shqhu

[espurr-roba]

POV now your friends are REALLY squaring tf up

[wildemaven]

first anniversary | dieter x poppy

A Sweet Creature

Ava Greene sits down with actor and friend, Dieter Bravo. Hollywood’s new leading man gets candid about life in front of and behind the camera. He talks about his latest movie, his commitment to his sobriety and his newest role— husband?!

Ava Greene: You're approaching three years sober now, how are you feeling?

Dieter Bravo: Probably the best I’ve felt in a long time. Sobriety is a day to day progression that I take very seriously, and I try to not lose sight of that even when I’m having bad days. Though, I’m grateful bad days have been few and far between at this point in my sobriety. I can attribute that to the support system I have built for myself through friends, family, my sponsor that I still work with and most importantly my wife who keeps me grounded daily. They all continue to keep me in check and remind me how awesome my life is, especially right now. Staying clean is a full time commitment, and it’s really a beautiful thing.

AG: You followed in your famous parents footsteps by going into acting and your career and struggles with sobriety have been well documented but your parents have rarely commented publicly, are they supportive of your work and your journey?

DB: For me, I don’t need them to make a show of it by commenting or sharing their thoughts publicly to know they support me. There was a point in time where they did all they could do for me, but ultimately it had to be my choice to make the decision to get clean. Thankfully, we’ve been rebuilding our relationship over the last few years. And being in the public eye for most of our lives, the last thing we want is for outsiders thinking they have a say in our lives. In short, yes I have very supportive parents in all aspects of my life and I’m so happy for that.

AG: This is your second project since rehab, are you viewing this as a comeback or a fresh start?

DB: Comeback? I didn’t know I left… Kidding! Sure, some might say it’s a comeback. A fresh start. Whatever analogy best fits the narrative is fine by me— and I don’t mean that negatively in any sense. I mean, you’ve known me long enough to know I just try not to focus on any of that stuff, messes with my fucking brain waves. I just see it as me doing what I love with a new perspective and a different approach to choosing what projects I’m going to give my time to than I have in the past.

AG: What can you tell us about this project and the character you're playing?

DB: I had the best f*ckin’ time while shooting this film— sorry, but the emphasis was needed. I was really drawn to the vibrancy that this script evoked, even with the serious nature of the storyline and characters. I couldn’t stop thinking or talking about for weeks afterwards. I’d sit with my wife at breakfast and we’d discuss the script and my character for what felt like hours. I knew after I heard her feedback that I needed to be apart of this film— she might have said I’d be stupid to say no to it, in her own loving way.

The film is really about the process of rediscovering yourself. Navigating the challenges that come along with being at your lowest point and leaning on the ones who have been there for you. It’s about finding love in its purest form when you never thought you were deserving of it.

I found bits of myself in this character as we were filming, it was very much a cathartic experience for me. I guess you could say it was art imitating life in a weird way.

AG: There's already been some buzz about this year's award season, do you think this is finally your year?

DB: Ooooh! Is it too presumptuous for me to say yes?! I’ve started dusting the spot where I plan for it to go. I sound like some sort of pompous idiot! Now no one is going to go see it!*

I take it back!

In all seriousness, ‘cause I’m sure Poppy and my agent will be rolling their eyes when they read this. If all I get is a couple nominations, that alone feels like winning. A shiny statue would be nice though— just saying.

AG: You've talked often about your love of art and you recently purchased a gallery. Are you planning to publicly pursue other creative endeavors?

DB: I won’t be joining American Idol anytime soon if that’s what you’re asking. Oh, you weren’t referring to my ability to hold a note during our many karaoke nights— noted!

How did you put it? Other creative endeavors? I’ve got a few art pieces in the works right now that I’m itching to dive back into when I get home. I’ve got a major gallery in LA lined up later in the year for an artist spotlight exhibit, they’ll be housing some of my work through the next year. Shoutout to my wife for getting that all lined up while I was away shooting this film.

AG: What's next for Dieter Bravo? Any other projects lined up you can tell us about?

DB: I’m looking forward to some downtime I have coming up. Poppy has the summer off, so we’ll get to finally live that newlywed life. Settle into the role of doting husband while she does her thing at the gallery.

AG: Off the record, if you got married and didn't tell anyone I will kick yours and Poppy’s ass!

DB: We’re celebrating our one year this month actually. We eloped quietly last year right after we got engaged— wanted to keep it to ourselves for a little while. Which reminds me, you and Bryony should hop on a call with Poppy after this. Seeing as I let the cat out of the bag and this is our announcement— surprise!

Huge shoutout out to @gnpwdrnwhiskey for allowing me to borrow her Ava from Conversations with a Movie Star for this. Ava was so gracious and even wrote the questions herself. I’m so grateful for Lellen and all her support and advice she had given me throughout the writing process of Sweet Creature!

Sweet Creature Celebration

[kaelidascope]

In light of some dirty laundry found, I'd like to set the record straight about a threat that was made against me and my work

Since I'm being accused of stealing or copying a roleplay that was done between 2021-2022, here's the facts. The roleplay started with a concept that I had made about a magic college school for another roleplay that never went anywhere and was then repurposed for this one with a new partner. The question was popped on 2/23/21 and we began on 2/25/21.

It lasted the span of a little over a year and went through several rounds of development, a few attempted rewrites, and a spin off sequel revolving their kids. It was a good split between actually roleplaying the characters and also just hours upon hours of talking/plotting as one does. Usual exchanges between creators. We never posted the roleplay publicly anywhere, so it was never officially 'published', nor were any legal steps taken to get rights reserved. I'm fairly certain a discussion happened once about turning it into a book but both parties were not on the same page so it never went anywhere. We did ofc share it with close friends and just talked about it in general.

I also drew quite a bit of art for it, and we both collectively commissioned better artists for art for the characters as well. I did not put in nearly as much money as my roleplay partner did, but I did most of the concept art to provide as reference.

After the friendship ended and the roleplay was put to rest, I pulled the OCs that I had exclusively made to start working on a new concept. I had no intention of using anything that wasn't mine. The new concept was entirely removed from it's original source, meaning different setting, different characters, different everything. It was just repurposed OCs that had new backstories and purposes and new ones that I had made to replace characters I didn't own. However, despite the change, I was threatened with a Cease and Desist form pulled off Google by my previous roleplay partner because I made a vague tweet showing progress of the reworked characters (Rowen, who was in the original roleplay, and her love interest, Lyra, that was meant to be a replacement design for a character I did not own). Lyra shared a physical likeness to the original character, Emi, that was owned and played by my roleplay partner that they designed using an AI generator and then I later drew concepts for [white complexion, black hair, blue eyes]. I took it down as requested, sent it back to the workshop, consulted several professionals to make sure any likeness was scrubbed away, and put it on the back burner for further development so I could be left in peace.

I made this disclaimer post back in December 2023 about any likeness my own OCs would share in future projects and their affiliated partners on twitter. At the time, the names and designs were still being changed so Rowen Santiago was a placeholder while I was waiting to hear back from legal advice. I never said I was taking what was originally written and publishing it 'as is'. I'm allowed to use my original character designs for different purposes.

Ultimately, I came to the decision after a lengthy back and forth to scrap my own OCs original personality and design and start from scratch. Only a few things survived that can have lines drawn between the original roleplay design and the new story concept [the magic collar, werewolfism, Hispanic descent, wolf eyes] but that's nothing new. I have a lot of werewolf OCs. I've got an entire series dedicated to werewolf OCs. The new story concept is more military and racism based set in a fantasy dystopian universe than a magical school romance trope set in English Europe. The new story isn't even set on Earth, it's so far removed from where the original design came from it's not even remotely close to this roleplay. The kind of prose and worldbuilding featured in this new work is similar to the fanfiction I already write and am known for [The new world building will be somewhat similar to a setting I already made as far as fantasy science themes go. See Midnight Menagerie]. I also have several designs that look similar to each other (see MM Blake and Tessa for example. Same hairstyle. And MM Yang's entire physique was scraped from Rowen's whole vibe) though I can say my art style is improving enough to where I don't suffer from same face syndrome anymore (at least I hope!). All my bases were covered, everything was a brand new start over and nothing from the original roleplay was touched.

Well, even after a whole year and a half later post cut-off and small meltdown, it's apparently still living in their head rent-free that I am stealing their work and threats are still being made both anonymously and by name!

So I'll tell y'all what, for anybody who's curious, go ahead and have full access of all the notes and docs that I supposedly 'stole' and you tell me if my future works are stealing lol since you wanna wave it around like it's a big scary threat to get me any time I draw sapphic content that isn't fanart. The only things I will not include on this post is the commissioned work because I don't know who originally did them and therefor I'm not sure what their reposting terms are

Anything listed as [NOT ME] was not written by me. Otherwise everything else is either by me or was collaborated on (like the roleplay exchanges)

Misc Docs

Rowemi timeline 2.0

Figure Skating Practice

Emi/Lauren Relationship Notes

Pregnancy Arc Notes

Project Blackbird Notes

Worldbuilding Notes

Rowen Build Sheet

Rowen Notes

Emi Build Sheet (NOT ME)

Emi/Mom Relationship Notes (NOT ME)

Rewrite Docs

Prologue

Episode I

Shorts

William's Lament

Another Secret in the Pile

Rowen's Invitation

The Meeting (NOT ME)

The Hospital Visit (NOT ME)

Simon's Suggestion (NOT ME)

The Date (NOT ME)

Original Roleplay Docs

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 4.5

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Artwork Done By Me

Genuinely I'm not sure what y'all hope to accomplish by obsessively sending me hate mail and empty threats like I'm supposed to care and be effected by it. I haven't even looked at it since I quit Deviantart lol it has nothing to do with my current projects and it died when I cut you off. You never even knew what the new novel project was about, so you really had no grounds to threaten me with that email or the anonymous inbox submissions. You also slipped up and sent one with your actual user after I turned that off, that's how I figured out you were still obsessed with me after all this time. I encourage you to do something with your ideas someday. While you weren't the healthiest friendship I've ever had, the roleplay was fun to engage in. Maybe working on something new will bring you the peace of mind you're looking for and help you move on.

[joelhappyhil]

It's been a month and a half, here's a update for DAWN before the new year.

(This was taken from an update on my Kickstarter)

Hello everyone, and happy holidays!

I'd first like to give an apology for the lack of substantial updates, especially regarding DAWN's progress after the Kickstarter's end. I've shown many small updates on my Twitter and Discord but felt it would be annoying to send out emails for each of those teasers. I've created this post as a bulk progress update before I release a major update to the playtesting material (more on that later).

Art

I would like to share the thing that's taken most of my time and funding since the Kickstarter ended: the ordering and use of new art for the book.

This is only some of the work that's been done so far, but since this art is meant to represent player options, I felt it was good to show you all these as examples of what's been completed, as I assume most of those reading will be looking to play the game as players.

Playtests

I've been spending a lot of time on balancing the game, with combat tests being hosted on my Discord every week. These have resulted in a lot of reworks and changes to the mechanics that will be apparent if you read the version that was publicly available during the Kickstarter's run. Here’s some examples of reworked Techniques (renamed from Power's since the KS) and new ones that have been well received by testers.

Design and Copy Editing

You may have noticed from these screenshots, but I've also taken a try at reformatting the game to better reinforce the comic book look, with new fonts and improvements to the page layouts, while better managing the negative space.

I feel I've made a lot of progress and I'm getting closer to the final pdf, but there’s  still quite a bit of quality checking that needs to be done. (The GM parts of the book especially).

I'll be aiming to release a Final playtest document on my Itch sometime before or around the new year. It'll be the most complete version so far, but will still be missing a lot of art  fluff text, and short stories I plan to add at the head of each chapter. As the name implies, this should be the last freely available version I release before 1.0, where I'll start working on the physical layout for printing and start on the supplements funded in the KS.

Conclusion

If you got this far I'd like to thank you. I've spent quite a few years on this project and never thought I'd be able to get this much funding for it, or for any of my books, really. To show my appreciation, here's the current book cover for that final playtest document. I'm not sure if it'll be the same when the update comes out, but I felt like some of you might enjoy seeing its current version.

Again, thank you all so much, I'll be updating you again when this stuff becomes available.

- Joel Happyhil

[mdhwrites]

Oh. That's Not Good.

Someone brought up in my Discord praising how Luz has a negative character arc. The comments claimed that she broke the hero's journey goes off to scream at how wrong that is and how her arc was amazing and...

I got so angry that I gave myself a headache and made my eyes hurt.

I just hate Luz at this point. Luz is what broke the show initially for me after all because she's just a bad person. Unlike people who ACTUALLY try to subvert the Hero's Journey though, the show doesn't acknowledge she's a bad person. It excuses and wants you to sympathize with EVERY mistake she makes after Yesterday's Lie which is when Luz stops being a genuinely very common, basic ass cartoon protagonist. That is NOT a break in the hero's journey or brave storytelling, that's just ramping up the stakes, something I still think the show utterly fails at except through narrative cheats.

I want to remind everyone that a large part of why I've had to stop writing TOH fanfiction is because my brain couldn't let me write Luz for romance. Literally during a one off I was writing, my brain went, "That's out of character. She wouldn't care that much. She wouldn't be asking these questions and she wouldn't be inconveniencing herself." And this was BEFORE I started analyzing the show. Before I stopped watching it. But it WAS after Reaching Out, the episode I think most assassinates both Luz and Amity's characters and frankly killed canon Lumity for me, even if I didn't want to admit it at the time.

