#“but she should be using her platform and if she isnt then she clearly is a zionist!” please read this post

[aelinfireheartgalathynius]

The discourse about Sarah J Maas being called a Zionist is giving witch hunt vibes at this point. Nothing I've seen has been conclusive at all. Just because she's a Jewish woman who went on birthright doesn't mean you should loudly denounce her as supporting genocide.

I am a Jewish woman who is pro-Palestine — so, not a Zionist — but who loves her Jewish diaspora culture. I have anti-zionist and non-zionist Jewish friends who went on Birthright because it's a free trip abroad. I know Jewish people who are staunch Israel supporters and I have Jewish friends going to pro-Palestine protests. Jews are not all one thing, and in fact it's ingrained in our culture that we have NEVER been one thing. There are Jews of all races, of all levels of religious belief, across the political and socioeconomic spectrum, scattered across the world.

If I were a semi-public figure (I say semi because Sarah has been clear that she is not the one posting on her public accounts and she doesn't have much interaction with fans outside of tours) people would probably have loud assumptions about me being a Zionist because I am publicly Jewish, I was a Jewish Studies minor in college, and I used to work at a synagogue. Guess what? I'm not a Zionist. I donate to UNWRA monthly, I do my clicks for Palestine, and I do my best to support with what I have. As a multi-disabled person that's all I can handle right now. If I were a semi-public figure I don't know if I would feel comfortable posting anything publicly either, because people are vicious and terrifying creatures. Sarah has a husband and child. She had gotten threats about fucking ship wars. This is so much more intense than ship wars.

Making these loud assumptions and calling for boycotting SJM, commenting on her social posts even though she isn't the one reading those comments — this is what antisemitism looks like. I know those of you who are angry at Sarah won't want to hear that, or will say that 'everything is antisemitic now' — which is a refrain that should raise red flags since it's the same argument other people use about transphobia, homophobia, racism, etc. You're the good guys, you support Palestine and you're anti-genocide and so on. But using stereotypes about an ethnic group to make assumptions and harass an individual of that ethnic group is not a good look even if you're convinced you're doing it for a good reason. Take that energy and put it toward spreading awareness, contacting politicians, attending protests, maybe even sharing messages from public figures who have posted publicly.

I understand that a lot of non-Jews (and a small number of Jews) are saying that it "has nothing to do" with Sarah being Jewish, it's just that she hasn't "used her platform." I implore you to consider why you are seeing and sharing such anger toward this one (fairly private) Jewish woman and not toward other prominent authors, especially those who are more active online, who have also not spoken out. Do some soul-searching and many of you may find that because Sarah is Jewish, you feel that she owes you a public stance more than other people. Because she is Jewish you feel confident enough to make an assumption about her views and post publicly about these assumptions. That is antisemitism at work. That is why this feels like a witch hunt to me, and why it is upsetting to watch.

As a reminder, I am pro-Palestine. I am not posting this to defend anyone. I am posting this to remind everyone that Jews are not all Zionists. Jews are not all one thing, ever. And deciding you get to hand down judgement on a Jewish person who has not shared their views publicly is antisemitism. It is deciding that you can assume negative things about Jewish people from afar. It is deciding that some antisemitism is actually okay — good, even, if you think it's warranted. I understand that people have other qualms with her writing, but those are not tied to her Jewishness, they're tied to her doing things like using the name Illyria and Illyrians for her ACOTAR series, etc, which is the kind of thing other fantasy authors have done over the years. Doesn't make it good or right but it certainly doesn't have anything to do with Palestine or Zionism.

If you disagree with me, please do not send hatred into my inbox. I am asking you to interact with this post thoughtfully. If your disagreement is going to be an explanation of how Jewish people owe the world every ounce of our energy, health, safety and lives, please step away and take a breath. I do not share your opinion. I have great admiration for those risking life and limb, risking jobs, risking arrest, to support Palestine. However, not everyone should be *required* to do all of those things, especially if you're disproportionately expecting those larger actions from Jews, thinking we "owe" it to the world.

Also, I want to be clear: This is not really about whether Sarah is a Zionist. It's about the fact that we don't know, and you cannot pretend to know. Most of the arguments I'm seeing are making a lot of assumptions, and that is the part that makes me uncomfortable.

If Sarah ends up being a Zionist, I still stand by this post, because it isn't about defending Sarah, it's about my hurt and disappointment in seeing people make assumptions rooted in antisemitism, assuming someone's views based on Jewishness and little else.

[dangerousyako]

the thing that keeps bugging me about tmagp 16 isnt the overuse of gen z slang. it's that it's internet online slang used wrong. It's not just a matter of vocabulary. If we consider that internet online slang among the youth is a sociolect, then we must admit that it comes with its own rules of usage and grammar, just like other dialects.

It was very egregious with its use of "no cap". Because as far as i can tell from a cursory textual search, "No cap" works pretty much exclusively as a final or starter particle, the way we would use "on god" or "man" as is "Don't do it, man", or "for real" except that "for real" is a bit more flexible about being used in the middle of a sentence. Essentially, "no cap" is always used either at the very beginning or at the very end of the sentence, in a situation where it would be separated from the rest of the sentence by a comma (or, orally, an inhale or a pause) and it is always used as a qualifier that applies to the whole of the sentence and not just one word. It is never used as a qualifying adverb for an adjective, the way "really", as in "i was really tired", can work

You can get:

No cap, I was shook

or

I was shook, no cap.

but you cannot get:

I was no cap shook

[someone] no cap robbing graves

Specifically "[someone] no cap robbing graves" is so weird because "No cap" is used to qualify a statement that you, the speaker, are saying. It means "I swear I'm not lying to you on this". So it's extra weird that she's using it, not only grammatically wrong, but also to qualify reported speech. It makes no sense that she's saying "On the news, there's this whole thing about someone robbing graves, I'm not lying about this" when the news is saying the thing, not her.

There are a lot of other specific issues, like the misuse of "y'all" when talking to a single person or the perplexing use of "finna" for the immediate future instead of the near future or the fact that i can't find any occurrence of "thick and perky" as a locution or just how plain dated "sliding into their dms" is, and i'm not sure "ya [adjective] girl" is in use much with "ya" as possessive adjective ("ya girl" is common, but with an adjective? not so much), but i don't have time to do a corpus analysis on every word in that statement

(also whatever is "Gothdam central". Because i'm a batman fan first and a linguistics enjoyer second, and if A.J. Newall miswrote "Gotham" i may need to have words)

(im not going to talk on the appropriation discourse about the overlap of youth slang and AAVE because that's a issue that's so much bigger)

I KNOW that AJ Newall said that Madam E is a try-hard and that she talks like that as an affectation for her online persona, but she has 1,6 MILLION LIKES. she has 137k followers just on that platform. No one gets that kind of numbers by speaking the local dialect wrong. Her misusing teen slang for clout every other word shouldn't make her popular, it should make her a laughingstock. Madam E is clearly very young (kindergoth indicates young age) and extremely online: even if she wasn't codeswitching seamlessly, she should at least be moderately fluent in internet youth talk, not butchering it constantly

Anyway. This felt much more like an older adult coming across a list of internet teen slang and not bothering to do any further research writing a strawman story to complain about Those Damn Kids Amiright.

It's lazy and it's mean and it's punching down and it's frankly insulting to anyone who speaks a distinct social dialect, because what it means is that AJ Newall, like some sort of boomer parent, thinks that internet (and AAVE) talk, usage, register, grammar, etiquette and inflexion can be boiled down to a simple list of funky vocabulary.

[weebsinstash]

elon: im buying twitter because libs are stealing away our fReEdOm Of SpEeCh by banning literal nazis and politicians inciting hate crimes and anti-democracy rhetoric

elon, a month later: banning reporters I don't like from my own platform seems pretty innocuous to me

How is this actual bozo one of the most powerful people in the world. We are in the wacky timeline

Im gonna pop my reply under a readmore just because i know certain topics can get people heated and if people wanna scroll passed and chill, that's their choice, some of us are just trying to nut and don't wanna read about social issues or politics

But oh my god do i have options on this creature

honestly i hope this whole thing helps people wake up to the fact that Elon Musk and a lot of these extremely wealthy people in general literally buy their way into every conversation. He is not some genius. He is not an innovator. He cannot even choose competent women to dump his disgusting seed into. How the fuck do you have a child with Grimes, watch her post on social media that she wasn't aware you have to teach babies words and that "oh I thought he would just pick it up", which is also a sign that this baby is probably with a nanny almost 24/7, and then impregnate her AGAIN? The stupid meme name bullshit for his newest children that he thinks is cute and funny that is humiliating his kids before they can even understand speech? Does anyone else remember how years ago Azaelia Banks posted that Instagram story accusing Grimes of luring her into her home under the pretense of recording an album as a front to have sex with her and Elon because she was openly bisexual? What about how his first wife said that when they lost her son that Elon was abusive and would tell her not to openly cry because he considered it emotionally manipulative? Soulless.

Maybe we could talk about how Elon is so fucking stupid that he isnt even mildly researching laws before he makes any decisions because he's in it for profit and thinks he can just pay a fine and get things thrown out. Perfect example? Him saying he'll buy Twitter forced him to buy Twitter because just him posting that massively manipulated the stock value of multiple companies and he has already been in trouble with the FTC for manipulating his Tesla shares before, like if he did not buy Twitter he could have gone to jail for saying he would and then not doing it, that's how hugely he affected stock values by his clowning around. Him firing all those people without notice? Yeeeeeah that actually isn't legal in the EU and everyone he "fired" is still legally employed and he is now going to get into massive MASSIVE fucking trouble because he essentially stole the wages and income from like thousands of people? Or how about how he is going to be investigated for breaking the EU's GDPR laws which clearly and explicitly ban companies like Twitter from selling user data besides from America, and Elon is suspected of selling the data of non American users on a website where even foreign governments have accounts? Uhhhh like the potential for an international scandal because of this fucking man?

Even if the governments don't get him i think his fellow rich people just might. Him and his stupid verified check bullshit cost so many companies MILLIONS when people starting jokingly impersonating official companies. I would legitimately not be surprised if the man who made the fake "insulin is now free" tweet goes missing or ""commits suicide""

Speaking of didn't Elon make some sort of post a while back about how "oh if i ever commit suicide it was actually murder" kind of thing. He probably was trying to rile up his base and act like it's the radical far left but what I actually think is that he could get Epstein'd because now he's fucking with other rich people's profits

Really really cannot overstate how much trouble this absolute fucking clown is in. Should I call the victory early and say he's ruined his life and hopefully will be in prison within the next decade? Because now he's going to have MULTIPLE GOVERNMENTS right up his ass, and that may eventually cascade into, you know, investigations on how he was probably involved in the political coup in Bolivia where militia overthrew the president who wanted to privatize lithium, and also to directly continue to that point, maybe we will find out exactly how close of friends Elon Musk is with the Pentagon since Starlink and SpaceX were always intended to be used for military applications.

