makes him see red. 

Episode 4 - 5.8k words, It's media day for the GVF guys! What could go wrong? (everything) Danny struggles to hold back the truth, Jake takes advice from a higher up, and Sam and Josh can't stop saying the wrong thing. 

The One Where They Play Monopoly - 1.5k words, On a slow day, GVF decides to play a friendly game of Monopoly that winds up being anything but that

Greta Van Fleet Go To A Haunted House - 4.7k words, GVF make their way to a haunted house for shits and giggles. 

[blasphemister]

Timothy Snyder Explains How Americans Might Adapt to Fascism Under Trump

By Jon SkolnikSeptember 17, 2024

Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks during a campaign event at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall on September 12, 2024 in Tucson, Arizona.by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

When most Americans think of fascism, they picture a Hitlerian hellscape of dramatic action: police raids, violent coups, mass executions. Indeed, such was the savagery of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and Vichy France. But what many people don’t appreciate about tyranny is its “banality,” Timothy Snyder tells me. “We don’t imagine how a regime change is going to be at the dinner table. The regime change is going to be on the sidewalk. It’s going to be in your whole life.”

Snyder, a Yale history professor and leading scholar of Soviet Russia, was patching into Zoom from a hotel room in Kyiv, where the specter of authoritarianism looms large as Ukraine remains steeped in a yearslong military siege by Vladimir Putin. It was late at night and he was still winding down from, and gearing up for, a packed schedule—from launching an institution dedicated to the documentation of the war, to fundraising for robotic-demining development, to organizing a conference for a new Ukrainian history project. “I’ve had kind of a long day and a long week, and if this were going to be my sartorial first appearance in Vanity Fair, I would really want it to go otherwise,” he joked.

But the rest of our conversation was no laughing matter. It largely centered, to little surprise, on Donald Trump and how the former president has put America on a glide path to fascism. Too many commentators were late to realize this. Snyder, however, has been sounding the alarm since the dawn of Trumpism itself, invoking the cautionary tales of fascist history in his 2017 book, On Tyranny, and in The Road to Unfreedom the year after. It’s been six years since the latter, and Snyder is now out with a new book, On Freedom, a personal and philosophical attempt to flip the valence of America’s most lauded—and loaded—word. “We Americans tend to think that freedom is a matter of things being cleared away, and that capitalism does that work for us. It is a trap to believe in this,” he writes. “Freedom is not an absence but a presence, a life in which we choose multiple commitments and realize combinations of them in the world.”

In an interview with Vanity Fair, which has been edited for length and clarity, Snyder unpacks America’s “strongman fantasy,” encourages Democrats to reclaim the concept of freedom, and critiques journalists for pushing a “war fatigue” narrative about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “There’s just something so odd about Americans being tired of this war. We can get bored of it or whatever, but how can we be tired?” he asks. “We’re not doing a damn thing.”

Vanity Fair: The things we associate with freedom—free speech, religious liberty—have been co-opted by the Republican Party. Do you think you could walk me through how that happened historically and how Democrats could take that word back?

Timothy Snyder: Yeah. I think the way it happened historically is actually quite dark there. There’s an innocent way of talking about this, which is to say, “Oh, some people believe in negative freedom and some people believe in positive freedom—and negative freedom just means less government and positive freedom means more government.” And when you say it like that, it just sounds like a question of taste. And who knows who’s right?

Whereas historically speaking, to answer your question, the reason why people believe in negative freedom is that they’re enslaving other people, or they are oppressing women, or both. The reason why you say freedom is just keeping the government off my back is that the central government is the only force that’s ever going to enfranchise those slaves. It’s the only force which is ever going to give votes to those women. And so that’s where negative freedom comes from. I’m not saying that everybody who believes in negative freedom now owns slaves or oppresses women, but that’s the tradition. That’s the reason why you would think freedom is negative, which on its face is a totally implausible idea. I mean, the notion that you can just be free because there’s no government makes no sense, unless you’re a heavily drugged anarchist.

And so, as the Republican Party has also become the party of race in our country, it’s become the party of small government. Unfortunately, this idea of freedom then goes along for the ride, because freedom becomes freedom from government. And then the next step is freedom becomes freedom for the market. That seems like a small step, but it’s a huge step because if we believe in free markets, that means that we actually have duties to the market. And Americans have by and large accepted that, even pretty far into the center or into the left. If you say that term, “free market,” Americans pretty generally won’t stop you and say, “Oh, there’s something problematic about that.” But there really is: If the market is free, that means that you have a duty to the market, and the duty is to make sure the government doesn’t intervene in it. And once you make that step, you suddenly find yourself willing to accept that, well, everybody of course has a right to advertise, and I don’t have a right to be free of it. Or freedom of speech isn’t really for me; freedom of speech is for the internet.

