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euroquision · 2 months

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EuroQuision is no longer active (...sort of)

Hello friends! It has been only 5 days since I've had to peace the f*ck out of Twitterland, the odorous theme park with more bots than Disney has animatronics. After making the mistake of trying to speak critically of all presidential options and instead emphasizing the relevance of local and state elections, my once-reliable and loveably problematic community turned full Blue Conservative and came to the following conclusions about me in a span of 48 hours:

I'm a Russia-sympathizer / trying to spread pro-Russia propaganda

I do not care about the rights of any woman, non-white person, or queer/trans citizen of the US

I want Tr*mp to win the election

And all in all ppl agreeing that I was at one time bearable, but now am just annoying and braindead

How did we come to those four conclusions? Well, points 2, 3, and 4 all came from the very act of stating I won't vote for Kamala or any presidential candidate and will only instead focus my online discussion on politics about local and state elections. Point number 1 was because I also had the *audacity* to suggest Jill Stein as a 3rd party candidate after so many Liberal followers of mine kept complaining for "another option if you hate Kamala so much." Little did I know that Jill Stein has said and done some pretty Russia-sympathetic things in the past. But even though I did not know this whatsoever until July 23rd, people took that and ran, saying I'm a Russia supporter or propagating for them. Now, the very fact that people who have followed me for YEARS could think that's suddenly true really tells me what kind of "crowd" we're dealing with on Twitter. Despite the fact the twitter eurofan community has on-record been wonderful, welcoming, proactive, and geopolitically aware, I'm reminded that no community is going to be perfect, and the kind of political discussions I have with people in the world is not the convo Twitter eurofans want to have. So even though my feelings were deeply hurt and I legitimately mourned the loss of what I wanted to continue being a growing thing now being lost. But a few very smart, emotionally mature people in my life reached out to me and helped reassure me that despite the chaos, things said about me for the intention of just being awful aren't true.

Anyway, that's the only time I wanna waste talking about twitter, because I'm someone who talks my shit and stands on it too. Yeah, sometimes my shit will stink, and I can admit that when it does. I am not immune to the behavior I just faced; I've been there too dunking on people who deserve it -- like Adam or Shawn from EuroTikTok hopping the pond to tell everyone on twitter they suck and then getting mad when ppl don't like that and dunk on them back. However, on a topic like this and with so much deliberate misunderstanding fueling the snide indignation from people who would've called me "bestie" a day earlier feels *different.* So different to the point where I legitimately considered wiping EuroQuision from the internet. But I chose not to, and here's why!

First, I think there needs to be as much tangible, shareable evidence of public scrutiny of systems of power that are corrupt, and that goes for the ridiculous circus that is Eurovision. Ppl will be so quick to call it "unserious" while ignoring countries put millions of dollars into this every year. Last I checked, gov'ts don't pour money like that into something "unserious." There's a reason Eurovision is as big as it is and how the inclusion of "Israel" is so monumentally complicated. So I want the internet, for as long as possible, to be something that can contain the evidence of people saying "I disagree with the EBU's decisions about these world events. I disagree with their treatment of colonized populations and prioritizing of safeguarding European/White optics and feelings throughout its entire history." And even though good things have genuinely come from ESC's existence (globalization, musical/cultural expression, Ukraine's 2016 win, etc), we can see ESC 2024 itself as an example how in the bubble of ESC, the show itself will only let you remember the good parts. No live show will E V E R dare to show the footage of HATARI in the 2019 televote, and we know the EBU will deplatform their own Eric Saade for *gasp!* having a scarf on his wrist. ESC history is *revisionist* history, and the crowd on twitter only seems to be temporarily concerned about that.

So yeah, inevitably I came to the conclusion that every human must come to: Twitter ain't it, like goddamn. But I'm only here to say that once and move on with my life because despite my final tweet and deactivation of my Patreon, EuroQuision is NOT gone and will not actually be stopping. Consider this a shift in scope and purpose, along with reprioritizing my real life responsibilities. Firstly, about the Patreon: I deactivated it and more than likely will not make another in the future purely because I know that in the future, EQ cannot keep up the production schedule needed to make what I wanted to make and promise to deliver to people like I want. Most importantly, I want to create things for EQ without the additional pressure of trying to cultivate, retain, and reward a growing audience when I know I won't be able to maintain that long term. This way there's less pressure on myself, and I will develop a better relationship with it all.

So, what's EuroQuision gonna be now? Well, it's not really gonna be a "fan" account, mostly considering I have no reason to be a "fan" or Eurovision from here on out/until some drastic changes are made. Instead, I wanna continue being a wide variety of things: musical analyst, historian, fun-fact-provider, overall nerd, and most of all: Protester. To put it into context: I currently have two YouTube video essays; one about the boycott, and one about nightcore. Even though I deeply love both videos and am proud of the effort I put into them, I can easily say which one was worth the time and effort. No shame to my Nightcore roots, but I think the more "important" topics are going to be what I dedicate my YouTube real estate to in the future. On that note, I'll also be on tumblr and reddit much more! I truly love writing and discussing Eurovision at length, and not over quips and punches in the form of 200-ish character tweets. I have too much to say and we can also see the ways communication is truncated by-design thanks to Twitter, and therefore incidents like the one we went through up above are likely to happen.

I wanna end this VERY long post off with a very specific declaration of a couple things that will never change from the EQ name: Free Palestine now and forever. Free Ukraine, Sudan, Congo, EVERY country and person put in harm's way because of the American empire. I do not enable fascism to remedy fascism, and my practiced ethics will always prioritize my community, my family, and the people around the world my elected leaders tell me I should hate. I will continue to donate 100% of my TikTok revenue and possible YouTube revenue to Palestinian relief funds. I do not support the financial or social support/apologism of the EBU.

Anyway, I think I covered all my bases, and if you're someone who disagrees with any stance or belief I've stated in this thesis (lol), kindly just allow yourself to unfollow/not engage with me. Tumblr and Reddit will be around for my ramblings and theories. As for YouTube, I can tell you now that I have a LARGE video essay in the works right now. Literally NO idea when it'll be done/released, but it exists! Thank you for being here, if you still choose to do so!