It really is all just money isn't it? He's rich and does shit that directly benefits the rich and they all cover for each other. Y'all even know how many people have gone to prison for manipulating their shares and here's Elon "i changed the value of tesla shares to 4.20 because ha ha weed am I right and all I had to do was pay a fine that was pocket change to me" Musk. I'm out here with my mom paying 1350+115 for a shitty two bedroom and garage and then we have someone reselling his family's slavery emeralds to Tiffany and Co and realizing "oh hey look at how much money we can make massively overpricing these"

Also I guess this is kind of a petty point but I think we should stop referring to him as South African when, if you look at the history of South Africa, the recency of apartheid, and how many of those things are still directly affecting modern life, the most appropriate term to use for Elon is Afrikaner. Not only is it correct but like, uh, the term is culturally used with contempt down there from my understanding. Elon has always directly benefitted from slavery and was born during apartheid, like the man was literally born in a country where his race was imposing a racist segregation on the population like, QUITE LITERALLY BORN WITH A SILVER BLOOD-EMERALD ENCRUSTED SPOON IN HIS MOUTH

I hate him. Like legitimately I think he is such a horrifying icon of the still ever present threat and chokehold of white supremacy/slavery and the dominance and power of the extremely wealthy. Like you wanna talk about wealthy men causing global harm because their feelings were hurt, take a second to Google "Jamal Khashoggi gas inflation". Men like Elon who have untethered freedom and income are dangerous to our entire fucking planet, yes I am being serious. I'm still horrified of the stories of the chimpanzees that were being tested by the neuralink brain implant prototypes who literally beat their heads into the walls and were violent and uncontrollable and some even died of massive infections from just the procedures to implant the chips and he wants to PUT THOSE IN HUMANS? Not even to touch on the cyberpunk dystopia of wanting to try and fully control thoughts and emotions and optimize productivity like we're robots

You want to go to Mars? Try going to prison first. Absolute freak. Freakish moronic choad of an uncharismatic unfuckable unlikable like a cop to a frat party pseudointellectual scum sucking pig. Eat paint.

[good-jewish-omens]

Both the Dave Chappelle and Margaret Atwood drama are taken wildly out of context. With their actual actions and words elsewhere they support the trans community (monetarily! where it matters). Chapelle particularly isnt steeped in the terf rabbit hole and outright says that trans women Are women but he's upset that people so hellbent on identity politics don't practice empathy when trying to correct people. Those very people drove his trans friend to suicide because she understood while he poked fun at trans people like he does @ every other demographic, he believes in her humanity. And of course people who talk about him 90% of the time haven't actually seen his shows and only quote articles about him.

Hi, first off, I'm not black, but still fuck you for this and I'm gonna tell you off based on of every single thing I'm hearing from the people who we all actually need to be listening to.

Literally every single black trans woman I know has said fuck this guy, every single black trans person/creator on TikTok, on social media in general, is saying that Dave Chappelle is perpetuating white supremacist views on gender and sexuality, perpetuating the idea that transness is a white construct that black people have fallen prey to. Perpetuating the idea that blackness and transness are conflicting identities. Perpetuating the very ingrained TERF ideology that intersectionality is wrong. Perpetuating First Wave white feminist movements. And you're saying that he's not in the wrong?

But It's Okay Because He Had A Trans Friend! Who can't defend herself. Who can't have an opinion on this because she's dead. She's fucking dead and honestly how dare you or anyone bring her up in this as some "gotcha".

I love stand-up. This Is Not Happening, comedy podcasts, Netflix and Comedy Central specials, anything and everything under the sun, including international stand-up. Seeing the recent smaller shows popping up on TikTok has really exciting to me. And before I say anything else, personally, I think Bert Kreisher's last special should have been a bigger deal in the media because half of it was him explaining all of the different ways he physically and emotionally scars his eldest daughter in like a 100% not funny way, this is relevant because if Bert Kreisher had said what Dave Chappelle did I don't think it would have even made news.

I've watched every single one of Dave Chappelle's comedy specials, I watched the Dave Chappelle show when I was a kid and once almost all the way through during the pandemic with a new critiquing eye thanks to life experience, I've even seen the clips that popped up in the very first years of YouTube as a platform. I've seen what he said on stage about trans people. At one point I was a part of a comedy scene enough that a cishet latino man who has real clout in some areas made some shit story about me as a trans person and my micro dick, as a transphobic attack against me after his dog tried to bite my cat and he theatened us both on a public platform. One of his biggest influences - Dave Chappelle. Transphobia in stand-up culture is well and alive and Dave Chappelle just gave TERF propoganda a seat at the table like it was no big deal. Like that doesn't actively put trans people in even more danger from people within their communities nonetheless. A household name stood on a stage and for 37 minutes railed on trans people. And when he did that, he railed on every single trans person. Not just the white ones.

So this take that you have is half-baked transphobic homophobic dimwitted propoganda nonsense. Congrats on falling for it. How the fuck do you have green on shinigamieyes when you're clearly steeped in rampant white supremacist transphobic rhetoric, get out of here I want nothing to do with you even if you are a mutual.

[lucidpantone]

I really hate the crew of wtfock for what they did to me. I was such a fan of the show since s1, I found happiness in every clips, every posts on insta, I found amazing people on tumblr, twitter, but everything went downhill in s4, I could not accept Kato as a main, I'm a proud black girl and this season broke my heart to the max. The inexcusable racism, the hidden hate towards POCs on social medias, the silencing voices... I even started to dislike some actors for being friends with Romi when she was the one who accepted to take away the role of a POC, to accept to play a racist girl and have discriminatory behaviour in 2020 of all that, and to even joke on her insta just because her friend said it was ok and she didn't even apologise when we called her out for it. Yeah they ruined my happiness and I can't even be happy when I see a wtfock post now. To even have Nora do a live and defend the season, saying that it's a prejudice based one ? Hurts me so much. And not even one excuses coming from the crew, nothing, it hurts deeply. I can't even enjoy anymore the beautiful fanfics that the fandom write. I read every zoenne and sobbe fics but now I don't even bother checking if there is new fic. I hate them for taking my happiness off me. They're starting to go downhill too with the lack of insta posts from their characters and only die hard fans of sobbe are here now let's be honest. Yasmina's season can't be saved if there is still Kato but a glimpse of sobbe will make the fandom shut up and they know it. It's sad and I'm so upset about it. Sorry for the rant but I so badly wanted to talk.

This is insanely long but these words are for my anon

Oh dear.....well am happy you told me and the looney tunes. I can’t say I blame you because s4 is so toxic and cruel on so many levels. You know some people will say its just a show “let it go” but I think what people don’t realize is what this show that you clearly loved tells you about the world at large. That even shows, brands, movements and celebrities can harbor questionable morality towards issues of race. S4 ended up being an exercise in showing [us/the audience] how morally corrupt the bosses of wtfock truly are and how at end of the day all those black boxes on instagram mean nothing when it comes to money. Because guess what? Platforming racist ideology does have a price and wtfock made it very clear that they got paid. Look am gonna tell you something that my anons have been saying in a coded way but havent said directly but lets just put it all on the table. 

S4 when Romi took the role it was not pitched as a season exploring interracial relationships or white privilege. It was never meant to be that. So Romi had no way in knowing what it would turn into. After the premiere night production panicked because they saw everyones disappointment towards the main(it should have been Moyo & everyone knows it even they do now) and took a hard left. Noa was meant to be Romi’s co-star but it was never meant to have all these racial undertones or not as extreme. The reason the script changed is because wtfock wanted to keep this whole “small engine that could” rapport going that they literally made the last minute call to try to tackle race relations. I mean to you and I we are probably like are these people for real? They are just gonna try to tackle race and white privilege as a story arc without having done the sufficient research and or had the man power in the writing room concerning writers with lived experienced on the topic. Yea, they did that. So anyways they “just decided” on a whim to tackle race *facepalm*. Now that decision in itself is an embodiment of white privilege. A bunch of white dudes wanted woke points and thought “race” yea we can totally do that topic unprepared. Hence why episode 2/3 were so damn repetitive and also literally made no sense. Am sure they pitched this to Romi as some super intellectual and thoughtful narrative that would hold deeper meaning. So I am not defending her instagram actions but I want to give her situation a bit of context. Also am pretty sure she tried to tell us in a round about way. Her insta post was just a display in lacking any awareness towards the importance and pain of BLM because she obviously just lacks race education or common sense but she is a 22 year old brand model so am not really looking for her to set an example. To me wtfock became in some weird way so high on fandom validation that they were egotistical enough to think they could try to tackle this insanely complex topic on a whim and with a 1st time screenwriter at that. S4 was doomed to fail from the start because it was a literal embodiment of unconscious bias that then turned into conscious bias because at one point they knew it was terrible while filming but they were too deep in to pull the plug. You are so in your right to be upset at them because to me the most hurtful thing is that THEY KNOW IT WAS BAD and they won’t address it and now they are going to use their token queer couple to try and fix this. Leave the gays out of it. You can’t fix racism with queerness it doesn’t work that way buddy(am looking at you Rutgers) especially for those who are part of both parties. Do I think a large part of the fan base will “forgive” wtfock for what they did? Probably, but its weird since technically wtfock should be asking their fans who are poc for forgiveness above anyone else. I guess I am not as pissy about the whole situation because am either cynical or emotionally numb to this type of fuckery. I would say concerning the cast and the crew it really isnt their fault. I hear from good sources a lot of them tried to say something and they were shut down. Look if you cant let this go then try to find some semblance of resolve over this. You’re allowed to be mad but at the same time this is the world we live in and this will happen to you again and again (trust me I speak from experience). I do hope you can try to find some comfort in Zoenne and Sobbe and try not to see the cronies of wtfock in their love stories but if you can’t then pack all their shit up and throw it in the attic. Maybe one day you can reopen that box. Last words of advice, happiness is a moving target because in reality it’s a compilation of moments that continuously mutate to accommodate other moments. So don't let s4 taint what moments you had with wtfock and try to remember the things you loved and if you need to walk then walk away. I wish I could give you the biggest hug right now but trust me when I say what you feel is so valid and am so happy you spoke to me about it.

[karliesbuzzcut]

So I have to ask this though on your Karlie rant. I dont actually disagree to much with anything you said about how people get money. I will say I dont agree with wealth redistribution especially in the US, but again thats a whole different political topic, especially where I live here in the US. I'm clearly not a leftist. I think when I see people who go after wealth though but still excuse it in certain aspects like entertainment and politics I get sort of annoyed. I'm not claiming to know how you feel about anyone else, but how do you distinguish well this person is evil for having money but this other person clearly isnt. I mean by that standard Taylor clearly doesnt need all the houses she has you know.