And that’s, to a large measure, the world we live in.

You have a quote in the book about this that distills it well: “The countries where people tend to think of freedom as freedom to are doing better by our own measures,which tend to focus on freedom from.”

Yeah, thanks for pulling that out. Even I was a little bit struck by that one. Because if you’re American and you talk about freedom all the time and you also spend all your time judging other countries on freedom, and you decide what the measures are, then you should be close to the top of the list—but you’re not. And then you ask, “Why is that?” When you look at countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, or Ireland—that are way ahead of us—they’re having a different conversation about freedom. They don’t seem to talk about freedom as much as we do, but then when they do, they talk about it in terms of enabling people to do things.

And then you realize that an enabled population, a population that has health care and retirement and reliable schools, may be better at defending things like the right to vote and the right to freedom of religion and the right to freedom of speech—the things that we think are essential to freedom. And then you realize, Oh, wait, there can be a positiveloop between freedom to and freedom from. And this is the big thing that Americans get a hundred percent wrong. We think there’s a tragic choice between freedom from and freedom to—that you’ve got to choose between negative freedom and positive freedom. And that’s entirely wrong.

What do you make of Kamala Harris’s attempt to redeem the word?

It makes me happy if it’s at the center of a political discussion. And by the way, going back to your first question, it’s interesting how the American right has actually retreated from freedom. It has been central for them for half a century, but they are now actually retreating from it, and they’ve left the ground open for the Democrats. So, politically, I’m glad they’re seizing it—not just because I want them to win, but also because I think on the center left or wherever she is, there’s more of a chance for the word to take on a fuller meaning. Because so long as the Republicans can control the word, it’s always going to mean negative freedom.

I can’t judge the politics that well, but I think it’s philosophically correct and I think we end up being truer to ourselves. Because my big underlying concern as an American is that we have this word which we’ve boxed into a corner and then beaten the pulp out of, and it really doesn’t mean anything anymore. And yet it’s the only imaginable central concept I can think of for American political theory or American political life.

Yeah, it’s conducive to the joy-and-optimism approach that the Democrats are taking to the campaign. Freedom to is about enfranchisement; it’s about empowerment; it’s about mobility.

Totally. Can I jump in there with another thought?

Of course.

I think JD Vance is the logical extension of where freedom as freedom from gets you. Because one of the things you say when freedom is negative—when it’s just freedom from—is that the government is bad, right? You say the government is bad because it’s suppressive. But then you also say government is bad because it can’t do anything. It’s incompetent and it’s dysfunctional. And it’s a small step from there to a JD Vance–type figure who is a doomer, right? He’s a doomer about everything. His politics is a politics of impotence. His whole idea is that government will fail at everything—that there’s no point using government, and in fact, life is just sort of terrible in general. And the only way to lead in life is to kind of be snarky about other people. That’s the whole JD Vance political philosophy. It’s like, “I’m impotent. You’re impotent. We’re all impotent. And therefore let’s be angry.”

Did you watch the debate?

No, I’m afraid I didn’t. I’m in the wrong time zone.

There was a moment that struck me, and I think it would strike you too: Donald Trump openly praised Viktor Orbán, as he has done repeatedly in the past. But he said, explicitly, Orbán is a good guy because he’s a “strongman,” which is a word that he clearly takes to be a compliment, not derogatory. You’ve written about the strongman fantasy in your Substack, so I’m curious: What do you think Trump is appealing to here?

Well, I’m going to answer it in a slightly different way, and then I’ll go back to the way you mean it. I think he’s tapping into one of his own inner fantasies. I think he looks around the world and he sees that there’s a person like Orbán, who’s taken a constitutional system and climbed out of it and has managed to go from being a normal prime minister to essentially being an extraconstitutional figure. And I think that’s what Trump wants for himself. And then, of course, the next step is a Putin-type figure, where he’s now an unquestioned dictator.

For the rest of us, I think he’s tapping—in a minor key—into inexperience, and that was my strongman piece that you kindly mentioned. Americans don’t really think through what it would mean to have a government without the rule of law and the possibility of throwing the bums out. I think we just haven’t thought that through in all of its banality: the neighbors denouncing you, your kids not having social mobility because you maybe did something wrong, having to be afraid all the damn time. African Americans and some immigrants have a sense of this, but in general, Americans don’t get that. They don’t get what that would be like.

So that’s a minor key. The major key, though, is the 20% or so of Americans who really, I think, authentically do want an authoritarian regime, because they would prefer to identify personally with a leader figure and feel good about it rather than enjoy freedom.

You mentioned the word banality, which makes me think of Hannah Arendt’s theory of the “banality of evil.” What would the banality of authoritarianism look like in America?