This isn't a normal analysis blog. I'm not trying to really teach with this. There's SO MUCH to learn from Luz's failings after all that I could but this feels more in line with the whole ten years reflection thing. After all, it's been almost two years since Reaching Out. I haven't finished a project in a year and a half. What do pretty much all of those projects have in common?

They were still trying to do Lumischa, despite one third of that equation being broken for my brain. I do wonder if it's why last night, I found a conversion edit of one of the kinkiest stories I've ever written so easy. It's as far away from Lumity and TOH as I could possibly get after all. And... Maybe that's just what I need to do if I have this subconcious anger about Luz.

That sucks. I don't like admitting it but... It's kind of just how it might need to be for me.

Edit: The fanfic this happened during, for those curious.

======+++++======

For those potentially going "Which of your stories are you converting": None that I have publicly published. This was a 35k story I wrote four years ago during the kinkiest year of my writing (then followed up by a sapphic erotica story before starting the last three years of no erotica from me) and was one that when I finished it in like four days I went "I bet I could convert this because I'm actually kind of proud of it." And then I never got to that but did remember it yesterday and made actually some decent progress on it. Will I finish? Shrug But again, maybe it's the sort of change of pace I need.

Also no tags because this is more a vent than analysis and I don't feel like tagging that.

[khrysteen]

It's not really worth sharing my Tumblr year in review, because I made a total of 9 posts on this blog and my art blog. But seeing the numbers did make me think, "Gee, I don't share much personal stuff online. And most of my friends I interact with are online.I'd like to try opening up a little more. I'd like to invite more people to drop in and say hi. I'd like to chat with and get to know more people, because really I am quite social and I enjoy meeting new people and reconnecting with old friends.

But I also wanted to, uh, maybe let the people who do know me at least a little bit why I've been so inactive lately, both publicly and privately.

It's a bit of a Good News, Bad News situation.

Good news! My depression is at a point where it's manageable. We found the magic pill (aka the right combo and amount of medication) that makes it work. I am happy, I am motivated, I am looking forward to life. I'm myself again.

Bad news! Since about October of last year, my fatigue - which I attributed to depression before - has gotten worse. And it continous to get worse. I've gotten so slow, physically and mentally. My brain is a mix of brain fog and, like, nothingness. I get nothing instead of memories or knowledge or thoughts or focus.

It's affected every aspect my life. Drawing. Video games. Friends. Work. Basic decision making skills. I finally want to do things but I physically can't. I'm taking a leave from work right now because 1. My productivity kept tanking 2. When I wasn't working, I was sleeping, during my breaks, evenings, and days off.

Doctor doesn't know what's wrong. Stimulants don't help. Tests don't show anything of concern. He attributes it to post-depression fatigue, but admits it shouldn't be getting worse. Another doctor suggested chronic fatigue, and that I just need to learn to deal with it. I'm waiting on a referral to a specialist now. So much waiting.

I am frustrated and angry and scared. I spent so many years not enjoying life because of depression, and now I'm worse than before. I haven't given up, but god damn it.

I miss my friends. I miss my art. I miss video games and tv shows and writing and reading and actually accomplishing things and finishing projects and making progress.

I'm sorry, this is a lot to read. And it's...not that bad, really. Life is still good. I'm okay, otherwise. But I want to let you guys know what's going on. Please don't think I'm ignoring you, or avoiding you, or giving up. I'm handling this as best I can. I have support. I'm still here. I'm just really really tired.

[warsmith-38]

How I would do RWBY pt.6

Season Six.

RWBY and JNR (and Ozpin, Qrow, and Ilia) on route to Atlas.

SSSN and CFVY have responsibilities in Mistral so they stay back. IE: Ozpin now doubts their loyalty due to their headmaster being compromised.

RWBY and co. get stopped at SDC border checkpoint.

Almost get detained for questioning.

Blake remembers the last time a friend of hers was ‘detained for questioning’.

Winter intervenes, using the authority of the military. Allows RWBY and co. into Atlas.

As soon as they get a moment away from the grunts Winter embraces her sister and admonishes her for not even leaving a note when she left.

She understands why she left, but still.

Blake ribs her a little.

Yang points out to everyone that she’s the only one who’s never ran off without telling anyone.

Winter takes them all to Ironwood.

Ironwood explains that the Atlas military has been doing everything they can to keep the peace short of using scorched earth tactics.

The SDC and the White Fang have armed patrols going through the streets, are having regular firefights in the streets, harassing civilians, and blowing shit up, but almost always peace out when the military shows up.

Jacques is incommunicado and Sienna hasn’t been publicly seen in Atlas for over a decade.

The Atlas government is a bunch of corrupt fuckwits taking bribes from both sides (and Salem too).

Ironwood is doing all he can, but he’s being forced to do it with his hands tied behind his back.

Ruby wants to know if anyone’s seen Cinder.

Ironwood tells her that they’ve been busy with more pressing matters.

Winter says that she has encountered and even fought CEMN.

She lost half of her unit and CEMN got away.

No sign since then and no agents to spare to chase them anyway.

Ruby’s disappointment is curbed by being reunited with rebuilt Penny.

Aren’t data backups a beautiful thing?

She lucked out that her memory core wasn’t destroyed with the rest of her old body.

Her new body, to make room for newer and better features, had to do away with the data backup thing.

If she dies now, she’s dead for good. She only had the one extra life.

Both are beyond overjoyed to see each other again.

Both thought the other was dead until Penny saw Ruby on a news broadcast from Mistral.

Ruby cries while saying that she never thought she’d be able to hold Penny in a hug ever again.

Ciel is there too, not that anyone in or out of universe really cares. (…I care)

She is Penny’s supervisor as well as both Ironwood’s and Winter’s aide.

If she was old enough, she’d take up every vice there is due to how crappy her jobs are.

Everyone notices that Ironwood’s forces are almost equal parts human and faunus.

They cite that they’re sick of the SDC’s many abuses, the White Fang’s lies and broken promises, and the self-righteous indignation of the both of them.

Both sides suck and they have chosen option three.

Option three being telling both sides to go fuck themselves.

Ilia starts to think about things.

Weiss and Winter go to try to talk to Jacques to get whatever intel they can and/or stop the fighting.

Blake and Ilia try the same with Sienna, following whatever dead drop signs they can.

SDC secretary tries to wave Weiss and Winter off.

Jacques hears that his daughters are here and drops everything to talk to them.

W+W try and get Jacques to de-escalate.

He says he’s stuck in a stalemate and can’t even if he wanted to.

If he de-escalates then the White Fang will go wild at the sign of weakness.

He also admits that he’s ready to do the same should the White Fang try to de-escalate.

W+W tell him there’s a good chance that most of the more recent problems are Cinder and co. operating as accelerationists.

Willow enters the picture and sides with her daughters.

Eventually browbeat him into agreeing to a negotiation with Sienna if she also agrees.

Weiss has moment with her mother, finally addressing family problems.

Willow tells her that Jacques was contacted long ago by someone willing to give him an extra monetary and military edge in the fight.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that that someone was Salem.

Weiss is considerably less optimistic about the peace talks now.

Blake and Ilia manage to track down Sienna.

They get sneers and threatening looks from the White Fang members at her hideout.

Blake gets a ‘I’m sorry you had to kill your ex-boyfriend’ hug from aunty Sienna.

Blake accepts the hug in the name of diplomacy.

Doesn’t mention that a good chunk of Adam’s problems were made worse by Sienna’s actions and prompting or were just straight up her fault.

Blake and Ilia try to get Sienna to de-escalate.

Yeah, talking, that’s how you stop violent terrorists, totally. That’s a thing that works.

Sienna tells them that she will only de-escalate if Jacques does so first.

Until she gets a token gesture, it’s business as usual.

Blake tells Sienna about Cinder and that she’s probably causing most of the recent issues for Salem.

Ilia corroborates.

Sienna says she already knows and doesn’t care as long as it might give her an edge.

Damn the ever increasing body count.

Besides, Salem herself has been bankrolling a good chunk of the White Fang’s efforts for a while now.

Blake leaves in a huff and Ilia goes with her, both now entirely disillusioned with Sienna’s leadership as well as Sienna herself.

Ruby, Penny, and Ciel are hunting for signs of Cinder.

Get minimal results but it’s a nice opportunity for them to reconnect.

Penny is more than a little worried at how starved for vengeance Ruby is.

Ciel is skeptical as to if it’s a good idea to leave Penny alone with Ruby.

Yang is with Ironwood, trying to help however she can. Mostly kicking the ass of anyone who slacks off.

Yang is a pretty damn good XO.

She may not have the head for direct leadership, but is good at making troops do their best.

She has gained experience in such things since working with RWB.

Jaune is strategizing circles around Ironwood’s upper echelon.

Hasn’t acted this smug since wargaming night.

Ren and Nora are helping the boots on the ground, even managing to catch a good amount of both SDC militia and White Fang members.

Easier to legally prosecute people if you can catch them. Looks better in the papers and such.

Ozpin is conspiring with his inner circle as to what Salem might be planning in Atlas.

Interfering with the WF-SDC conflict to this degree isn’t Salem’s style.

She didn’t start this one, but it is her style to start a war and bankroll one or both sides.

However, she would leave it at that and let the two sides kill each other as they naturally would.

Come to the conclusion that Cinder is operating as a rogue element from Salem. That makes her less predictable and, as such, all the more dangerous.

That still leaves them in the dark as to what Salem is planning in Atlas or if she even has an active plan in Atlas for that matter.

Ruby meets Penny’s ‘father,’ a weird mad scientist who has a lot of projects ranging in levels of insanity.

Projects include but aren’t limited to: Super lasers, ICBMs, logging the genealogy of most of the planet (this one is important), Penny, making good tasting fruits taste like cat fur, pineapple on pizza, and so many more horrifying crimes against decency.

Atlas higher ups would get rid of him for being insane, but he has tenure.

Some of his projects are rather useful, too.

Ruby makes her excuses and leaves with Penny as the scientist tries to reveal certain revelations.

Yang discovers a little criminal element in the city.

That little criminal is Neo.

Yang learned her lesson from last time, takes her time to take Neo down.

Neo, surprised at how badly she’s losing, escapes with a tracker that Yang plants on her.

Weiss and Blake meet up to touch base on whatever progress they’ve made in peace talks.

Frustratingly little.

They’re both about to return to their contacts and relay plans when Sienna herself shows up with a sizable entourage.

Says that Weiss is coming with her as a bargaining chip against Jacques and asks Blake to stay out of it.

She ain’t gonna.

Ilia takes care of Sienna’s entourage.

WB vs Sienna.

Fight is cut off when SDC forces come to detain as much of RWBY as they can ‘for their own good’.

Goes about as well as expected.

Willow shows up to kick the crap out of them while Blake and Weiss cheese it.

Weiss and Winter had to get it from somewhere and they sure as shit didn’t get it from Jacques.

RWBY reconvenes.

Peace talk plan failed because both sides are led by lying douchebags more concerned about winning than the actual reasons why the fighting started.

Both sides are also being prompted to keep fighting by the same ancient witch-bitch and are too ignorantly angry to even consider the idea.

Fighting ain’t stopping but they can at least see if they can nab the people making things worse.

Ruby is eager to see if she can find and murder Cinder.

Weiss calls for an intervention on Ruby’s vengeance fetish.

Tries to tell her that this is ridiculously unhealthy and taking Cinder alive could infinitely be more useful.

Ruby lashes back at her, citing that Cinder killed Penny in front of all of them.

Penny then comes in to say salutations to everyone.

Ruby then cites that Cinder killed Ozpin.

Ozpin tells them that he’s been ‘killed’ plenty of times, Cinder ain’t special.

Ruby then cites that Cinder killed Pyrrha.

JNR point out that Ruby said less than a dozen words directly to Pyrrha during their time at Beacon and are very offended that Ruby would try and use Pyrrha’s death as a justification for her vendetta.

Ruby refuses to not go after Cinder but does reluctantly agree to try and calm down about it.

Weiss gives her a hug and says that she’s an idiot but she’s still her best friend.

Penny befriends JNR because she’s Penny.

RWBY sets off right as newest round of street skirmishes happens.

Both sides have tanks, explosives, and things that you’d need a really damn good lawyer to justify usage for ‘security’ purposes.

The latest delivery of bribes has arrived so the Atlas government orders that the military stands down and stays out of the conflict entirely.

Ironwood (with Ozpin’s prompting and despite Qrow’s objections) decides fuck that noise.

Orders that any and all SDC or White Fang combatants are to be met with extreme prejudice (the shooting kind of prejudice, not the racism kind).

What’s the government going to do, he’s the one with all the guns.

The monkey with the biggest stick makes the rules.

Peace through power! Peace through power! Peace through power!

JN(P)R work to help maintain order and minimize collateral damage in the warfare.

The P now stands for Penny.

RWBY maneuver through a warzone to where the tracker leads them.

Tracker is leading them to SDC headquarters.

CEMN are planting a big stupid bomb with a big stupid White Fang symbol on it.

