#less a hate comment and more of an unhinged rant

[motleyfam]

Gatorade hate comment, huh???

[asmallmoon333]

I've decided to post small AUs I'll never write here lol.

Modern 2024 AU, everyone is human. Ryuk is internet famous for having a YouTube channel in which he makes videos Only about apples. He’s been doing this for years and is now a living Meme. He has a series, 10-20 min per episode, where each ep is him just rigorously reviewing a single type of apple. Light is his roommate who at the start would only occasionally appear in the background. Sometimes Light would also give his opinion on the apple if Ryuk couldn’t decide on a rating. Light would do so much less enthusiastically but so logically sound it was fascinating to witness.

Light eventually has his own fans, and people start wanting him to appear more. He does so, and the videos now include deep dives into the apple's history as a context for its availability, regional popularity, use in recipes, etc. The vids are now 40-60 min long, but people still love them. Light's deadpan superiority and Ryuk's unhinged enthusiasm are really entertaining.

Then one commenter (SweetRyuzaki) starts asking him detailed questions, often disputing Light’s historical facts, and Light gets annoyed and responds and they argue for like 50+ comments while the peanut gallery posts their fights on twitter and tumblr. Light eventually knows more about apples than wikipedia does, just to spite that one commenter.

Lots of subtle digs at SweetRyuzaki are now included in their videos.

Oh btw, L Lawliet is Ryuk and Light's classmate at Uni. He’s a big fan. L eventually gets involved in the channel too by procuring rare types of apples for Ryuk's videos. He's rich and is (secretly) funding crossbreeding programs to ensure new types never run out. Ryuk loves him and invites him over all the time, and L helps them film and edit. Light starts to rant to L about the evil SweetRyuzaki and his asinine opinions and conspiracy theories (that seems so true Light spends his weeknights researching them just to prove him wrong in the next video). The fans love their fights btw; they ship it and Light hates them all. Ryuk is having the time of his life.

L always nods along and agrees with Light that Ryuzaki is an evil troll. He volunteers his body to help Light 'get over' his anger and frustration after every video is posted. Lots of sex ensues.

L is winning at life. Until Light tracks down SweetRyuzaki's IP address.

[whoishotteranimepolls]

Poll analysis part 3

Well I haven't done one of these in a while because I've been focusing on the nicknames and funny tags post But we are definitely due for another one because I've definitely noticed a change and behavior. Plus we've had a lot more and fandoms requested so that might be a contributing factor.

Let's start with the unhinged trio. Think we're due for a lineup change there. It used to be JJK, Black Butler and Dorohedoro. However the latter two only go crazy over a certain character.

Jujutsu Kaisen definitely still deserves its spot There's a reason I picked them to be the first fandom to get a Nicknames and funny tags post in fact they need an update Desperately because you guys are still up to your same old unhinged antics. I've just been busy with other fandoms (one piece) that say even more outrageous crap in the comments

Now One Piece I think you guys took that nickname and funny tag post as a challenge to be as unhinged and creative with your tags as possible because every time I think you all can't possibly get any worse. Someone puts a tag that's even crazier and now I have to update that post with more tags and new characters again.

Now the third spot of the unhinged trio should probably go to Trigun because you guys can't stop talking about Wolfwood's slutty Catholic titties and Vash's snatched little slutty waist. Plus someone has sent a match up request of their weapons no less than three times even though the rules plainly state no weapons so I think we definitely qualify for unhedged trio territory.

My Hero Academia You guys only showed up for the bunny girl and I get it. She's hot. Or to crap on endeavor, that's about it.

Attack on Titan. I finally have found proof of life. The fandom might be in a coma, but at least there's a pulse I thought that fandom was dead but someone or group of people is sending in quite a few requests for that fandom.

And now on to Naruto my problem child fandom. I am not kidding You're the fandom that refuses us to send in photos, but will throw a tantrum if it's not the photo from the correct era of the anime even though I have no clue what you're talking about. Normally when people don't like the photo with any other fandom a dozen better photos of the character will randomly appear in my inbox. Not with the Naruto fandom. I get 10 hate messages saying it's from the wrong era of the anime and I should know that. But does anyone send me a better photo from the correct era of the anime? No. Well actually that's not entirely true the a few times this fandom has sent in replacement photos it's from when in the anime I know the characters are still 14 I've done way too much research into when in canon characters turn 16 and what particular character design/outfit marks that in the timeline for this particular show because of how much I feel like I can't trust this particular fandom as a whole to follow rules. So, remember people I can't read your mind and you are the only fandom that wants to throw a fit over photos like this. Plus the few times I have tried to address the issues with the photos and try to fix the problem you guys want to get combative and very aggressive in the comments. Plus I swear you all are allergic to rules because at least 70% to 80% of requests relating to your fandom have some sort of issue. Whether it's trying to bend the rules or just outright breaking them to massive formatting problems. No other fandom causes me this many headaches. So please for the sake of my sanity do better

Sorry about that. I needed to rant about my problem child fandom maybe now they will start behaving.

When it comes to formatting there is a group of about three people that made requests either everyday or every 2 to 3 days and it was the max amount of request/matchups they could do in a single day according to the rules. They did this the entire time the box was open so they had their formatting down to a science. So basically any fandom that these people requested a lot of had really good track records for formatting and not trying to blatantly break the rules. So One Piece, JoJo's, Attack on Titan and Avatar/Korra all have very good track records right now

But with most fandoms they do a pretty good job of following the rules. No one is as bad as Naruto. Now there are some common issues and major incidents I've had so I'll go ahead and list them below

The common issues are just forgetting to put the name of the show or spelling, but Google can normally figure that out so that's not a major problem or people submitting a character that is video game only and not part of the anime adaptation. Persona, pokémon and Tekken are The worst offenders when it comes to this. Other major issues that come up frequently are with character ages? But it's normally with characters that look like they're adults. So I really don't hold that against people. I'm just guessing that people didn't realize they're actually teenagers but hopefully that will not be as much of a problem but since I dropped the age down to 16.

Now recent issues I've had to address were formatting issues where it was bad enough that I couldn't make it out due to dyslexia. Trigun has tried to submit weapons no less than three times even though that is blatantly against the rules. Like I mentioned earlier Naruto likes to submit photos from when the characters are 12 to 14 that doesn't fit the rules especially when photos are available from the correct age range that do follow the rules. So those are the ones I use no matter how many times they throw temper tantrums. Dungeon Meshi has submitted a 14-year-old and Soul Eater submitted a 13-year-old and said they were 16 in the request. So they lied. Luckily someone told me so I was able to delete those polls quite quickly, but now I can't trust anyone. So if you ever wonder why it takes so long for me to empty out the request box this is why

Oh but good news, no one has submitted a request since I've closed the box I basically consider that a miracle because the last two times there have been people that have not cared that the box is closed. So let's keep it that way please. I don't mind questions, just no requests. The box is closed I still have like 150 more individual messages that have multiple poll requests on them to get through before I open it again

Well that's going to be all for this post again. And I hope at least someone found this entertaining or informative or at least something. There will probably be another one of these in the future

[musemash]

BOND VILLAIN APPRENTICE IS A RASPUTIN WANNABE – unhinged rant by the Canuck Crank

"Musk: a greasy secretion with a powerful odor" – American Heritage Dictionary

Judging from countless rants, memes, videos, and comments online, many Americans evidently have accepted the official 2024 election results – and consequently, have resigned themselves to four more years of insane misrule by a TREASONOUS PSYCHOPATH and his misbegotten coven of DELUSIONAL MISCREANTS. This phenomenon is bizarre, to say the least.

For one thing, the ATTENTION WHORE IN CHIEF has actually won less than 50 percent of the popular vote. But that has not stopped the legacy media from feeding into the dubious narrative that MAGA has somehow mysteriously acquired a BIGLY YUGE MANDATE to usher in the agenda outlined in the FASCIST BIBLE known as Project 2025.

This is happening despite the fact that a lot of people have been raising serious concerns about the integrity of the election over the past several weeks. So far, no absolute empirical proof of fraud has been revealed; but too many questions still need to be satisfactorily answered as soon as possible, before DOUBLE AGENT ORANGE ascends to America's rusty Iron Throne.

Indeed, there are good, solid reasons to wonder whether the election result may have been SABOTAGED by various bad actors. If that was proven to be the case, the perpetrators would doubtless include tech trickster ELON MUSK; couch connoisseur JD VANCE; reliably devious RUSSIAN AGENTS; stupidly unscrupulous MAGA operatives; and certain FAUX NOISE propaganda parrots.

But sadly, many Democrats and antifascists seem to have suddenly come down with a kind of STOCKHOLM SYNDROME – meekly acquiescing to the NEW ABNORMAL, and falling for the corporate MEDIA GASLIGHTING aimed at trying to discredit these concerns. The understandable suspicions about the election are being glibly and condescendingly dismissed as mere conspiracy theories – allegedly the product of something called 'BLUE ANON', a supposed left-wing equivalent of QAnon.

But this is obviously a totally different situation, with none of the factors that spawned Trump's unhinged STOP THE STEAL movement. Democrats did not prime their base for months on end with dubious propaganda predicting rigged elections. They perpetrated no insurrections. And they have not engineered countless frivolous lawsuits promoting idiotic speculations. They are simply wondering how anyone can be stupid enough to think that voters in the swing states went for Trump, but also voted blue on so many other key races.