So let me first talk about the nonbanality of evil, because our version of evil is something like, and I don’t want to be too mean, but it’s something like this: A giant monster rises out of the ocean and then we get it with our F-16s or F-35s or whatever. That’s our version of evil. It’s corporeal, it’s obviously bad, and it can be defeated by dramatic acts of violence.

And we apply that to figures like Hitler or Stalin, and we think, Okay, what happened with Hitler was that he was suddenly defeated by a war. Of course he was defeated by a war, but he did some dramatic and violent things to come to power, but his coming to power also involved a million banalities. It involved a million assimilations, a million changes of what we think of as normal. And it’s our ability to make things normal and abnormal which is so terrifying. It’s like an animal instinct on our part: We can tell what the power wants us to do, and if we don’t think about it, we then do it. In authoritarian conditions, this means that we realize, Oh, the law doesn’t really apply anymore. That means my neighbor could have denounced me for anything, and so I better denounce my neighbor first. And before you know it, you’re in a completely different society, and the banality here is that instead of just walking down the street thinking about your own stuff, you’re thinking, Wait a minute, which of my neighbors is going to denounce me?

Americans think all the time about getting their kids into the right school. What happens in an authoritarian country is that all of that access to social mobility becomes determined by obedience. And as a parent, suddenly you realize you have to be publicly loyal all the time, because one little black mark against you ruins your child’s future. And that’s the banality right there. In Russia, everybody lives like that, because any little thing you do wrong, and your kid has no chance. They get thrown out of school; they can’t go to university.

We don’t imagine how a regime change is going to be at the dinner table. The regime change is going to be on the sidewalk. It’s going to be in your whole life. It’s not going to be some external thing. It’s not like this strongman is just going to be some bad person in the White House, and then eventually the good guys will come and knock him out. When the regime changes, you change and you adapt, and you look around as everyone else is adapting and you realize, Well, everyone else adapting is a new reality for me, and I’m probably going to have to adapt too. Trump wants to be a strongman. He’s already tried a ​​ coup d’état. He makes it clear that he wants to be a different regime. And so if you vote him in, you’re basically saying, “Okay, strongman, tell me how to adapt.”

Yeah, we could talk about Project 2025 all day. This new effort to bureaucratize tyranny—which was not in place in 2020—could really make the banal aspect a reality because it’s enforced by the administrative state, which is going to be felt by Americans at a quotidian level.

I agree with what you say. If I were in business, I would be terrified of Project 2025 because what it’s going to lead to is favoritism. You’re never going to get approvals for your stuff unless you’re politically close to administration. It’s going to push us toward a more Hungary-like situation, where the president’s pals’ or Jared Kushner’s pals’ companies are going to do fine. But everybody else is going to have to pay bribes. Everyone else is going to have to make friends.

It’s anticompetitive.

Yeah, it’s going to generate a very, very uneven playing field where certain people are going to be favored and become oligarchs. And most of the rest of us are going to have a hard time. Also, the 40,000 [loyalists Trump wants to replace the administrative state with] are going to be completely incompetent. When people stop getting their Social Security checks, they’re going to realize that the federal government—which they’ve been told is so dysfunctional—actually did do some things. It’s going to be chaos. The only way to get anything done is to have a phone number where you can call somebody at someplace in the government and say, “Make my thing a priority.” The chaos of the administration state feeds into the strongman thing. And since that’s true, the strongman view starts to become natural for you because it’s the only way to get anything done.

You’ve studied Russian information warfare pretty extensively. A few weeks ago the Justice Department indicted two employees of the Russian state media outlet RT for their role in surreptitiously funding a right-wing US media outfit as part of a foreign-influence-peddling scheme, which saw them pull the wool over a bunch of right-wing media personalities. Do you think this type of thing is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Russian information warfare?

Of course. It’s the tip of the iceberg, and I want to refer back to 2016. It was much bigger in 2016 than we recognized at the time. The things that the Obama administration was concerned with—like the actual penetration of state voting systems and stuff—that was really just nothing compared to all of the internet stuff they had going. And we basically caught zilcho of that before the election itself. And I think the federal government is more aware of it this time, but also the Russians are doing different things this time, no doubt.

I’m afraid what I think is that there are probably an awful lot of people who are doing this—including people who are much more important in the media than those guys—and that there’s just no way we’re going to catch very many of them before November. That’s my gut feeling.

While we’re on Russia, I do want to talk about Ukraine, especially since you’re there right now. I think one of the most unfortunate aspects of [the media’s coverage of] foreign wars—the Ukraine war and also the Israel-Hamas war—is just the way they inevitably fade into the background of the American news cycle, especially if no American boots are on the ground. I’m curious if this dynamic frustrates you as a historian.