CEMN season/arc final boss fight.

The plan was B fights C, Y fights N, R fights M, and Y fights E.

But we all know that was never actually going to happen.

W+Y fight E+M.

B-level 2v2 rival match. Go!

Countdown ‘til boom-boom starts.

Blake gets to work on the bomb. (She’s already had her decisive rival fight)

CEMN did their homework. It’s the exact kind of bomb that the White Fang would have used.

That also means she knows exactly how to disarm it.

Ruby chases Cinder and Neo further up the building.

Corners them and prepares for a fight.

Cinder points out that it took an insane rage state for Ruby to stand a chance and now not only does she not have that, it’s two on one.

Neo then cheap shots Cinder.

Neo reveals that she doesn’t even hate Ruby.

Ruby vs Roman was just business. Live by the sword, die by the sword. No hard feelings.

Her involvement with CEMN was just a ploy to fuck over Cinder, whom she blames for Roman’s death.

Cinder roped him into this crap, not to mention she was the one that set off the bomb that killed him.

Neo’s been subtly fucking up Cinder’s plans as much as possible without being noticeable.

If not for her, Atlas would have exploded while RWBY was chilling in Haven.

Neo’s plan was that Ruby would go berserk again and tear Cinder to pieces with Neo providing the extra edge to Ruby so that another draw doesn’t occur.

All she needed was the three of them alone together.

Is a little disappointed at Ruby’s level headedness, but is fine with helping non-berserk Ruby beat the ever-loving shit out of Cinder.

And yes, she manages to communicate all of this without speaking a word.

Cinder goes all out but so do Ruby and Neo.

Fire vs White fire with illusion bullshit.

Cinder’s grimm arm is an even greater liability than the last fight due to Ruby’s growing skill with the white fire.

Still a very dangerous opponent.

Neo gets her shit kicked in, but due to her help, Cinder is weakened.

Ruby gains a close victory.

Now comes the moment of truth.

Cinder cowers away as Ruby approaches with the scythe raised.

Neo is enjoying what she’s seeing.

Ruby cuts off the grimm arm, burning it afterwards, and cauterizes Cinder’s stump.

Neo feels gypped but shuts up (ha) when Ruby glares at her.

Says that the both of them are under arrest, but she’ll say something nice about Neo helping.

Neo is both annoyed and not willing to argue with the girl who can shoot white fire out of her eyes.

Emerald uses Willow as hostage, seemingly kills her (hallucination).

Weiss awakens her second semblance. Summoning. Summons the knight from the white trailer.

Kicks the ever-loving crap out of Emerald who then reveals that it was just her semblance and Willow is just unconscious.

Weiss still punches her and knocks her out.

Speaking of punches, Yang overpowers Mercury and knocks him out too.

Team CEMN is down like Frazier.

The bomb’s defused too.

Everyone’s proud of Ruby for resisting the urge to do brutal murder. ‘Cept Neo, that is.

Oh wait, the war is still happening.

Oh wait, no it isn’t.

SDC and White Fang stand down.

Willow and Ilia assumed command of their respective organizations, exposing all the accelerationist false-flags, and the fact that both sides were being led by members of the same Cabal.

Both sides de-escalated, stopped fighting, and detained their respective leaders to make them sit down to peace talks.

Ciel even manages to convince Ironwood to not have all of both sides lined up against a wall and shot.

Blake and Weiss give speech about togetherness and neighborliness and sunshine and you get the idea.

Jacques and Sienna both agree that ‘yeah, we could have handled all of this better, huh?’ and accept jail time while people try to fix relations that they came very close to permanently ruining.

They would have both gone to jail anyway but it sounds better to say that they ‘accepted’ the penalties.

CEMN is now also in custody. (This is seen by a motherfucker that looks like a black armored Myrmidon).

Ironwood officially crosses the Rubicon (RWBYcon, A-hey~) and deposes the corrupt fuckwits in the Atlas government and puts himself in charge as military governor.

Makes a point to emphasize to Ozpin that his position is very much temporary.

He’ll set up a new government after they’ve made Salem calm down for a century.

Ozpin ignores him and reminds everyone that this whole thing had shockingly little to do with Salem’s current masterplan.

They still have work to do.

But they did just finish taking out every meaningful member of The Cabal.

So for now they’ve earned a little party to blow off some steam.

Season six done.

World Travel arc done.

[nathanieldorsky]

Interview with Jerome Hiler and Nathaniel Dorsky, May 2021, Leeds, U.K. to accompany an outdoor screening hosted by Will Rose

WR    The screening of your work in Leeds will be outdoors in a field at Meanwood Valley Urban Farm. It will be dark of course, but the films will be set against the backdrop of the city and accompanied by the sound of the outdoor environment. I’m interested in how these local conditions might affect your work. What do you think about this, and have you ever screened your work outdoors?

ND    When Jerome and I were in our early twenties we would leave New York City for a summer evening at my parents’ house where there was a backyard bordering a forest. We would have outdoor screenings using two projectors and enjoy the superimposed images and their many chance occurrences. San Francisco does not have windless warm evenings and the summer nights are particularly cold, so the inspiration to do this type of screening does not come naturally. But this summer, with the Covid crises restricting our social and screening lives, we had two screenings for six people each on the backyard patio of filmmaker Scott Stark. We were all dressed for a winter sleigh ride and masked with distance between seating. I showed three films I had made so far during the lockdown, one of which, Temple Sleep, you will see this evening. What was particularly lovely were the swaying tree shadows on the screen from the surrounding window lights going off and on. The film felt like it was floating within a larger cinema.

JH    Of course, silent films are extremely vulnerable to ambiance, yet there are always margins, and some are larger or smaller so it’s impossible to predict what is too distracting or not. Every screening is a law unto itself. No two are alike – even when there’s an immediate repeat screening. When I send my films out to be rented, they’re like children old enough to be on their own. I wish them luck. That’s about all I can do. Back in 1964 I roomed with Gregory Markopoulos and we were always trying to find some spacious outdoor setting for a night time screening. It never came about, but I feel now that I saw the beginning of an idea that eventually led to his Temenos events in Greece.[1]

WR    You have each largely kept your personal filmmaking practice separate from your ‘day jobs’ (Jerome as a carpenter and documentary director, Nathaniel as a film editor) – to what extent did/does your daily work influence or affect the films you make, and vice versa?

ND    As an editor one has to be very strict sometimes with a client for their own good … you witness the naked self-deceptions … so when you are working on your own film you almost laugh when this dialogue takes place all within yourself … you see the importance of not deceiving yourself … you see the way you fib to yourself …

JH    It has been some time since I worked as a carpenter. The work was all-engrossing and I hardly had a chance to have my films affect that particular work. However, the money I made certainly allowed me to make films. When I was young, I admired the filmmakers who had day jobs that supported their work. I also worked on documentary films and there it was a case of my personal films influencing my documentary style.

WR    Your work is very much concerned with the act of filming in the moment – an idea which also seems to extend to the way you would like your films to be experienced. I’m curious about the role history and memory play into this presentness. When you film somewhere, is the history of that place important to you? And are your own memories of that place important to the way you respond to it in the moment with your camera?

ND    For me it is the presences and dissonances of light that guide my camera into the world. Generally I am not trying to evoke a place, but in the film Temple Sleep I shifted in that direction; in this case seeing a series of fly casting practice pools as the flooded ruin of an ancient temple of the past.

JH    I generally wander at random. Driving in my car – particularly in places that I don’t know, hoping to get lost. I will react to a location. I don’t set out to make a statement, rather I learn and am tutored by the film as it develops. My film has more to say to me in the long run than the reverse. All art works seem to be self-portraits.

WR    I understand that you often show your work to friends in private salon screenings. Until relatively recently this was the only situation that Jerome’s work would be presented in. Can you tell me more about these private screenings? And when you make your work, is it is useful to have a particular viewer (someone you know) in mind?


JH    Now that I’m shown publicly, I’m often asked why I “withheld” my work. But, as far as I was concerned, I was sharing my work as much as I could. Living in San Francisco, I was ensconced in such a vibrant and busy film scene with many visiting filmmakers coming through and showing their work. There were many impromptu screenings at different people’s homes. For my part, I would create tailor-made “films” from my camera original to suit the person or people who were attending that night. Then, I would dismantle the reel and re-purpose material for another occasion. This process of using original film resulted in much loss over the years. But, as for making a finished film, I had not found a voice and my attempts, I feared, might be pretentious. Suddenly, I was asked to be in a film show and I quickly finished a film in progress. In this way, I had found my very casual voice.

WR    You have been life-partners since the mid-1960s and make films principally for each other. Can you tell me more about how your work converges and diverges?

ND    Jerome taught me half the things that I know. His earliest filmmaking awakened me to the open glories of self-symbol montage, that a film is something in itself! Jerome is a bit more the painter and I, a bit more the poet.

WR    During the pandemic I have increasingly had the urge to be somewhere that I don’t recognise. I was fascinated to find out that your work is almost entirely filmed within a very small radius of your home in San Francisco. Why is this the case?

ND    This is an exaggeration … although it is true that many of my films are shot in walking distance from my apartment. But I would often in normal times go downtown with my camera in a car, park and walk around in a variety of neighbourhoods and environments. I could no longer shoot street or human scenes as if the Covid was not happening.            The real issue is that when you travel and shoot footage the footage is seldom as good as something you shot that you are very familiar with. When it’s familiar you have to work harder to make it touch something in the psyche … but a new place is all awe and seduction of the new but the footage one might take there is often not really so interesting as cinema. I have some travel films I’ve made on Kodachrome and have occasionally shown them in my apartment and once publicly at Anthology Film Archives. They looked gorgeous with the original camera Kodachrome going through the projector – now that is a heart stopper.

WR    You both have a close affinity to poetry and have found ways to create an equivalent sensation using the medium of film. Nathaniel, I showed your work in Leeds a few years ago in the presence of a very wonderful local poet. Without any prior knowledge, he appreciated it instantly as the filmic equivalent of a poem. Is there some intrinsic essence you can identify which makes film poetic?

ND    When film can create for the viewer feelings and intuitions, associations and discoveries, things that cannot be directly said, then it has poetic qualities. Not the false poetry of sentimental narrative, but the sharp present alert quality of light and the screen.
 JH    I think my films are more akin to music than poetry. Some musicians can tell me what tempos and dance forms my works employ. My subject matter is so truly personal that I doubt anyone else could follow a “narrative.” Though, I have heard a viewer’s re-telling of my film that was both true and sidesplittingly hilarious. You might wonder, “Do I have no regard for my viewer?” Actually, I hope that there is always something for the mind of the viewer to engage with along with the feeling that what you see and feel is, indeed, the heart of the film. The film is really yours. I remember, over so many years, tedious post-film discussions where a viewer stated their reaction and asked the filmmaker, “Was that intentional?” My answer would be: If that’s what you saw, yes, it was.

WR    The way light, weather and vegetation are measures of seasonal change is important in almost all your work.  How do the seasons play a role in structuring the way you make films?

ND    Like poets for many thousands of years, the change of seasons stirs the soul, awakening primordial feelings of birth, death and desire and the need to “sing” of such things.

WR    The pandemic has put a temporary stop to public screenings of work that necessitates film projection. This screening of your work in Leeds is a gentle re-connection with a type of art that has been in hibernation. What has been your response to the last year? Have you worried for the future of your art form?

ND    I just kept on shooting and vaguely wondering what damage the Covid crises would have on handmade films in public arenas. Luckily my film lab was allowed to stay open as an essential business … I could not agree more … and Eastman stayed open for purchasing raw stock. I found it very difficult to make a film during this crises – though I ended up making six … many quite short as the world had become smaller. I spent weeks at various places in Golden Gate park, a half block from my apartment. After three weeks or so ideas for making films in those locations took place and manifested. It was hard photographing things with this ominous lurking presence, but I found a way by relating to the oppression and trying to make films that were a purification for the impending claustrophobia.

JH    This is a very good question. The issue of impermanence has arisen most powerfully this past year. I find myself at an advanced age. I read complaints that my films are impossible to see outside of the larger venues in film capitals. My attention, as usual, has been on the making of films and not at all on their exhibition. I have never felt that video was akin to film. For me, it did not present itself as a substitute. I am considering, very seriously, transferring my films to a digital format. I do dislike the light of digital projectors, but I have to face the fact that loyalty to my first love is taking too large a toll on my work’s appearance on any screen at all.

[1]. Temenos is the name filmmaker Gregory Markopoulos gave to a remote outdoor screening site in the Peloponnese region of Greece. Markopoulos spent the last decade of his life working on Eniaios, an epic, 80-hour film cycle created exclusively for projection at this site. The next presentation screening will take place there in summer 2022. See: www.thetemenos.org

3 Films by Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler | Outdoor Screening, Fri, 21 May 2021, Leeds, U.K.  link

[newstfionline]

Sunday, March 21, 2021

Happiness Report: World shows resilience in face of COVID-19 (AP) The coronavirus brought a year of fear and anxiety, loneliness and lockdown, and illness and death, but an annual report on happiness around the world released Friday suggests the pandemic has not crushed people’s spirits. The editors of the 2021 World Happiness Report found that while emotions changed as the pandemic set in, longer-term satisfaction with life was less affected. “What we have found is that when people take the long view, they’ve shown a lot of resilience in this past year,” Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, one of the report’s co-author, said from New York.