Secondly my feelings on Karlie are this, I dont actually have any feelings towards her. She is just an entity to me, I dont pay attention to influencers or models to be honest. Not to sound harsh but its the lowest form of celebrity money peddling to me. My thing is you have people who make money in entertainment/media, then you have politicians, then you have private wealth. I actually dont judge private wealth as much because they tend to hide in the background. When your making money on your platform by selling shit, then you have a different standard the masses hold you to. IMHO Karlie needs to make the decision of is she a wealthy society wife, or is she running a platform. Because trust me you can't do both these days.

Oh, don’t get me wrong! Taylor doesn’t get a clear pass in my book. I definitely think that she doesn’t need the amount of money she has. And I adore her for many reasons, but just remembering the amount of expensive houses she owns and all the unnecessary travel she does is enough to bring me back to earth whenever I fall for her multiple charms. But don’t listen to me, I’m a ✨pinko lefty✨ I can’t help it.

However, let’s also be fair. Taylor is filthy rich, of course she is. But the Kushners are a billionaire dynasty. I think there can be nuisance regarding millionaires but I draw a very strong line at billionaires. I do not think billionaires should exist. Not because people shouldn’t be rewarded for brilliant ideas but because a system that allows people to become billionaires while there are others living in extreme poverty is a broken system. So anyone who wakes up and realises they have hit the billion mark and doesn’t immediately get rid of a few of their millions is by extent, complicit to this broken system.

[sassyfrassboss]

SUBMISSION: DM Comment

If only I can upvote this comment a million times 🔥 : 

My heart breaks for William and Catherine doing their duty while the Queen continues to protect Harry & Meghan who are damaging the monarchy. Queen has clearly lost control - titles not stripped so using their titles to make money; Markle making political statements; Queen refuses to tell her people if were still paying for HM security which means we are to some degree; Frogmore should have been repaid in FULL prior to their buying the $14 million mansion; Harry, a mentally unbalanced man, who deserts his country, is still in line of succession; and she allows them to run the Queens Commonwealth Trust which they use as their platform yet neither live in a Commonwealth country, and Markle isnt even a citizen of a Commonwealth country. A real slap in the face to William and Catherine.

______________________________________________________

It really is a slap in the face to them. Here they are, taking on ever more Royal duties because of the Sussex departure and raising their three children and you know more will be expected of them. I think it is very unfair to Kate because Meghan was given so much more when she married in and look at how she repaid the family. 

One thing I would demand as a UK taxpayer, which I am now, is that now Meghan & Harry have their Netflix deal they immediately pay pack the UK public. 

[gleekto]

So different person here, but wanted to add to the previous ask about why Darren is being held to a higher standard in regards to the Lea drama. IMO it's about holding your friends accountable. While it's great he's using his platform to support the movement it's another thing to speak up when someone who is clearly a close friend is being exposed for their microaggressions. The question being where do you stand Darren? She isnt just a costar. Same should go for Groff to be fair.

With respect again, no.

Let me see if I can do this quickly:

1. People are responsible for themselves and their own behaviour.

2. Any Glee cast members yelling at Lea for doing things to others that they themselves did not experience personally accomplishes exactly nothing other than twitter drama. Fortunately, this has not happened.

3. This was about Samantha Ware understandably angry about a personal racist experience among a myriad of others coming forward which showed that Lea routinely treated those around her as if she was above them and they were beneath her. Darren isn’t responsible for confirming that - spoiler alert: there’s plenty of evidence.

4. Being a close friend of someone who has done wrong would actually be a reason NOT to get involved publicly, but instead privately.

5. BUT/AND Darren and Lea are not actually close friends. I know most people here can see that. Buddies? For sure. Did a tour together (though didn’t hang that much even then btw - Darren travelled on the bus with his band and Lea generally flew - we were outside the bus in Toronto and that’s what it was - and honestly don’t send me asks saying they hung together on the last night blah blah  - yup. They did occasionally) and Darren can clearly handle her. And they sing really well together. And they attended each other’s weddings following that tour. Have you ever seen them hang otherwise? They’re friends. Buds. They can work together. YVMV but that sure is how I’ve always seen it.

6. Jonathan Groff has been best friends with Lea for years and years. It is also not his responsibility to speak about or against her. It would accomplish nothing. 

7. Call out cancel culture is dumb. People who care about Lea speaking out against her would be the opposite of constructive. This isn’t a 2 -sided issue with sides or stands. This is Lea Michele behaving badly.

8. Samantha Ware had every right to speak her truth and be heard and believed and now there is a bit of karma for Lea. Maybe she will learn, maybe she won’t. The real people in her real life will talk and work with her privately. Or they won’t.

For the last time - this is not about Darren.

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Please more of artist Jamie!!! So beautiful!

Follow up to this story

--

January 1976

 Elias Pound had known Mandy MacKenzie for all of fourmonths – but he already knew he’d gladly follow her anywhere.

 So when she proposed they spend an evening at a downtownart gallery – in a neighborhood she called SoHo (“But we have one of those inLondon,” he had protested – and she’d replied “This one has a capitalized H,silly goose”) – he immediately leapt at the chance to be with her. Even if itmeant following her on the subway (“Don’t you have one of those in London?” shehad teased), gaping at the half-beautiful, half-terrifying graffiti scrawledover the walls and seats and windows and exterior of the cars, stepping around thegarbage and panhandlers on the platform at Times Square and Grand Central whenthey transferred from the 1 to the Shuttle and then to the 6.

 Once above ground at Spring Street, he thought she’d madea mistake – for the neighborhood appeared to be stone dead, even at arelatively early hour.

 “Where is everybody?” Elias dug his hands into thepockets of his peacoat, pulse rocketing from a mix of fear and sheer joy asMandy slipped her mitten-clad hand through his arm.

 “Barely anyone lives down here,” she explained, lookingboth ways before stepping off the curb. “It’s mostly artists and galleries.They love the big old buildings – fantastic twenty-foot ceilings in the rooms.”

 A cab appeared out of nowhere, horn blaring. Mandy tuggedhis arm to stop – and the cab squealed by, the driver hurling obscenities.Calmly Mandy kept walking down Broadway, turning right onto Prince Street.

 “And how did you find out about this exhibit?”

 His eyes darted over to her; she just smiled and keptwalking.

 “Here we are!”

 And they were – for in the first sign of life since they’dleft the subway, a line snaked out of an industrial metal doorway and aroundthe corner. Elias could only see a tiny sign above the door – The Broch Gallery – and a burly man outfront, clearly the security guard.

 Elias steeled himself to wait outside in the cold –regretting he hadn’t brought his knit cap – but then Mandy marched right up tothe man at the door.

 “Hi – I’m Mandy MacKenzie,” she explained. “Elias here ismy guest. I should be on the list.”

 The man fished in his pocket and produced an index card;he squinted, looked up at Mandy, and nodded. “All set, miss. Coat check is onyour left.”

 “Thank you,” she smiled sweetly, taking Elias’ hand anddrawing him inside.

 A woman wearing black took their coats and handed themeach a small booklet. Before Elias could even glance at the cover, they turned anothercorner and came face-to-face with a panel of text on a gallery wall.

 JAMES FRASER: ART WITHOUT LIMIT, 1920-1975 – A RETROSPECTIVE

 Elias could see several dozen people milling around in atleast six adjacent galleries, sipping champagne, studying the walls intently.

 “Who’s James Fraser?” he whispered.

 Mandy looped her arm through his. “Someone I’ve admiredmy whole life. You’ll see why. Don’t bother reading the labels – I’ll be yourtour guide.”

 And she was.

 The first gallery displayed small pastels and watercolorsof New York City street scenes in the 1920s – old cars rumbling down widestreets, women in elegant dresses pushing old-fashioned baby carriages onsidewalks, children playing tag on a gorgeous summer day in Prospect Park, ruddy-facedmen toasting their joy in cavernous long-gone beer halls.

 These were interspersed with photographs. A combinationof society portraits and even more street scenes.

 “Is that the Flatiron Building?”

 “It is. Can you believe that it wasn’t yet twenty years oldwhen this photograph was taken? Even then it was still so controversial.”

 Elias tilted his head at a series of three of formal,posed paintings of different women. “Who were they?”

 “Wives of wealthy businessmen and lawyers.” Mandy noddeda thank-you to the woman who offered a tray of snacks. “He made a good livingas a portraitist. Back in the day, that was a way for men to show how muchmoney they had – by paying an artist to paint their wives. Even after photographybecame popular – they still insisted on it.”

 Elias chewed thoughtfully. “I’d think it still is a wayfor men to show how much money they have. Someone I went to school with – I rememberthere was a painting of his mother in the house. I never quite understood it.”

 Mandy led them to the next room – and Elias’ jaw justabout dropped.

 It was another portrait – but so radically different fromwhat he had just seen.

 A beautiful woman – her curly brown hair rioting aroundher ethereal face – wearing a dress that could only be described as anincredible shade of electric blue. Surrounded by sumptuous plants andblue-and-white Chinese porcelain. Strongly, confidently facing the viewer – a hintof mischief evident on her perfect lips.

 “It’s incredible, isn’t it?” Mandy squeezed his hand. “Thiswas the first work that truly got him noticed.”

 “I should think so,” Elias breathed. “She’s – she’s so alive. So much more alive and presentthan in what we saw in the other room.”

 “The artistry is without comparison,” Mandy agreed. “But thescandal that surrounded the painting made it even more notorious.”

 “Scandal? What scandal? It’s a modest dress.”

 She shook her head. “This portrait was commissioned byFrank Randall, on the occasion of his wife Claire’s thirtieth birthday, in thefall of 1925.”

 “Frank Randall? As in Randall Steel? That Randall?”

 “The same,” she grinned. “Anyway – Claire Randall wasvery famous in New York society at the time for throwing very grand parties attheir townhouse on East Sixty-Eighth Street. Somehow James Fraser got aninvitation to one of their parties – and once Frank learned he was an artist,he commissioned him to paint Claire.”

 “I don’t see what’s so scandalous about that.”

 Mandy smirked above her flute of champagne. “Well – you canimagine that Claire got to know the artist quite well as he painted herportrait. So well that when the painting was delivered to the Randalltownhouse, she told Frank she was leaving him, packed her bags, and moved inwith Jamie.”

 “Oh my God!” Elias exclaimed. “Did she take the portraitwith her?”

 “Of course! It hung in Jamie’s studio on East TwelfthStreet for many years.”

 “And did they stay together?”

 Mandy set down her empty flute on a passing waiter’s tray,and took Elias’ half-empty flute. “See for yourself.”

 The next gallery was full of Claire Randall. Oilpaintings of her draped in a Japanese kimono. Pastel drawings of her reclining nudein bed, surrounded by rumpled sheets. Striking, black-and-white photographs ofher hands forming different shapes, and the curve of her spine, and the back ofher neck.