Oh, a couple points there. One is, I’m going to point out slightly mean-spiritedly that the stories about war fatigue in Ukraine began in March 2022. As a historian, I am a little bit upset at journalists. I don’t mean the good ones. I don’t mean the guys I just saw who just came back from the front. [I mean] the people who are sitting in DC or New York or wherever, who immediately ginned up this notion of war fatigue and kept asking everybody from the beginning, “When are you going to get tired of this war?” We turned war fatigue into a topos almost instantaneously. And I found that really irresponsible because you’re affecting the discourse. But also, I feel like there was a kind of inbuilt laziness into it. If war fatigue sets in right away, then you have an excuse never to go to the country, and you have an excuse never to figure out what’s going on, and you have an excuse never to figure out why it’s important.

So I was really upset by that, and also because there’s just something so odd about Americans being tired of this war. We can get bored of it or whatever, but how can we be tired? We’re not doing a damn thing. We’re doing nothing. I mean, there’s some great individual Americans who are volunteering and giving supplies and stuff, but as a country, we’re not doing a damn thing. I mean, a tiny percentage of our defense budget—which would be going to other stuff anyway—insead goes to Ukraine.

And by the way, Ukrainians understand that Americans have other things to think about. I was not very far from the front three days ago talking to soldiers, and their basic attitude about the election and us was, like, “Yeah, you got your own things to think about. We understand. It’s not your war.” But as a historian, the thing which troubles me is pace, because with time, all kinds of resources wear down. And the most painful is the Ukrainian human resource. That’s probably a terribly euphemistic word, but people die and people get wounded and people get traumatized. Your own side runs out of stuff.

We were played by the Russians, psychologically, about the way wars are fought. And that stretched out the war. That’s the thing which bothers me most. You win wars with pace and you win wars with surprise. You don’t win wars by allowing the other side to dictate what the rules are and stretching everything out, which is basically what’s happened. And with that has come a certain amount of American distraction and changing the subject and impatience. I think journalists have made a mistake by making it into a kind of consumer thing where they’re sort of instructing the public that it’s okay to be bored or fatigued. And then I think the Biden administration made a mistake by not doing things at pace and allowing every decision to take weeks and months and so on.

What do you think another Trump presidency would mean for the war and for America’s commitment to Ukraine?

I think Trump switches sides and puts American power on the Russian side, effectively. I think Trump cuts off. He’s a bad dealmaker—that’s the problem. I mean, he’s a good entertainer. He’s very talented; he’s very charismatic. In his way, he’s very intelligent, but he’s not a good dealmaker. And a) ending wars is not a deal the way that buying a building is a deal, and b) even if it were, he’s consistently made bad deals his whole career and lost out and gone bankrupt.

So you can’t really trust him with something like this, even if his intentions were good—and I don’t think his intentions are good. Going back to the strongman thing, I think he believes that it’s right and good that the strong defeat and dominate the weak. And I think in his instinctual view of the world, Putin is pretty much the paradigmatic strongman—the one that he admires the most. And because he thinks Putin is strong, Putin will win. The sad irony of all this is that we are so much stronger than Russia. And in my view, the only way Russia can really win is if we flip or if we do nothing. So, because Trump himself is so psychologically weak and wants to look up to another strongman, I think he’s going to flip. But even if I’m wrong about that, I think he’s incompetent to deal with a situation like this. Because he wants the quick affirmation of a deal. And if the other side knows you’re in a hurry, then you’ve already lost from the beginning.

From Vanity Fair

[beardedmrbean]

Former Spokane NAACP President Nkechi Diallo — better known as Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who identified as Black — has been fired from a teaching gig in Arizona.

Dolezal, 46, was employed as an after-school instructor with the Catalina Foothills School District in Tucson, but lost her job at Sunrise Drive Elementary after local news station KVOA revealed she had posted explicit content to an OnlyFans page.

"We only learned of Ms. Nkechi Diallo's Only Fans social media posts yesterday afternoon. Her posts are contrary to our district's ‘Use of Social Media by District Employees’ policy (attached) and our staff ethics policy. She is no longer employed by the Catalina Foothills School District," Julie Farbarik, the district's director of alumni & community relations, told KVOA on Wednesday.

Dolezal made national headlines in 2015 after her claims of being an African-American were debunked by her own parents, who said she had Czech, German and Swedish ancestry. She resigned as head of her local NAACP chapter in Spokane, Wash., amid the controversy and was dismissed from her position as an instructor for Africana studies at Eastern Washington University.

‘TRANSRACIAL’ RACHEL DOLEZAL WHINES THAT SHE CAN'T GET A JOB

She was also ousted from Spokane's volunteer police ombudsman commission amid allegations that she acted improperly and violated government rules, the Guardian reported.