The Pandemic Stalls Growth in the Global Middle Class, Pushes Poverty Up Sharply (Pew Research Center) The COVID-19 pandemic is having a deep effect on the global economy. In January 2020, as reports of the novel coronavirus were emerging, the World Bank forecasted that the global economy would expand by 2.5% that year. In January 2021, with the pandemic still holding much of the world in its grip, the World Bank estimated that the global economy contracted by 4.3% in 2020, a turnabout of 6.8 percentage points. The economic downturn is likely to have diminished living standards around the world, pushing millions out of the global middle class and swelling the ranks of the poor. A new Pew Research Center analysis finds that the global middle class encompassed 54 million fewer people in 2020 than the number projected prior to the onset of the pandemic. Meanwhile, the number of poor is estimated to have been 131 million higher because of the recession.

Fallout from riot, virus leaves toxic mood on Capitol Hill (AP) The mood is so bad at the U.S. Capitol that a Democratic congressman recently let an elevator pass him by rather than ride with Republican colleagues who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s election. Republicans say it’s Democrats who just need to get over it—move on from the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, end the COVID-19 restrictions and make an effort to reach across the aisle toward bipartisanship. Not yet 100 days into the new Congress, the legislative branch has become an increasingly toxic and unsettled place, with lawmakers frustrated by the work-from-home limits imposed by the virus and suspicious of each other after the horrific riot over Trump’s presidency. Particularly in the House, which remains partly shuttered by the pandemic and where lawmakers heard gunshots ring out during the siege, trust is low, settled facts about the Jan. 6 riot are apparently up for debate and wary, exhausted lawmakers are unsure how or when the “People’s House” will return to normal.

US schools prepare summer of learning to help kids catch up (AP) After a dreary year spent largely at home in front of the computer, many U.S. children could be looking at summer school—and that’s just what many parents want. Although the last place most kids want to spend summer is in a classroom, experts say that after a year of interrupted study, it’s crucial to do at least some sort of learning over the break, even if it’s not in school and is incorporated into traditional camp offerings. Several governors, including in California, Kansas and Virginia, are pushing for more summer learning. And some states are considering extending their 2021-22 academic year or starting the fall semester early. Many cities, meanwhile, are talking about beefing up their summer school programs, including Los Angeles, Hartford, Connecticut and Atlanta—the latter of which considered making summer school compulsory before settling for strongly recommending that kids who are struggling take part.

Forecast for spring: Nasty drought worsens for much of US (AP) With nearly two-thirds of the United States abnormally dry or worse, the government’s spring forecast offers little hope for relief, especially in the West where a devastating megadrought has taken root and worsened. Weather service and agriculture officials warned of possible water use cutbacks in California and the Southwest, increased wildfires, low levels in key reservoirs such as Lake Mead and Lake Powell and damage to wheat crops. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s official spring outlook Thursday sees an expanding drought with a drier than normal April, May and June for a large swath of the country from Louisiana to Oregon. including some areas hardest hit by the most severe drought. And nearly all of the continental United States is looking at warmer than normal spring, except for tiny parts of the Pacific Northwest and southeast Alaska, which makes drought worse.

‘Tough’ U.S.-China talks signal rocky start to relations under Biden (Reuters) U.S. and Chinese officials concluded on Friday what Washington called “tough and direct” talks in Alaska, which laid bare the depth of tensions between the world’s two largest economies at the outset of the Biden administration. The two days of meetings, the first high-level in-person talks since President Joe Biden took office, wrapped up after a rare and fiery kickoff on Thursday when the two sides publicly skewered each others’ policies in front of TV cameras. The talks appeared to yield no diplomatic breakthroughs—as expected—but the bitter rivalry on display suggested the two countries had little common ground to reset relations that have sunk to the lowest level in decades. The run-up to the discussions in Anchorage, which followed visits by U.S. officials to allies Japan and South Korea, was marked by a flurry of moves by Washington that showed it was taking a firm stance, as well as by blunt talk from Beijing warning the United States to discard illusions that it would compromise.

Volcano Erupts In Southwestern Iceland After Thousands Of Earthquakes (NPR) A volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwest Iceland erupted Friday evening, producing a river of lava that could be seen from the capital, Reykjavik, 20 miles away. The eruption took place about three miles inland from the coast and poses little threat to residents. They were advised to stay indoors with windows closed against any gases that are released. This is the first eruption in the Reykjanes Peninsula in nearly 800 years, the Associated Press reported. Thousands of earthquakes took place in the weeks leading up to the eruption, the meteorological office reported. Earlier this week, swarms of earthquakes rattled the peninsula, with over 3,000 quakes on Sunday alone. Scientists attributed the earthquakes to magma intrusions, molten rock movement about a kilometer below the earth’s crust.

A New Year in Iran, but the country’s crises remain the same (AP) The Persian New Year, Nowruz, begins on the first day of spring and celebrates all things new. But as families across Iran hurried to greet the fresh start—eating copious crisp herbs, scrubbing their homes and buying new clothes—it was clear just how little the country had changed. A year into the coronavirus pandemic that has devastated Iran, killing over 61,500 people—the highest death toll in the Middle East—the nation is far from out of the woods. And although Iranians had welcomed the election of President Joe Biden with a profound sigh of relief after the Trump administration’s economic pressure campaign, the sanctions that have throttled the country for three years remain in place. “I was counting down the seconds to see the end of this year,” said Hashem Sanjar, a 33-year-old food delivery worker with a bachelor’s degree in accounting. “But I worry about next year.”

2 journalists detained as Myanmar junta clamps down on press (AP) Two more journalists were detained in Myanmar on Friday, part of the junta’s intensifying efforts to choke off information about resistance to last month’s coup. Mizzima News reported that one of its former reporters, Than Htike Aung, and Aung Thura, a journalist from the BBC’s Burmese-language service, were detained by men who appeared to be plainclothes security agents outside a court in the capital of Naypyitaw. The journalists were covering legal proceedings against Win Htein, a detained senior official from the National League for Democracy, the party that ran the country before the takeover. The coup reversed years of slow progress toward democracy after five decades of military rule. In the face of persistent strikes and protests against the takeover, the junta has responded with an increasingly violent crackdown and efforts to severely limit the information reaching the outside world. Security forces have fired on crowds, killing hundreds, internet access has been severely restricted, private newspapers have been barred from publishing, and protesters, journalists and politicians have been arrested in large numbers.

Spectators from abroad to be barred from Tokyo Olympics (AP) At last it’s official after countless unsourced news reports and rumors: spectators from abroad will be barred from the postponed Tokyo Olympics when they open in four months. Officials said the risk was too great to admit ticket holders from overseas during a pandemic. The Japanese public has also opposed fans from abroad. Several surveys have shown that up to 80% oppose holding the Olympics, and a similar percentage opposed fans from overseas attending.

‘You can’t escape the smell’: mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia (The Guardian) Drought, fire, the Covid-19 pestilence and an all-consuming plague of mice. Rural New South Wales has faced just about every biblical challenge nature has to offer in the last few years, but now it is praying for another—an almighty flood to drown the mice in their burrows and cleanse the blighted land of the rodents. Or some very heavy rain, at least. It seems everyone in the rural towns of north-west NSW and southern Queensland has their own mouse war story. In posts online, they detail waking up to mouse droppings on their pillows or watching the ground move at night as hundreds of thousands of rodents flee from torchlight beams. After years of drought, rural NSW and parts of Queensland enjoyed a bumper crop due to the recent wet season. But this influx of new produce and grains has led to an explosion in the mouse population. Locals say they started noticing the swarms up north in October and the wave of rodents has been spreading south ever since, growing to biblical proportions.

[quakerjoe]

It is important to remember that, because, as New York’s Sarah Jones writes: “Tara Reade is difficult to dismiss.”

Since she publicly accused her former boss, Joe Biden, of sexual assault, multiple outlets reported corroborative evidence that supports her account. She says she told her brother; The New York Times and The Washington Post confirmed that she did. She says she told an anonymous friend; reporters confirmed that too. She told the Intercept that her mother, distraught over her treatment in Biden’s office, called into Larry King Live to ask for advice around the time of the attack, and the clip emerged. On Monday, Business Insider reported the most significant piece of circumstantial evidence to date: A former neighbor and a former co-worker of Reade’s both told the outlet that Reade disclosed a traumatic event to them in the mid-’90s.

The news cycle moves at a breakneck pace in the Trump era, and time passes oddly in lockdown, but Joe Biden’s coronation and the third-party support for Tara Reade’s assault allegation (which Biden denies) are both very recent developments. Pete Buttigieg, Beto O’Rourke, and Amy Klobuchar all endorsed Biden at the beginning of March; Reade’s interview with Katie Halper, containing her new, more serious accusations, came at the end of that month; The Intercept and Business Insider partially corroborated her story over the last week.

It is, as I mentioned, now the start of May. Thus far, the Biden campaign and Democratic Party organizations have, for the most part, dismissed the story. As The New York Times reports, “progressive activists and women’s rights advocates” have spent weeks urging the Biden campaign to “address the allegation” more thoroughly. They drafted a letter pushing him “to model how to take serious allegations seriously.”

Biden simply chose not to. The groups sat on the letter.

As the Times puts it, Biden’s aides have said they “remained unconcerned about any significant political blowback from Ms. Reade’s accusation.” They are “confident that the allegation will not shake voters’ perceptions of Mr. Biden’s character,” and they “believe that voters will view the allegation with great skepticism.”

All of that could be true. It is also answering a different question than the one those activists and organizations thought they were posing. They, ostensibly, should not be worried about whether Biden can win with a strategy of waiting for these allegations to go away on their own. But that is all the Biden campaign can offer them. (So far. Biden is scheduled to appear on Morning Joe today, and he is expected to answer some sort of question about Reade’s allegations.)

What his campaign is trying to imply is that Biden’s nomination is inevitable, instilling resignation in those who feel queasy about the allegations but who desperately want to beat Donald Trump in November. They want people who might, under normal circumstances, push a politician facing an accusation like this one to open up the Senate records that could shed light on the veracity of these claims to instead come up with reasons why Biden should keep them closed. (Biden has reportedly sent operatives to look through the records.) It is hard to ask the Biden campaign to “model how to take serious allegations seriously” when it seems more interested in following the old model—of having your fiercest partisans defend you in the press with blithe hypocrisy.

But instead of throwing up your arms at being forced to choose between either defending Biden or simply holding your nose and voting for a man you now suspect may have done something terrible, remember—it is only May 1.

Biden is the presumptive nominee in large part because the party leadership coalesced around him, signaling clearly to voters that he was the right man. The most respected and admired figures in the party could now coalesce around another path: Biden bowing out and the presidential contest continuing.

The 2020 Democratic primaries were notable for featuring a huge slate of candidates who were all broadly acceptable to the rank and file. The majority of Democratic voters regularly told pollsters they had favorable opinions of all of Biden’s closest competitors for the nomination. The candidates who couldn’t crack 50 percent were, for the most part, not unacceptable to Democrats but mainly unknown. Loyal Democrats paying the closest attention to the race bemoaned the early exits of numerous perfectly qualified candidates.

Guess what? They can return, if they want to.

The right circled the wagons around Brett Kavanaugh when he faced allegations of sexual assault that were hard to disprove, in large part because he was replaceable. To stick with him was an important display of power and dominance; to withdraw his name and advance an ideologically identical replacement would have made no difference to the right’s larger political project, but it would have been a demoralizing surrender to the forces they hate. There are now some on the Democratic side who feel even more tightly attached to nominee Biden because they, too, are determined not to surrender to the forces they hate, citing Bernie Sanders or Vladimir Putin or both.

But (among the commentariat, at least), there are more left-of-center voices responding with hopelessness or helplessness. I can’t believe male politicians, and the political establishment, are making me do this again threatens to become a common refrain. That reaction would be understandable if the bulk of the corroborating evidence had emerged in October (there is suggestive evidence that right-wing groups had had the Larry King Show tape filed away for just such time; suspiciously, they had it ready to post almost as soon as The Intercept published its story). But it is not October. It is May. Joe Biden is not the nominee. The primaries are still happening. It is within your power to demand an alternative.

The organizations that wasted weeks drafting a letter urging the Biden campaign to come up with an acceptable response to all this could now draft one instead urging Biden to step aside and let the primaries continue. Barack Obama could gently suggest that Biden do what he knows is right. Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, and Amy Klobuchar could unsuspend their campaigns. Or some of them could choose, just as they chose to throw their support to Biden, to endorse a well-qualified also-ran they believe deserves another shot, such as Jay Inslee or Julián Castro. And then the Democratic voters could decide. That’s how the system is supposed to work: 

Neither the Constitution nor the bylaws of the Democratic National Committee require that the guy leading the delegate count on May 1 win the nomination.

If Biden left now, on his own terms, perhaps with some polite fiction about his health or stamina, the rest of the primaries could play out as designed, in a civil, well-managed continuation of the contests, and the eventual Democratic nominee could emerge without being seriously wounded.