 “She was his muse,” Elias murmured.

 Mandy nodded. “My favorite is right over there.”

 It was a small photograph – just about as big as aletter-sized sheet of paper. At the bottom right of the frame was a reflectionof the old-style camera; at the middle of the frame was Claire caught mid-laugh;and peeking over her shoulder was a man – hair parted down one side, eyescreasing with laughter.

 “It’s called Joy;he took the photograph on their wedding day,” Mandy whispered. “In a publicbathroom at City Hall. Probably ten minutes after they exchanged vows.”

 Elias swallowed, his heart soaring at the explosion oflove and adoration captured so simply and elegantly in the photograph.

 “I’m surprised Randall gave her a divorce.”

 “Apparently she threatened to go to the papers with proofof all his affairs. My understanding is that it was settled quite quickly.”

 He wanted to know more – so very much more – but sheushered him into the next gallery.

 Here the artist’s style had clearly matured; thecityscapes were bolder in outline, brighter in their use of color.

 “He immigrated from Scotland as a very young man. But NewYork City has always been his home. His art documents what it’s like to livehere.”

 It did – subways, and buses, and even photographs ofairplanes landing at Kennedy or LaGuardia. Interspersed with photographs ofClaire as she got older – still smiling, now in color – in what appeared to bethe same East Twelfth Street studio.

 Before he knew it, they were in the last gallery. Whichheld a single artwork – another painting of Claire, posed almost identically asshe had been in the scandalous portrait. Surrounded by ferns, and Chineseporcelain; wearing another electric blue dress. Her face had more wrinkles, andher hair was gray – but she was still so vibrantly alive.

 Mandy withdrew her arm, but he didn’t realize she hadcompletely left his side until an unfamiliar voice spoke beside him.

 “Personally I prefer this one to the older one.”

 “I’d have to agree,” Elias remarked, turning to his newneighbor. “In fact – ”

 He froze.

 “It’s you,” he croaked.

 Claire Fraser – hair still curly after all these years,wearing a bright green dress and gorgeous silver jewelry – smiled.

 “It’s me,” she agreed. “Jamie painted this one to commemoratemy eightieth birthday last October – and, of course, the fiftieth anniversarysince the first one.”

 “Oh my God,” Elias breathed. “I – you – um, you are verybeautiful.”

 Then Mandy appeared, and slung an arm around Claire’sside. “Are you flirting with my grandma?”

 “Grandma?”

 “Come on, Mandy – you’ll make the poor man suffer a heartattack right here. I thought you told me you liked him.”

 Stupidly Elias stuck out one hand. “I’m Elias Pound.”

 Claire laughed. “Yes, I know. Mandy’s told us all aboutyou. You study engineering together, right?”

 “Always had a head for numbers, that one.” An older manappeared beside Claire, and kissed her cheek. “Just like our daughter – her Mam.God knows where she got that from.”

 Claire nodded at Elias. “Jamie, this is Elias.”

 Elias gulped. “H-hi,” he stammered.

 “Ach, no need to be shy, lad! I dinna bite.” Jamie Fraserheartily clapped Elias’ shoulder. “So – do ye like the paintings?”

 “Be honest,” Mandy teased.

 Elias cleared his throat. “I – um – yes. I’m stillgetting to know New York, and it’s so interesting to see how your workdocuments how the city has changed.”

 Jamie looked over at his granddaughter, one still-redeyebrow raised. “Very astute observation. Good that he appreciates things thataren’t numbers.”

 Mandy groaned. “Be nice, Grand-da. We go to museums allthe time – we get in for free with our student IDs.”

 Elias cleared his throat. “Also, sir, your work is one ofthe most honest and pure representations of love that I’ve ever seen. I – I can’tquite describe it, but I can just feelit pouring out of the frame. It makes my heart race. And that’s something thathasn’t changed – am I right?”

 Jamie and Claire and Mandy – she had Jamie’s eyes, herealized – looked at him, eyes wide. Quietly Mandy stepped forward to take hishand, squeezing it. So proud.

 “Thank you,” Jamie whispered, drawing Claire to his side.“You understand. She’s everything.”

 “Yes,” Elias agreed, looking at Mandy. “She is.” 

[homespork-review]

Homespork Act 2: The Racism of the Conductor’s Baton (Part 2)

FAILURE ARTIST: We don’t get much time to mourn with Dave because the comic flashes to a weird wizard statue. This statue is ZAZZERPAN THE LEARNED. Wizards are another recurring theme in Homestuck. Andrew Hussie once artfully defaced this cheesy book called Wizardology (warning: lots of really offensive humor). Anyway, Rose hates the giant statue and the other wizard paraphernalia her mother collects and believes her mother does this only to spite her. On a platform is a bronzed vacuum (with a place to put alcoholic beverages) that Rose gave her as an ironic present. On the couch there’s a life-sized princess doll that Rose has attached a Cthulhu-type head to. All these things set up Rose’s troubled relationship with her mother. Rose believes her mother is taunting her and Rose taunts her back.

BRIGHT: This scene also establishes that some things (the Cthulhu doll for one) are too big to be captchalogued.

CHEL: Actually, that was noted with the harlequin doll earlier but we forgot to mention that.

FAILURE ARTIST: Rose goes to the kitchen. On the fridge is a crude picture of her late cat Jaspers, who turns out to be more than a family pet. There’s more signs of this cold war between mother and daughter on the fridge.

CHEL: Also, numerous liquor bottles in the kitchen and comically exaggerated displays of wealth, such as a fifteen-thousand-dollar picture frame.

FAILURE ARTIST: After fussing with the fridge, Rose tries to leave the kitchen only to run into her mother. She tries escaping but lands comically in some wizard statuettes.

CHEL: Mom Lalonde is mopping the floor, with no water in the bucket, holding a martini in her other hand. The woman clearly has a problem. Again, this is an issue with the portrayal of the parents; this is pretty funny, but were a real mother behaving this way, it would seriously mess up the kid, and whether we’re supposed to take it as Rule of Funny or not later becomes inconsistent.

BRIGHT: I think a lot of the humour here is supposed to come from the implication that Mom Lalonde actually is a loving if clueless (and drunk) parent, and Rose is reading her badly. On the other hand, something is clearly very wrong, and while Mom Lalonde may indeed be loving the situation is definitely having an impact on Rose.

TIER: Say whatever you want, but when putting on the late game Cerebus Retcon goggles there are probably non-humorous questions to be asked about how screwy Mom Lalonde is as a parental unit if her daughter has ended up interpreting most of her actions as mocking or backhanded towards herself. Like, kids don't just decide that.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 3

CHEL: Back to Dave, he’s chatting with GG and they’re being adorable. GG comments about her birthday present to John, the green box we saw in the car earlier, and…

GG: no!!!!!!! GG: he will not open it GG: he will lose it!!! TG: oh TG: uh TG: wow sorry to hear that i guess? GG: no its good actually! GG: because he will find it again later when he really needs it GG: which of course is why i sent it in the first place! TG: see like TG: i never get how you know these things GG: i dont know GG: i just know that i know!

I think here is when we start to get inklings of the kids’ unusual abilities - I mean, unusual in the context of the weird world they live in. A bit more is established about GG’s home life and Dave’s attitudes, too:

GG: i have to feed bec which is always a bit of an undertaking TG: man TG: if i were you i would just take that fucking devilbeast out behind the woodshed and blow its head off GG: heheheh! GG: i dont think i could if i tried!!! TG: yeah TG: say hi to your grand dad for me too ok GG: ._. GG: yes i guess an encounter with him is almost certain GG: it is usually........ GG: intense!!! TG: well yeah isnt it always with family TG: but he sounds like a total badass

“Intense” in a world where attacking your father with a hammer isn’t worthy of comment sounds worrying. We’ll see how that goes.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dave has the tiniest of smiles here and in Hussie’s annotation he says that one pixel created Dave/GG. Whether or not their connection is romantic, Dave obviously feels great affection for her.

CHEL: Interactions between all four of the kids are really sweet, honestly. Dialogue and character interactions are one of the strongest points of the comic overall. Personally I have a soft spot for the OT4.

TIER: In my unprofessional opinion, the beta humans are by far the most functioning and tight knit group of the various groups within the comic, for what that's worth considering the overall dysfunction junction. They're sweet to one another is what I'm saying.

CHEL: Dave talks to John, who mentions the creepy trails around his house and how he thinks he’s seen monsters, which we the audience have definitely seen; creepy little black imps with fangs and, oddly, jester outfits. They bear a striking resemblance to the Wayward Vagabond, in fact. Dave makes fun, but at least pretends not to disbelieve him, and urges him to keep his hammer at the ready. Dave can’t find his Bro, but can find “Lil Cal”, implying Bro is nearby.

TG: lil cal is the shit EB: that's fine, you are entitled to your opinion, i am just saying that being a white guy who is a rapper with a ventriloquist doll is not cool by any stretch of the imagination or by any definition of word cool, ironic or otherwise. that's all i'm saying. WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 5

Would a non-white rapping ventriloquist be any cooler? I’m struggling to see how. Ventriloquism, by definition, sucks the cool out of any other aspect of the thing. And now I’m picturing Carlton from Fresh Prince trying to rap with a ventriloquist’s doll.

BRIGHT: Back at the Lalonde residence, Rose attempts to ‘Youth Roll’ out of the front door, but her escape route is blocked by her mother, who appears with martini glass in hand. Time for our second Strife of the comic! (And can I say that I really like the music for this one?)

As with John’s strife with his dad, this strife tells us a lot about Rose’s relationship with her mother. John had the AGGRIEVE and ABJURE options; Rose also gets AGGRESS (PASSIVE) and ABSTAIN. It’s pretty telling that one of these options is an EMPTY SUICIDE THREAT, and ‘Abstain’ has Rose fending off her mother’s insistent offer of the martini glass.

FAILURE ARTIST: I liked the EMPTY SUICIDE THREAT at the time but now I think it deserves an ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?

BRIGHT: Mom Lalonde may be intended as loving-but-clueless, but she’s offering her thirteen year old daughter alcohol, over Rose’s protests, and something is clearly very wrong if suicide threats are a normal part of life. (Something similar will come up in the future, but in that context it isn’t played for laughs.)

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 4

On a lighter note, ‘Abjure’ has her mother offering her A BEAUTIFUL PONY. Rose reacts in the moment like this is terrible, but does later pat the pony’s nose.

At any rate, the strife ends when Mom Lalonde apparently gets bored and decides to do some dusting. This takes all the fun out of using the front door, so Rose goes around the back to make her break for the generator.

Meanwhile, John is trying to read up on weaponizing sylladexes (sylladices?), but is being nagged by a voice to turn around — which he finally does, just in time for a monster to ram into him so hard it turns the panel pixelated. Strife time!