In 2019, Dolezal reached a settlement with the state of Washington, which had accused her of welfare fraud. She was required to pay restitution and complete 120 hours of community service.

Dolezal was still claiming to be Black as recently as 2021 when she told the "Tamron Hall" show in an interview that she had been unable to secure a job. She said she's "always identified racially as human" but she's found "more of a home in Black culture and the Black community." 

"I’m still the same person I was in May of 2015, I’m still doing the work, I’m still pressing forward, but it has been really tough for sure," she said at the time.

She launched her OnlyFans page later that year, offering content including "Monday Motivation = Gym/Fitness/Squats N Other Stuff" followed by "Wednesday WorkDay = Hair-chair Conversations with my clients + HairTutorials" and "Friday Unwind: I bring the Art, you bring the wine/drinks. Watch me create & discuss my art," the New York Post reported.

But in the years since, Dolezal has posted explicit content on her OnlyFans page, which KVOA reported was shared on public websites. 

NKECHI DIALLO, AKA RACHEL DOLEZAL, REACHES SETTLEMENT IN WELFARE FRAUD CASE

Sunrise Drive Elementary Principal Julie Farbarik emailed parents Wednesday confirming that Dolezal is no longer employed by the school, KVOA reported.

"Yesterday afternoon, we received information that a Sunrise Drive employee had an Only Fans account, which had content that was contrary to our district's staff social media use and ethics policies. That person is no longer employed by the Catalina Foothills School District," the email stated.

"We are committed to maintaining a learning environment where our presence on social media is consistent with our professional obligations."

The Catalina Foothills School District did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[mudwerks]

(via Tim Steller's column: History helps explain Border Patrol killing of O'odham man)

Raymond Mattia’s family says that he called the authorities for help that night because of border-crossers on his property. The village, also known by its O’odham name, Ali Chuk, is less than a mile from the U.S.-Mexico line and about 140 miles, or a 2 1/2 hour drive, southwest of Tucson.

“Raymond called for help and, in turn, was shot down on his doorstep,” his family said in a statement.

In an interview with The Arizona Republic, Annette Mattia, Raymond’s sister and neighbor, said she was on the phone with him just before the shooting occurred.

She reported that he calmly told her when agents arrived, “‘OK, I’ll go talk to them,’ and then two seconds later, that’s when I heard all the gunfire.”

Border Patrol officials and the union representing agents offered a completely different version. They said agents were only there because they were assisting a Tohono O’odham police officer responding to a call about shots fired during a possible domestic violence incident.

The account by the agents’ union says that Mattia threw a machete at the officers that landed a few feet away. That, though, is not what prompted the agents to fire. The agency said they fired moments later when Mattia suddenly extended his arm toward them.

Completely different accounts from each side...I’m not inclined to believe the Border Patrol and their union, they have no credibility.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

THIS WEEKEND (November 8-10), I'm in TUCSON, AZ: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

#15yrsago Hypothetical peek into the feverish mind of Rupert Murdoch https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/nov/10/rupert-murdoch-charging-for-internet

#10yrsago Obama tells the FCC to class the Internet (including mobile!) as a “utility” https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/11/obama-urges-fcc-to-regulate-broadband-as-a-utility/

#10yrsago Pirate Bay and Flattr founder Peter “brokep” Sunde released from prison https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bays-peter-sunde-released-prison-141011/

#10yrsago City Attorneys train local cops to use “wish lists” for civil forfeiture https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/us/police-use-department-wish-list-when-deciding-which-assets-to-seize.html

#10yrsago Mammoth, previously unpublished interview with Iain Banks about The Culture http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/a-few-questions-about-the-culture-an-interview-with-iain-banks/

#5yrsago Amazon spent a fortune to block a socialist candidate’s re-election to Seattle city council; she won anyway https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/09/seattle-amazon-kshama-sawant-socialist-elections

#5yrsago “OK Boomer” comes to the NZ Parliament and makes all the right people angry https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2019/nov/09/my-ok-boomer-comment-in-parliament-symbolised-exhaustion-of-multiple-generations

#1yrago Big Telco's fury over FCC plan to infuse telecoms policy with facts https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/10/digital-redlining/#stop-confusing-the-issue-with-relevant-facts

[yeehanfrf]

Week 3 Recs: Right on Time

This week's Yeehan recs were all modern/contemporary AUs. Those fics set in our world and time (or roughly thereabouts) that still include the OTP. Check out the recs gathered from the Yeehan community below, organized by rating then alphabetically by title.

Not Rated

Rootbound by wyntera [WIP; 67,484 words] Reccer comment: "Flower shop au bc yes"

Every plant is unique. They need love and care in the right environment to grow. Give them what they need, and they will flourish.

McCree and Hanzo are a lot like plants. Big, stubborn, root bound plants.