#eurovision #esc #eurovision song contest #free palestine #free gaza #esc 2024 #ebu #boycott eurovision

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blackswaneuroparedux · 1 year

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Les révolutions ont du moins l'avantage de hâter l'accomplissement des idées admises, mais dont la mise en pratique est difficile ou audacieuse ; elles hâtent l'éclosion de l'avenir paresseux.

Louis-Auguste Martin, L'esprit moral du XIXe siècle (1855)

The Fifth Republic is the name of France’s current government. It began in 1958, after a coup at the hands of the French military in colonial Algeria convinced officials in Paris to dissolve Parliament. Fearing that the military could extend their control beyond Africa, the government called former general Charles de Gaulle out of retirement to hold the country together, as he did during the post-liberation years of World War II. To do so, he crafted a new constitution. Under this government, the president has substantial power, holds a term of five years (it was originally seven) and, following a change to the constitution in 1962, is directly elected by the French people. (de Gaulle held the position until 1968.)

This system of government differs dramatically from previous republics, which relied on parliamentary rule. In the Fifth Republic, the head-of-state appoints a prime minister to lead the Parliament (which is comprised of a Senate and a National Assembly), controls the armed forces and France’s nuclear arsenal, can dissolve Parliament, and can hold referendums on laws or constitutional changes.

One caveat to the president’s powers is the possibility of “cohabitation,” when the president is from a different political party than the majority of politicians in the parliament. In these cases, the president must choose a prime minister who will be accepted by the parliament, and the two share powers of governing more equitably.

But while the conditions are likely not there to bring about a sixth republic in France, the current crisis could lead to other institutional changes.

Indeed, Macron already tried to amend the constitution during his first term, with a plan to add proportional voting to the parliamentary elections and to reduce the number of MPs.

He tried again after the "Yellow Vests" protest, with a reform that would have made it easier for the parliament and citizens to launch a shared referendum, but the law didn't come to fruition.

Will the Fifth Republic last?

French political commentators and scholars have been trying to answer this question since the Fifth Republic was first founded, and it’s impossible to do more than make educated guesses. Since de Gaulle first wrote out its constitution, there have been 24 revisions of it, which have affected 2/3 of its articles. Subsequent changes to the republic have even increased the president’s clout. A 1962 referendum had the president elected by popular vote, and a 2000 referendum resulted in an alignment of the presidential and parliamentary election calendars – something that has almost always resulted in an absolute majority for the president.

So far the constitution’s flexibility and the force of the past presidents has kept the Fifth afloat. But far left agitator and presidential candidate Jen-Luc Mélenchon has been leading a march for the “sixth republic” and Marine Le Pen talking about radically reshaping France’s domestic policies, there’s no telling what might happen by the time Macron leaves office and a new President is ushered in.

Many believe that a certain regime of politics is coming to an end, of which Emmanuel Macron is the epilogue. It is both the end of a regime in the political-institutional sense – hyper-presidentialism and the weakening of counter-powers – but also the exhaustion of a certain regime of "belief" in politics, i.e., the credit we give to men and institutions. It is a symbolic crisis as much as a legal-political one.

I suspect the Fifth Republic will chug along just fine. There may be a few bits of tinkering but not much. I suspect - much like the debates for Proportional Representation in the UK, politicians of all stripes say one thing but do the opposite one in power - once someone like Marine Le Pen comes into power (she is favoured to win the next presidential elections after Macron steps aside) then I doubt she would voluntarily give up her presidential powers any more than any other politician wanting to exercise power to make policy.

At the heart of these debates of changing the Fifth Republic is the very idea of France itself as it faces changes in its society and the challenges therein. In the mind of General de Gaulle, the French presidential system was intended to reaffirm France's independence and sovereignty in the bipolar world of the Cold War. Never have both appeared so threatened.

The decline of state sovereignty is a global phenomenon at the crossroads of several simultaneous revolutions. The first is the history of capitalism, with the financialisation and globalisation of markets and the new supranational actors that are the multinationals. The second is the institutional history of Europe, with the construction of Europe, which is deconstructing the nation-states of which it is composed. The third is the history of information and communication technologies with the emergence of the GAFA [Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon] and the new authoritarian algorithmic governance that is being imposed on States and citizens. And finally there is the strategic history of Europe with the end of the Cold War and the integration of France into the Western bloc under the aegis of NATO.

Any of these would be challenging for the nation state, but all five at once is enough to make any stable democracy shudder at the foundations.

Photo: President Emmanuel Macron presides over the fête nationale ceremony on the Champs-Elysées, 14 July 2023.

#louis-auguste martin #quote #french revolution #revolution #france #bastille day #fete nationale #champs elysées #paris #president de gaulle #fifth republic #constitution #president macron #macron #politics #democracy #republic

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hjohn3 · 4 months

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Of Policies and Purges…

The General Election Campaigns Do Not Get Off To A Good Start

Source: The Independent

By Honest John

FROM RISHI Sunak's sodden announcement of a "snap" General Election for 4th July 2024, the first week and a half of the campaign for both parties has not exactly gone according to plan. Labour, having for months promoted a miserabilist offer that basically says "things are terrible under the Tories maybe they will be a tad better under us (maybe)" are now trying to inject some much needed urgency in their campaign with aggressive launches in safe Tory seats, a pledge card that isn't a pledge card promising, top of its list, a stirring commitment to "economic stability" and a genuinely eye-catching promise to reduce NHS waiting lists to their position in 2010 (18 weeks maximum wait from referral by GP to treatment), which implicitly commits the party to literally billions of pounds of investment in the health service in its first term. Despite claims from the Tories and the left that Labour have a minimal policy offer, behind the uninspiring pledges, there exists a recognisable and credible social democratic offer: £40bn of investment in green energy over its first term; nationalisation of rail; the most ambitious set of employer/employee reforms in favour of, for once, the workers, in 50 years; a major housebuilding programme; devolution of real political power to the English regions; removal of the hereditary Lords, and a commitment to a national economic strategy and plan, with structures to enable it to happen. All the above is a significant break with the laissez-faire neoliberalism that has dominated British politics since the 1980s. Those that claim the parties are "all the same" are being either disingenuous or are not keeping up.