Of course, it is indeed possible that election skeptics are grasping at straws as consolation. But the documented irregularities cited by various observers are clearly legitimate red flags. A comprehensive recount and FORENSIC AUDIT are absolutely warranted, before the election results should be taken as gospel. After all, in 2021, Trumpers were allowed to file more than 60 fricking COURT CASES challenging the results. So why should the Dems just roll over and placidly accept this outcome?

If the election was sabotaged, one of the motives was surely to perpetrate a DIABOLICAL PSYOP, whose purpose was manyfold: to provoke Americans ever further into fearing and hating each other; to hoodwink them into drowning in profound despair; to get them to accept the notion that they are part of an incurably failed nation; and to motivate them to give up on the idea of ever returning to democracy.

In the face of all these suspicions, if Democrats don't vehemently insist on conducting an immediate autopsy of their WOUNDED BODY POLITIC, it would constitute a feckless dereliction of duty. Instead of standing up for democracy, they would be joining the ranks of too many media pundits and money-grubbing CEOs, who are capitulating to encroaching fascism.They would essentially be handing their country over to the psychotic GOP LOONIES on a red white and blue platter – and giving them a license to CANCEL LADY LIBERTY.

But this is no time to give up. While valid concerns about the election will doubtless be dismissed by cynical skeptics as conspiratorial LIBTARD FANTASIZING motivated by wishful thinking, I maintain that there are more than enough valid reasons to justify a thorough investigation. Most notably, a recent PLANET CRITICAL article presents a sobering scenario:

"Computer scientists and hacking experts have detailed how the USA’s election software was compromised – and the relatively simple hack which could have then been used to FIX THE RESULTS in the seven swing states. They are calling for an immediate hand recount in key precincts which, they say, should swiftly show that a number of these ballots NEVER EXISTED."

Furthermore, as cyber threat expert JACKIE SINGH recently stated on X, America's enemies "want us to believe our society is DISINTEGRATING, and that our streets aren't safe. This is part of the KREMLIN PLAN to foment suspicion and violence amongst Americans. Their gambit relies on us being unable to put the dots together…. They muddy the waters by using American or deep cover local intermediaries to provide the impression of organic DOMESTIC EMOTION – when in reality, the events and resultant emotions endured by the manipulated public are often fully manufactured and paid for by PUTIN."

Judging from the variety of allegations, there are many other plausible scenarios that need to be explored. Some claim that ballot drop boxes were BURNED in blue districts, and areas with a lot of minority voters; that thousands of mail-in votes were simply left uncounted, or discarded; that some ballots were stolen from post offices; and that seals were broken on 13 ballot tabulators in Milwaukee.

More than a million Democrats were apparently PURGED from voter rolls in Texas; Dems in red states were not sent the mail-in ballots they requested; postal employees were accused of ballot theft, and forging ballot signatures; some Dem mail-in ballots were rejected for supposedly mismatched signatures in swing states; and in one district, ballots were allegedly sent to an estimated 325,000 people who were not registered voters.

Disturbingly, voters in some Dem-leaning locales were reportedly threatened by MAGA voters. Even more troubling is the fact that over 50 phony BOMB THREATS, evidently originating with Russian agents, forced evacuations at various left-leaning sites in battleground states. During the distractions caused by all this chaos, saboteurs could quite possibly have manipulated voting machines.

Despite vociferous media assurances that Musk's STARLINK system was not involved in some way, it is nevertheless a real possibility. Considering his tech expertise, the SPACEX CADET could have found a way to surreptitiously connect a satellite to vote tabulating systems, to alter the counts in swing states. It is well known that Musk did a variety of unethical things to install PRECEDENT TRUMPERY in the Oval Office; so it is hardly far-fetched to think he might have tried to hijack the vote via technology.

Elon retweeted Tenet Media's Russian disinformation multiple times; he also approved DEEPFAKE ATTACK ADS; and disseminated propaganda filled with grotesque distortions of Kamala Harris' beliefs and political positions. Most concerning is Joe Rogan's claim that Tesla's boy genius actually possessed an app that gave him the election results FOUR HOURS before they were officially revealed. W the actual F????

There were also evidently a record number of new VOTER REGISTRATIONS this year. Does it sound plausible that there were 20 million fewer people voting this year than in 2020, when the pandemic kept many folks housebound? Considering how much malfeasance has been revealed about the TRAITOR IN CHIEF since that election, it beggars the imagination to think Democrats would NOT have turned up in overwhelming droves to make certain he could not possibly win.

Why would so many voters choose Democrat senators and congress people, but then turn around and vote for a CONVICTED FELON – who is also an exhaustively documented LIAR, a financial FRAUDSTER, an adjudicated RAPIST, a dangerous INSURRECTIONIST, and a traitor stealing NUCLEAR SECRETS? Are Americans' memories really that fucking short?

Dems won down-ballot congressional races in swing states; but mysteriously, those same voters also supposedly chose the CELEBRITY INMATE APPRENTICE as their top guy. Given the vast amount of evidence demonstrating the manifold crimes of the FELON IN CHIEF, why the actual fuck would any sane Democrat choose him over Kamala? And how credible is it, that Trump would win ALL SEVEN of the swing states? None of this makes any sense whatsoever, dammit!

Further, prior to this election, MAGA agents were known to have tampered with voting system technology. The most high profile culprit was TINA PETERS, a Colorado operative who recently got a richly deserved nine year sentence for a data-breach scheme she engineered a few years ago.

Also, as Rachel Maddow reported, several times at rallies Trump told followers he didn't NEED ANYMORE VOTES. He also stated that he and Speaker Mikey 'Moses' Johnson had a cute "LITTLE SECRET" that would guarantee they won. He promised he would divulge the secret after the election. We're still waiting, dumbass!

Of course, it is obvious that the USEFUL IDIOT IN CHIEF owes much of his "victory" to his close personal dominatrix CZAR VLADIMIR. Russian official Nikolai Patrushev recently confirmed this, asserting: "To achieve success in this election, Donald Trump relied on certain forces, to which he has corresponding obligations."

America now faces the consequences of allowing an arrogant SMIRKING SOCIOPATH like Elong MuskRat to purchase and install a sexual predator, adjudicated felon, and archtraitor in the White House. Since DEMENTIA DONOLD's slimy orange hands will be on the NUCLEAR CODES once again, it is crystal clear that drastic action is required. Thus, while some will doubtless dismiss the following scenario as naive and far-fetched, I happily offer this MODEST PROPOSAL for what it's worth.

Before he becomes a milkshake guzzling retiree, JOLTIN' JOE needs to cut the malarkey and unleash his inner DARK BRANDON one last time, to prevent the fascist heist of his nation. He should exercise the prerogative granted to him by the SCOTUS IMMUNITY decision, and order the FBI to conduct an independent investigation of any credible allegations of election cheating. Ideally, a detailed DOJ report on the results could be made public before INAUGURATION DAY. But if necessary, Biden could simply order that the inauguration ceremony be postponed till the process is finished.

If there is sufficient concrete evidence that the November 5th results were indeed hijacked, then Musk, Trump, Vance, Johnson, and any other MAGA cronies that are seriously implicated in the crime, should be detained in GITMO, pending trial for treason. The subsequent legal proceedings should be televised, live and unedited, to reassure a terrified world that the USA has indeed learned from the deadly mistake of the ghastly TRUMP ERROR.

Alternatively, Brandon could use his immunity to release all the evidence accumulated by JACK SMITH, regarding the Insurrection, the stolen classified documents, and Trump's many obstructions of justice. This would demonstrate that Joe has every reason to reopen ALCATRAZ to corral Donnie and dozens of complicit MAGA MINIONS. The next step would be to ANNUL the 2024 election and order a shiny new one, rigorously overseen by CYBERSECURITY agents and U.N. ELECTION MONITORS. Under the obvious emergency conditions, these would all definitely be legitimate "OFFICIAL ACTS."

But to be entirely realistic, we must also contemplate an even more troubling scenario than the ones I've outlined. What if the election was NOT stolen by the MAGAGOP? This would mean that a majority of the electorate, who were sufficiently motivated to get off their asses to vote, were also comfortable with the idea of having their country's worst WHITE COLLAR CRIMINAL be put in charge of their nation's destiny and their children's future.

Thus, they were content to basically trash America's legacy of FIGHTING FASCISM; metaphorically, they casually pissed on all the graves in ARLINGTON CEMETERY. How very disgraceful, and monumentally tragic, such an outcome would be. Now emboldened, the RAPIST IN CHIEF could very well take a wrecking ball to the USA, to satisfy his vengeance, and suck up to BIG DADDY VLADDY. If this happens, it will be a literal miracle if America survives the next four years.

By handing him the White House, myriad incredibly stupid voters have made it almost certain that he will NEVER FACE JUSTICE for his many documented crimes – and everything good about America will be run into the ground, by the most sickening lawbreaker in its history. But those who idolize this treacherous barbarian have nothing to gloat about. God help them if they ever have to face the truth about what they have ENABLED. We'll see who will be weeping in the end.

All that said, I still refuse to underestimate the tenacity and courage of the true patriots and "BETTER ANGELS" of the USA. So while the Yankee homeland won't be the Land Of The Free for the next several years, we will hopefully soon find out that this nation is indeed still the HOME OF THE BRAVE. It may still not be too late to witness the downfall and comeuppance of MUSKPUTIN and his MAGAMOBSTERS.