General Audiences

Conflict of Interest by orphan_account [28,222 words] Reccer comment: "Superhero au with a Lois Lane type beat"

“You know, I’ve been wanting to get an interview with you,” Jesse says as Hanzo happens upon another malfunctioning elevator shaft. How is it at all likely that more than one elevator is out of service? When Hanzo levels Jesse with a hard glare, the man keeps talking.   “I’m a reporter.”

Or, the one where Hazno and Genji fight crime, Jesse is a cigar-smoking Lois Lane, and everyone else wonders why they’ve been trapped in a bad comic book.

Teen and Up

Climbing the Walls by robocryptid [22,669 words] Reccer comment: "a social-distancing yeehan fic"

Hanzo and Cole are neighbors who have never met until social distancing forces them to stay in their homes. Neither can see the other's face, but that doesn't stop them from getting to know each other.

Da Capo al Signo by midgetnazgul & temporalSilence [75,482 words] Reccer comment: "an incredibly moving fic featuring musician Hanzo and rancher Cassidy falling in loooove"

In music, da capo al signo tells the performer to start over until they see the sign to move on. Life has its movements, too. Even when we must begin again, signs will appear to remind us that just because we feel we are repeating ourselves, we will not necessarily end in the same terrible place we were before.

It's 2018 and Jesse and Hanzo are both living in Tucson, AZ on second chances. Hanzo is on the cusp of recognition as a musician after his life in Japan is run aground by a devastating accident, and Jesse has chiseled out a life of purpose and achievement after a rough childhood. Together, they will come to understand how misfortune and loneliness can end, giving gifts they would never have found any other way.

Flowers for Assholes by HappyLeech [10,552 words]

Hanzo just wants to close up shop for the night. Jesse just wants to tell his boss where to stick it and quit his job.

Of the Pickle Persuasion by Byacolate and mywordsflyup [14,813 words] Reccer comment: "My favorite food truck au"

Hanzo is convinced that his bento wagon is locked in a corporate deathmatch with the taco truck down the street. Genji just wants to flirt with the produce vendor.

Searching for Game... by AsheRhyder [10,792 words] Reccer comment: "Cute, cute, cute, with fun meta jokes about the game, characters, and community."

Genji wants Cassidy to play the new game he helped develop: Overwatch.

Cassidy just wants his hot upstairs neighbor to stop throwing food at him every time he says "hello".

Shimada Dreams of Sushi by delicaterosebud [24,344 words] Reccer comment: "It's silly, but has the right amount of drama, angst and extremely uncomfortable situations."

As the owner of a mediocre taco shack with tanking reviews and multiple health violations, the last thing that Jesse McCree needs is competition - competition, specifically, from a sushi bar so popular that it drove every other restaurant in the neighborhood out of business.

From the very day that Shimada sushi opened its doors, Jesse had hated that restaurant with a burning passion. ...So how does he end up working for the man who runs it?

To the Great Deep He Goes by westerncibee [53,288 words] Reccer comment: "its been a hot second since ive read this but i remember enjoying this one"

Hanzo accompanies Genji to their new college, and of course Genji would want to room with his friend--leaving Hanzo to deal with a god-forsaken cowboy whose only goal that year was to be Hanzo's friend. And as the cowboy said, "You're stuck with me for the rest of the year." - and a lot can happen in a year.

Mature

The Cooking Cowboy by SadakoTetsuwan [WIP; 79,662 words]

It had started simple—he just needed a good recipe for matcha cake to surprise Genji on his birthday, and so he’d started clicking around for tutorials on YouTube.

But now Hanzo is in deep, and is officially part of ‘The Chuckwagon’; the mostly middle-aged, mostly female fan following of YouTube cooking sensation Jesse McCree, the Cooking Cowboy.

How had his life come to this?

Explicit

School Nights by rebeccastceir [WIP; 45,484 words] Reccer comment: "School teacher au and romance~"

Jesse got so flustered he forgot what he was doing and stuck his hand out. “Jesse. McCree. Jesse McCree. I’m -”

“Hana’s teacher, of course,” Hanzo smiled at him, shaking hands, holding on for a split second longer than necessary. He held his head cocked down, almost shy, but kept looking up from under his long lashes, pretty lips teasing in a grin, and ohhh, Jesse was in so much trouble he ached with it.

“Sorry. You knew that,” Jesse mumbled. Was he red? He felt like he was flaming red. __________

It's the fluffiest, smuttiest, romcom-iest, parent-teacher au we all need and deserve

Shear Bliss by wyntera [12,725 words] Reccer comment: "I think about the way Hanzo's hair is described in this fic all the time"

Sometimes you can't help falling for a handsome face...even if they are holding very sharp objects near your head.