So how is it that Labour has contrived to shoot itself so dramatically in both feet while carrying out one of most botched "purges" in political history (not so much Krushchev, more the Keystone Kops)? The whole sorry saga, exemplified most dramatically by the frankly indefensible treatment of Diane Abbott, hinges on an ill-advised attempt by the leadership to prevent anyone who might conceivably be considered on the left of the party (even if their commitment to international socialism consists of little more than 'liking' the wrong tweet), from standing for Labour regardless of Constituency shortlisiting, promises to candidates or even the fact that local leaflets bearing their photograph may already have been printed. Let's face it, any serious operation seeking to "purge the left" should have got the bloodletting and the trauma out of the way long before the election was called: to attempt to strongarm CLPs into accepting centrally approved candidates during the campaign itself, speaks of an amateurishness as well as a deadening intolerance at the heart of a party that still proclaims itself to be a broad church.

But if one feels limited sympathy for naive candidates who retweet anti-semitic tropes (although one must also ask, who is it going through their history looking for this stuff?), the Diane Abbott saga is little short of disgraceful. Here is a black, female MP, the recipient of near continuous online and face-to-face abuse of the most foul kind, who has been treated by a party she has belonged to her entire political life in the most humiliating and demeaning of manners. Abbott was suspended by Labour over 13 months ago following a letter on racism she sent to the Observer. Despite withdrawing the letter - which claimed black people endured a greater level of racism than Jews, Irish people or Travellers - and apologising in response to the resultant furore, Abbott was immediately suspended by the Labour Party on the grounds that the letter was anti-semitic, in that it denied that Jews suffered from racism. I have re-read Abbott's letter of couple of times. It is a clumsy, badly worded exercise in competitive identity politics, asserting that black people's experiences are somehow worse than other groups suffering prejudice - despite anti-semitism being objectively the most ancient and lethal racism of the lot. That makes it crass, provocative and divisive - but not intrinsically anti-semitic. However, an investigation was not in itself out of order: what is unacceptable is the unconscionable length of time it took the party to investigate a single document and the fact that it has emerged the investigation concluded six months ago, despite Keir Starmer claiming it was still "ongoing" as recently as this week. Labour then compounded its offence by allowing it to be briefed that even when the Labour whip was belatedly restored to Abbott, she still would not be allowed to stand as a Labour candidate at the election. Starmer has at last personally intervened to confirm Abbot is free to stand for Labour in Hackney and Stoke Newington, but the whole affair has left a nasty taste - a feeling that an act of vindictive sectarianism blew up in the leader's face, causing an abrupt climb-down. The impression is left is of a deeply unpleasant party, prepared to humiliate an MP who, next Parliamentatry term will be Mother of the House, in the interests of a ham-fisted purge. Along the way, Labour's new NHS commitments were lost in the noise of accusation and counter-accusation.

As for the Tories, their launch has resembled an incontinent Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. The Conservatives seem to have forgotten one of the most basic of political adages - have your Manifesto agreed and nailed down before the election campaign. Instead, Sunak has followed up his ambush of his own party when he announced the General Election date, with an ill-thought out commitment to a reintroduced National Service and an unfunded tax break to pensioners, leaving Tory ministers and spokespeople floundering in their attempts to answer what this reheated National Service actually means and trying to explain how the pensioner tax break won't increase the public spending cuts already announced by the Chancellor. Added to the culture wars previously, if unconvincingly, launched by the PM (attacks on disabled people; promising to get rid of "mickey mouse" degrees and the hardy perennial/ dead horse of the Rwanda scheme), the Tory campaign is disjointed and defensive - aimed at holding onto Conservative supporters and staunching the flow of right wing voters to Reform. However, for all Sunak's frenetic energy, the polls remain stubbornly against the Tories, with most commentators predicting a collapse in seats at the election to as few as 150 - a quite extraordinary result given Boris Johnson’s barnstorming victory less than five years ago. In the meantime, another MP defects to Labour (Mark Logan of Bolton North East), others announce their support for Reform and big beasts like Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom add to the extraordinary number of Conservative MPs deciding not to contest the election. If Labour's campaign has been one of self-inflicted damage, the Conservatives’ operation appears to be falling apart before the voters' eyes. It is hard to think of another election in which the government of the day appears to have more or less given up, four weeks out from the election.

All this must be good news for Labour, and in terms of simple electoral success, of course it is. But there remains the issue of the cul-de-sac the party appears to have driven itself into when it comes to actually governing. Whereas aspects of Labour's programme do not require additional funding, if Labour do form the next government, much of the impetus behind voters' rejection of the Conservatives will come from their despair at the state of public services, run down to the extent many now barely function. The "change" that Labour promises, and the electorate want, is not simply that of a change of management, but a change in priorities and economic model, away from the market state and towards social solidarity and the protective state. However, sitting above Labour's ambitions to reset the nation lies the dead hand of Rachel Reeves' fiscal rule. All taxes rises have been ruled out, direct and indirect, with VAT recently joining the list of potential revenue sources shut off; unnerved by the Truss experience, additional borrowing has also effectively been closed down. All that is left to balance the country's finances are public spending cuts. Reeves has neither pledged to reverse Hunt's tax cuts or his reckless and unpopular abolition of National Insurance. This is in addition to the £22bn of revenue spending cuts already pencilled in by the Tories for 2025. Of course it is possible, and I truly hope it is, that later this year, a furrow-browed Starmer will tell us that the state of public services is such, that the fiscal rule will have to be dispensed with and both tax-raising and borrowing solutions will re-enter political discourse. Without this, there is little chance of Labour's Wilsonian project of national renewal getting past first base.

Successfully explaining to a disbelieving electorate that "change" may in fact, be no such thing, will take more than iron discipline, message control and a "changed party": it will require a minor miracle.

31st May 2024

#british politics #keir starmer #rishi sunak #labour #next general election #conservative government #labour party

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jobey-wan-kenobi · 2 years

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I posted 5,224 times in 2022

That's 3,808 more posts than 2021!