John’s bout with the Shale Imp kicks off with the monster threatening the Con Air bunny. John’s efforts to defend it are intercut with Rose’s progress out of the house and through the rain to the mausoleum. I think this interplay works quite nicely — it keeps both things moving without letting the reader get impatient -- but your mileage may vary.

The imp aggravates John by punching the bunny in the belly and waving it at him. John attacks the imp and breaks his hammer, then attacks it with the handle and gets knocked flat. Finally he weaponises his sylladex and chucks his inventory at it until it explodes into a shower of grist.

PUT THE BUNNY BACK IN THE BOX!!!!!! Now why couldn’t he put the bunny back in the box?

Because he’d set it as his strifekind, it turns out.

In true video game style, defeating the imp causes John to level up! In Homestuck, this is done by ascending one’s echeladder, a series of player levels with whimsical, old-fashioned names. John climbs two rungs, from Greentike to Plucky Tot, and earns 125 Boondollars.

Note how efficient this is: In one panel we can see that the echeladder is a levelling system, that Boondollars are in-Game currency, and that levelling up has increased John’s amount of grist and how much of it he can carry. He’s also got a new kind of grist called ‘Shale’. Hussie does take an extra panel to clarify the grist capacity expansion, but that makes sense as it’s a small part of the original panel. Compare this to the dozens of panels we’ve had laying out how sylladexes work. These panels are much more information-dense, and the comic flows better for it.

CHEL: Exactly what “grist” is and what it does beyond allowing changes to the house, why those changes are needed, and what “boondollars” are for hasn’t been explained yet, but will be soon, and it’s clear they’re something to do with the game so it’s not outright confusing.

BRIGHT: John spends the next few panels sorting his strife specibus out, and stashes the bunny in there for safekeeping. There’s something amiss, but he can’t quite put his finger on it...

Meanwhile, Rose has reached the mausoleum and prepares to activate the generator. The taxidermied corpse of her beloved pet lies in state, dressed in a tiny suit. A sad fate for an animal who should have peacefully decomposed in a flowerbed. Rose kicks it off the pedestal to make room for the laptop.

John discovers what’s wrong when a bucket of water perched atop his door lands on his head. The culprit behind this sudden dousing?

"[S] WHAT THIS IS SO OUTRAGEOUS (HD)" (Watch on YouTube)

Apparently the sprite has a sense of humour.

Next up is a pesterlog between Rose and Dave. There are hints that all is not well in the Strider residence.

TG: hey TG: dont tell john this but i think he might have been right about the puppets TG: theyre sort of starting to freak me out a little TT: You're referring to your brother's collection? TG: i mean dont get me wrong i think its cool and all TG: the semi-ironic puppet thing or whatever TG: or semi-semi ironic TG: man i dont even know TG: im just starting to think some of this shit is going a little far and its kind of fucked up TT: I've seen his websites. TT: I like them. TG: haha yeah well YOU WOULD TG: oh man i wish lil cal wouldnt look at me like that TG: with those dead eyes jesus TG: sometimes i dream that hes real and hes talking to me and i wake up in a cold sweat and basically flip the fuck out

Well, not so much hints as flashing neon signs. Dave’s gone very quickly from insisting that everything his brother does is cool and Lil Cal is awesome, to admitting that he has nightmares about Lil Cal and is freaked out by his brother’s ‘semi-ironic puppet thing’. We don’t know much about Bro’s websites yet, but we do know that Rose has a morbid streak, and Dave is clearly disturbed by the content.

Dave leaves to find his brother’s copy of the game, and we return to John, who, to quote Rose, has ‘just had a bucket of water dumped on his head by the ghost of his dead grandmother, who also happens to be dressed like a clown.’

And yes, that is indeed John’s dead Nanna, returned to help him on his journey through The Medium and beyond -- or at least, she claims she is. John has to take her word for it, as he doesn’t remember her at all. According to his Dad, John was pretty young when she died. Speaking of his Dad, he’s been kidnapped by the forces invading John’s home.

Nannasprite gives John the background of the game and what’s going on. His house is now in the Medium. This place was created by the game software, but is physically independent of it -- and no, he’s not inside a computer. The Medium floats in the Incipisphere, a place outside the normal flow of time in the kids’ universe. Above the Medium is the realm of Skaia.

According to Nannasprite:

Legend holds that Skaia exists as a dormant crucible of unlimited creative potential. What does this mean, you ask? I'm afraid my lips are sealed about that, dear! Hoo hoo!

Nannasprite is somewhat like a tutorial assistant for the game -- she helps guide John and provides information, although she’s somewhat cryptic.

We are getting a lot of new words here, but Hussie is defining them pretty well as we go, so I don’t think it merits a point.

At any rate, Skaia is defended by the forces of light, while forces of darkness plot its destruction. These two forces exist in an endless stalemate on a stage at the centre of Skaia until a player with a prototyped Kernelsprite enters the Medium. Then the prototyped Kernelsprite splits, with one Kernel carrying the prototyping information up to a kingdom basked in light, and another Kernel carrying it down to the kingdom of darkness. Each kingdom has four Spires, and when the Kernel reaches one, it propagates the prototyping information to the kingdom’s forces.

This is why the imps were dressed as jesters: John prototyped his Kernel with the harlequin doll, and whatever the other players prototype with will influence what forms the soldiers take. When the first Kernels reach the spires, the battlefield gets bigger and the war begins for real.

Oh, right -- and the forces of light are always destined to lose.

So what’s the point? Apparently, that’s for John to find out. For now, though, he needs to head towards Skaia, going through the first of seven Gates. The first Gate is situated directly above John’s house, but the others are going to be harder to reach. We now find out what all that Build Grist is for: To get to the Gate, they need to build the house higher to reach it. And then they can rescue John’s Dad, solve the ultimate riddle, and save the Earth from destruction!

...or not.

Nope, according to Nannasprite, Earth is doomed. Done for. Kaput. There is nothing they can do to save it.

John is pretty bummed about this. He isn’t cheered by Nanna’s assurance that he has a much more important purpose than saving the planet, although she fails to elaborate on that point and instead floats off to make cookies.

CHEL: I think here we earn another couple of points.

HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 2 HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 11 Failing the Turing Test - wherein the character has no reactions whatsoever While the emotional lives of characters should not be described in their every tiny wrinkle, characters must have emotional lives. When someone boos them off a stage, they should experience chagrin. When they fall from a tenth-storey window, they should feel alarm. The writer should not count on dialogue like “Yikes!” to get the point across.

Brief confusion and feeling “bummed out” by the news that one’s entire planet is doomed does not count as an adequate reaction. I’d expect more fear, more concern. As pointed out before, doesn’t John have any friends other than Dave, Rose, and GG? His Dad has friends, wouldn’t he be concerned for them on Dad’s behalf? If nothing else, more curiosity about this “more important” business?

BRIGHT: Now, I could actually buy this in some circumstances — John is a teenager, doesn’t seem to have close connections outside those we see on screen, and he’s been having one hell of a weird day. I wouldn’t be surprised if grasping the scope of destruction was simply beyond him at this point. It’s a lot to take in, and it’s only been a few hours since life went to hell in a handbasket — not to mention, he’s in an active combat zone. There’s a lot going on, and if he was to shove it out of his mind while he dealt with the immediate crisis, I could see that as pretty realistic.

Of course, that would depend on him actually reacting at some later point, when he had a chance to slow down and it could sink in. As it stands...well, if that does happen, we never see it.

CHEL: Does this also count as “Oh, Don’t Mind Him” for the How Not To score?

BRIGHT: I think so, yes.

CHEL: Then here it goes!

HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 12 Oh, Don’t Mind Him - where a character’s problems remain unexplored In real life, people are riddled with chronic problems that are not addressed for long periods of time, if ever. But in fiction, all problems are just the opening chords of a song. If there is a brother who has a problem with alcohol, a child who has lost her dog, or even someone whose car has simply broken down, the reader will worry about those people and expect the author to do something about it.

Technically, this could count for seven billion or so points, minus any people who successfully entered their own game sessions, but we don’t want to get out of hand here and it really only counts as one big problem.

However! I am very fond of this idea in theory. The obvious option would be that the purpose of the game is to save the player’s homeworld. We’ve all seen the “save the homeworld” idea in scifi and fantasy before. Here, the homeworld is beyond saving, but there is another option, and exploring that is the storyline. The forces of light cannot have a traditional victory; the protagonists must find a victory on the terms they have. It’s not a theme one sees often, and I like it.

FAILURE ARTIST: John and the other Beta Kids’ lack of angst of the destruction of their planet doesn’t stick out as much here as it will later when almost everything else is milked for angst.

CHEL: I’m not really sure the planet being destroyed is a great basis for a Rule-of-Funny-based story if that was what he was going for, to be honest. “Billions died, lol!”

[fdhfjdafdajfa]

i finally found an interpreter, by miracle the guy who runs the tibetan cafe where i do all my reading and writing (and slacking) actually went to school in chandigarh and speaks punjabi. so i had him interpret and called up K and got some info

so far the most detailed information i had about what she’s doing down there is “izza family problem” and “ID proof problem” and in a relationship like this one you get used to the idea of not knowing everything and just trusting with everything you got. 

so far i have not asked her her surname for india reasons, an interpreter did once and she deflected and gave one i’m almost certain is fake. however that interpreter was kind of judgey and really obviously had some of her own prejudices going on vis á vis K’s economic background and I think K could tell. (this is a recurring problem with punjabi interpreters.)

however our new interpreter 1. is tibetan and does not know anything about that and 2. really clearly thinks we’re adorable. so he poked at this and finally got some information. the reason K has not been able to get her ID proof yet is because she is in the middle of a pending divorce with a weird punjabi boy. this is also at least part of the reason her family is upset with her

“tell her i’m not upset about that and think it’s awesome. i think divorces should be celebrated like birthdays.”