Best wishes to every one of America's citizens who still treasure democracy. To them I say: Many of us living outside your borders still care deeply about what happens to you. So STAND STRONG – and please don't give up! This is no time for despair, or to wallow in disgust. It's time to get determined – and hopeful. As labor union martyr JOE HILL put it just before he was executed: "DON'T MOURN – ORGANIZE!"

In conclusion: If y'all think I'm just a gullible type, over-reacting and living in a dream world, feel free to call me DON QUIXOTE – then just saddle me up, and point me to the nearest WINDMILL! But to make my case, I submit a very comprehensive archive of related news items, editorials, and satirical videos; I respectfully challenge you to check them out with an open mind.

If enough American voters become sufficiently aware of the deadly serious reasons for the aforementioned concerns, it may not be too late for them to demand that Dark Brandon rescue their nation from the UNBRIDLED DEPRAVITY of Trumpism before it's too late. You'll find the archive at the first link below. I urge you to share it as widely as possible.

HOW MAGA MINIONS & KREMLIN GREMLINS STOLE XMAS https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/42536218614/ TRUMPERY’S FOLLY VS THE MOMALA FACTOR https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/766200584914288640/ DARK BRANDON PASSES THE TORCH https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/736140385977597952/ THE KARMALA PHENOMENON https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/721712158853955584/ MARALARDO’S BROMANCE FOR THE AGES https://www.flickr.com/photos/aeon999/54233325168/in/album-72177720322854833/lightbox/ HOW LORD MUSKPUTIN CONQUERED MARS https://www.flickr.com/photos/aeon999/54233312564/in/album-72177720322832375/lightbox/ FINAL DISPATCHES FROM THE KAMBRAT ZONE https://musemash.tumblr.com/post/771191287661690880/

[celestie0]

hello ellieeee!!!!

your responses always have me crying ngl!!! somethings you tell me are so precious to me that they make my day, iloveyousomuch!!!

kisses for you here 💋💋💋💋💋💋💋

i’m sure you’re the most fun person to be around in real life, at least id be having the time of my life with you.

i hate kaito and i love for writing him so despicable and annoying. i aspire to write a character like him the way you’ve done.

it’s one thing to let people know about our experience and it’s a whole different level of evil to pull them down to your level of failure because you’re insecure and jealous. kai falls in the second category.

nobody else could tell??? i’m sure they didn’t point it out like me. hopefully, i always panda kun to be recognised!!! he’s my favourite character in jjk. i love pandas in general.

it’s fine, dw, after that ending you don’t have to worry about getting a counsel to represent you for my emotional distress!

reader and geto are giving a very tough competition to kickoff!gojo. but ykw i love gojo, he’s my sweetheart. the love of my life. the apple of my eye. ishouldstop.

no because youve done justice to canon!gojo in this sense, their approach to grieving is similar, except kickoff!gojo is less unhinge and dare i say it: more swoon-worthy. i wanna be like gojo at compartmentalizing and yk just…ive had multiple public breakdowns in uni and i’m so very embarrassed by them, i wish i was more like kickoff!gojo in dealing with them. yk where he calmed himself down for our dear reader? like that. i’m still so impressed by that one scene. it’s so close to my heart. i wish people in my life do that for me. calm down instead of bursting out.

ur so emotionslly intelligent my love and ur empathy is enouhh to make me tear up 😭 ppl in ur life must feel so safe w you

you’re the only person who’s said this to me, and god im smiling like an idiot WHILE tearing up. you’ve no idea how much this means to me, itd get awkward if i start ranting about it. BUT THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

thank you for sharing kickoff with us! it literally makes my heart melt and heals me.

i read it with stuff going because it heals me. kickoff has healing abilities. you are just not aware!

you’ve all my prayers and vibes for yourself!!!! you’re such a wonderful soul to have around (even virtually). i appreciate all of you 🥹

it’s so sweet of to be writing and entire character representing her. it always warms my heart when people love their best friends so much and actually make sure that everyone knows that!!!

STOP MAKING ME FLUSTERED!!! IM FLATTERED AS I AM HOLYSHIT I LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT READING THIS AND GRINNING LIKE A CAT!!!! ILSYM!!! YOURE THE SWEETEST OF ALL!!

🫶🏻💌

hiiii bb YOUR responses always have me crying pls 😭😭😘💋 i feel like i’d lov hanging out w you too haha 🤣 its giving picnic hangout on the beach w champagne vibes LOL

and yes very true ugh kai is despicable but i really hope he wasn’t comically awful 🤣 i realized in writing ch9 how fkn difficult it is to write a sort of gray character (until theyre revealed to be horrible) idk how a lot of authors/show writers do it

aw girl i hear you ab those university breakdowns 😭😭 the amt of times i broke down crying in my car pls 💀 i think my lowest point was when i full on started sobbing in the library it was so embarrassing🧍🏻‍♀️i also started crying in front of my professor once during office hrs n he didnt know what to do n just handed me a box of tissues 😭 i wanna disappear……but thats besides the point lol. yeah compartmentalizing can be useful sometimes but i think it’s super healthy to let emotions out too for sure :”) but no fs if only i had the composure of gojo in that scene in certain cases haha. it’s like blondie in this is me trying “my words shoot to kill when im mad” thats so me 😭😭 i shld be better ab that

AWW ofc ab the comment u highlighted n also for sharing kickoff :””) im so happy my words made u happy, i really mean them!

and aaa yes my friend isnt even a jjk fan bahaha but she said she’d read kickoff if i started posting it so i had to tribute her somehow 🤣 plus i use her for reference for a lot of the film major stuff so it was the least i could do (lol sort of funny note but when kai mentions working shifts at a movie theater bc he thought a director would notice him……my friend has actually done that LMAOO i kinda roasted her for that 💀💀 yikes)

OFC MY DARLING I LOVE TALKING TO U N BOUNCING FEELS N IDEAS N EVERYTHING OFF OF YOU YOU’re SUCH A JOY <333 ilysm i hope u have a wonderful day 😚💕

[centaurianthropology]

The Critical Role reddit is wild, man.  Every now and then I check over there, and I am consistently amazed by how ... out of touch that entire community feels?  I know it’s a reddit thing that no one hates a thing quite like the reddit community for that thing, but damn do they really not like CR.  Most of them seem to have not liked it since, like, C1, but they keep tuning in every week for 4+ hours?  It’s bananas!

There is also a definite vibe of really wanting Senpai Travis to notice them.  He and Sam get rained with praise.  The girls are mostly ignored, except occasionally Marisha, which I feel like might be compensation from the old days when she was the favorite punching bag.  Taliesin is now the favorite punching bag.  They fucking loathe him for no reason in particular, but every post praising his work is inevitably filled with people hating on him.  They also seem to forget Liam exists most of the time.

They hate C3.  They’re divided on C2.  They love C1.  They seem to think that there’s no way Imogen and Laudna are getting together because they’re Gal Pals.  Even after the last episode, when it was more or less confirmed that was the direction Laura and Marisha are going with the relationship, they dismissed that and talked about when Laudna and Ashton were going to hook up, because if an even-sort-of-male-presenting person and a woman talk in depth, they have to hook up.  But god forbid lesbians exist in this not-at-all-queer TTRPG show.  Another apparently popular theory over there is that Matt is going to kill off the C3 characters to bring back the C1 characters for this campaign, which ... huh?

It’s like they’re watching this show, but reacting to it like it’s a 90s network television show rather than a live-play series filled with actors who are both very progressive and at least two of whom are openly queer, and all the others seem intensely supportive of that and interested in exploring their own sexualities and identities through roleplay and acting.  They have this weird, warped view of the cast wherein the ��normal’ jocky and funny men (Travis and Sam) are the obvious protagonists of the group (this is completely ignoring the actual unhinged and delightful personalities of Travis and Sam and instead slotting them into these weird stereotypes), Laura’s okay because she’s with Travis but is rarely acknowledged to be her own person, Marisha is the girl who got a glow-up (they no longer acknowledge how they treated her pre-glow-up), Liam and Ashley are ... there, and Taliesin is the weird guy that everyone else secretly hates.

They cling to C1, I think, because it’s ‘traditional’ fantasy, with clear tropes and a bunch of non-colorful, potentially straight-presenting characters (most of the characters were, in fact, bi, but most also ended up in opposite-sex relationships).  Queer and ‘weird’ and ‘cringe’ characters were the least prominent in C1, so C1 to them is the best one.  C2 is ‘edgy’, and C3 is ‘cringe’.  And despite all this, they still watch every single week just to complain?  Do they not have anything better to do?  That sounds fucking miserable, but then again, maybe they’re into being miserable. 

Sorry to rant, but every time I go over there I am promptly reminded of why I tell myself NOT to go there.  It’s like watching the worst wildlife documentary.  The Twitch comment section may be the biggest cesspool for CR, but the Reddit is the most persistent.

[border-spam]

Leech Lord - Nobody loves me like you

It was so late it felt like time itself had passed out, that void somewhere in the AM between being tired enough to fall asleep where you stand and feeling the nervous energy of dawn approaching.

The air in the Mechanicum was crisp with night chill when the E-Dev in her pocket vibrated, and Saint Ur-Machina's heart sunk in her chest as she grimaced under her welding mask. No need to check who it was, she'd known before he'd even sent the message.

The God-King was angry.

She sighed, rubbing oily hands into oilier overalls, and frowned at how pointless a gesture trying to clean them had been at all, picking bits of filth out from under her nails as she leaned against the rough wall of the hangar. Pointless maybe, but a distraction, and Seifa needed one of those right now.