75 posts created (1%)

5,149 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@youcandalekmyballs

@moonlightsdreaming

@jobey-wan-kenobi

@quasi-normalcy

@academicgangster

I tagged 3,759 of my posts in 2022

Only 28% of my posts had no tags

#q - 743 posts

#tweets - 185 posts

#revolutionary girl utena - 173 posts

#art - 142 posts

#the good place - 132 posts

#tropes are fun - 132 posts

#pokemon - 124 posts

#dracula daily - 114 posts

#nd - 109 posts

#tumblr moment - 95 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#(turned out this card was completely useless in gameplay tho... took me way too long—and several ass-kickings—to accept this patent fact)

My Top Posts in 2022:

To continue the Larry=Dennis parallels, of course at some point there were calls for them to just replace the latest bozo pol with Dennis.

Now, this isn't quite as much of a joke as it is in real life, because, you know. The engines can talk and stuff. Isabella once ran for office, Trevor has served as an alderman, etc.

Sudrians have also, of course, been seriously talking about drafting railway vehicles into their government for years. For one thing, they have great name recognition. For another thing, Skarloey, Rheneas, Duke, Edward, and Toby have all been discussed, at various points, as perfectly reasonable candidates for mayors, MPs, etc.

Now, usually this gets no further than (at most) the Thin or Fat Controller feeling the need to make a statement reminding everyone that their respective railways could not possibly spare the potential candidates in question.

Dennis, though. After a memetic press conference photobombed and then taken over by the laziest diesel ever built, the island starts clowning about just replacing Exiting Disgraced Politician with Dennis.

And FC3 is all like, "Yes, we fully support Dennis if he chooses to pursue a career in government service. 🙃 Please. Do it. He'd be great."

27 notes - Posted July 10, 2022

"This engine is a Metropolitan-Vickers diesel-electric type two!"

'... lol I'm being so Normal™ right now.'

40 notes - Posted August 10, 2022

The Engines as Mentors

Okay but I'm eternally salty that TVS in particular—though it was RIGHT to expand the NWR fleet—failed to use the dynamic of the OG characters from the books all functioning as Mentors and Elder Statesmen to the newer and more obscure and younger engines.

It would have been THE way to effectively integrate the newbies (looking especially hard at you, HIT era). Like, some of the best use of the new characters already are when they fall into a mentee dynamic with one of the established characters. But the TVS writers really only ever let this happen with, like, Thomas? To a degree? And Edward? A bit? And then the best and most beloved BWBA episodes (BWBA!) are when Gordon and, again, Edward get more of this sort of material. And then again, in fuckin' AEG, the most popular thing so far seems to be Gordon's whole Grumpy Dad shtick.

But I think canon and fan writers should have done this with all the classic characters. After decades as The Famous Eight—erm, Ten—(but not Eleven—to me Oliver is in that category of newbie that needs looking after. which is what the rest of the Little Western spends most of his one book doing!) they are all kinda old af and well-qualified and honestly just should be mentoring the diesels and younger steam engines and whatever wide-eyed newcomers are brought to the Island Where Fever Dreams Come True and Culture Shock Is Probably One Hell of a Bitch.

LIKE. Percy. Yes, absolutely Percy! He's inconsistent about standing up for himself or making good decisions in his own working life but honestly his instincts when it comes to others have always been completely on-point. And he never has any hesitation about acting on his instincts so there is a recipe here for big-brother success. He must be so wonderful with uncertain new engines. I think he would have been much better for taking Molly under his wing than Thomas, and he must be a god among many of the newer tank engines. Like the dynamic I tried to paint in my headcanon post about Harvey—Percy gives whiplash as your mentor because he will always support you 100% but sometimes he will suddenly make the most baffling decisions and if you are not, yourself, a natural chaos gremlin, you are just along for the ride and possibly dying of secondhand embarrassment. But again, you also get over it because no one will ever show up for you more consistently than Percy the Caterpillar Engine.

The BWBA era thing where Gordon winds up mentoring Rebecca is... like, fine, I guess. I don't have any complaints about it, but—as I tried to show in my ficlet with him and Derek—I think Gordon's most typical mentorships have two unmistakable characteristics:

it is insanely arbitrary as to whether or not he decides to take you on. if you wind up in his circle of trust you probably weren't trying or even remotely expecting. it is also hard for anyone else to understand why Gordon looked at a new engine and said to himself "Yes. That one." Because the way Gordon makes emotional decisions is utterly impenetrable—this is RWS canon. Why did Gordon one day go from being Pure Unadulterated Jackass Whose Only Thought So Far In His Life Has Been "Me! Me! Meeeee!" to the engine who (evidently? without?? snark???) suggested the Fat Controller let Henry out of the tunnel to take a turn on his train? Honestly we don't know but it remains Gordon's signature style. Why did Gordon do an about-face after James took the express and graciously decide James was his new buddy? Well, to save face of course, but Gordon is also not above a good grudge so it feels like a coin toss. Why did Gordon decide to be super gracious when he rescued Percy and Thomas from their RWS scrapes? No one knows but somehow these moments are so quintessentially him (even though showing up moaning and scolding would have also been quintessentially him). And—most relevantly of all—there is what I regard as his archetypal moment with BoCo. 'My dear engine! You SAVED MY LIFE.' 'I mean, you're welcome for getting rid of them but they were never actually going to kill you.' 'YES THEY WERE. THEY HAD MURDER IN THEIR HEARTS. YOU ARE A GOD AMONG DIESELS, STANDING STRONG AGAINST THE FORCES OF DARKNESS.' '... Sure.' Gordon logic is not the same as earth logic and his reasons for rejecting or accepting others seldom make much sense.

If he does take you on, you may not even notice. Gordon is very stuffy and kind of... emotionally remote. His mentorship style consists of long rambling bouts of relating/boasting about his own experiences and/or advising you, without you able to get much of a word in edgewise—but then, he does this with everyone who is ever stuck with him—and doing extraordinarily nice things for you such as pulling strings to get you the best assignments or upgrades but he'll do it all behind your back, so it might take a while before you realize. (But you'd better, because even though he deliberately decides to do these things in secret, he will also privately feel hurt and hard-done-by if you don't figure it out and thank him. Or at least exclaim happily in his presence and sing the praises of your unknown fairy godfather.)