Based on how the Biden campaign has responded to the allegations so far, and on what they have asked the most principled and loyal Democratic partisans to do, or even to think, a Biden victory in November could be nearly as demoralizing (if not as existentially dangerous) as a Biden defeat. His campaign is run by some of the most cynical people in the Democratic Party apparatus, and unless today marks some sea change in the way they view these allegations, they will continue to believe that they can ignore and dismiss this story and still win. They may well be right. And if you are comfortable with that, there’s not much else to say. But no one is under any obligation to adopt that cynical argument and use it to excuse anything. They would like you to believe that the choice before you is-

All In With Biden or another four years of Trump. That is not remotely the case.

The alternative scenario is not some outlandish, unprecedented piece of political-junkie fan-fiction, in which backroom deals at a virtual convention produce an Andrew Cuomo–Stacy Abrams ticket. The elections already on the calendar would simply continue with an existing slate of perfectly qualified candidates.

That is possible. It’s not even unreasonable, nor would it necessarily hand the election to Trump. Barack Obama became the presumptive nominee in June 2008. He had plenty of time to unify the party, introduce himself to the rest of the nation, and win the November election.

But just because Biden could step aside and allow the primaries to continue without him doesn’t mean that he will. And it is worth reflecting on why that is. Democratic leadership would panic, obviously, at the thought of changing horses in what they already view as the middle of the stream. But they also seem to believe their die-hards won’t care and the people most vocal about wishing to change things won’t demand a reckoning. They are relying on people already fully invested in a Joe Biden campaign—not just the campaign operatives and donors and elected officials, but the outside organizations and the professional activists, and the think tanks and the media personalities, and even people who seem to do nothing but post all day—to entertain no possibility of disinvestment. But with months to go before the convention, there is plenty of time for people with power and platforms to use them.

[purrincess-chat]

Cat’s 2020 Goals: January Progress

So, at the beginning of the month, I posted my 10 goals for 2020, and I wanted to share a little progress update on how I did in January. Long story short: I skated by. I didn’t get to accomplish everything that I wanted, but life unfortunately happens. I set my goals low for this very reason because I know when life tends to get hectic (which I knew in the early months of this year it would be) I tend to get caught up in it and make excuses, so setting lowball goals gives me no real excuse not to accomplish them. So, let’s see how I really did.

Goal 1: Read at least two books a month

I actually accomplished this one! I read Heist Society and I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You both by Ally Carter. This is kind of a technicality since I have read both of them before, but to ease myself back into reading, I started with stories I know I already love. My ultimate goal is to read 1 new book a month, and 1 old book I love. One as a cushion to guarantee that I’ll like what I read and won’t get burnt out, and one to push myself into new territory. 

Goal 2: Buy 2 new books every month

I did that last month very early on as well, I actually bought 3 new books last month, and I’m going to get up after this and go run errands and buy two more new books (and a bookmark so I can stop using random objects and sticky notes). Last month I bought The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong (an author I’ve read before), Sea Witch, and Sea Witch Rising both by Sarah Henning (an author I haven’t read before). So I’m planning to read some of those this month as part of branching out into new book land. 

Goal 3: Finish a fanfic wip every month

I barely skated by with this one, which I have a feeling this one will be my most challenging goal. I get off on a technicality for this one for January because I technically finished TFR last night while it was still January, but I didn’t post it until this morning. But for my self-esteem so early on in the year, I’ll give myself a silver star for this one and say I accomplished it even if TFR wasn’t the fic I planned to finish last month.

Goal 4: Finish 2 WIPs before starting something new (outside of one-shots)

I blame this one for why the previous one was so difficult for that little addition in parenthesis. Because I haven’t started a new multi-chapter project (not really anyway) so I have kept my word, but I did take on a bunch of drabble requests and one-shots last month that took up time and were part of the reason I didn’t get to finish WYBM(F)L? last month like I wanted, but I don’t really regret them cause they were fun and needed. This just goes to show what a piece of shit I am, cause I will ride a technicality for all it’s worth, even unconsciously. 

The other goals following this one are more long term, but an update on goal 10: Cook more, I would say I made baby amounts of progress on that front. I still eat out a lot, but I did cook more than I usually do in the past month, so I will try to keep that trend going. 

I did also start working on something original last month, but I wrote less than 1000 words which is fine for now. I still have the rest of the year, and I’m sure as I read more, I’ll get inspired to write more original work stuff. 

So, yeah. This post is more for me than for any of you, cause I doubt many of you care, but if you’re curious about what I’m reading and want some book reccs, I’ll continue to do these updates every month. I might make a sideblog actually and do soft book reviews of things that I’m reading and keep up with a lot of this stuff there, so if I do that, I’ll share it so those that are interested can hop over and it will unclog this blog. I just need somewhere to dump my thoughts, and posting things publicly makes me feel a bit more accountable for accomplishing them cause I am the master of “eh, this doesn’t really matter in the long run” and continuing on with my comfortable habits. Putting them into the universe shames me into doing things, even if no one is actually shaming me to do them. It’s the principle of it that gets me. Sorry if this is boring to you. I’ll get back to shitposting XD

[sweetpinkstylist]

Hello hello! I suppose I have made my active presence known so I should probably discuss the elephant in the room that you may or may not be aware of as I’ve been thinking about it for the past few days. I hope to not be too controversial about it. ^^;

For those of you who don’t know, a post was made on the Love Nikki Facebook that, put simply, has asked fans not to rip the game’s content. Of course, I absolutely respect their motivations for that, that they do not want their content to be stolen and sold and/or put into other games without their consent, and I do not want to be the person giving access to the assets to unscrupulous people.

However, I enjoy making my own fan content with the assets, which I get absolutely no money from, and I would never want to out of principle, so I would likely continue to rip things for my own art projects (I know I haven’t been posting many lately, but I promise they do exist, I just don’t finish many lol). I’ve thought about just quietly keeping any rips I make to myself, but I know other people also like to make art using rips and also do not make or want to make any money from them, and I want to help these people if they aren’t able to rip assets for any reason because, you know, I want to help other fans have fun making their own art.

And, perhaps more pertinently, if someone really wants to put stolen assets in their own game, what’s going to stop them from figuring out how to rip the assets themselves and continuing with only a small bump in the road? I rip things from LN with only four programs, including an image converter and an image editing program. If someone as dumb as me can do it, I’m sure the people with enough technological know-how to make a game of their own can figure it out. How can I sit back knowing literally anyone with the know-how can steal and make money off of LN assets while fans just wanting to make pictures for personal use are unable to?

So...... Now what?

Well, first of all, I will still be making rips, and I will still be posting them in the same Google Drive folder. You are still free to download anything from the folders Backgrounds, Character Sprites, Other Images, and Suits and Items folders and use them to create free fan content.

However, there will be some changes to this tumblr of mine here. I won’t be posting raw rips, and any posts I make announcing rip updates (such as when rips from a new chapter are up) will be toned down to just text posts and will not be tagged to the fandom. I’ll be honest, this is mostly to avoid drawing attention to myself for my, uh....uncondoned activities. ^^;

Secondly, though, I’m going to be more cautious about giving rips for more specific things like items, to decrease the chances I’m just handing over an item that someone will slip into a for-profit game or as a part of an commission or something. Anonymous asks in general are perfectly welcome, of course, but I won’t be replying to anonymous asks for specific rips. I’m a bit nervous about this (by that I mean my anxiety is screaming atm but I’m pushing through lol), but I’m going to have to ask for....well, a bit of vetting if you’d like specific items for something. I want this to be as easy as possible for people who may be anxious about asking for something (believe me, I understand XD), but I’m going to have to ask for a couple things: 1) you can contact me via ask or DM, but keep anonymous off (if you send an ask, I promise I’ll reply privately), 2) I'll be suspicious of tumblrs that are suspiciously empty, so if you’ve been active on tumblr for any time at any point, you’re fine, I just don’t want to give things to people who have just made a blank account for the sake of getting past the anon requirement, if your tumblr is void of content with all default theme and avatar and such, I’ll just have a couple extra questions, and 3) most importantly, please tell me what you’d like to do with the image you want, and, if possible, just show me something of a similar type you’ve done (doesn’t have to be specifically LN, just any not-for-profit art you’ve made using other assets) just so I have some evidence you’re not just saying you’re going to make something you’re not. If you haven’t made things like that before but you want to start with LN and want to ask me for a specific asset for your first project, you’re free to show me, say, a screenshot of what you’ve done so I can still get a bit of evidence that you are telling the truth. Same basic rules apply if you want to ask for something for a friend who isn’t on tumblr, that’s perfectly fine, just, again, let me know what they’d like it for and show me some evidence.

Phew, I hope that’s not too intimidating. ^^; This isn’t a huge problem or anything, but I just want to sort of quietly keep sharing rips for fans while restricting the possibility of someone using me to make a profit off LN assets.

Also, if you’d like to start ripping from LN yourself, I can do my best to help, but I won’t be posting instructions publicly (also, I can’t remember all the steps to set everything up in the first place ^^; ), so just shoot me a DM (you can send me a non-anon ask if you really want, but it’ll be much, much easier to talk it through in a DM, so if you send an ask, I’ll send you a DM lol) and I can do my best to help you out. You can also hmu for my Discord since I actually have it on my phone and rarely pop onto tumblr nowadays. That goes for anything, really lol, if you want to chat to me about anything for any reason on Discord, you can ask for it. I’ve thought about making a LN-centric server where I can announce rip updates/just talk about LN with friends and y’all, but that hasn’t come to fruition because I’m indecisive. Feel free to let me know if anyone would be interested in that because I’ll probably be too nervous to go through with it forever if no one would want that. ^^;

Last note: I’ll be deleting some existing things from my Items folder in the next little while. This is a rather arbitrary decision, but you can ask again for anything I’ve deleted. What I’m going to delete vs keep is also going to be somewhat arbitrary, but....y’know, I’m going to do it.

I’m open to criticism or questions for clarification on this btw. Just don’t be mean XD I am soft. This is probably going to end up being an ongoing work-in-progress because I want to respect the dev’s wishes, but I also want to continue to make fan content and help other fans do the same since the “no rips” rule won’t stop unscrupulous people in the first place. New suits will be incoming to the drive folder in the next few days or so (Miku suits are already there as I ripped them from the jpn server a while ago).

Anyway, I’ve talked enough here. ^^; Hope y’all are enjoying your winter holiday(s) of choice!

[causeiwanttoandican]

I think I hear he sound of shattering glass coming from Vancouver.

The Telegraph

Kate steps up: The making of a future Queen

Revealed: The crack team building and shaping the Duchess of Cambridge's royal future

By Camilla Tominey, Associate Editor

7 February 2020 • 9:00pm

It has been exactly a month since Harry and Meghan announced that they were stepping back as senior members of the Royal Family. For the past eight weeks, column inches have racked up about the ‘Megxit’ bombshell and its impact on the institution of monarchy.

Yet amid all the hysteria and hullabaloo, one of its most important members has been serenely going about the business of keeping calm and carrying on.

Until now this kind of understated behaviour may have been most closely associated with the Queen, but it is her modern day equivalent, the Duchess of Cambridge, who has been quietly putting duty first with increasing visibility.

A recent UK tour to launch her landmark survey on early childhood, combined with well-received visits to Bradford and Mumbles, may at first look like Kate making a conscious effort to fill the void left by her brother and sister in law.

Yet as has ever been the case with the middle class girl from Bucklebury who married into the Firm almost a decade ago, that would be to underestimate a woman who has never made a show of her royal role.

Motherhood to monarch

Having discreetly spent the past eight years beavering away on the causes closest to her heart, Kate has finally found her voice and is determined to use it. No longer willing to be seen but not heard, sources say she is now ready to commit the rest of her working life to raising awareness of the importance of childhood - and its impact on adult life.

Although she never took the credit for being the inspiration behind the Heads Together mental health campaign spearheaded by William and Harry - having witnessed its extraordinary impact, there is a sense that the Duchess has finally realised just how much she is capable of.

“The Duchess has worked quietly away in the background for years,” said one well-placed royal insider, “And now she knows that people want to hear from her”. No longer as fearful of public speaking, and fast carving her own path out of the shadows, Kate’s landmark online survey '5 Big Questions on the Under Fives’, will mark the start of decades more work on the subject, according to aides.

“It’s much easier to speak out when you know what you’re talking about and passionate about your subject,” added the insider. “She has become an expert in early years learning, she understands the science and is respected in the sector because she has spent the past eight years working it out. But she also wants to find answers. This is about evidence based research.” The first results of the childhood survey are due next month.

Kate’s gentle yet inquisitive manner was never more on display than when she met wheelchair-bound Harvey Bentley, 90, in Mumbles on Tuesday. The warm exchange was filmed by Mr Bentley’s son-in-law Mike Sutton-Smith

This kind of reaction is certainly welcome after arguably the most testing period for the monarchy since Diana’s death. With two of the so-called ‘Fab Four’ poised to set up their own projects in North America, the focus for the Cambridges will not only be on putting duty first but in a non-partisan, but an extremely effective way.

As one observer noted: “It is a bit of a paradox, having such a naturally introverted person in such a high-profile position. I think that’s what people find endearing about the Duchess. She’s not a showy person. It’s a deeply British trait.”

And one which she certainly shares with Her Majesty who also has a quiet confidence and sense of reserve when interacting with the public.