The God-King was angry with himself, and that meant the people he cared about the most would take the rage.

The workfloor clock read 3:56AM where it hung from the rafter above her station, clunky ticking echoing across the empty bay. No one but her still working, and she shouldn't really have been there either considering the hour, but that had stopped feeling like it mattered a long time ago. She was always there now. Always working, like she haunted the place. Funny, she used to be so good about managing her time...

The welding mask threw a cloud of sawdust as it bounced across the floor towards the machine she'd kicked it at. She didn't even know what to call the horrible thing that loomed in front of her, some juggernaut of sleek metal she'd been ordered to run performance checks on, jagged lines illuminated by the sickly floor lamps she'd arranged around its skeleton.

Warmachines. Unnamed projects with stacks of paperwork marking them as highly classified, Troy's insignia and the same word she kept seeing over and over in confidential documentation - Uroboros. Tasted like a bad idea, reeked of poor decisions, and she'd always sniffed those out like a Skag.

What the hell did Seifa A'Rosk know about warmachines anyway? They used to build Technicals here, outriders. COV custom Cyclones for stream events, this wasn't what she signed up for, none of it was. Managing the engineering crew should never have shifted into whatever the fuck THIS was.

The steel monster in front of her bled oil silently into the sawdust, refusing to give an answer. Whatever this was, it was for Gods and Sirens, and that was a world she wasn't part of, not really. She wasn't a Saint, she was just a ghost, caught repeating the same mistakes over and over till she faded away.

The E-Dev in her pocket vibrated again, and she tapped the back of her head against the plate steel wall, trying to convince herself she wasn't ready to vomit as she squinted up towards the hangar's ceiling, lost to the night murk the lights around her couldn't quite cut through.

She figured she should answer, making him wait was just going to make this worse.

Jak-Knife had already warned her, a curt ping earlier today to "sstay ou t of his way it s bad seiifa". Ven too when he'd dropped by in the afternoon with the excuse of worrying about if she'd eaten yet and half a bag of something spicy and dripping in grease. He'd said the Cathedral staff were noose tight and whispering nervously about an incident a few hours before, something had gone wrong in a talk with visiting sponsors - with the twins. Word on the rumour mill was it had nearly turned vicious, the suits looking ready to brick themselves as they'd all but ran through the meeting room's doors after Troy had flung them open hard enough to unhinge one, and according to priests who'd been on hand? Tyreen had really embarrassed him.

Sei had winced as Ven explained, both painfully aware of this behaviour pattern and what it meant for everyone he was close to. Why the God Queen had been going out of her way to put her brother down in front of high-value clients recently was impossible to guess - no one could really get into her head or understand her decisions lately, but this wasn't the first time, and if anything it was getting worse. Little insults. Little knife-sharp jokes that weren't jokes at all, and mockeries masked behind a paper thin smile like it made them less deadly. She'd imply he was a burden, or undermine his expertise in ways so cleverly worded that the officials would have no choice but to laugh awkwardly as Troy seethed while his twin continued with negotiations.

Today she'd apparently told him to make himself actually useful and fetch their guests some drinks, right in front of servant crew and moments after he'd finished a grueling breakdown of growth projections and profit expectations for this quarter to a rapt audience. It's hard to tell if him snapping had actually surprised her or had been exactly what she wanted, but the staff who'd been there were terrified, and insisted the Vault Mother had looked genuinely shocked when the desk he threw had missed her head by barely a few inches.

He'd stalked out of the meeting and vanished into the upper cloister, and now it was the middle of the night and her E-Dev pinged for a third time.

She closed her eyes and tried to breathe out the fear coiling through her ribs in a shaky exhale. She knew exactly what was happening, it was the same as always with him. Enraged, dripping with self-loathing, and lost somewhere in that toxic mood somewhere between vicious and pitiful - looking for something to hurt, looking for a way to vent the pain as he paced like a snarling monster, muttering like he was arguing something with himself, a back and forth of accusations and desperate apologies to something no one else could see.

Tyreen couldn't eat him alive with her powers but she could do it with her words... and maybe that's what had changed. Maybe she'd realised a new way to control her twin with manipulations that left him so emasculated and damaged in confidence that he wanted to tear something he loved apart just so he could turn the hatred on himself after.

Of course it was going to be her.

The same dance every time now, the same frustrating steps that she'd memorised by this point, trying to break him out of his deadly spiral as he'd rant at rave at her, till he'd attack her somehow, then skulk into the shadows when he was done foaming at the mouth, leaving her to carry everything he'd piled onto her shoulders - the threats, the hate, the aggression, only to beg for her forgiveness the next day and be ignored.

He'd spend a week desperately apologising, showing how much he understood how pathetically wrong what he had done had been, sending ridiculous gifts to the mechanicum where he knew they'd have to be accepted under his sigil, reassure over and over in messages that it wouldn't happen again, that he'd just been under so much pressure, that he'd just snapped, that it wasn't right and she hadn't deserved it and how much her friendship mattered.

The E-Dev pinged one last time, and Seifa straightened, dusting off her overalls and adjusting the toolbelt slung around her waist.

God-King Calypso demanded a sacrifice - self harm masked as a blade he'd lash at someone he loved so it would cut him all the deeper. She'd take it, better her than someone else. She could handle him. 

She always had.

It was raining again, felt like that hadn't stopped at all this month. Pandora had wet seasons, it's just that the water never seemed to go anywhere. The acrid dust absorbed it almost as fast as it could fall, but in the city it flooded the streets as it rushed down gutters. Neon light reflected from gaudy signs in pools of colour that swam across the uneven paving stones as she slowly made her way towards the Cathedral, a waterproof canvas thrown around her shoulders protecting from the downpour.

Even at this time of night, the city was still alive. It never really stilled anymore, too many deals going down in alleys and money changing hands in clubs for it to ever actually sleep, and as she picked her way past huddled locals far too engrossed in their own business to pay her any mind, Seifa wondered when it was things had changed like this.

This place had been a shanty town, hadn't it? When she'd arrived to take over the engineering division there had been maybe one, two thousand COV followers camped around the cathedral in rickety shelters. Bandits mostly, erecting camps and functional living quarters with expertise alien to any outsider. It was a city now, fuck, it was a metropolis. She'd overseen the building of half of the major apartment systems in the inner ring around the holy quarter, so how did it still feel like it had grown of out nowhere?

Sei huffed out a steamy breath into the chill night air as the cathedral began to come into view, bass music and laughter fading as it was swallowed into the drumming of the rain on the buildings she left behind her.

She used to be so proud when she saw it, the awesome majesty of its twisted spires and jutting angles framed against the rocky outcrop that loomed behind it. Nowadays it just looked like something grotesque, a mirror of what it contained maybe. The COV was rotting from within, and everyone knew the source.

She'd been warned by friends more willing to face the harsh realities of the twin's decline that time was running out.

Tonight, tomorrow, a week from now, it didn't matter why it was going to happen, just that it would, and as much as she hated admitting it to anyone, Seifa knew she wasn't strong enough to do this much longer.

He was killing her.

Anything could set him off now, it was constant. Numbers under-performing this week, an underhanded comment from Tyreen that tipped the balance, not enough sleep, too many stims, not gaining weight, an article mocking his appearance, anything. It could have been any of them he had summoned, her, Ven, JK, the why or who was inconsequential because the desired outcome was always the same.

Troy wanted to hurt himself, not them, but he didn’t know how. The pressure would build and build till he broke down, lost logic, went wild-eyed and shaking in barely controlled rage. He hated being Troy Calypso so much there were times he wanted to tear his own skin off, he'd told her as much on nights alone and open in shared sadness, but there was no escape. It was this, or starving in a manner she couldn’t even comprehend, and when he'd asked before if maybe that would be the better option?

...She'd not known what to say. She'd failed him then, tripping over the words catching in her lungs as he desperately waited for an answer that would make sense of things, and she'd never been able to give one. Just sat next to him as they both sank deeper into the trap of their titles and the horrible reality that there was no clear way out.

He was waiting in the throne room for her, just like she'd imagined. Pacing back and forth across the dias as the city light streamed through the stained glass windows, glinting sharply off the rattling gold spines his ritual gear was decorated with as he moved.

She'd stood in silence, watching, trying to catch what he was asking himself as he'd snap a muttered retort in spite, but not able to ever make out the questions. Like an animal snared in gilded chains she figured, or something else maybe - an idol pretending to be something living? A shiver had ran through her as she waited for him to turn his frantic attention to her, quietly waiting for the blow to come. No one had even been there to greet her or open the doors to the throne room, they were ajar, the staff knowing better than to risk being in his presence when he was like this... she smirked, knowing better than her, anyway.

He'd shifted attention to her so smoothly it felt like the rant he'd been hissing to himself just continued directly into her as he'd turned, beckoning her closer with a quirk of those horrible claws. She'd bit her lip and swallowed down how much that enraged her, being summoned like a fucking dog when this man so often made clear he viewed himself as dirt in comparison to her, but months of dealing with him had tempered the reaction. Easier to go along with it, placate him, nod and let him vent out the bile till he realised how much of a fucking asshole he was and came crawling back later.

It was the same dance as usual, the exact same steps. She could feel where he was going with each shift in direction, jumping topic to topic in an attempt to place blame and becoming more enraged with each simple refute she could offer. She never made it easy, that wasn't her nature in the end, she'd calmly reply back to each accusation with logic that left him shaking harder as the fury built, like a caged predator or roid-mad Psycho desperate to attack but not getting the opening. She could play this game for hours, long enough to make sure he worked for the satisfaction, even if it left her exhausted.