So yes, mentor!Gordon is a lot like friend!Gordon and worker!Gordon. He is pretty damn high-maintenance but he is also genuinely quite worth it. What his relationships lack in... comprehensibility they make up for in loyalty and generosity. ALTHOUGH. It's worth laughing because I think most of the engines he takes on are decent, polite engines who perhaps have some self-confidence issues. Basically it's like any engine he meets afterwards who is in the Edward mould he is actually magnificent to, which is hysterical considering that one of the keynotes in early canon was Gordon bullying the shit out of Edward. (I still think that wasn't malicious though, and more Gordon did not yet have the remotest understanding of Himself, Theory of Mind, or How to Be a Friend.)

If you have self-confidence issues but you do not win Gordon's capricious favor, never fear! You have James. Who is even more capricious, but that's not to say he's never been the most faaaaaabulous mentor in the world, c'est ne pas? Look. I want to see James as the catalyst for shy newcomers having a glow up. In appearance and attitude. I don't think he does he often but it has definitely happened around twice. I somehow have never actually watched "Rosie is Red" or "The Fastest Red Engine on Sodor" while paying attention but I've been assuming that's exactly how Rosie's Confident Girl Arc went down. Maybe he could be a similar idol for Neville or Flora. Another thing that has happened twice is James just flat-out corrupting a couple of the Good, Buttoned-Down Boys and Girls. I still want to see James take, like, Porter or Arthur and teach 'em anger. Introduce them to the world of (tiny) rebellions. By the time James is done with them, they are starting to Display Behaviors, and Act In Certain Ways.

Henry, I firmly believe (sticking out my tongue at most of the TVS and magazine writing for him), is actually regarded very intimidating. Like Gordon and James are intimidating too, but they are also known jackasses and the universe is known to have slapped them around reliably when they get too far up their own tenders. Also Gordon usually puts on an air of affability—in RWS it's Henry who is the Grumpy One (and meanwhile James, though he has a foul temper, is just too ADHD to be properly intimidating). I suspect Henry's actually always had the reputation for being extremely snobbish. Which is silly because he's only mildly to moderately snobbish, but there you are. He also doesn't put himself out there socially, but of course if you put yourself out there to him he's perfectly friendly. Anyway newcomers and young engines wouldn't know this right away. I think Henry's specialty is mentees in the mold of Bear and my OC Laura and even Rebecca—extroverted, expressive engines who show him respect. In those cases you see his best side, all kindliness and unstinting support. And Henry's support is really valuable, for the usual reasons that all the OGs have a lot of pull on the railway but also because Henry is surprisingly sage and sensible. He doesn't have the reputation for it the way Edward does, due to some of his notoriously poor decision-making in his earlier years and the way he can still sometimes be a bit literal or naive. But even if he's had to learn most things the hard way, he hasn't lied to himself about it and therefore he's developed a very clear-eyed view on things. Refreshingly simple and sound. We see this already in the RWS Super Rescue—he's got Bear and Spamcan pretty well-pegged long before the story ends. He also values engine solidarity in a really consistent, utterly unpretentious way that shows you he doesn't even think about it, it's just become a part of who he is. I love it. And, of course, he's bold as brass. He once hissed steam at his boss and essentially told him to fuck off for no better reason than it was raining and he just wasn't feelin' it. He had the most horrid wreck in the series and after being rebuilt he just got right back on that horse, pulling Flying Kippers again for the next century without the slightest sign of trauma. So if you need him for something, he won't hesitate to move earth and heaven for a friend. He may be a bit of a hypochondriac and likes to predict doom and gloom but he is fundamentally pretty fearless when it comes time for action. (Cut him a break with the elephant thing—he's allowed to have tunnel-related trauma, okay?)

Of course there was one extroverted engine inclined to hero-worship that Henry rejected in canon as a mentee, and that was Philip. Which brings us to Edward, and I fully agree with the fandom consensus that he is the mentor ever, capable of and inclined to look out for, like, everyone. All I'm saying is that I think the others can also step up in this way... Anyway, Edward's specialty of course is engines who are in the mould of Thomas, engines who are excited and eager to work but who talk a lot and might have a streak of mischief and who are definitely considered Too Much by everyone else. Edward likes energetic gremlins. They've always kept him young at heart. And, more importantly, they trust him so completely. Probably because they can tell he's one of the few who genuinely doesn't mind them at what everyone else considers their Most Annoying. He never tells them to hold still or quiet down or make themselves smaller in any way, so they are incredibly receptive to whatever he does tell them.

But what if you're Too Much and you are not eager? If you are not susceptible to admiring Edward's stellar work ethic? I think this is where Thomas shines. Like I think HIT abbreviated and simplified the conflicts with Dennis and Billy too much but it was such a gold mine. Because Thomas, see. You get these little sneaky rotters who don't want to listen to anyone—and at first Thomas seems like the most out-of-touch engine on the rails. Coz Thomas is a tryhard. He also has that whole "corporate positivity" thing going on. Like, the way I resolve the way TVS massacring my boy is by supposing that, after all, Thomas might have really tried to adopt that persona, especially in the '80s when he was inducted into the National Collection and the, well, television series got underway and Thomas becomes damn near the most famous locomotive in the world, certainly he knows he is an icon for children, and he might have figured that, well, this means I have to be a Good Role Model and Teach Children Valuable Lessons. And so he really did try to do this whole pep-talk, moralizing, sugary sweet encouragement thing (and he has a Word of the Day calendar, lol).