Of course, accession may still be decades away, but preparations for the royal couple to become the next Prince and Princess of Wales were already well underway before Harry and Meghan’s move to Canada.

Yet while efforts had previously been ploughed into elevating the status of the man who would be king - there is a new, and arguably even more compelling project now fully in progress at the palace: the advent of Queen Catherine.

So much so in fact that team of academics have been drafted in to help the mother-of-three shape her royal future, with input from the highest echelons of government and even the security services.

Likened to a modern-day version of the Way Ahead Group, set up to rebuild the monarchy in the aftermath of the Queen’s ‘annus horribilis’ of 1992, the Duchess’s steering group of experts has informed her focus on early years learning and helped her to grow in confidence in her royal role.

Working royals putting duty first

As the royal couple prepare to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary next year, 2020 is set to be momentous for the Cambridges.

Projecting themselves as a family unit - and a relatable one too - has become a priority and was behind them agreeing to the prime time Christmas TV special with national treasure Mary Berry, which saw the royal couple cooking souffles while discussing the work of their Royal Foundation, the philanthropic vehicle for all their charitable endeavours.

With talk of trips to Ireland, Chile and Columbia already in the offing, and both having recently launched major charitable initiatives - including William’s Earthshot Prize - a multimillion pound project to ‘repair the planet’, the next 12 months will see the pair try to bring what one palace insider describes as the ‘calm after the storm’.

The source added: “What you are going to see with the Cambridges is a couple carved very much out of the Queen’s mould: Duty first.”

Having had three children in swift succession and with Prince George, six and Princess Charlotte, four, now in school and Prince Louis turning two in April, Kate’s priorities have shifted.

According to one well-placed source: “Over the last 12 months they have realised the potential power of their platform. They understand that by launching these long term projects they can genuinely make a big difference. They’ve been told clearly by people the impact that they can have if they pick the right spaces - things they care passionately about.”

Just this week we have seen William discuss diversity at the Baftas and his mental health initiative Heads Up, tackling the issue through football, has been well received. As with Earthshot, described by one aide as “the biggest thing the Duke has ever undertaken”, it’s about saying ‘we can do this’, rather than ‘this is too daunting’”, said a source.

“The Royal Foundation has been going for 10 years now. What they want to do is a smaller number of things on a bigger scale. For the Duchess, the early years work is something she will lead for the rest of her life. It's easy to dismiss it as nice and cuddly, but the focus is going to shift from how much childhood issues affect adult mental health and on the social side, it's as significant as climate change.”

While both projects and their recent visits to Yorkshire and South Wales had been in the diary for months, there is no doubt the ‘Sussex situation’ has escalated matters. “A hell of a lot of responsibility rests on their shoulders and they’ve just got to get on with it,” said royal author Phil Dampier. “I think they are both resigned to spending the next 30, 40, 50 years as heavyweight royals.”

A formidable asset

Government hopes are also being pinned on William and Kate flying the flag for post-Brexit Britain. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) was “delighted” with their highly successful visit to Pakistan last year, which helped to demonstrate the Cambridges’ worth to UK Plc. There emphasis will be on ‘youthful yet dependable royalty’ - demonstrating the power of the Royal Family both home and abroad as a formidable ambassadorial asset.

This was certainly on show last month as William hosted his first major state occasion - a reception for the UK-Africa Investment Summit - on behalf of the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

Standing alongside his wife, many royal watchers noted how much more publicly demonstrative William had become towards Kate. During the reception he was uncharacterstically nostalgic, saying: “The African continent holds a very special place in my heart. It is the place my father took my brother and me shortly after our mother died. And when deciding where best to propose to Catherine, I could think of no more fitting place than Kenya to get down on one knee.” When a wellwisher in Mumbles complimented William on Charlotte, he replied: "Yes, she is lovely - just like my wife."

And it is this kind of gentle encouragement and support which is intended to propel his wife to the next level - where her dependability turns into the kind of ‘soft power’ which can affect real change.

Or as one insider put it: "They are going to be doing what politicians can't do, with such a comparatively shorter shelf life. Only royals can think about this scale of change on a generational basis - and that is what the Cambridges are determined to bring about."

A crucial appointment for Kate will be her next private secretary following the departure of Catherine Quinn, the Oxford-educated right hand woman who has helped to chart the past two years. The Telegraph understands a replacement is yet to be found and the Duchess is continuing to be supported by her assistant private secretary and Simon Case, the former civil servant who has been William’s closest adviser since July 2018. Case previously worked for former Prime Ministers David Cameron and Theresa May and that they are taking their time, searching for someone of Case's calibre for Kate is certainly telling.

The couple arguably have another, equally pressing legacy project: the future survival of the monarchy. William has certainly been working in ‘lock step’ with his father and grandmother to find a solution to his brother and sister-in-law’s desire to leave the Firm.

The Telegraph can reveal that the second-in-line was also much more involved in the decision for the Duke of York to step back from public life last November than has previously been reported.

When Prince Andrew travelled to Sandringham to hold talks with Prince Philip and Charles - he also held a meeting with his nephew, believed to be at Anmer Hall, the Cambridge’s Georgian country house on the Queen’s estate in Norfolk. According to a source: “William spoke to Andrew for about an hour. They met separately. The Queen and Prince of Wales both agreed he should be fully involved in the discussions - he is very much a part of what has become a triumvirate of decision-making these days.”

No Fab Four Anymore

As Joe Little, editor-of-chief of Majesty magazine points out, there needs to be a shift in focus now that Harry and Meghan have handed in their notice. “Prince Charles had hoped to have a slimmed down monarchy with his own children and grandchildren as the major players, but he has had to revise that masterplan in light of recent events.

“The House of Windsor was riding high for such a long time with weddings, babies and jubilees, William and Kate have got to restore some of that magic.”

Agreeing that the Duchess’s role will be key to ensuring a modern-day monarchy is fit for purpose, he added: “There’s a mystique about Kate like there has always been about the Queen.”

While Harry and Meghan appear intent on politicising their future role, for William and Kate it is going to be all about the three S’s: stature, strength, and stability

[migleefulmoments]

The ccers are just like the gop

Watching the Impeachment testimony today it’s a nightmare for the gop and Trump. Ambassador Sondland has admitted everything we knew was true using the words “Quid Pro Quo” and admitting that everyone in Trump’s administration knew.  Watching the gop then try to defend Trump is a disaster or outrageous lies, conspiracy theories, and distraction.  

Reading this thread from the cc coven, I’m reminded of how similar their tactics are to the gop’s. This thread is full of lies and conspiracy theories that have been duped and yet these people- like Nunes, Jordan, and Stipanik- clearly believe the lies they share. The two groups have built their knowledge bases on these lies. These faulty foundations don’t hold up to even the smallest of scrutiny. People living in reality can see the faults, but sadly ccers and the gop don’t see reality and live in an imaginary world where they are always right.  

ajw720 answered:

It is hard to me to select the one thing that i find the most offensive, there are just so many.  They have also named at least 2 drinks based on breast size, Good Rak (I forget the exact name) and R2DD2.  you know reducing women to their body parts.  And of course the one called C3PHO that is implying that women should be called whores if they decide to exercise their sexual freedom.  And we are even touching on the innuendo which maybe isn’t offensive, but is extraordinarily immature.  Or the fact that they have naked women gyrating on the bar and simulating sex with teddy bears in a PIANO BAR where on a different night you can sing d/isney tunes! (Abby refuses to understand that the drink names are NOT to belittle women but to take ownership of the words away from those who use them against us. She has been told this but she needs to be angry at Mia so she refuses to even think about it=faulty foundation)

But hey, according to her stans, I am closed minded and they are progressive. (yep! That’s true). You know what it reminds me of?  The individuals watching the impeachment trials and daring to say that these upstanding, career public servants, many of whom serve both democrats and republicans, are liars because they refuse to admit the bigot in the WH is a criminal. (Nice try but no, you honey, you are those people. Faulty foundations) 

D looked really drained to me last night, and we know he is PBB free in NYC. I have to imagine the way the are smearing his name constantly is weighing heavily on his soul. My heart hurts for him.  (In fact, 3 of the 6 people in at least one of the photos has the same neutral face. Other photos, released later that night show a gleefully happy Darren=faulty foundations. Photos at the end.)  

ajw720 Can I just add one thing?  The “marriage” was forced by D’s team, and this includes his extremely powerful PR agency.  (NOT TRUE= faulty foundations) Why are they not reading and reviewing everything posted by that offensive institute prior to its release? (Because Darren controls his own life and his business is not part of what Sunshine Sachs does for Darren).  That would be working FOR THEIR CLIENT.  Instead, they are allowing that bar to actively harm his character. (Such a stupid argument.  Why would Darren continue to pay them if they were actively harming him? Abby this one is so stupid you need to stop=faulty foundations) 

I hope that there is a time D can sue them for defamation, I really do, because to me, this is an absolute outrage. (Well we are a decade in, when you believe that could happen, Abby? Ya know ....using your legal knowledge?) 

This flannel shirt theme stunt has made my blood boil more than most. (This just pisses me off.  My daughter read this post, called herself a dyke and said.“I just wish I could go.” She was wearing a flannel shirt)  

notes-from-nowhere My question is: why M has been forced to drop “s/unsetstrippa” (and f/etus but, let’s leave one of the sock account behind for a moment)? (Fetus IS NOT MIA. OMG THIS IS SO STUPID=Faulty Foundations) That was not her decision.(WTF? Of course, it is=faulty foundations)  So, why? I’ll tell you why: given that the plan was to make her relevant for everybody besides for her nanny, it was embarrassing for D (and his team) to have her tagged by colleagues and various celebrities with that childish nickname. Do not even try to tell me this is not the reason (Faulty Foundations).

So why isn’t the same level of “courtesy” reserved for your establishment? Quite frankly “s/unsetstrippa” was far less offensive than what happens constantly in&out of that place. When will we see day D will be treated with the respect that a man in his position should have by default? And above all, when his team will accept that they are no longer managing a teenage dream? Controversy as a way to make someone famous it doesn’t work as a shortcut if there is nothing behind that people might like. (I honestly don’t understand this sentence so I have no good debunk...Darren was never marketed as “teenage dream” and he certainly currently isn’t= Faulty Foundations)  

It’s time to remove D from the TS/G narrative once and for all. M dropped this place a long time ago and it has no meaning for D’s career, let alone finantial reasons since he is just the piano man and not the owner. (Well “finantial” reasons aside, Darren and Mia own the bar. They don’t work there.  -=Faulty Foundations).   

ajw720

Sadly she dropped that for another made up name that they have used to mock D.  It is unfathomable the way D is being treated.  

And honestly, I don’t know why more people aren’t screaming about this bar and how people don’t see or ignore how offensive it is. (Because only someone who refuses to live in reality actually sees the bar as problematic.  It’s a queer-safe space that celebrates the LGBTQ community in ways that MAKE SENSE TO THE LGBTQ Community.  Just because Abby doesn’t understand it doesn’t make it wrong= Faulty Foundations).  D does his best to distance himself, but it is his name front and certain in every article about the place and he is the one on TV naming it repeatedly (I love this nonsense..so is he distancing himself or is he the name that is connected often?)

Where are the people protecting the actual marketable commodity’s interest? The person with talent that is at the top of his game?  I have never seen anything like this. (Its all made up in your head=Faulty Foundations)

notes-from-nowhere You know one of the reason his team keeps ignoring things like this bar is because people bring gifts to M. (OMG...this is just a stupid thing to say) Because even if these people know everything about t his place, how rude the staff is, how undrinkable and overpriced the drinks are, how annoying and out of place “certain activities” inside of it are, they swallow their beliefs and words to go there and have a picture with D to post on their social media (This is all conspiracy theory and absolutely Faulty Foundations.  This is exactly like Nunes repeating all the conspiracy theories tied to Trump this morning. I’ve looked at these and most -if not all- of these are not real.)  

As long as there will be people that put their interests ahead of D’s wellbeing and public image, his team will keep to ignore how hurtful behaviors and bar are. They will buy an article on a random magazine that will praise the bar, D will be forced to publicly say the its name and so on. (Faulty Foundations) 

D’s team is not protecting an investment, they are making money out of people. And people is allowing them to do so.

leka-1998 Yesterday someone asked me why I keep being angry at the things they do or don’t do, at what’s going on at that bar that screams M. Why I even had to point out that flannel theme. Because I shouldn’t be surprised at all. And I’m really not, but the way they are destroying D’s character really gets me. He’s currently getting more attention due to M/idway and AB, two great projects. Both are/will be seen by a new audience. I’m sure HW will be big too. A competent and well-meaning team would care how D looks, what he’s associated with. They don’t. And no one can tell me that’s not wrong. (The idea that Darren can’t take control of his own life is pretty gross.  Nobody lives this life they imagine- it’s outrageous.  Faulty Foundations) 

ajw720 Obviously everything annoys me about the circus that surrounds him. But I can mostly laugh about the Halloween BS or and the excessive praise she receives as none of that ultimately affects D’s character and his reputation.  But this bar, it is so harmful and it potentially could be so damaging.  Imagine a theater goer looking up D after AB and finding their IG full of discriminatory themes/drinks and extremely immature innuendo. And D’s name is what that bar is associate with, not his “bride” as she doesn’t do anything, but D who is the one promoting it the media regularly.  He has not promoted anything in his life more than the bar over the past 2 years.  Not even his fake nuptials. (Yes, Imagine what it looks like that Darren’s bar is a queer safe space.  OMG How horrific!!!!!!! How doe he live with himself? The ONLY People who are upset that TSG has LGBTQ programming most nights but Disney on other nights are those who are homophobic!!!!!!!!!!!) 