She'd always been petty, after all.

He threw snarled jabs at Mechanicum performance, raised complaints that she knew weren't true, accused "concerns" about output she could disarm easily, the same as always, till suddenly he shifted.. and everything went wrong.

She could handle him with spines raised and teeth bared, she could stand unflinching as he aimed blows that he never really landed, but she hadn't been prepared for him to suddenly relax. He'd stood straight, rolling the weight of the prosthetic on a shoulder all casual and friendly like suddenly he wasn't seething under the grin his snarl melted into, and she'd felt a jolt of fear. This was something new, this was something... worse, she could feel it like electricity crackling up her spine, and for the first time that night her heart began to pick up a stuttered pounding as cool sweat beaded down her back. He took a step closer, and for just a second, there was a question flittering across the back of her mind that screamed something she couldn't ignore before it vanished into her practiced calm.

For a split second, Seifa questioned if this was Troy.

"You know, it's funny, Sei..."

She opened her mouth to warn him to stop, the atmosphere was at fever point, he was going to go too far, something in how terrified his eyes looked against he vicious curve of his smile sent panic through her chest.

"Troy" her voice cracked "Come on, Troy you know you shouldn't keep going, this is -"

He cut her off with a tsk and raise of a bladed finger, bending to lower his face closer to hers from where he towered above her.

"Rude Seifa, I was talking."

He was near enough to feel the body heat glowing from his chest, and her voice choked in her throat as the point of a talon tapped gently against her nose as if he was chiding some kid.

"Funny isn't it?" He cooed, and it wasn't.

"You used to have so much time for me, didn't you. We used to really spend time together..." the lack of his stutter was a warning she knew him too well to ignore.

"... but nowadays you're so desperate to get out of my presence that I can literally see your skin crawl while you're forced to be around me. It's happening right now Sei... ain't it."

That was a lie, and she wanted to slap his hand away from where it pointed towards her chest, push him back towards the throne behind him and tell him how stupid an attack that was. She's always had time for him, she gave him infinite time, she gave him so much of herself that she'd been crumbling, she wanted to tell him the truth of it, that how much she gave him had been killing her, but she couldn't, he didn't give her the chance.

"You've got allllll the energy in the world for your little friends though, don't you. You've got laughter and happiness to pour all over them, fill them up with, show them how much you care, but not me, not anymore. And you know, that's got me thinking recently!"

The smile was fake but the monster behind it wasn't. He may as well have been snarling, and she was fully aware he wasn't really attempting to hide that at all.

He stepped a fraction closer again, close enough for her to reach and press a warning hand against his chest as he leaned further down to meet her eyes, the veneer of his calm cracking under the weight of the now haggard, panting breathes he whistled through that vicious smile, the terror in his eyes. She didn't understand any of this, why was he so afraid when it was him pressing this onwards, why was he so panicked when the act was so calm? His skin was like fucking fire under her hand and the push she gave to try and move him back did nothing.

"Made me realise, maybe I was never your friend really - maybe I was just something you held onto like a lifeline in the storm of your shitty life choices, huh?" She felt tears rise, this wasn't fair, this was too real now, this was being aimed at his friend not his employee, but he wouldn't stop.

"Taken for a ride while you lead me on all these years. That would explain it, right? How much you got for them, how much you'll give them, when I'm just a burden to you. Or..."

His mouth was next to her ear and she wanted to beg him to stop before it was too late, before he did what she knew he was about to do. To stop before he decimated everything, but the words were caught behind the sob she refused to let spill as he drove the knife home with one last twist.

"Maybe the real problem here Seifa, is they are more than friends, hmm? Because that's your real operation method, isn't it. That's how you get what you want, everyone knows it. Maybe they met your standards, but you just never saw me as good enough to fuck."

The crack of his jaw against her fist echoed through the stone throne room for long enough to make the silence that came after all the more horrible.

She remembers that, that noise and the pain ripping through her hand in burning waves, but she doesn't really remember the rest. 

She doesn't fully remember what she saw, the flash of those glaring, monstrous eyes that burned down on them both as Troy reeled in horrified shock, cradling his face in confusion like he couldn't understand why she'd just hit him, she doesn't remember the flicker of Siren wings or the laughter that echoed somewhere in the back of her mind but made no sound.

It's a daze. Whatever he whispered pleadingly after, teary-eyed and shaking, she didn't hear.

She doesn't remember leaving and how she stormed down the Cathedral halls and into the freezing night air, doesn't remember who saw her or if clergy had been there. Doesn't remember the way she'd mindlessly picked towards the hi-rise Ven's quarters were in before realising she was walking the wrong way, or how effortlessly she'd flipped the ignition in her ship, or how prepped she'd been to jump out of Pandora's orbit soon as she hit safe distance, doesn't remember any of it.

But the pain in her hand and the look in his eyes after, she fucking remembers that.

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

hi apologies this is the only way I can publish this ask due to Functional Website. sorry to answer this so late I unironically had to take a few weeks to decide if this was simply too cringe to post publicly. thanks for your understanding. anyways:

I’m assuming this is in response to these tags but how funny would it be if you’d just sent me this based solely on my Vibes?

Ok Anon I’m going to have to curtail my obnoxious gushing to you here because there’s already so much ranting to do in this post, so let me just straight up tell you it was extremely sexy of you to ask me this and you should def hmu if you’re single and also not put off by the following insanity.

That said, let’s get into it. First off, important notes:  

1) I should stress that this is Fake News FPF (Fake Person Fiction), not RPF. There’s a whole post to be made about the whole FPF concept (hey boys! commit to the concept next time! using your real names for your weird improv skit characters makes everything weird and uncomfortable for the rest of us!) but the gist of it is that no, this is not about any Real Live People (TM), this is about the Funny Characters created for the Funny TV Show. Blustery closeted drama queen Stephen, mild-mannered totally unfazed Jon, incompetent unhinged idiot Steve, etc. The Colbert Report, not The Late Show. You get it. Moving on.

2) The phrasing of this question gave me an absolutely wonderful vision of like, a version of SPN where the Winchesters are going around doing all their bullshit and meanwhile the cast of The Daily Show are just in the background commenting on it all and maybe John Oliver gets incidentally murdered by a ghoul at some point. This is the funniest thing on earth but unfortunately back when I made this my kid brain was just going to town in weird ways so when I say “Jon Stewart was there” I mean I decided it would be cool if he fought the fucking devil.

And now it’s readmore time, because I’m assuming the general public has no desire to get into this any further. One day I will have to answer to mobile users for my sins. Mea Culpa.

So idk if you know this but the TV show Supernatural was actually originally called Unnatural and the original concept for the show had a reporter going to investigate urban legends. Wow, I said, watching season 5, I’m so glad they didn’t go with that idea. Wow, I said again later, watching season 10, I wish they’d fucking gone with that idea, because I hate this show so m—

So in my AU Jon Stewart is a reporter going to investigate urban legends and it’s super cool!!! And he learns all about Hunters and goes from being a hapless civilian in need of saving to a badass fighter who uses his quick wits to defeat monsters!! He has a whole arc full of character development!! Can you IMAGINE.

But it’s not just him! I put in a bunch of correspondents and other assorted characters from TDS and TCR and gave them different roles and wasted my entire youth. Like Stephen Colbert is an angel because he’s a religious fanatic and comes from a cruel repressive environment and is kind of a dick. Steve Carell is a demon because I wanted an excuse for the other characters to be mean to him and make him cry. John Oliver is a witch because he looks like Harry Potter. I thought everything out perfectly.

Anyways I obviously created full seasons’ worth of plotlines, rearranging and changing stuff from SPN canon to make it more fitting and also less terrible and also, of course, gay. BUT we’re not going into all of that here we’re going to try to answer something resembling your question.

So I think the plotline that’s the most fun from Jon’s POV is definitely defeating the Horseman Pestilence because in my version it starts with an exciting quest to get the Staff of Moses (criminally and kind of insultingly underused in the original SPN btw like it was there for one ep and they CUT IT INTO PIECES???) which he then uses to subdue Pestilence to get the ring and also heal everyone in the hospital and also accidentally cover the surrounding area in a (no longer) endangered species of tree frog. Very successful adventure all around, although at the end of it the Staff turns into a snake and slithers away because sorry Jon, can’t let you have that extremely OP item until you really need it again…….

My favorite plotline, though not Jon’s as he is miserable during it, is my retelling of the s8 closing the gates of hell arc, because the SPN writers dropped so many balls in that one that it turned into a hilariously fun ballpit for me to play in. But that whole thing would take A WHILE to explain so I can’t inflict it on the world unless explicitly asked.

So yeah none of this actually answered your question that I’m sure you regret asking at this point. Sorry about that :( You did give me a chance to talk about this idea I’ve been obsessing over on and off for years on end though so uh, wow, thank you for that! Thanks. Means a lot. I am going to end this post now before I say something insane to you. You SHOULD hmu later tho if you’re still out there. Could be fun. Could be soulmates. Carry on my wayward anon!

[dearkaelsman]

Again, my phone mot cooperating with fixing Twitter, but now I’m legitimately terrified of what they’ll do to Mark Oliver’s speech during P-50. Say what you will about SEED, and for me it absolutely has its problems, but his rant made that last battle for me (Kira’s dialogue aside). Like impo Rau already had this air of “Alright, mate, I fucking dare you to get on my level, but I’ll serenade you until then”, and then the rant ramped it to this beautifully psychotic sting, and I just can’t...