And the Dennises and Billies of the world look at that and—understandably, I think—retch a little. But then they double down. And the thing is, when they push Thomas too far, Thomas forgets to be sweetness and light, and just becomes himself. First of all, a foul-mouthed little drill-sergeant wannabe ("Cinders and ashes!!!!" "Who's been late every afternoon this week?!" "You're too fat—you need exercise!" "IF YOU DIE? IF YOU DIE, MOTHERFUCKER? SO WHAT?! I WOULDN'T GIVE A SHIT COZ I'D BE TOO BUSY FINALLY RUNNING MY GODDAMN TRAIN TO TIME." - all direct quotes from Thomas the Tank Engine, ladies and gents) Secondly, an extremely experienced engine who really has done a bit of everything by this point (he even hitched a ride on the Wild Nor'wester that one time, lol) and who is pretty skeptical so he's hard to fool (Percy was the last engine to really ever get one over on him, during the Ghost Train incident, and that's ancient history by this point). If you try to get away with doing a shitty job he's bound to notice and he will be quite acid-tongued if you've pierced his PR Persona. Third, although he can be kinda self-involved and the last to "get" what's going on with newcomers, he is surrounded by his old friends, who are all pretty good about either clocking an engine's whole Deal, getting all the tea like the gossips they are, or both. So while he was still in his amiable-idiot stage of your acquaintance, you, poor rebellious fool, thought you had the run of things but all the while he was getting up to speed on your whole deal. Which means you won't be prepared, should you really commit to ongoing antisocial behavior, for Thomas the Beacon of Children Everywhere to abruptly cast up your entire life story to you and to read it for filth, telling you the merciless truth about yourself in a way that the other engines pieced together but with which they probably never hit you deadass between the eyes.

Of course, this doesn't mean the would-be punks and malcontents who get onto Sodor are instantly cured, lol (though it has gone down that way a few times—my alternate version of Billy's intro story would feature an end where he's just gobsmacked into submission). Sometimes it just means you are going to decide Thomas is your Hated Enemy for Life, but you know what? You will have to step up your game in order to compete with him or even to gain enough clout to try and sabotage him so you're still playing into his hand (if we accept TVS's idea that 'Devious Diesel' did become a part of the Sodor family, I think this is how he was successfully integrated. At some point Thomas unexpectedly read him the riot act and Diesel was like 'who the FUCK are you?? like i know i already had beef with all the main line engines but where the hell did YOU come from???' but then after decades of competition they are essentially frenemies). But mostly the thing is, you are shell-shocked for just long enough, and you'd probably shift to being a bigger asshole than before... but, during that period where you're still burned, you are also looking at all of Sodor and every engine on it with fresh eyes (because if Thomas the Merchandise Engine could ream you out like that, perhaps you underestimated everything about this place). And you are noticing something else. Once Thomas has scalded you with his bitchery, he's also your friend. It's almost his version of sharing his lunch with you on the playground. (Something something salt and vinegar.) For all he rode Henry so hard from some of the earliest days of canon, I bet you he also beat down any 'outsiders' who took shots at him. For all he and Percy squabble, they are the closest of friends (and they weren't! for decades! but the more they squabbled, the closer they got). Getting into a knock-down fistfight is alarmingly close to Thomas's love language, and by the time he's savaged you verbally he is also invested in you. Once he's told you what he really thinks of you, he's also going to start showing up for you genuinely.

And that's when the little shits see the final side of Thomas. The genuine good humor. Obviously it doesn't win over everyone but there is a real groundedness and humility that I am sure Thomas can show (I tried to show this in the fic I made with @shinygoku based off their artwork of Thomas and Daisy) that is hard to resist. He's also fucked up along the way in every way imaginable so even when he side-eyes you, he's not looking down at you. I can just see him showing screw-ups a lot of grace so long as they let down their guard even somewhat because he's been there. Hoo boy, has he been there. That's why kids actually love him (it's not your vocabulary lessons and beaming smile, Thom, though the effort is appreciated), and it's why young engines can wind up loving him too. He doesn't hold what you've done in the past against you; he genuinely believes in second chances (and third, and...). Plus he knows every engine needs some excitement and responsibility in their lives. He has never forgotten the insanity-inducing frustration of being tethered to Vicarstown station.

Basically, once you cut past Thomas's earnest (and bullshit) attempt to be Perfect Kids' Role Model, he's actually always been great at keeping it real. And that's where a genuine respect can often grow.

43 notes - Posted December 14, 2022

us, for ages now: lol ishmael was so gay and autistic, he woulda done numbers on tumblr

ishmael in the year of our lord 2022: doing numbers on tumblr

182 notes - Posted December 7, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

the absolute contrast between most of the dracula daily content and mina's entries...

renfield and seward: stuck with each other (we're sposed to feel sorry for seward i think? but renfield is just vibing in a damn lunatic asylum and seward is a self-important jackass, so, you know. fuck him. i hope renfield feeds his corpse to some flies.)

captain of the demeter: his men are disappearing and he's facing imminent mutiny

jonathan harker: literally battling the forces of hell for his life and soul

mina: ahhhhh holidaying at the yorkish seaside is so pleasant! 😊 the scenery fulfills the soul! 😊 i tried to get one of the old locals to tell me a spooky story but he preferred to go home for tea haha, so quaint

also mina: i met my darling lucy at the station 😊😊😊 and let me just tell you, diary, that girl of mine looking fine af

594 notes - Posted July 24, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #why did they not shorten the engines as mentors post???? 😭😭😭#3 out of 5 are ttte and then the top 2 are drac fml #very long post

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suneendra · 26 days

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Women safety :

Unnao , Hathras ( U P ) , Delhi nirbhaya , Kolkata rg kar , Kamduni ( WB ) Muchumarri ( Andhra ) , Badlapur ( MH ) Hema committee report [ malayalam film industry - kerala ] and so on and so on and so on :

Can I tell one thing -:- About INVISIBLE RAPES in this country

Promotions or recruitments in corporate companies or even good marks in an exam corrected or taught be male teacher or professor or lecturer for a GIRL STUDENT

Leaving away a woman riding a bike or car without helmet or wearing belt - Why ? See reasons

Because of skin tone , So called perfect ideal shapes , ideal hair , superb scent , wearing superb costumes which arouse invisible feelings in that so- called Men . If I count these - there will 10-12 crore rapes per minute in this country :- not physically but psychologically .. Why so .?

Leave this :- Tell me one woman in real life who falls in love Because of UNDER WEAR OF A MAN or Perfume used by men or Height of a man or Branded watches or car or bike or any material things used by man e.t.c. Why so .?