(like a week before we met i literally wrote an article stating as such and saying that improving social attitudes towards divorce should be a priority issue for the LGBT community and for a progressive social platform in general but i didn’t bring that up in this conversation but for the record that’s where i’m at)

anyway that all is impressive enough on its own but heres where her power level really gets fucking massive.

she asked me to go to her city and meet her family. now ive been here long enough to kinda know how things go so i asked, “so just to clarify, you want me to go to your family and be like hello i am in a lesbian relationship with your daughter”? expecting a laugh and a “no, of course not, here’s the sane and reasonable thing I am asking”. but that is not what she said. apparently she has told her entire family and extended network and everybody knows about me and that we’re in a lesbian relationship. 

so after raksha bandhan (an indian holiday) she’s going to call me and i’m going to go to punjab to meet her family just so that everyones squared away that this isnt a prostitution thing

theres some logistics to work out but 

it looks like this is hapening

[tobebugjewce]

good [redacted] nobody!

time to log some nightmares, the first one started off a bit slow and it was just about my sister and i being in a foreign country, if i had to guess, i think it was sweden or norway, maybe denmark. anyways we found an abandoned building that was pretty cool so we just were hanging out there until some random ass lady that wasnt even police or anything actually proving of authority tell us to beat it and how we should be in school right now and yadda yadda so we were like hey lady we’re literally foreigners and she didnt believe us so yeah we had to scoot. lame. we started walking aimlessly in hopes it looked like we knew where we were  going; we didnt. but the entire landscape behind the abandoned building we were in was all extremely elevated, and had lots of platforms and stairs to climb up. we eventually wandered into this community area, where there were huge wooden board platforms that ascended so we decided to walk up and saw that it was a ramp of some kind, people with skateboards, rollerblades, etc. were just shredding. we had neither so we were like damn how do we get off here without looking like total geeds. we found our way off and then went inside this tiny shack that had... arcade cabinets?? and people were just chilling, some smoking, which gross. but anyways we assessed that the vibes were decent cause everyone was like a teenager or around our age so we were like yeah this is fine. we kept trying to ask people something but they couldnt speak english it felt like they were all swedish but again idk anyways there was ONE person who spoke english and we were like oh awesome but they were like you have to leave this place and we were like shit why and they said that the sacrifices have begun and we were like uhhhhh what. and so now here comes the nightmare section; everything was gruesomely bloody, i kept getting slaughtered and dismembered and revived and i was in such excruciating pain i managed to block it out but i kept getting speared and torn apart and shredded and the sky was bloody red and it was pretty disgusting. i dont remember how that one ended but i woke up in a cold sweat

now the next one isnt necessarily as scary as it was liminal, but it was a vaguely mall-like setting after previously being in a wooden shack? in the middle of an empty lot in a small, run-down, empty city. its hard to describe but there were multiple people that were prevalent to the nightmare, like main characters. one was an older man who was very very nasty like super mean but lonely and cool once you got to know him, he was really tall and lanky as hell. i think it was his brother? or someone he knew that wore a prosthetic leg, he was shorter but also lanky and had dark hair. these are the only features i can remember about both of these dudes. anyways at some point i was scrambling around this vaguely mall-like area and some girl informed me that things were frozen, and each thing she said applied to real life. all the yellows started turning red, i remember that super clearly. anything that was yellow colored bled into a bright red. everyone was frozen but all in various states of collapse, i had to draw on the man who had the prosthetics’ leg back,, for some reason. i was also in the perspective of a random young man, about in his 20s-ish, im only 18 but anwyays he was in a very interesting relationship with the older man i mentioned before. it was strange but they seemed really in love. it was sweet but also melancholy as for some reason the younger man had to leave. so they made the most of their time. anyways the nightmare veered off into my babushka’s house, but one i didnt recognize at all. it was permanently night time, and i couldnt let her see me for some reason, because whenever she did she got scared. me and someone else, my sister maybe, were being rushed away/out, and i was panicking because things kept materializing that i had to grab and take with me or i’d never see them again and it reminded me a bit of my garbage ass grocery store job and the whole fear of running out of time especially when the spotlight is on you, etc. anyways i dont remember when or how i woke up but i was also sweating profusely and super cold after this one. it sucked major.

[15001700tt]

Reflections of the Deep Sense of Self

well, i dont really have an audience except for a handful of mutuals and the many porn bots that i cant seem to get rid of no matter how hard i try but i am still gonna use this platform to voice out my thoughts since i have too many of them and i feel like i might drown if i don't talk about them.

i dont necessarily think that i am a person that is easily swayed by men, i was able to emotionally control myself quite effectively in my youth.

my first crush was simply a pick from the crowd to stop my friends nagging about who it was. i just observed the crowd and picked the most likely to not interact with my sort and said "him, he is so cute!" hoping that my friends wouldn't see through my facade. i didn't want to like anyone just because of their looks but I had quite literally not spoken to the male sort in my entire life (not including men I am related to, I was in all girl private school before I moved to America's public system) to develop an interest in them in a romantic or infatuated way even.

now this is just my introduction to my philosophical essay about whether hurt/ mentally ill people are inherently evil but I must admit that this was started because of other reasons. we might not even get to touch on that either, i tend to ramble and not get to the point effectively.

if you followed me long enough you would know that I was talking to a man I might've called Viking. but we do not talk anymore after I made my feelings clear to him.

i feel many things, most of the time, its anger, the other times, confusion, hurt, rejection..etc. but I do not blame him. mostly because, i am quite annoying as a human being.

one of the things i took to as a way to distract me from the pain, was reading. i read so much that it was impossible to feel anything except the emotions that I was told to through a page. but in between books I would have nights where i wouldnt be able to focus on the words, and I would ponder what was it i did wrong, what was it that made him deem me worthless, not worth responding to. and I would come up blank because my self-preservation wont allow me believe that because I made my intentions clear that I was in the wrong to do so when I feIt that our relationship was taking the wrong turn. if I am allowed to call it a relationship, because quite frankly it was a level below a situationship and a level above a friendship. that I was quite sure of.

as I sit here and write after almost two months of silence from his end and mine, because I refuse to be the one to break it. call it pride, call it stubbornness, I was not the one to ghost the other. i refuse to chase after someone who clearly does not want me. but still can't deny that I lay in bed every night at some godforsaken hours of the night wishing, and hoping that he would just take a step towards me. as I had done to him that one Wednesday afternoon in April.

my point is that my interest in men started out of necessity but it has evolved into a yearning of something that seems quite unattainable. i am not attractive by any means, but I am not of the ugliest sort. i have seen people with more weight with worse features than I with partners who could care less about appearances. which to say that my looks shouldn't be any good reason to ghost me. and while I don't necessarily think that my appearance was the reason for the silence I do struggle with the way l look so my insecurities have found a very good home in the found silence from him. i am working on losing weight out of a bet with friends but also out of bitterness but nevertheless, he is a man and if he wont block me than he must see what he is missing out on.

but again, I used to think I would never be that girl. the one who wanted something but she cant have it. which is quite the diabolical because the entirety of the 11 months we talked I had many panic/ anxiety attacks over how our appearances didn't match, our aesthetics weren't compatible, about how I was too ugly for him or too fat for him. but he seemed the sort that was straightforward and didnt waste other peoples times. i guess i was wrong in the sense that he kept me around because he was bored and disposed of me when it got too serious for his liking. i thought i always had the upperhand, that if things ended i wouldnt be too hurt about it and do what i do best, find the next boy to obsess over.

funny enough, he seemed interested. but i cant know for sure. i mightve made it up in my head.

i have a fear, which shouldnt be a fear but it is. remember how i said that my first crush was out of necessity? well that seems to be the case with me from 7th grade to the end of highschool. which is crazy because you would think with all the men i obsess over that i would find men attractive. i think there is a clear line between celebrities and fiction characters from a real person with undeliberate faults and thing you cant control.

i never thought any of my crushes were ugly, they were good looking but they didnt make me feel attracted to them. it didnt help that i was also the type to watch from a far and not the get close and comfortable.

considering this my first person that i liked and held an 11 months conversation/-ship with i think i did very good but that doesnt change that i read too many romantic book and i had a silver of hope.

a silver of hope that maybe i wasnt weird or shitty for not feeling attracted to anyone in my life. that i finally found someone who literally embodied my dream guy and couldnt have been more perfect. if only he was better at communicating.

he says that he is traumatized from long distance relationships, i now understand that it mightve been his fault. he doesnt communicate. in the 11 months we have known each other i know about a handful of things about him while he had me all figured out. except for one thing. he never got my fear of relationships. since i suspect he ghosted me because he thought i would want one. i guess ghosting me seemed like his best option.

i might not be undesireable but i am not anyone's first choice either. usingmedia to distract me from my emotions literally has become my life. i read about 15 hockey romances the weeks after the ghosting. i was already reading regency era adult romances but i couldnt bring myself to finish them because i had spoken to him about them. this decision i will regret because i talked about everything with him. i mentioned this before. quite literally everything reminds me of him. and its quite sad because i cant evn ssay what we had was special. i decided yesterday that he wasnt worth all of this, and i know he isnt. but i am tired. i just want to be dessired and wanted.

i literally stopped reading a book because the male interest did the same thing that he did to me, essentially to the female protag. i cant even pick up the raunchy adult romance.

i didnt let my self feel the extent of my emotions, only in small slivers of despair, or when i am too tired to pretend that his actions didnt affect me.

he was perfect in all ways but one and i was all faults except for one; my immenient need to communicate.

and no one knows, a friend of mine knows, but they dont know everything, i dont want her to get annoyed with me. i was in her place too many times and i refuse to put her through that. and our mutual friends?

hahahahaha the other night i was speaking with S, and he said that the last time he spoke to him, he mentioned me and Viking said 'oh i havent spoken to her in a while' thats it. no explaination no excuse. i dont even know why that infuriated me. i wasnt even worth an explaination in his eyes. S barely found out via vague summary from me. because even though i was/am hurt. i refuse to tarnish his reputation. 'in a while' ????? you mean two months? but then again S couldnt remember the last time he talked to him. but like still?

forget that we were flirting constantly i thought i was friend at least. i deserve more than this. i think. maybe not then.

i want to scream and shout and hit him and cry about why he didnt want me. but i realize thats self depricating. i should never seek validation from a man, i know but it wouldnt fucking hurt fam.

i have so much to say and yet i feel like its already too much. i should keep quiet. thats what people want from me. for someone who is 'boy crazy' i have not stomached going on a dating app, or boy watching in public because it physically hurts. for gods sake i cant even read fanfiction or just READ because of it. any sight of anything merely romantic makes me want to yell. i am tired and i want to turn everything off. including my stupid rat brain that only seems to be attracted to assholes.

but the same fucking stupid brain cant help but hope that is our enemies to lovers story. one day... god i hope one day...

[so-chaos-killed-the-dinosaurs]

so why do accept the musical despite its massive changes?