And I truly do not understand how anyone dismisses this stuff or says we are the ones who are wrong. Some of the marketing ploys are blatantly and clearly offensive.  And yet it continues and no one seems to care that D is the only one that could potentially be hurt by this as it is his career that they are jeopardizing.  And M is praised as a role model for disparaging women and members of the LGBT+ community. (YOU are literally claiming that the gay women who runs Dyke Night doesn’t know anything about-or respect - her own community... but YOU do.  SHUT THE FUCK UP ABBY)   

It is revolting (yes you are) and it is really important that we document it and discuss it and continue to highlight it and I don’t care how much hate i get for doing so, people need to realize what they are doing. (The “hate” should be a  HUGE WARNING SIGN Abby. But you see EVERYTHING as proof you are right and it doesn’t matter how hard it is to get to “I’m right”, how much you have to twist the truth or makeup stories about Darren's lack of personal agency, it’s all confirmation bias for you. YOU ARE WRONG and these comments are homophobic).    And maybe it won’t be today, but at some point he will get free from his tormentors who are hell bent on destroying him and we will have the public record of everything they did to actively harm him. Faulty Foundations). 

klaineownsmysoul This is precisely the kind of place that a real pr/management team would work overtime to keep their client away from instead of pushing it relentlessly as a point of pride. There’s nothing remotely redeeming about it and like that farce of a wedding, nothing that reflects D’s personality. It’s beyond tacky and juvenile and straight out of the wheelhouse of a 20 year old frat boy. You expect me to believe that the same person who wrote beautiful songs like “Not Alone” or “TDTDIO” also decided to name a drink period sex? (Yes!!!!!! because people are complex animals.  But also because that same person wrote “Me and MY Dick” =Faulty Foundations).  the words of Trevor Noah, get the fuck out of here. But I’d expect nothing less from his team at this point: a group of people who think class and notoriety are equal. I live for the day when he gets a team to actually support him instead of trying to further themselves through him. (His team by law has to support him but also WHY THE FUCK WOULD HE STICK WIT HTHEM If they weren’t helping him?  He’s not a moron=Faulty Foundations) No one goes to events hoping to see D’s manager on the drums. There are actual musicians out there who are more than qualified. (And yet Darren chose Ricky to play drums for him=Faulty Foundations).   Go do your actual job for a change.

[the-coldest-goodbye]

Halfdan (Vikings) - SFW Alphabet Headcanons

Halfdan x fem!reader

A/N: Some people seemed to like soft!Halfdan in my headcanons about him with a plus size reader, so I decided to try my hand at some more fluffy headcanons I have! Occasionally it ventures into slightly dirty territory, but not too often.

As per usual, apologies for the length. No brevity here.

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

He’s not used to showing affection, so he’s a little clumsy and awkward about it. He had never been in a serious, long-term relationship with anyone before you, so he’s still trying to learn the ropes of all of it. He’s surprisingly sweet and affectionate for someone with a reputation as being a ruthless killer. PDA would make him bashful and he’d be less likely to initiate it than you. Even little things like you wanting to hold hands with him or kissing him in front of people would make him blush. He likes it, but he just isn’t used to the attention and feels very shy being on the receiving end of any sort of affection, especially so publicly. Part of the reason why he’s a little averse to PDA is because he’s worried he’s doing it “wrong” and doesn’t want to look foolish in front of other people or embarrass you with his inexperience. He much prefers to give you physical affection when you’re alone together.

Halfdan would largely show his affection for you through making sure you’re taken care of. With him around, he always makes sure there’s food on the table, furs on the bed, and a fire in the hearth. You got a leak in your roof? He’s there to fix it. Is your hut a little drafty? He’s there to find the source of it and fix that right up. He always offers you the last of his food and walks you home at night. More than anything else, he always looks at you with love in his eyes. It’s plain to see that he’s completely smitten with you.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

Your friendship with Halfdan would start with him making some snarky under-the-breath remark at a village gathering while someone else was speaking. It wasn’t directed to anyone in particular, but you heard and it made you smirk. You’d whisper something equally snarky about the person speaking back at him, which would make him quietly chuckle. After this, he would always try to sit next to you during any meeting or gathering so that you two could have a sarcastic running commentary throughout the event. Suddenly, he was always around, and that’s it. He decided he likes you, and now you’re stuck with him. He’s your friend and he ain’t going nowhere.

Halfdan has a tendency to be the Bad Influence Friend™. His idea of a good night would be something along the lines of getting absolutely wasted and stealing a cow from a stranger’s farm for the hell of it. In midst of the havoc, he would still be watching out for you, though. He likes a bit of chaos, but would never want to genuinely endanger you.

He has the reputation of being this dark, scary man, so you were surprised when you realized just how mild-mannered he tended to be in most daily situations. He would more or less become The Dad Friend™ to you. Loyal as hell. Your protector. Would make sure you’re safe and that you’re taken care of. The kind of guy who would hear that you wanted a new dining table in the near future, and then would turn up at your hut later that day with all of the materials to assemble a new table for you. “Oh, it’s no trouble at all. I just had it lying around,” he’d claim. (Liar. He got it especially for you.)

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

Halfdan would initially be a little reluctant to cuddle, thinking that you wouldn’t actually feel comfortable snuggled up with a big brute like him. He would be awkward and stiff until he realized just how comfortable you’d get as you snuggled into his body. Once he saw that you were enjoying it, he would let himself relax and enjoy it as well. This level of physical affection isn’t something he’s used to, so it takes some time for him to come to terms with the fact that he’s allowed to savor it. (Honestly, he has internalized a lot of the judgments that came along with his reputation for being a bloodthirsty warrior. A large part of him feels “wrong” when he wants to bask in the softer, gentler things in life, so he has to unlearn that.)

After getting over that initial reluctance, he would have to admit to himself just how much he actually liked cuddling. It made him feel comfortable and loved, and it let him feel some softness and affection that he very rarely ever experienced throughout his life. Plus, he loved knowing that you were safe and in his arms.

He tended to be the big spoon or the one cradling you, though sometimes you could catch him wanting to be cradled in your arms. He liked having you be the little spoon with your ass pressed against his crotch (dirty fucker), but his favorite was when you would cuddle into him with your face in the crook of his neck. He liked being able to feel your breath on him.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

Halfdan never really imagined himself settling down since his life had mostly been dedicated to fighting wars for his brother and he never imagined himself doing anything besides being a warrior, but that all changed when he met you. Once he begins to imagine a future with you, he knows that he wanted to settle down, or at least slow things down a bit. He would like to travel with you to distant lands, but not for raiding or for wars — just to explore, learn new things, meet new people, experience new cultures. Maybe in between your travels, it would be nice to be settled somewhere stable in Norway, in a little house on a small plot of land. He has to laugh if he thinks about it too much. He never imagined that he would be thinking about domesticity, but here he is.

In terms of cooking and cleaning, he’s pretty awful. He’s spent most of his life living out of a tent or on a ship. The times he was settled somewhere for a stretch of time, there were generally thralls to do all that stuff for him.

With cooking, he can cook to survive (hunt, clean and prepare a carcass, and cook it over a fire). When it comes to “actual” meals, like those that you’d eat in a Great Hall, he’s pretty clueless. If he settled down with you, he’d be eager and willing to learn how to cook nice dishes, wanting to surprise you with a nice meal every now and then. His main dishes, particularly meat-based ones, would turn out pretty well once he got a grasp of things like herbs and spices. His attempts at making side dishes, though, would be horrifying —  sweet and well-intentioned, but utterly disastrous nonetheless. Please don’t give this man raw potatoes. He just can never seem to fully cook them. Oh gods, they’re so crunchy.

When it came to cleaning, he wouldn’t be very mindful about cleaning up after himself, but he’d take the lead on household maintenance projects and repairs.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

Halfdan is so committed to you, so if he ever broke up with you, it would only be after a lot of thinking and self-reflection. It would be torturous for him to do it. He wouldn’t throw in the rag very easily either. It would have to be something major for him to call it quits. He would probably try to work through things first with you before ending things, only seeing a breakup as a last resort.

If he ever did break up with you, he would start pulling away from you. You would notice him becoming more distant and quieter than usual. His level of distraction and lack of focus was a clear sign that whatever was on his mind was weighing very heavily on him. After you gently ask him what’s wrong, he would quietly reveal that he thinks it would be best for the two of you to end things.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

Throughout his life, Halfdan had never been a relationship/commitment kind of guy, but that was because he had never met anyone that he wanted to commit to romantically. He had always been a loyal brother and a loyal friend, though, so he doesn’t take commitment lightly. Once he meets you and knows that you’re the one, he’d be ready to commit whenever, in any respect that you wanted. If you wanted an exclusive committed relationship, sweet! Want to get married? Hell yeah!

He would probably let you take the lead on that, though, not wanting to scare you off with seeming too eager to tie you down. He’d try to figure out where you were in the relationship based on little comments you’d make, but he had a hard time dealing with this coy, beating-around-the-bush thing, so he’d just wait for the both of you to be a little tipsy before having a classic “Soooo, what are we? What’s the plan here? Where do you see us in the future?” conversation with you.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

You don’t have a life like Halfdan’s, spending so many of your days on the battlefield slaughtering others and being attacked yourself, and come out unscathed. He does have the capability to be quite vicious (as his reputation obviously had to come from somewhere), but he tries so hard to be gentle and soft with you, his love. He’s afraid of scaring you off, so he puts a lot of effort into being tender and gentle with you. It’s not an easy process and not something he change immediately, but he tries very hard to get in touch with his emotions and learn how to process them in healthy, constructive ways. However, sometimes he’ll still find it hard to process some things. At these times, he’ll try to isolate himself a bit to avoid blowing up on you on accident. It takes some time and a lot of work, but he does make progress.

He can occasionally be a bit clumsy and crude with his words, and sometimes it’s a struggle for him to fully get in touch with how he’s actually feeling, but he’s also surprisingly more soft-spoken and emotionally gentle than you would have expected from a man with his reputation. Though he always claims that he’s bad with women, he’s actually pretty intuitive and good at sensing how you’re feeling.

Halfdan is surprisingly physically gentle with you for such a notoriously vicious warrior. He looks hard and intimidating, but his touch is typically soft and timid. It seems like he’s afraid of breaking you, so you have to encourage him to not be so timid and remind him that you’re not made of glass.

(I know this is supposed to be SFW, but a quick note that the only times Halfdan tends to get rough with you is during jealous, angry, or stressed sex, but it’s never too over-the-top.)

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

He’s a bit shy with hugs at first because he’s not used to them, but he quickly comes to realize just how much he adores them. There’s nothing he loves more than the feeling of you in his arms. He’s also come to enjoy the feeling of hugging you from behind in public, his arms wrapped around your waist, letting everyone know that the two of you are together. He especially loves craning his head around a bit to give you a kiss on the cheek from this angle because it makes you blush and smile.

His hugs are tight, as if he’s afraid of letting you go. He never wants them to end because nothing is better or more comforting than knowing that you’re in his arms and that nothing else matters at that moment.

One of his biggest fantasies when he’s gone on raids without you, the one that really makes him even more determined to survive and come home, is the thought of the ship pulling back up to the shore with you waiting for him on the dock, with you running up to greet him, jumping into his arms as he wraps his arms tightly around you, never wanting to let you go again.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

He says it first and he says it pretty fast, much faster than you would have expected or would have said it yourself. He had never told anyone he loved them (in a romantic sense) before because he had never felt that level of connection with anyone, so he just knew that things were different with you. If what he felt with you wasn’t love, then what was? As a viking, his life would often be at risk. He never knew for sure if he would be coming home or not after a raid or battle. He met you soon before he was leaving for a raid; and for the first time in his life, he feared the prospect of him not coming back. He told you he loved you before he left because he didn’t want to die without having said it.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

He gets jealous pretty easily. If another man tried to flirt with you, he would get angry and would scare the dude off. Halfdan is a bit insecure because he never thought that he would find love. Now that he has it, he’s afraid of losing it.

Honestly, his biggest fear is that his brother will take you away from him. Halfdan has spent his entire life doing whatever Harald wanted, and Harald would make damn sure that he would get himself whatever he wanted. For the first time in his life, Halfdan had something all of his own: his relationship with you. Over his dead body would Harald take that away from him.

When Halfdan is jealous, he becomes sullen, tense, and brooding. You could always calm him down by whispering sweet nothings to him and gentle caresses, reassuring him that he’s got nothing to be jealous of.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

His kisses start off as shy and timid, but become harder and more passionate as you continue. His really passionate kisses, when his tongue plunders your mouth and plays with your tongue, leave you so filled with lust and wanting more. He also leaves hickies all over your body. The feeling of your flesh against his lips drives him wild.