Leave this :- Tell me about the items we TRULY FELT great when the advertisements we liked a lot because of specifications specified for any particular product instead of seeing the gender who is advertising IT ..

Why so .? ( Objectification of women )

See the corporate companies product sales :- Many would have been - Running in great profits when their products have bit of female gender visibility in any aspect like audio format or video visibility format or Image format :- Why is that so .? ( No data to add credibility to this statement )

Also check on the movies which have trailers with unnecessary ITEM SONGS - with more like a stupid male macho stories with no objectivity at all but got 100 Cr like that just like that . Why do they put female aspect in that angle even in trailers as well ..?

Why so .? ( Commodification of woman )

Last but not the least , Check out the leaders we elect or political candidates getting fielded in the elections by these political parties . Check out the recent data of ADR -saying that almost - 150 [ approx ] - Sitting MP's and MLA's are in the temples of largest democracy in the world - i.e in PARLIAMENT AND IN STATE LEGISLATURES .

Why so ?

We r culturally inherently subconsciously designing humanity such a way one gender is always great than the other dude .

Why so ..? Think once . Reflect . Introspect .

Damage is not when one incident comes out and we get on roads ...Today it is rg kar Tomorrow it can be our place or any place in this country or even our home as well. ( Might be ) ( No Hate - But issue is deeply rotten )

If we talk about these , whole HUMANITY have to sit on roads on daily basis

Okay bro ? R u criticizing the medicos now ? Nope Never who am I to criticize any person or any institution ??

I am just a wanderer who is wandering this world with OPEN MIND and EYES WIDE OPENED to know and see THINGS AS MUCH CLEARLY AS POSSIBLE :-

What to do now then .? Yaar, I don't have one stop solutions dude

But - one thing - :- 1: RIGHT PARENTING AND RIGHT TEACHERS CAN ADDRESS a bit . 2: Any sport which can make a child sweat out a lot and compete with any genders ..but based on techniques of that sport and competitive spirit built inside that child . 3: Self defense tactics as part of education curriculum for every student in this country :

Counter to Few critics :- Right parenting mean : Respecting each other and doing all work without any iota of gender based discrimination or gender based work like only women need to do house chores kind of :

Purely on logic and rationale with objectivity .. I am not a hard core feminist to say one child has to given birth by men as well ..

Yaar don't find where I will do mistake and get picked up and kick me wherever you wanted to . If u want , come out yaar - Even without post also we can lovely fight each other and have a chilled beer at night with full moon and nearby lake in my home in Bengaluru .🤣

Secondly , why r u asking self defense training ? Are you saying inherently that women are weaker - Bro , No - NOT at all :

Yaar , In a country with huge malnutrition , anemia , newly upcoming adversity i.e over nutrition and obesity , till what time we pretend that our kids including even ourselves are already became , going to become are currently an IRON MAN OR WONDER WOMAN OR SUPER MAN : [ see reports of lancet survey of 4200 steps average , NFHS 5 surveys ]

Yaar , still u don't believe me - do one thing - just run for 1km without shoes in any ground and see what your potential or your kids potential is : Think once - If that much physical strength is not there , then how can you protect yourself from any enemy who might be of any gender : so stop pretending you are iron man or wonder woman : you are you : If you have any doubt , just go, run see : what is your capability :?

Self protection - is not any gender thing -: It is inherent to every species on this planet to survive from any threat from any other animal from different or same species : It is even taught to every kid of animals as well - haven't you seen MUFASA [ THE LION KING ] ?

So here I am Suneendra BS . Signing off , Lovely to meet you this way :- Waiting to see you again . Till then , Have a good workout and good diet , so that you can be healthy and read my posts next time Thanks a ton for reading this Bye ❤️🥰😍 With a great Love towards HUMANITY and Universe.

#woman safety #rgkar #westbengal #riseupindia #StandupforINDIA

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hotgirlmythology · 6 months

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The Lime House

I thought I should note this information down because it has turned into a pretty sprawling world.

The centrepiece of the world are the Houses of Parliament, that have been filled with limes. The limes go six feet deep throughout. Trying to clear them away is physically impossible, because they simply reappear. I think a timeline will be useful here.

A very irate middle-aged James Bond (who is actually called Timothy) is let go from MI6 after they outsource their pet contract murderers to some eastern european militia groups. Following this, he decides to recreationally take 19 benadryl, which as we all know, summons the Hat Man. The Hat Man is one of five Clothes Men, who are extradimensional entities covering a variety of different qualms people have against the world. The Hat Man for his part enjoys flair and drama without an awful lot of substance, hence the hat. Thus in response to Timothy's drug-fueled rant about the woes of government fund allocation, he concluded that the best course of action was to fill government offices with limes. Boris Johnson is very nearly ousted via a vote of no confidence, but Special Agent Liz Truss' assassination of Queen Elizabeth the Eternal and the violent retribution of her Majesty's undead hordes proves that the leadership candidates just aren't up to snuff.

Once it becomes clear that the houses of parliament are indeed filled with limes, self replicating, imperishable limes at that, most of the government wants to move somewhere less squishy to hold parliament. The attitude of the public however is that they should "Stick it out," so they do. It lasts about a week until ministers begin to resign in droves and half the civil servants working there also hand in their notice. Massive by-elections sweep the country, with people looking for independents who don't seem likely to toe the party lines in trying to leave the traditional home of government. Around this time, the job listing for the LDS (Lime Disposal Squad) is posted, which is seized upon in about a day by a forum of bored internet addicts who fill up every remaining spot as a joke, to see if they can make this the workplace of their dreams. The result depends on whose dream you are judging with.

The first new MPs begin filtering into parliament. Among them are Daen, Liverpool MP who got in exclusively by being able to prove he had never told a lie in politics, and Jamie, MP for Shitting-on-the-Wold, who got his position by being the only person in town with an a-level in politics, which probably makes him more capable of running the country than most actual MPs. A popular new debate method is to hurl limes at someone whose point you dislike to try and unbalance their footing on whatever they are standing on. The LDS is kept very busy constantly scooping up limes and winching around their gantries to dump them - given the limes will try to reach six feet up from the highest non-lime object, this usually means overenthusiastic individuals collide with mps regularly on their way to clear up the mess.