Because despite the changes it is still the same story and many of the changes are due to the difference in platform. Things that where done on screen couldn't be replicated properly in musical format. Musicals also tend to be very emotion driven. They have songs based entirely around the emotions and thoughts of characters. Which make since. Since it isnt as easy to convey some emotions on stage as they do in movies. (Not everyone can clearly see the expression of all the characters faces nor catch all the little changes.) Like one of the biggest changes between the movie and musical is Kurt and Ram's funeral. That scene was a very big deal in the movie as it is the turning point. It is when Veronica realizes that JD is in the wrong and from then on she starts to fight against him and his beliefs. This is caused by her seeing Kurt's sister's reaction to his death. Now Kurt's sister didn't make a big scene in the movie. She looked back when she heard JD and Veronica laughing and that's when Veronica saw her face and realized just how distraught this child was. Now on stage in order to show this to the audience they would have had to make it a lot bigger in order for everyone to catch it. Like something where the sister was crying near or on her botherer's casket. Or crying loudly in her seat. Which they could have done but I don't really think it would have fit. Because if she did that it would be very noticeable to everyone. And one of the big things about the original scene is that it isn't a huge thing. It's a child silently crying in the front pew while wearing her brother's jacket. It's something Veronica catches but JD doesn't. There are probably other ways around this issue that they could have taken. But they didn't. And I do have an issue with that as it is a pretty important scene in the movie. However with most adaptations of stories into new media platforms some things will be lost. The musical isn't nearly as long as the movie so it couldn't fit in everything the movie did. And some changes are ok. Like the Harry Potter movies leave out a lot of big things from the books, but I know if they were to translate all the books from word to screen then some of the movies would have to be well upward of 8 hours long. So things are cut or changed. As long as the purpose or main point of the story is preserved then I am fine. Which the musical actually does achieve. (The Heathers musical had a tight budget. A longer show would cost more money especially if they where to create more songs.) They cut some of the character's personalities a bit, like Duke's which is one of the reasons I rank movie Duke higher than Musical Duke. But Duke's role and purpose is still there. She is still beautiful, and she still plays her main part with taking over Chandler's role and being there to help JD get the note together. She still fills her symbolic role, just not as well as her movie counterpart. The musical just doesn't do as well of a job as showing Duke's personality as the movie does. Which again makes since to me. Since a lot of the things in the movie that help show Duke's character are stuff like her facial expression and changes in her stance. Or her slow progression into a full red attire. Which could be expressed but would require bigger movements than their movie counterparts to make it clear to the entire audience, or cost more money when the musical is already known for not having that large of a budget. They could improve on how they express Duke in the musical though. The musical also needs a way to show JD's personality. Like I said Musicals are very emotional based. JD's issues are very mentally based. His backstory and mannerisms help show how he got to the point that he is at and how messed up he is. The musical takes what we learn about JD throughout the movie and expresses most of it in "Freeze Your Brian" giving us a lot of his family's backstory and showing how suicidal the boy already is. The musical does almost make JD come off in this softer way. But it doesn't. It just seems like that. JD is still beyond screwed up. His messed up ways were still there before he met Veronica. In both versions though Veronica does help get him to that God complex point. Just in different ways. In the Movie JD uses Veronica and her skills to get away with the murders. He uses her skills to kill people and get away with it and he "falls in love" with this power she has given him. And as such believes that he has fallen in love with her. He uses her as an excuse and gateway to kill. They've hurt this person who has given him this power and from his experiences with them they deserve to die. They have hurt this person who has shown him affection and a affection-less world. (Even though none of them deserved to die. Not even Kurt or Ram.) Veronica herself is a tool he uses to kill. Only once she poses a threat to this new God like position he has he decides to kill her. She had given him this ability and he wasn't about to let her take it away. He tries to ration this in his own mind by trying to convince himself that she had been tainted by society and that killing her was the only way to free her. In the musical JD also uses Veronica to kill, only in a slightly different manor. This JD is more emotionally fleshed out. It is a musical and they are emotionally based. This JD shows something that movie JD doesn't out right say till the end. That he believes that nobody loves him. He believes he is alone in the world and uses that pain and anger to also help motivate and try and rationalize his thought process (shown in both the movie and musical). This JD expressed that belief through his actions in the musical. By how attached he gets to Veronica and the obsession he gains for her. The mannerisms he has around her or the little thing he does throughout the musical. (That's actually why I like watching different productions of the musical because different actors play off JD in different ways just by how they have him move. Like in one production JD tickles and jokes with Veronica (something being more true to the movie) while she makes the call to Ram and Kurt, in another he is holding her in a manor that isn't out right threatening but can be seen in that manor.) For Musical JD not only is there this girl that is showing him care and claims to find him beautiful, but she has also given him the ability to wipe out anyone he deems unworthy of living. He is still crazy. He still has a God-Complex. Only this time he is more expressive than his movie counterpart. And he uses this "love" *cough*obsession*cough* he has for her to help reason why he should do what he is doing. "They made you cry". He still uses his bad home life and past school experience to give him his drive and reason to kill. But the musical version of him is a bit more emotional and Veronica focused than his original. Movie JD uses Veronica as a tool to kill, Musical JD uses his emotions for Veronica as a tool to kill. (Alongside Veronica.) (I can't believe I'm about to make this comparison but it's been on my mind since the resent Netflix movie release *shudder*. Ok. Death Note. In Death Note Light gains access of the Death Note and at first starts killing people he believes don't deserve to live. He thinks he is doing good by killing off criminals and people he has seen harass others. But this power gives him his God-Complex. He comes to believe that he is the God of the new world and will wipe out anyone who does not deserve to live on this new world. (The people that worship Kira of course doesn't help that god-complex. Especially not Misa.) And he has no limits. He will kill anyone. He becomes obsessed with the Death Note. His weapon to kill. Even though the Death Note itself isn't an purely evil or good thing. He is willing to destroy his own house in order to keep people from learning just who he is or how he does what he does. The reason I'm bringing this up is that Light's obsession with the Death Note and the resulting God-complex just reminds me of JD and his obsession with Veronica and his resulting God-complex. Both are people who in their minds believe they are the good guy. And both gain access to something that allows them to do what they do and they become obsessed with it and will do anything to keep it. Sorry I kinda lost where I was going with this and I'm on mobile and this is not the best way to try and get out a proper response to this but I won't have access to wifi on my laptop till Monday night.)I don't think JD had killed before Chandler, as his reaction was one of shock and he reacted as if he hadn't expected her to really die from the drano. In both versions though that is a turning point for JD. Because he just killed Heather Chandler. He killed her and then he got away with it. He killed someone who he believed was a bad person who deserved to die and he got away with it. In both versions this is when JD's God-Complex starts to emerge. JD's character still stays in both versions. JD is not some innocent baby he is a very messed up boy who really needs a ton of mental health and meds before he would ever be stable again. Other changes just fit for the musical. They had a limited amount of actors. So changing the Remington party to a homecoming party at Kurt/Ram's house (I can't remember whose it was at this moment) was something i understand. If they were to try and do the Remington part all the other casts members would need costume changes for that one scene in order to create these new characters for the Remington party. Having them mock Martha at the party isn't a big issue since it helps show more so who the Heathers are. The original draft of the movie actually has the Heathers do other mean things but they where cut from the movie for time purposes. (Like they changed the Snappy Snack Shack to 7-11 in the musical since 7-11 is what they used in the original draft of the movie.)Them combining Martha and Betty also isn't a big issue for me since like I have said it was a musical. They have limited time and combining the characters kept then from having two actor have to preform these separate characters over and over again for only actually small scene times on stage. Having Kurt, Ram and Heather appear as figments of Veronica's conscious helped them show Veronica's change over the musical and voice her inner thoughts. They help express the inner chaos that is happening in her head. The musical does change up things from the movie. But some either 1) Make sense to due the format. 2) Make sense due to timing and budget or 3) Are things that could be fixed but don't effect the story so much that the overall message and point is lost. The musical could use some repairs in certain areas. But the story and symbolism of the characters still remain. I hope I explained this ok. Like I mentioned I'm on my mobile and currently sitting in line waiting for a panel to start in 30 minutes. So I'm not really on the best thing to answer this with and I'm not in the best place either.

[tsurvivorbelize]

S88E1: “Her Name Is Actually Emily” - Kyle

The premiere of Tumblr Survivor 88: Belize takes 18 new castaways to the heart of the jungle and start their journey to become the newest Sole Survivor.

This episode covers DAYS 1 & 2. 

Honestly? I’m kinda loving this game. Everyone on my tribe seems really cool, and we’re seemingly working together well. Normally I enjoy some drama and getting my hands dirty a bit early on but based on first impressions with this tribe? I don’t think I’d mind if we all got our to merge- then again it’s just day 1, by day 10 I’ll probably be begging for a swap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efa-NmW_vnQ&feature=youtu.be

https://youtu.be/RR37pTsKF-w

I'm already getting shady and good vibes .I'm worried already but I hope things can get better

I’m super excited, idk how I feel about my tribe...idk I feel like not many people I will connect with but imma have to fake it until I make it

So I just spent the past few hours talking to everyone on the tribe and nearly forgot we had a challenge 🤷‍♂️. So yeah, I don’t think anyone is going to peg me as the brains of any operation, and I’m starting to think maybe I need to be assigned the “Very easy” puzzle. That’s not because I forgot we had a challenge though, that’s just because I’m stupid.

So at this point there is 3 people in my tribe who already know each other! At this the 3 left in the tribe could join forces and force a tie, which I find very risky at this point, or we could just suck those 3 ass and try to be in the majority alliance with them.

Good afternoon (although the time right now is 7am in Belize so I guess good morning) from the lovely Minanha tribe, and holy shit. I know Survivors are based around luck, but lucking out on having two guys I've known for about 5-6 years on my tribe as immediate easy allies is fantastic. Spike, I met through Minecraft UHCs years ago, where I teamed with him in one of my first games and it was great, and Adam I met through an SMP server run by somebody you guys may all know, Bodhi/Goldcap, and then I basically introduced Adam to a bunch of my other friend groups. Through this, there's a beautiful time to be had for this tribe and I'm just infinitely hoping that Adam and Spike don't stab me in the spine.

Hey so first day or 2 in tribe has been good, I like everyone! It helps I know Katy and Spike but also like I don't want that to put a target on our backs, and it'd be unfair to just work with those I already know, I will do but if needed I can be ruthless. Hopefully we win this challenge and then see what happens, if it goes to tribal well, that's when it gets interesting.

Spike and Axe have both accidentally said racial slurs without realising they'd said racial slurs because they'd never heard of them before and they made them both by just combining my name with Spike's name. Oh no. This tribe is fucked and we're all gonna die.

https://youtu.be/xUvO_y05KNQ

MY FRIENDS ARE FIGHTING ABOUT BRIE LARSON NOOOOOOOOOO.

https://youtu.be/HlsfD_JvUrs

When the hosts make a comment about adding hosts to alliance chats, and you then assume it means that alliances have sprouted.......then you realize you had three people ask you to work together, but alliances typically consist of 3 or more people and include a chat with those people......... Then you realize that means the probability of people disliking you is high and you’ve solidified your first boot status 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Okay so my tribe is a pretty decent I guess. Brien Weber isnt the kind of girl I like to be honest. He betrayed me and I voted him out my last org so this should be fun! Emily talks like a robot too btw? My closest ally is definitely Kyle. We have a lot in common and he thinks i'm cute so it's easy to flirt with him to get on my side. Taylor and Scott arent bad either. I'm building my relationship to them- maybe they could potentially turn into future allies for me :)

I think im gonna vote matt cause he doesn't talk much

https://youtu.be/VIheM4S1IHw

- I can’t believe I looked at Cas’ photo and thought he was an old white woman....my bad

- Aaron is really starting to turn me off. He’s acting crazy about voting off David. I mean I’m finna do it so I’m not a target but I got my eye on him.

https://youtu.be/1qEEEchOOqM

- So a few of my friends decided to take a trek into these temples and came back out with punishments and disappointment. However my lucky self came out with a no vote pass to give away to someone else. So if someone gets testy and decides to be shady as shit, then I'll gladly revoke their voting privileges! :D

- I really like my tribe. I'm getting really close with some people too! Like Jarret, he's like my best friend in the game right now and always makes me laugh. Then  Brien is my drinking buddy, Olivia, I mean Emily is my fellow Michigander, Taylor is my comedy bud, and Scott is my strategy co-conspirator.