He loves it when you kiss him anywhere, but he especially has a thing for you kissing the scars that litter his body. He thinks they are ugly reminders of the violent life he’s lived, and seeing them met with such love and tenderness from you makes them a little less ugly in his eyes.

Honestly, part of the reason why he loves seeing your whole body covered in love bites is because of the contrast to his scars. His body shows records of violence and pain. Your body shows records of love and passion. He wouldn’t want you to have it any other way.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

He’s awkward and pretty terrified around children. He doesn’t know how to interact with them and is afraid that he’ll scare them with the way he looks or somehow break them. (Kids scare him more than he scares them, though.)

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

He typically wakes up early and leaves before you’re up for the day. Before he leaves, he’ll give you a kiss and tell you that he loves you.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

He’s a night owl. He’s usually up late, often drinking and swapping tales in Harald’s tent with others from their raiding group or army. You obviously were always more than welcome to join him, and you usually did because it was a fun time. However, he would also love nights in with you. Regardless of if you’re cuddling and having discussions, playing games together, or making love, it was always lovely to be alone with you.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

Halfdan’s reserved and not the most confident in himself. His brother Harald has always been in charge, and Halfdan has spent a lot of his life going along with his brother’s plans. This resulted in Halfdan feeling like he didn’t really have anything of worth to say. He wouldn’t talk very much until he realized that you genuinely wanted to hear his thoughts and opinions and until he realized that you weren’t going to judge him for them. It would be a slow process for you to coax intimate details of his life out of him, bit by bit; but the more comfortable Halfdan feels around you, the more he would reveal.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

He’s not easily irritated by little things. He can be quite sarcastic and a bit of a shit-stirrer himself for the sake of a laugh, so little things roll off his back easily. It takes much larger things to make him angry, but his actual unbridled rage is a terrifying sight, one that he tries not to let you see.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

He remembers pretty much anything related directly to you or your relationship with him. For example, he’ll remember your favorite flower, the dress you saw in the market that you said you always wanted, what type of wood you wanted a new chair to be made out of, your favorite shade of your favorite color, whether or not you liked the crusty ends of a loaf of bread, the place where you had your first kiss, how you liked your hair to be braided, etc. You’re his first love, and it’s all so special and new to him. He wants to savor every bit of it.

However, he won’t remember every detail of every single thing you told him ever. For example, if you told him a story about your mother’s cousin’s daughter’s husband’s brother... yeah, no, he’s not going to remember any of that shit.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

Definitely your first kiss. It was after a supper in the Great Hall. The ale had been flowing, and you both were tipsy and in high spirits. He was walking you home, and you stopped him midway to point out how beautiful the moon and stars looked that night. In a rare moment of flirtatiousness (probably with the aid of the ale), he said, “Not as beautiful as you.” A huge, goofy grin came over your face, and you pulled him in for a kiss. His performance probably wasn’t his shining moment. It was probably a little too shy and uncertain, caught off guard, but he still saw fireworks when your lips met. As you pulled away, his face moved a little forward to chase your lips, reluctant to have them leave his. Both of you had goofy grins now. You grasped his hand and pulled him forward to continue the walk back. He had spent so long wanting you, and he was thrilled by the realization that you wanted him too.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

Halfdan’s basically your bodyguard. He would make sure no one messes with you, and he would threaten anyone who harassed you. It was a time when his reputation really came in handy because no one wanted to fuck with Halfdan the Black. Oftentimes, a flash of his knife and a growled threat was enough to get anyone to leave you alone, but he would be willing to step things up if the situation was severe enough to warrant it.

He also gave you a sense of security in other ways, like walking you home and making sure you were taken care of.

Halfdan didn’t really need you to protect him, especially not physically, and he didn’t expect you to. Sometimes when other men would give him shit, be it drunken banter or an actual argument of some sort, you would stick up for Halfdan, destroying the other guy with a scathing remark. Halfdan didn’t expect it or need it, but, gods, it turned him on seeing you make an effort to protect him.

Something that also meant a lot to him would be when you would stand up against Harald so that Halfdan had the opportunity to share his own thoughts on a subject or political/battle strategy. Halfdan had spent most of his life letting Harald get away with imposing his own opinions over Halfdan’s, so you showing that you valued his opinions enough to suggest that Harald actually listen to them for a change would mean the world to him.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

He tries. Oh my god, he tries so hard... but things always seem to go wrong in one way or another whenever he tries to plan something. His heart is in the right place and it is so endearing to see him try to be romantic and to make grand gestures about his love, but things tend to go comically awry. (If he tried to bake you a cake, it would be under-cooked and soupy in the middle. If he tried to set up a little boat for a romantic trip on the water with him, the boat would sink before you even got in it. If he tried to fill your room with your favorite flower, they would end up being infested with bugs and now your room was filled with bugs.) This really upsets him because he wants nothing more than for you to be impressed with his efforts, but it feels like the gods themselves are laughing at him and making a joke out of it all.

You wouldn’t be disappointed, though. Regardless of how things went down, you would be so impressed and touched by his effort. You would always try to let him know how genuinely happy you were and how thankful you were to have someone as thoughtful and sweet as him.

Actually, your favorite thing was how he would always put so much effort into taking care of you without even realizing how much it meant to you. He seemed to naturally go out of his way to make sure you were taken care of, like making sure you had enough food or repairing the broken things around your house without you even asking him. It wasn’t something his did as a grand gesture and he didn’t even consider it to be him going out of his way, but it moved you so much to see him care so deeply about you. You would always point this out to him and let him know that you didn’t need need him to try so hard with being overly romantic. He was already enough, just in how well he takes care of you in everyday life.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

Messy-ass bastard walks with his muddy-ass boots all over the clean floor. He gets water all over the place while taking a bath and doesn’t clean it up. Can he, like, maybe stop testing out the sharpness of his swords by seeing how badly the blades fuck up the furniture? The stealing-livestock-while-drunk thing was funny the first few times but it’s getting a little old and now the neighbors know who’s doing it and they’re mad, and also what the fuck are y’all supposed to do with all of these animals? You want to go to bed, but his drunk-ass buddies are still in the house and won’t stop singing.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

He had never been too concerned for most of his life, but he would feel a little self-conscious and worried about his appearance once he was with you. He’d worry. Do you think the scars that litter his body are ugly? Do you think his hair is stupid? Do his face tattoos turn you off? Does he look too intimidating? Do you wish he looked a little softer, a little handsomer? (No, you don’t. You have to reassure him that you love him exactly the way he is.)

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

As weak as it made him feel to admit it, yes, he would feel incomplete without you. He spent most of his life accepting that he would probably never find love. Now that he has it, he can’t imagine the pain of having you ripped away from him. You’ve introduced so much color and life into his world, and you have helped him start to see things from a different perspective. The thought of going back to how things were before you were around hurt too much to think about.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon.)

Halfdan can’t flirt to save his life, especially not with strangers. There’s something so awkward and unnatural about it to him. He feels a little more comfortable saying flirty or dirty things once you two are officially together, but he has no game when it comes to trying to woo someone he barely knows. Harald would try to give Halfdan tips and suggestions on things to say or do since Harald is smoother in comparison, but Halfdan just can’t get the hang of it. He’d much rather just become friends with someone and let it develop naturally into something more.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

He would hate beating around the bush and not directly addressing things. He doesn’t like things to be vague or ambiguous when it came to your relationship or how you were feeling about each other. It would give him a lot of anxiety, and he would just have to address things head-on.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habit of theirs?)

Halfdan is a light sleeper and also doesn’t seem to need that much sleep. He’s one of those people who never seems to sleep but also somehow never seems exhausted. How does he do it? Who knows.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Democrats running for president in 2020 are faced with a choice when making their pitch to voters: make attacking President Trump a key part of their message or ignore him and focus on introducing themselves and their ideas.

On the one hand, criticizing Trump could help candidates convince primary voters that they’re able to defeat him, but depending on what shots they choose to take, they could risk alienating voters in the general election. So we wanted to see how the candidates tackled this choice by looking at one of the most direct ways they regularly communicate with voters — their emails.

Lindsey Cormack, who runs the DCinbox project, a public database of email newsletters sent by members of Congress, says emails, like tweets, can give us insight into how politicians try to brand themselves. “They don’t have to deal with editors at the paper. They don’t have to deal with booking an agent to be on a TV or radio program. They can really say anything they want.”

So to get a better sense of what the candidates told their followers about Trump, we subscribed to the mailing list of every candidate that FiveThirtyEight considers “major” and looked at all the emails they sent in the month prior to the first Democratic debate. (Though, for a variety of reasons — including email targeting practices, engagement testing techniques and the fact that we haven’t given money to any of these campaigns — we may not have received all the emails sent by all the campaigns.1)

Overall, the candidates have taken very different approaches. Some candidates, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, seem to be ignoring Trump almost entirely, while others, like former Vice President Joe Biden, are heavily peppering their emails with invocations of Trump. Even some lesser-known candidates like Montana Gov. Steve Bullock are going all in on Trump — every email we received from his campaign during this period contained a reference to the president.2

Biden’s emails contained the second-most mentions of Trump. In total, we received 27 messages from his campaign that referenced the president by name. This strong focus on Trump seems aimed at portraying Biden as a strong general election candidate, which makes sense, as his perceived “electability” has been a central argument of his campaign.

In his emails, Biden has attacked Trump’s campaign tactics, his policy stances and his values. Biden has even sent an email that, rather than concentrating on his campaign, asked readers to sign a petition to “tell Donald Trump that welcoming foreign interference in our elections is unacceptable.” Even many of Biden’s fundraising emails are all about Trump, asking readers to “imagine the shock on Trump’s face” when they hit their fundraising goal and collect enough to “compete with Trump’s fortunes.”

While Biden mentions Trump often, his emails completely ignore the rest of the primary field — none of his messages mention another Democratic candidate by name. Another thing Biden never mentions? Impeachment.

Biden also sent the most emails with “Trump” in the subject line.

And that’s a telling omission, because many other candidates have called for Trump’s impeachment and are renewing those calls in their emails. The move could help them in the primary election, as impeachment is popular among Democrats, but could prove risky in a general election because most polls find that more Americans oppose impeachment than support it.

In the month leading up to the first debate, Sen. Kamala Harris, former Cabinet secretary Julian Castro, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Sen. Cory Booker, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke and former Gov. John Hickenlooper all sent at least one email entirely devoted to calling for Trump’s impeachment. O’Rourke, for example, sent a long email on May 30 explaining why he thought Trump should be impeached, and then a punchier one about two weeks later with “Donald Trump” as the subject line and “… should be impeached” as the only text in the body of the email, with a link to a petition.

While Warren was the first 2020 Democratic candidate to call for Trump’s impeachment — she publicly embraced that stance after the April release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election — we didn’t receive any emails from her campaign that mentioned the topic in the month before the first debate. Likewise, Sanders has also called for Trump’s impeachment, but didn’t send us any impeachment emails during the period we looked at.

Some candidates largely avoided talking about Trump at all in the month before the debate. For example, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg only mentioned Trump in one email, when he called Trump’s tariffs on Mexican goods “politically-motivated gamesmanship.” Warren also was largely silent on Trump in this period. Of the 56 emails she sent us that month, only four mentioned Trump, and of those four, only one focused on him for the bulk of the message.3 That email explained, “Our campaign isn’t about Donald Trump. That’s because he’s just the symptom, not the cause, of the crises we face as a country.” And Rep. Tim Ryan, who sent us 78 emails — the most of any candidate — didn’t mention Trump even once, although he, too, has called for Trump’s impeachment.

Bullock, on the other hand, mentioned Trump in every single email, often as part of a formulaic reminder to subscribers that he is the only presidential candidate to have won statewide office in a state Trump won.4

Candidates who have a harder time making an “electability” argument than Bullock varied widely in the tenor of their emails that mentioned Trump. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, for example, sent us fewer emails in the month leading up to the debate than most candidates, but he mentioned Trump in five of the seven emails he did send us. (And one the two that didn’t mention the president’s last name still used the hashtag #ConDon, which showed up in six of de Blasio’s emails and is meant to imply that Trump is a con man.) In many ways, De Blasio seemed to be trying to out-Trump Trump, aggressively attacking him and using name-calling tactics that the president is known for. In one email, for instance, he called Trump a “New York con man who’s just been made to smell his own BS” and referred to Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, as Trump’s “lapdog,” whose insults were “even lamer than his boss’s.” But unlike de Blasio, most of the Democratic contenders seemed to have heeded former First Lady Michelle Obama’s advice to “go high” when their opponents “go low” and are trying to strike a different tone than the current president, rather than trying to outdo him.

So what does this tell us about how Democrats are crafting (or not crafting) their campaigns around Trump? Well, a few candidates, like de Blasio, Bullock and Biden, are at one extreme — mentioning Trump at practically every opportunity — and a few, like Ryan and Buttigieg, are firmly planted at the other extreme, remaining largely silent on Trump. But perhaps unsurprisingly, most candidates fall somewhere in between, striking a balance between talking about Trump and focusing on their own message. It��s early yet, though, and some candidates’ communication strategies might change as the primary progresses. Still, with so many Democrats running, the party will have collectively tried out many different avenues of attack before the general election. Ultimately, however, there will only be one Democratic nominee, and whoever that is, he or she will have a wide pool of pre-tested approaches to draw from.