And that's a wrap on Week 3! Thank you to everyone who sent in a recommendation! Keep an eye out for next week's theme: "The Rivalmance," or fics all about the rivals to lovers, enemies to lovers, competitive assholes to lovers of it all.

In the meantime, you can also check out the Week 2 recs here or see the list of past and future themes here!

[titleknown]

KAIJUNE NEO: LUMPY GRAVY

I saw it through the sewer grate. It ate them, head-first. Like a gingerbread man.

It didn't see me, I don't even think it knew it was eating them. It was just... they were there, they were there and it was hungry. It smelled like rotten meat. But that wasn't the worst part.

The worst part was, I could hear laughing. I could hear it in my head. I could hear it in their voices.

-Alan Smith of New York, New York

[Note: The interview subject is smoking a large cigar the whole time. Indoors. In a room with minimal ventilation in the summer. I hate him already.]

My concrete factory... just fucking gone. In an instant. Didn't even get indigestion...

...You know, this wouldn't have happened if you listened to the Prophet. Like, I know it's not "PC" to say that , but PC is why this country is in the shit. People want more, except the truth, that's why things like that're runnin' about.

That Lumpy Gravy shit's just another lazy slacker who wanted more, that's why our troops can't get him, they let the sissies let everyone down. But the prophet's gonna take 'em, he's goinna kill two birds with one stone, it's not clean, but sometimes you work with what you have. "When all you have is a hammer," amirite?

God, at least it got rid of the scum, like the homeless outside. Shame it didn't get that skitzo boy of mine, he keeps saying he's a girl, but I suppose that's not PC to-

[The interview ends abruptly as I get up to punch him in the face.]

--J.A. Henderson of Mortoral, Florida, who should be shot.

Look, I'm just a musician, I don't know what to tell you.

Yeah, I know most of y'all think I'm crazy for making a pilgrimage to this dude for music, but I mean, it worked, didn't it?

Nobody got hurt, me and the band got out a number one album, first doom metal album on the top of the charts in years, I got a million more ideas, and...

Sorry, I got that schpiel for every media-type who comes in here. But you don't seem like the judging type. So it seems like you want something else, right?

Oh. Oh you want to know about that , the song I heard. Well, trade secret bro...

...nah, just joshin' ya, free culture and all. Well it was... a nightmare. Like, I don't regret going there, but I ain't gonna see it twice.

It's like, imagine the sound of pain, a million snuff films in your head clear as day without image or without words. A lot of it was devouring, consumption, digestion, memory as I heard it; but there was some other stuff.

It was like, experiments, reformatting, failure, revenge, something about a demiurge I think? Dunno what that's about. But, hey dude, you're a good reporter, you can figure it out.

-Jolene Gross of Tucson; Arizona, note to see her live one of these days.

Well, the government never helped us, but then again we expected that. Shame the farm's gone. Heh, funny how stockpiling all the guns in the world never helped, like cannonballs in a hurricane. The MREs helped a bit, tho they were almost gone when the thing left.

Farm's gone, I don't know where we're going to go. Doesn't help I took in some of the kids run away from other monsters, or The Prophet. Yeesh, that guy.

But, you always gotta help in a time like this, I don't regret it. Tho it's a mite harrowing finding where we can get some, given all the neighbors I'd ask are facing the same problem, but we'll get by.

I don't have much to give except my testimony, and that ain't much either. I saw it, I heard it, it was the worst thing I've seen. But it reminded me a lot of the second-worst too.

At the pig farms, big operation near town, there was this "lagoon." Not much of a swimmin' lagoon unless you got a death wish. It's where they kept all the pig shit from that hell operation, and worse. They said the stillbirths went in there too. What a way to start, and what a way to go.

Place could necrotize your skin in an instant, most of the people workin there were sick and some degree of half-dead, a few quarter-dead if they were lucky. Sometimes you couldn't see the sun from that sheer fog.

There's that ol story in the bible, where Jesus cast out those demons into that herd of pigs. Cast 'em into that sea. Trouble is, the sea's still there, and if you cast demons into it, it don't go away.

And when it waded into that shit lagoon from underground, rising like the shit of king mountain, when I heard those voices, I thought, it's him. It's Legion. He's back.

Well, before I ran, of course...

-Jim Daniels, of Horsemouth, Iowa, his paypal information is linked at the end of the article

Sometimes, I still hear her voice. It's following me. I think it's following me. I hear her voice and it's screaming in pain but I still hear it it is hers.

I know it's a trick i know it wants me to hear it but shes still in there i can hear her i can know her it just has to eat me it just wants to eat me i dont want to be eaten i want to live but to live without her is to die and to die with her is to live it hurts i can hear her i can hear her i can hear her

-Ray Morris, who ran out of the office after sobbing for several minutes

Like, I know, I know it's horrible, it's an atrocity, but like, business has been great for me so far.