//Mark Oliver is a legend.

I think I’ve said this before, but he did a podcast with Trevor Devall, where they talked about him playing Rau and he said he actually watched Nazi/Hitler videos the morning before he went in to record the monologues at the end of the series because he saw the similarities between Rau’s arc over the series and Hitler.

Hitler was charismatic and likeable at first - that’s how he garnered mass support, but he became more and more unhinged and then committed the atrocities we all learn about in school, which is very similar to how Rau is. He understood the character, from the fact his name literally refers to a theatre play, to how warped and unhinged he was. He was deliciously smooth in his performance, and as one dude on Twitter said, the true voice of a villain.

Why? He put so much effort into playing that role, and it showed. If the actors involved with SEED now (and perhaps some of them then, too) put the effort in that he did, SEED would be a masterpiece.

What’s interesting with Rau, is when you look at the comments with regards to the clips posted before today, there were a lot of Gundam fans that said Rau would make or break this redub for them. Some of them said that they even hated SEED/Destiny but loved Rau and the depth to his character. I overheard a conversation at the last anime convention I was at where someone was buying the Providence, and they had this conversation about how they didn’t like SEED, but Mark Oliver was so good in his role, they couldn’t pass up that Gunpla kit, and even said his portrayal of Rau was sooo good they preferred it over the Japanese - and I think we can all appreciate what rare and high praise it is for someone to say that.

Now, we’ve only caught clips so far, but if you compare the exact same clips to the original dub audio, the excuse that they’re only short snippets is a poor one at best, imo. Mark Oliver never had a shaky moment . His diction was incredible, and I literally got chills at moments during his speech at the end.

The performance by re-dub Rau, shows that whoever’s playing him now (and I can’t be bothered to look up their names at this point lest it impact how I feel about them on other projects and as a good journalist I try to be unbiased heading into things), is playing him as your stereotypical baddie right from the get go. There’s less nuance, his gruff voice in the clip today would be more suited to any male ship captain on the show over Rau.

I think it was this clip that actually saw someone on Twitter suggest we start a petition to have the original SEED cast record the project too. At this point, if someone started a kickstarter, or something to actually make it happen, I’d do whatever I could to help fund it.

[queenofcats17]

Unraveled by Timothy Lawrence

I’ve never written anything in the Borderlands fandom, but I saw this post by @0pixer and I guess I’m writing it

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

Timothy Lawrence’s life has significantly improved now that Jack is dead and he’s managed to get a job that doesn’t involve killing people. He’s very done with killing people. Rhys has given him a job at ATLAS doing...Well, his official job has something to do with media relations or something. Mostly he makes weird videos where he goes weirdly in-depth about various subjects. Usually books. Sometimes movies. Once he deconstructed a Bunkers and Badasses campaign with the help of Rhys and Vaughn. He’s gained quite a following.

Today, his video opens as it often does, with Tim standing in front of a black background which he may or may not pin pieces of paper to in some strange string board. He’s grown his hair out a bit since joining Atlas, and his ginger hair has started to come back along with his freckles. Today he’s wearing a sweater with a cartoon cat on it.

“As you all probably know, I have an English degree. Before I started working for Jack, I went to school for English. I was going to be a writer.” Tim’s expression is some mix of irritated and existential wondering who his life had ended up this way.

“Anyway,” he clears his throat and continues. “I have an English degree. And today I’m going to use it. To take apart this awful romance novel!” He holds up a book with a giant grin. It looks like something you’d pick up at the drug store and has a stylized illustration of Handsome Jack and a swooning damsel on the front.

“I’m going to tear this apart.” The glee is readily apparent on Tim’s face. He looks absolutely ecstatic to destroy this book, both figuratively and literally. Because he will be burning this once the segment is over. “Despite being told that this is a bad idea and it’s just a book, I’m going to do this anyway!” 

“As if we could stop you.” Sasha’s voice comes from off-screen. Tim disregards this, his smile widening. 

“Vaughn and Fiona found this while scavenging the charred remains of Helios for supplies.” Tim opens the book, flipping through a few pages. “They were just going to burn it for fuel, but then Fiona read a few pages and it was so bad she brought it back so we could all laugh at it.” He starts giggling in anticipation. 

“I kind of remember Jack having these things produced, but, well,” he pauses and lets out an undignified snort. “He had a lot of shitty propaganda produced. I’m pretty sure Rhys owned all of it.”

“I did not!” Rhys’ indignant voice comes from behind the camera.

“Bro, half the stuff in our apartment was Handsome Jack merch.” Vaughn’s voice comes from behind the camera as well. There’s a huff, presumably from Rhys. 

“Alright, fine, but I didn’t have that.”

“Well, as an expert on all things Handsome Jack, you wanna tell us how the Jack in this masterpiece measures up to the real thing?” Tim asks with an innocent smile. 

“Why would I know?” Rhys asks. “You were the one who worked with him!”

“But you were the one who had him in your head,” Vaughn says. “Oh, I never really asked, but did he see your dick? I always kind of wondered if he did and he made any comments or-” There’s a muffled screaming sound from off-screen, presumably Rhys yelling into a pillow.  

“Anyway, let’s move on~,” Tim says in a sing-song voice. “So. First off, what is the plot of this book?” His expression grows comically grim. “That’s very important to talk about if we’re going to tear this thing apart.” 

There are various stifled giggles and snorts as the others in the room try to keep themselves together. 

“The book follows Felicia, an accountant from Atlas who gets sent to Pandora by her,” he pauses and flips to a page. “‘Horrible heartless bastards of bosses’.” 

“Definitely not biased.” Fiona snorts derisively.

“Why would you even suggest that?” Sasha gasps, although it’s clear she’s trying to fight back laughter. 

“Felicia has been sent to Pandora to deliver an important document, but she’s a delicate flower who isn’t suited to Pandora’s harsh climate and inhabitants. She can’t survive in this awful awful world.” Tim continues to summarize the book as if it isn’t propaganda disguised as a trashy romance novel. “Almost as soon as she touches down on the planet, bandits kidnap her, sure that her employers will pay handsomely to have her back. But they abandon her to the locals! Felicia is lost in despair until...” He looks dramatically up at the camera. “She’s rescued by none other than Handsome Jack!”

There’s a dramatic gong crash, followed by a panicked yelp. 

“Warn me before you do that!” Rhys’ muffled voice hisses. 

“Sorry,” Vaughn whispers back.

“Both Jack and Felicia are wary of each other, they are from rival companies after all, but Jack cannot let a defenseless woman suffer in the company of bandits.” Tim bites back a condescending laugh as his showman act starts to break. “So he kills all the bandits, which might be the only thing in this book that actually seems plausible. Anyway, after he kills all the bandits he takes Felicia back to Helios. There’s a lot of that whole enemies to lovers trope, along with Atlas trying to convince Felicia to secretly spy on Jack, but in the end, they fall in love and have a lot of sex. Very very in-depth sex. More in-depth than I am comfortable reading.”

“Is the sex accurate?” Sasha asks. Almost immediately, Tim goes bright red. 

“Fuck! I don’t...I don’t know!” He stammers. “It’s not like I watched him have sex!”

“So he didn’t make you have sex for him or anything?” Fiona asks. “I thought he’d have at least one person he made you take his place for. He seems like the kind of asshole who’d do that.”

“He didn’t want me ruining his reputation,” Tim mumbles, still partially hiding behind the book. “He thought I’d get nervous and freeze up. Which, uh, I...I did do a few times.” He quickly shakes his head, taking a deep breath. “But that’s beside the point. The point is, this is an awful book! Not only is the grammar awful, but the story structure doesn’t even make that much sense.”

He puts the book down, dragging in a box with a bunch of pieces of paper inside.

“I’ve written down my complaints,” he starts tacking up pieces of paper on the board with thumbtacks. “Firstly, how did Atlas manage to contact Felicia again after she gets onto Helios? They say in the book that all her Atlas tech is destroyed and go into great pains to describe how the bandits discarded her personal belongings and ripped off her clothes. There’s no way they’d even know she was alive, especially with how many precautions Jack takes to keep people from knowing she’s there. And they don’t even give any explanation for how Atlas figures out she’s on Helios! Second, why on Earth would Jack bring a woman he didn’t even know onto Helios? Sure, he thinks with his dick most of the time, but he didn’t get to be CEO of Hyperion by accident. Do you have any idea how paranoid he was? I couldn’t even take a piss in peace the whole time I worked for him...”

The next few minutes are filled up with Tim picking apart every inaccuracy and issue with the book, with a healthy dose of him complaining about what a dick Jack had been to work for. No one stops him A good portion of his rant is also taken up by him talking at length about how this was not how sex worked. 

“Has this person ever had sex? Because this is not how it works. I can count on one hand the number of sexual encounters I’ve had, but none of it was ever like this. I mean, for fuck’s sake! I don’t think this person has ever even seen a vagina, much less tried to bring the owner pleasure!” 

The more notes he tacks up on the board, the more disheveled he gets. His sweater is quickly discarded, his hair comes out of its ponytail, and his shirt becomes untucked. Sasha and Fiona can be heard laughing uproariously at various points throughout the video.

“Also! The creatures!” Tim jabs a finger into another note. “This author has obviously never spent any time on Pandora because neither varkids nor skags act anything like this!” He turns briefly away from the board, gesturing to someone offscreen. “Joining me to talk about these inaccuracies is Sir Alistair Hammerlock, whose sister I am both very attracted to and incredibly afraid of!”