- Okay, I keep telling everyone I'm not tired, but I'm fucking tired. Being social is exhausting. I should let everyone hate me and not give a shit if I'm honest.

https://youtu.be/TWCyhqBxyG8

https://youtu.be/gWjLMsOGjvs

- So, as luck would have it, I'm the only person on my tribe who got 3 points from that puzzle challenge, but even that was real close against Brien from No Vaxx or whatever that tribe is called. I wasn't sure what kind of scores to expect from anybody in this game, as I'm used to people who tryhard the fuck out of challenges rather than just submit a semi-good score, and honestly... these scores still don't tell me much whatsoever. Probably just that I shouldn't underestimate the girl who can do a puzzle in 10 seconds.

-  Veni, who is my host chat friend I've invited in, has raised a hilarious point as well. In every Survivor I've ever played, whether Minecraft or Discord or Twitter, I've never been perceived as a challenge threat before. The closest I ever got was when I stayed awake for 40 hours to win immunity at merge. But with my score here, and being the only person to get 3 points on my tribe... what if I finally, after being shit in other Survivor challenges for years, end up being a challenge threat? Crikey crikey.

https://youtu.be/wWNdip6Vxpc

-  Skype's auto-responses make me wanna end it.

-  My previous 2 or so confessionals have been submitted as Day 2, I apologise profusely, but anyway... I wanna take a confessional to comment on the guys in the tribe I don't know from outside the game. Christian, Pietro & Gevonte. I've only just managed to speak to Gevonte today, she's been very much busy and inactive but hey, she's here now and very fun to speak to. We've spoken a fair bit about the differences between FB & Discord Survivors, since neither of us have played Tumblr Survivors before (I think???), and with her inactivity I thought she was a sure fire easy first boot for the tribe, but now I'm not so sure. Pietro is a darling as well, and seems to be pretty much the exact same as a mutual me, Axe, Spike & Veni all have called Kaz, who's also from Brazil. Speaks very much the same as Pietro does, they both have the same mannerisms and same level of likeability and ease to speak to, and I think Pietro is a fun ally as well. And then there's Christian. Don't get me wrong, Christian is also very pleasant, very kind and clearly a lovely person to interact with, but when I compare them to my interactions for the first time with Gevonte or Pietro, they're much more... I guess the optimal word would be awkward to speak to. Maybe they're just not good with new people, maybe it's me and my Asperger's being weird, or maybe there's just not good chemistry between us, but I do value Christian, but at this point, based off nothing else because there's nothing else to base it off, I'd choose Christian as the tribe's goat, and the tribe's easy boot moving forward. Then again, I could just back stab Spike ^w^

I’m very concerned for Olivia. Everyone has now been in the talks of alliances, and her name is the only one that hasn’t been mentioned, and that’s not even because her name is actually Emily. They just haven’t brought her up. She’s such a sweetie though, so I really hope she gets some free time to do some more talking.

-  Okay let’s chat. My tribe...pretty lame. David is basically inactive. Cas has the personality of cardboard so far. Jay is actually cool. AARON IS THE MOST. He’s constantly sending me voice messages which idk why it irritates me but it does. Just message me dude. And he is so paranoid! He thinks everybody is always trying to cheat. Idk...where I come people play for fun and don’t aggressively cheat or maybe that’s just me. He’s pressed about not being able to talk cross tribal (dumb). AND he aggressively wants David out because he’s worried since David knows Madison he might log on to her phone or she might leak info to help him cheat. Boy bye. I’m not going to do anything about him yet because the beauty of being in a new community is I can play dumb like idk what I’m doing and I’m really trying to capitalize and act wholesome. Yikes when the confessional comes out 😅. But oh well. I’m just going to let Aaron explain how to play to me and coast through until I can reach Gevonte who will be my for real ride or die.

-  Madison is pretty.

Tumblr Survivor: Belize, condragulations, you are the winner.

So it's been almost a full round and.... I'm only JUST now talking to most of my tribe lmfaoo. Skype is so weird. Just it being on a different platform makes socializing weird for me. Because I have to remember skype exists. On top of that, everyone else on the tribe seems not all that talkative in and of itself. Granted I know I wasnt tosking all that much either, but since we're safe I need to spend the next few days making connections or else I'm just gonna be another nameless flop. And I've done TOO much of that on FB as it is!

Day 2 and everyone has gone mad already, talking about drag queens and other pop culture stuff.

https://youtu.be/uYl2b48z5GA

https://youtu.be/da7YR2Uz08A

Why does Christian keep asking me about my toilet?

[narcisbolgor-blog]

Socialism is no longer a dirty word in the US and thats scary for some | Arwa Mahdawi

Since Trump took power, membership of the Democratic Socialists of America has leapt from 6,000 to 47,000 and even conservatives are struggling to articulate what is so bad about free education and healthcare

Heres a fun game to play with a right-leaning American: say the word socialism and count the number of seconds it takes for them to scream VENEZUELA in response. It is unclear how many conservative Americans could identify Venezuela on a map but, boy, they all seem keen to inform you that the beleaguered country is a shining example of why socialism will never work, certainly not in the US.

For a recent example of how Republicans go completely Caracas at the mere mention of the S-word, please see Meghan McCain, the daughter of the 2008 presidential candidate John McCain. Last week, Meghan McCain had a meltdown on the daytime television chatshow The View when the subject of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year-old Democratic Socialist who recently unseated a 10-term New York congressman, came up.

Joy Behar, a co-host on The View, mentioned that Ocasio-Cortezs platform, which includes outlandish proposals such as paid sick leave and healthcare for everyone, sounded like a pretty good idea. At that point McCain, another co-host (a position she clearly got for her oratorical abilities and not her famous last name) yelled over everyone that this sort of attitude makes her head explode. It took McCain, whose parents are worth more than $200m, a fortune that is largely inherited, 20 seconds to bring up Venezuela as an example of why socialism is bad and capitalism is good. To bolster her argument, she quoted Margaret Thatcher, saying: At a certain point, you run out of spending other peoples money. McCain, who has benefited from unearned wealth all her life, concluded her rant by stating: Its petrifying to me that [socialism] is being normalised! Some of us do not want socialism normalised in this country.

McCain is right. A lot of people, people so rich they forget how many houses they own (as John McCain once did), dont want the idea that wealth should be distributed to the many, not the few, to become normalised in the hyper-individualistic, increasingly unequal US. Unfortunately for them, however, there has been a seismic shift in attitudes towards socialism in America; a country that, for a long time, has stood apart from other industrialised democracies in not developing a notable socialist movement. Socialism is no longer a dirty word in the US, certainly not among millennials, anyway, who face a far grimmer economic future than previous generations. It isnt surprising that a number of recent polls show millennials are increasingly drawn to socialism and wary of capitalism.

The popularisation of what has been termed by some as millennial socialism in the US arguably began with the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011. Bernie Sanders presidential campaign gave it further momentum, and Ocasio-Cortezs recent win added more fuel to the fire. You can see this trajectory reflected in the membership of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Founded in 1982, it had about 6,000 members for most of its history. Shortly after the 2016 election, the organisation saw a boom in membership, reaching 11,000 paying members in December 2016. Since Trump took power, interest in the DSA has grown exponentially. A spokesman said it hit 47,000 members last week, and has seen the fastest growth in our history following the win of Ocasio-Cortez.

Perhaps the most significant thing about the rise of millennial socialism in the US is that it is forcing conservatives to articulate what exactly is so bad about a more equal system often with results that are beyond parody. A writer for the ultra-conservative website the Daily Caller, for example, recently attended an Ocasio-Cortez rally and reported, completely straight-faced: I saw something truly terrifying. I saw just how easy it would be as a parent, to accept the idea that my children deserve healthcare and education. Kids deserving healthcare, imagine that! Its a slippery slope, it really is. You start with accessible healthcare and pretty soon you end up just like Venezuela.

Gender-reveal parties are getting out of hand

Is it a boy? Is it a girl? No, its a terrible new trend that needs to be aborted. I speak of genital-reveal parties, which appear to have become de rigueur these days. OK, so technically they are called gender-reveal parties, but since gender is socially constructed, youre really just revealing what genitals your unborn baby comes attached with.

In case you are unfamiliar with this extremely gender-normative phenomenon, it is a ritual in which a couple simultaneously finds out and reveals the sex of their unborn child in creative ways. For example, the expectant parents might send their unseen sonogram results to a bakery that will prepare a cake coded with the kids sex. The parents then cut into the cake in front of an audience. If the middle is blue, its a boy. If its pink, its a girl.

While gender-reveal parties have been around for at least a decade, they have blown up in popularity recently. Party City, a party supply store with more than 900 shops in North America, launched a gender-reveal party line in 2016 and plans to double its shelf space for gender-reveal products next year.

Thanks to our desperate need for likes on social media, gender-reveal parties have become ever more elaborate. A couple from Louisiana, for example, recently made an alligator crunch down on a watermelon filled with blue liquid to reveal they were having a boy. While this particular stunt didnt go wrong, several others have. Expectant parents from Philadelphia recently set off gender-reveal fireworks (yes, these are a thing) that went flying into the crowd and left some people with minor burns. But who cares about that? As Im sure youre dying to know, the fireworks were pink!

The spandex bandits strike again

Leggings in a Lululemon shop. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images

It may be the greatest heist to go down in yoga pants history not to mention the most Californian crime imaginable. An all-female group of shoplifters recently made off with $10,000 (7,600) worth of leggings from a Lululemon store in Berkeley, California. This isnt the first time the spandex bandits have struck; police say they may be responsible for stealing more than $50,000 worth of merchandise from Lululemon stores across the state. Now obviously, Im not condoning stealing (dont steal!), but the thieves were caught on camera and you have to admire their speed and style. It certainly looked as if theyd been working out. Not to mention, I think the real crime here is that Lululemon leggings cost $100 a pop.

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