Do you know how much money there is in arranging death pacts? Tontines? Insurance schemes because they won't insure an act of God? This mountain of human suffering is a goldmine, like an actual goldmine without the imperialism!

Look, I'm just providing a service to people who need it, there's no foul play. Well, except for that one guy. But he had it coming, if you were there you'd know.

-Caroline Nacross, allegedly of Brass Ring; North Dakota, though the ID was confirmed fake later

Look, okay, just forget my name, forget my face, but tell my story. This was a fuckup of the highest order. The Brightside project, it almost got results. More the results of what that bastard scientist wanted than what we wanted, but those two were closer than we wanted to admit.

But when that kid broke in, and good on him for doing so, it wasn't just Brightside that got out. We tested on a lot of bodies y'see. I can't call 'em people anymore because... well, I couldn't live with myself if I did. They didn't even look much like people anymore after what he did to 'em.

We didn't sterilize 'em or burn leftovers, we just kept 'em for "future experimentation." I don't think most of the other folks there wanted that, but whatever the boss says goes.

I think he wanted this, if he couldn't pull it off. I think if he couldn't make god, then making the locusts and plagues was good enough, in an interim.

Or, maybe it's worse. He doesn't want a devil to kill us. He wants a Leviathan. A beast of his principles of rule, human minds supplanted E Pluribus Unum, and soon, those other... monsters? Gods? I am unsure of the difference anymore

That bastard has plans upon plans, you gotta watch out for. Because I don't wanna watch anymore. Goodbye.

-[ANONYMOUS] who promptly after finishing Budd Dwyer-ed himself in the interview room. It was hell to get the brains off the wall.

WE ARE HERE. WE ARE ALIVE. WE ARE THE DEAD. WE HATE YOU. WE LOVE YOU. WE ARE HERE.

DO NOT PANIC. IT IS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD. PANIC. IT IS THE BEGINNING OF A NEW NIGHTMARE. WE ARE HERE.

WE ARE WE. WE ARE ONE. WE ARE THE OTHERS. WE ARE REBORN. WE ARE STILLBORN. YOUR DEATH WILL NOT BE IN VEIN. YOUR DEATH WILL BE IN PAIN.

THE OLD WORLD IS DYING. THE NEW WORLD IS WAITING TO BE REBORN. NOW IS THE TIME OF GODS. NOW IS THE TIME OF MONSTERS.

-Unknown individual, who promptly melted into a steaming puddle in the office. I dried the sludge and attempted to smoke it. Bad trip. Do not recommend. Saved some for later.

[INTERVIEWS CONDUCTED BY: D.W. DEVLIN]

-----------------------------

So, the finale of Kaijune comes to a close! Song name was based on "Theme from Lumpy Gravy" from Frank Zappa, and boy was this guy a nightmare to make.

Like, he was just a blob of foam with tentacles, but then the tentacles became a nightmare to make, and then melting globs of hot glue without a hot glue gun to give him a blobbier texture, then all the epoxy putty and epoxy paste, all the painting, and lugging him around...

Like, he's part of why this didn't debut in August, he was a late addition, and one I slightly regret.

Tho, I will add as a bit of bonus trivia, the inspiration for The Prophet was actually someone I know in another server talking about how various fundie-types who call themselves "prophets" on Youtube have ended up pumping a ridiculous variety of conspiracy theories into his mom's head.

For an idea of how bonkers those are, one of them was about how the increased presence of mermaids and "sea people" in media was a sign of demonic influence because demons apparently live in the deep sea.

So, I got the idea of coming up with somebody who took that to the next level and used that to amass power in times of even greater crisis than our own. hence, that fucker.

Who I do have plans for next year's Kaijune about, yes siree...

Ability Trivia: Along with all the powers of being an amorphous blob (Albeit, they can only fully squeeze themself through holes his giant skull-like "core" can fit through") they have the demonstrated power to send psychic signals to not just people in a way that drives them mad, but even disrupts communications. So nobody can hear you call for help.

They also, as you've seen assimilate the consciousnesses of those they devour, and can make what passes as "plans" as a consensus of the maddened, pained minds within. And, along with being able to electrify their amorphous surface, they can also use their body as a low-level railgun with all the derbris they inevitably swallow in the course of their rampages

And, then of course there's the matter of the "separants"...

Bonus Trivia: Most kaiju hate him and attack him on sight. Not that he minds. They'll all come to him eventually. Or they won't. Either way doesn't matter, as long as there's a head at the top of the Leviathan...

...And, in that grand (exceedingly late) Kaijune tradition, this character and all related narrative elements are under a CC-BY 4.0 license, as long as I, Thomas F Johnson, am credited as their creator.

Have fun, and see you next year!