“I would very much prefer not to speak of my sister.” Sir Hammerlock walks in, looking a tad uncomfortable. “Saying her name tends to summon her. Like some sort of witch.”

“Then let’s talk about skags and varkids and how they’ll kill you!” Tim says brightly, with an almost unhinged smile. 

“Well, that is something I’m more comfortable with.”

Sir Hammerlock launches into a speech about the finer points of skag and varkid biology and behavior. Not all of it is relevant to Tim’s critiques. Most of it is not relevant to Tim’s critiques. But it gives Tim some time to collect himself and look less like an insane professor. And Sir Hammerlock seems so delighted to be talking about the fauna of Pandora.

“In conclusion,” Tim says when Sir Hammerlock has finished. “Please don’t try any of what you read in this book. You will die. Painfully. Probably screaming.”

“Yes. Quite.” Sir Hammerlock nods, glancing at the notes Tim has tacked up and Tim’s still rather disheveled appearance. “I’ll be seeing myself out.”

“We’ll be sending your payment in the mail!” Vaughn calls after him. Tim turns his gaze back to the camera, gleeful and giddy once more.

“This book is so bad.” He giggles. “I hate it so much. Which is what makes this next part even better.”

“Should I get out the trashcan?” Sasha asks. 

“Yes. It is time.” Tim’s smile grows. Sasha appears with a large metal trash bin, which she deposits in front of Tim. Tim drops the book into the trash bin and Fiona appears to squirt some sort of liquid inside. It’s quickly clear that this liquid was lighter fluid, as when Tim strikes a match and drops it into the trashcan a pillar of flame shoots up. 

“The evil has been cleansed!” Tim cackles, sounding eerily like Jack. He’s illuminated eerily by the raging flames and actually looks a bit menacing. The camera cuts off after this, presumably so that they can put out the fire. 

[erintoknow]

For the Sidestep ask thingy 3, 18 & 23 for Ari :3

thank uuuu

3. what is their villain name? why did they choose it?

ahahahahahaha

Ari didn’t give a name at her Debut and got slapped with ‘Puppetmaster’ which she absolutely hated. It was a combination of too on the nose and to much of a callback to the heartbreak trauma.

So for awhile she goes with ‘Ghost’ since that’s what she feels like, a ‘ghost.’ Plus it’s thematic with the suit. And then Her-as-Jane makes an off-hand comment poking fun at the name to which Ortega laughs along and oh, suddenly it’s not Ghost anymore it’s Banshee. Which is the same basic thing just slightly scarier.

And then she hijacks a television interview and has an unhinged rant of live tv about how she’s going to even the scales and this about getting justice / bringing retribution and just pulls the name ‘Adrestia’ from her nerd memory and rolls with it.

Will she change it again? Who knows, stay tuned kids

18. what is their greatest fear?

Besides going back to The Farm? That the people she cares about really do think as poorly of her as she thinks of herself - and that they’re right to do so.

23. how do they feel about possessing people?

She didn’t think much of it at first, it was another tool born out of desperation. And then there was an edge of just world ‘they deserved it’ and then Ariadne had to actually face someone afterwards, Lady Argent, and had a right terrible time feeling guilty as shit about what she’d been doing. She won’t possess people any more after that. The only exception is The Puppet gets grandfathered in under the rationalization that there’s no mind there to be traumatized so it’s slightly less horrific. Right? Right??? Boy, it sure would make Ariadne feel awful if that assumption was wrong 

[gorogues]

toromychan replied to your photo post: Thanks always for your comments! I'm so glad you like my drawings of them. 

You're most welcome!  You're very talented :)

lupintyde replied to your photo post: So, is Linda's face because she's stunned or did Hartley forget his deodorant this morning? xD

He's forgotten to let her breathe! 

ohhicas replied to your photo post: I wish the artists would remember James and Axel are two different people so I don't have to sit here gritting my teeth hoping YoYo Boy back there isn't a Crime Lord Jesse

Preach it.  I don't know what's going on with that; after a certain point you have to suspect they've purposely merged the two of them, perhaps in an attempt to make both sides happy.  Which...probably won’t work.

scarletspeedstersuperfan replied to your photo post: That better not be Turbine. I hate that character with every fibre of my soul. Rant about him from time to time on Twitter. I asked Williamson if he has plans for Top multiple times but no response. Either he is annoyed by me, isn't seeing my tweets or has plans but won't say.

It's got to be either Turbine or Nu Top with very short-cropped hair.  I'm leaning towards Turbine, but the art on that page is weirdly sketchy (it looks like it’s been blown up from a smaller image, leaving it a tad blurry) and it's hard to say.  I guess I'm less mad about Turbine than I used to be because DC's beaten most of the hope and joy out of me, but I still have an annoyed gut reaction every time he gets brought up so it’s obviously still a bit sore :P

And that's a drag.  I guess I shouldn't bother talking to him then, as I'd probably add to any potential annoyance.  Presumably Mr Spinny here will be seen whenever the story next gets back to the Rogues, which could be a while unless Williamson emulates Johns and periodically shows the Rogues doing their thing even when they're not interacting with the Flash or part of the main story.  I always liked the Rogues being genuine supporting characters and not just antagonists in Johns' era, so it'd be nice to see it here too if that's what he'll be doing.  Otherwise, we know the next six issues and beyond won't focus on the Rogues aside from Digger.

theworrierqueen replied to your photo post: Is that Lisa with the group? I loved to see how cold she was and how O.O the boys got. All of them. She pulled the trigger technically so it's good to see Lisa is living up to the "lethal" aspect of her history. I, too, wonder if Len unhinging has anything to do with her. It's only begun to hint at their history and life and Lord knows when we will get more. (I'm miffed she didn't get the cover, considering the role she played in this issue. Hell even the New 52 gave her one).

Yeah, that's her with them at the end, so she can obviously still fly without the skates.  It was good to see that she can still be vicious, because I think she got a whitewashing in the Johns era and beyond as being Len's sweet victim sister who rarely stood up for herself.  Not suggesting I want to see her as a violent psycho, but it's always irked me that her past as a vengeance-seeking HBIC was seemingly suppressed.

Seems like the 'big' Rogues each got a cover in this story arc, and she and Axel were left out.  Maybe we shouldn't read anything into it -- it could just be who the artist wanted to draw -- or maybe there's something crummy about Lisa and Axel being considered less important.  Axel's obviously the newbie so maybe he’s not really a full Rogue yet, but I'd hope they aren't deeming Lisa to just be Len's tag-along little sister.  I dunno.  The fact that she got a big moment with the gun suggests against that, perhaps.

[hacktagmedia]

Omarosa says Trump is a racist who uses N-word – and claims there’s tape to prove it

Former Apprentice contestant and ex-White House adviser writes in new memoir that she witnessed ‘truly appalling things’

Former Apprentice contestant and ex-White House adviser writes in new memoir that she witnessed ‘truly appalling things’

Donald Trump is a “racist” who has used the “N-word” repeatedly, Omarosa Manigault Newman, once the most prominent African American in the White House, claims in a searing memoir.

The future US president was caught on mic uttering the taboo racial slur “multiple times” during the making of his reality TV show The Apprentice and there is a tape to prove it, according to Manigault Newman, citing three unnamed sources.

Trump has been haunted from around the time of his election in 2016 by allegations that outtakes from the reality TV show exist in which he is heard saying the N-word and using other offensive language.

In her book, Unhinged, a copy of which was obtained by the Guardian ahead of its publication next week, the former Apprentice participant insists that the reports are true, although she does not say she heard him use the word herself.

She also claims that she personally witnessed Trump use racial epithets about the White House counselor Kellyanne Conway’s husband George Conway, who is half Filipino. “Would you look at this George Conway article?” she quotes the president as saying. “F**ing FLIP! Disloyal! Fucking Goo-goo.”

Both flip and goo-goo are terms of racial abuse for Filipinos.

Critics have previously questioned Manigault Newman’s credibility and are likely to accuse her of seeking revenge against the administration after her abrupt dismissal last December.

At the time, she writes, she felt a “growing realization that Donald Trump was indeed a racist, a bigot and a misogynist. My certainty about the N-word tape and his frequent uses of that word were the top of a high mountain of truly appalling things I’d experienced with him, during the last two years in particular.”

Recalling her sudden and unceremonious departure, she writes: “It had finally sunk in that the person I’d thought I’d known so well for so long was actually a racist. Using the N-word was not just the way he talks but, more disturbing, it was how he thought of me and African Americans as a whole.”

Trump hosted NBC’s The Apprentice from 2004-2015 before running for the presidency and still likes to laud his high ratings.

His insurgent election campaign was rocked in October 2016 by the release of an Access Hollywood tape in which he bragged about grabbing women “by the pussy”. The media firestorm prompted Bill Pruitt, a producer on the first two seasons of The Apprentice, to tweet that there were “far worse” tapes of Trump behind the scenes of the show.

Further allegations emerged that Trump had used the N-word in the recordings. Then, following the New York property tycoon’s shocking victory over Hillary Clinton, the actor and comedian Tom Arnold claimed to have the video of Trump using racist language.

The White House staffer Kellyanne Conway and former aides Hope Hicks and Omarosa Manigault Newman at a press briefing last year. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

“I have the outtakes to The Apprentice where he says every bad thing ever, every offensive, racist thing ever,” Arnold told the Seattle-based radio station KIRO. “It was him sitting in that chair saying the N-word, saying the C-word, calling his son a retard, just being so mean to his own children.”

But Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which owns the rights to the reality TV show, and its British creator, Mark Burnett, have resisted pressure to release the footage because of “various contractual and legal requirements”.

Once close to Trump, Manigault Newman was among his most high-profile supporters during the election campaign and drew a top salary of $179,700 as director of communications for the White House office of public liaison. She held her April 2017 wedding at Trump’s luxury hotel, close to the White House.

Hers is the second memoir from a former Trump administration member, following that of the ex-press secretary Sean Spicer, but it was always expected to be less adulatory. This week the Daily Beast reported that she had secretly recorded conversations with the president and “leveraged” this while seeking a book deal. On Sunday she is due to appear on NBC’s flagship political show Meet the Press.

Some commentators have struck a note of scepticism about her book. Brian Stelter, senior media correspondent at CNN, wrote in an email newsletter: “Is former ‘Apprentice’ star Omarosa Manigault-Newmana reliable source of info about the Trump White House? Buckle up for debates about that in the coming week. Because she’s about to betray Trump in a new tell-all book.”

For its part, the White House has previously dismissed criticisms from her. In February the deputy press secretary, Raj Shah, said: “Omarosa was fired three times on The Apprentice and this was the fourth time we let her go. She had limited contact with the president while here. She has no contact now.”

In the book, she recalls how in late 2016 Trump’s team held a conference call and scrambled for how to respond to the tape but it never came out. Then a source from The Apprentice contacted her and claimed to be in possession of it. Trump was in office and Manigault Newman continued to investigate. Advertisement

She continues: “By that point, three sources in three separate conversations had described the contents of this tape. They all told me that President Trump hadn’t just dropped a single N-word bomb. He’d said it multiple times throughout the show’s taping during off-camera outtakes, particularly during the first season of The Apprentice.”

Recalling that she appeared on the first season, Manigault Newman reflects: “I would look like the biggest imbecile alive for supporting a man who used that word.” She says she confided in the former White House communications director Hope Hicks, who said, “I need to hear it for myself,” and continued to ask her frequently about what progress she was making.

She believes that Hicks told the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, that Omarosa was close to getting her hands on the tape, and this gave him cause to terminate her job, though he found a different pretext.

Four months after her departure, she spoke by phone to one of her Apprentice sources. “I was told exactly what Donald Trump said – yes, the N-word and others in a classic Trump-goes-nuclear rant – and when he’s said them. During production he was miked, and there is definitely an audio track.”

Manigault Newman also recalls her interactions with Trump during the filming of The Celebrity Apprentice in late 2007 – a time when the little known Democrat Barack Obama was in the ascendent. “During boardroom outtakes, Donald talked about Obama often. He hated him. He never explained why, but now I believe it was because Obama was black.”

In January, Trump was widely condemned for reportedly dismissing Haiti, El Salvador and African nations as “shitholes”. Manigault Newman describes a similar experience that appears to support that account. When she told Trump that she was going to Haiti, she writes, he demanded: “Why did you choose that shitty country as your first foreign trip?”

He added: “You should have waited until the confirmations were done and gone to Scotland and played golf at [his course] Turnberry.”

In another damning passage, she describes his “broken outlook” and how “the bricks in his racist wall kept getting higher”, wondering if he did “want to start a race war”. She adds: “The only other explanation was that his mental state was so deteriorated that the filter between the worst impulses of his mind and his mouth were completely gone.”

The book comes days after Trump faced renewed allegations of racism over his persistent descriptions of the congresswoman Maxine Waters as having a “low IQ” and CNN journalist Don Lemon as “the dumbest man on television”, as well as criticism of the basketball star LeBron James. This weekend marks the first anniversary of the white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, that erupted in deadly violence; the president claimed there were “very fine people on both sides”.

Elsewhere in Unhinged, published by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Manigault Newman takes aim at Trump’s sexism. Recalling more outtakes from The Apprentice, she says he asked personal questions about female contestants such as “What do you think she’s like in bed?” and “Do you think she’s sexy?” He allegedly asked male contestants: “Who you think would be better in bed between the two of them?”

Asked about the allegations in Manigault Newman’s book, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said: “Instead of telling the truth about all the good President Trump and his administration are doing to make America safe and prosperous, this book is riddled with lies and false accusations.

“It’s sad that a disgruntled former White House employee is trying to profit off these false attacks, and even worse that the media would now give her a platform, after not taking her seriously when she had only positive things to say about the president during her time in the administration.”

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2B0jY9C via IFTTT

[olaluwe]

When Jesus said — according to gospel writer Matthew—that “By their fruits, ye shall know them,” he made it seem so simple. The reality is that people bear multiple fruits, and it is a complicated matter trying to determine which should define them. This foray into ontology came about after I read Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s spirited defence of President Muhammadu Buhari on the widespread view that he is nepotistic. The view stems especially from Buhari’s near exclusive appointment of Northerners as heads of security-related ministries and agencies in the country. Osinbajo counters this “narrative” by asserting that there are more Christians in Buhari’s cabinet than there are Muslims and that Southerners head some of the most “strategic ministries”. “Look at the cabinet, for example, from the point of view of religion, it has an equal number — 18 Christians, 18 Muslims; but, we have the Secretary to the Government of the Federation as well as the Head of Service who are Christians…,” he was quoted as saying.“So, we have 20 Christians to 18 Muslims; that’s the structure of the cabinet.” If one is out looking for a defender, one can’t do better than to find someone as credentialed as Osinbajo: the lawyer, professor, clergyman and politician. And so, the naturally steely Buhari must be applauding his VP’s defence.

File photo: Minabere Iberema Even then, the charge of nepotism wasn’t fully excised. Osinbajo had to acknowledge that the parity in cabinet appointments is constitutionally mandated. And then there was the elephant in the room: the unabashedly preferential pattern in choosing security heads. On that, Osinbajo the clergyman could only point to Buhari’s self-redemptive promise to review the security appointments. “I believe that is the way to go because you can run any narrative that will suit the figures you are showing,” Osinbajo said. “And that is where we have legal process.” So, where does this leave us regarding the question of Buhari’s nepotism? Nowhere really. Osinbajo is right, of course, in noting that ministries such as education and finance are no less strategic than those of defence and customs. What then is the explanation for the security job assignments? In due consideration of the arguments of the learned vice president, let’s set aside the case for nepotism? Might the appointments have been motivated by insecurity, the sense that the appointees are the ones Buhari could count on to secure his government. Let’s remember that he was overthrown as a military head of state after less than two years in office. Could it be that Buhari is so non-nepotistic that he didn’t even realize that his security appointments constituted nepotism? That would be the rough equivalent of an American government having an all-white cabinet and attributing it to a colour-blind policy. Not plausible, you say. Fair enough. But at least Osinbajo’s defence of Buhari points to an important reality of life: that it is dicey to label people one way or another on any scale of goodness. There are people who seem very snobbish and cold, but on closer acquaintance one finds them very warm, unassuming but shy. In the United States, people readily lose their jobs on charges of racism or misogyny. Often it is because of a recorded rant or Facebook post that went public. In one of such cases, a white teacher at a Baltimore school was shown raging at the students and referring to them as niggers. Disregarding the matter of the punishment meted out to such people, the questions arise: Is someone a racist just because he or she said something racist? Is someone misogynistic just because the person said something disparaging to women? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the depth of prejudice from which the expression emanated. The ranting Baltimore teacher, for example, seemed unhinged, certainly exasperated. Was she expressing racism or merely venting her frustration, albeit in untoward language? Was she even in control of her thought? When men and women gather among themselves a favourite pastime is to trash-talk about the other. If this is a measure of misogyny and male-hating, the world would be in big trouble. Quite the contrary, when the groups disperse they are most likely to head to the respectful — and sometimes loving — company of the other. I recall bantering several years ago with a friend and colleague over whether a visiting white philosophy professor was racist. My friend alleged that he was, citing some disparaging comment he made about the discipline of African philosophy. I countered quite naively by pointing out that he was smitten with a black woman. To which my friend retorted that many a racist slave masters impregnated their black slaves. I had no response to that. The point is that goodness and evil inhere in the heart. We err in too hastily thinking that we have them discerned. “Infrastructure of the belly,” U.S. version After sinking to the lowest of any recent president’s, President Donald Trump’s approval rating has surged to one of the highest, at about 50 per cent. That rivals President Barack Obama’s at this time in his tenure. What could have happened? There’s only one probably answer: the U.S. equivalent of Ekiti’s “infrastructure of the belly.” After much wrangling with spirited opposition by Democrats, the Republican-dominated Congress passed a bill adopting Trump’s massive tax-cut proposal. Democrats had opposed the bill because the corporate tax cuts were greater and permanent and though sizable, the tax cut for individuals was temporary. They were also concerned about the huge budget deficit that would result, a matter, ironically, the Republicans used to champion. Such cuts usually take months to manifest on paycheques, but Trump pushed for an acceleration of the process. And so, people saw the bump in their paycheques as early as January. It was apparently enough to swing a lot of opinions about Trump. How long that will last is anybody’s guess. What is certain is that the tax cut is due to expire in eight years. By then, Trump would have completed a second term if re-elected. Who said the guy is crazy? ~Ediror's note: Opinions and views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of Deji Olaluwe's Blog and will not accept any liability whatsoever from it. ~This article appeared first in the PUNCH.