Parliament's ability to pass and record any kind of information is severely hampered when their computers are inundated by crushed lime juice and blow up, a la guy fawkes. Mobile devices are obviously worse than useless when you have to get in by jumping in a window, so most secretaries quit in protest, barring Hayley, a cali girl ex-yacht thief turned illegal immigrant when her prospective mark decided that he would in fact report the unidentified hot woman on his boat to the police rather than trying to chat her up. As she was only here because of the girlfriend of one of the MPs snagging her the job, she was unlikely to leave and expose herself to being caught undocumented. Don't think about how she got a civil service job without documentation.

Valerie returns from her sojourn in Paris. Hayley's old employer and the only woman Jamie will ever allow to be referred to as his girlfriend, the paris trip was to allow her to recover from the various cybernetic augmentations she underwent as a result of enlisting in the Royal Environmental Response Commission. This is an organisation under the direct supervision of the king that is responsible for developing the Oil Tycoon Obliterator 3000, a rather large mech designed to, as the name suggests, obliterate oil barons. And most anyone else who gets in the way of green energy. Valerie acts as a guard for the Palace, under whose fake plastic exterior the work is unending. Before this she was an alcoholic art thief with the attitude of a coked up ferret trying and somehow succeeding to sip wine in a refined manner. Before that, she was a covert MI6 operative in afghanistan, responsible for mining a variety of roads, murdering random people on sketchy information, and telling other people sketchy information that would make them murder people she didn't like. As one might imagine, this trauma made her go into alcoholic art theft. However, she is now trying to work through it with Jamie to support her.

News bulletin elsewhere in the world

America pretended to invade itself to try and wipe out its debt. Somewhere along the line, the ruse got hijacked by dissidents, and a mass killing of prominent politicians was organised by sympathetic revolutionary minds already in the military. After this, and the short and very bloody petty warlord period, General Octavia blew her way into the White House with the nations' missiles at her back, and installed a nice comfy new chair. Octavia, named after hers truly, is a country where everyone can be what they want to be, provided that when they get told to go and work on something they do it immediately. What they cannot be, however, is a mermaid, who have realised that they can hijack ship comms systems to sing their songs through. Mermaids cause enormous multi-ship pileups by doing this,before swimming into the sinking ships and looting them. Octavia relies quite heavily on sea trade, and so there are now three rather enormous Orbital Sex Change Operators in perpetual geostationary orbit. These radiation cannons cause the instant alteration of a single X chromosome to Y, or a single Y to X, in each cell of the target organism blasted. Mermaids, being exclusively female, die instantly if they get a Y chromosome. Many transgender people are very excited about the prospect of such an efficient sex change operation, and it is now a tradition that on trans visibility and remembrance days lots are drawn to see which 3 trans people get beamed. The reason it's so infrequent isn't the cost of the orbital lasers, but the fact their hospital bills for acute radiation poisoning need to be covered by the state.

There is a giant kitten that wanders through the void of space and enjoys playing with stars. The kitten itself is made of starlight, but not stars themselves, which confuses the only four "cosmikittists" in the world when they get together in their discord server to discuss it. They are not sure how it exists, or anything about it except how to summon it. If one thinks very very hard of a pretty star, the kitten will pick up on it. Distance isn't the problem, as time and space are immaterial to such a creature, but one must match the kitten's wonderment in relation to stars. If done correctly, you will shortly be visited by an enormous kitten the size of a large moon, whose effect on air pressure and displacement usually causes toppling and flattening of anything nearby. This usually distracts the summoner from the star, and the kitten leaves in a huff, but one of the four did manage to stroke it once. It felt very soft and fluffy and cool to the touch, though it's to be expected when you regulate your temperature based on nearby stars. Currently some scientist in antarctica is accidentally developing a mental image suitable for calling in the space kitten, and the cosmikittists are going frantic trying to identify where the person causing all these near misses by the kitten is.

Britain is now the europe's primary exporter of limes, given they have infinite and always available limes being produced on a huge scale in parliament. Their cuisine has become very influenced by limes, too, with lime juice being used to season many dishes.

#worldbuilding #britain #stupid fucking worldbuidling

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college-girl199328 · 8 months

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The Liberals just had themselves a “twofer.” For the second time in as many weeks, Liberal party insiders and their surrogates online saw attacks against newly recruited Conservative candidates backfire spectacularly, succeeding only in raising the profiles of the would-be Parliamentarians.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took aim at Conservative candidate for Durham Jamil Jivani on Thursday, calling Jivani, who is biracial, a “ twofer ” in an address to his caucus. Trudeau explained, in the next sentence, that by “twofer,” he meant that Jivani was “both an ideologue and an insider.” The prime minister’s unfortunate choice of words nevertheless gave the 36-year-old Jivani an opening to put together a rapid-fire counter-attack.

The irony is that Jivani is exactly the sort of “star candidate” that, under different circumstances, would have Liberals salivating. Indeed, the parallels between Jivani’s personal history, detailed in his 2018 book Why Young Men and that of ex-U.S. president Barack Obama are hard to ignore — right down to the Kenyan-born absentee father and the Ivy League law degree (Jivani graduated from Yale Law School in 2013). Throw in the fact that Jivani beat Stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma, being declared “cured of cancer” just weeks ago, and we’re well into “made for TV movie” territory. Why Trudeau and other prominent Liberals would fritter away scarce political capital by going after Jivani is anyone’s guess, especially when he won’t be facing especially strong competition in the race for ex-Tory leader Erin O’Toole’s old seat in the March 4 by-election. Liberal nominee Robert Rock, currently a municipal councilor, ran unsuccessfully against Jivani for the riding’s Conservative nomination.

The Liberal meltdown over Jivani echoes the party’s similarly counterproductive targeting, one week earlier, of 35-year-old ex-National Post columnist Sabrina Maddeaux. Maddeaux was attacked online by two sitting Liberal MPs, one of them a cabinet member, just hours after posting her own video to X announcing that she was seeking the Conservative nomination for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill. (Disclosure: Sabrina is a personal friend and I made a small donation to her campaign shortly after it launched, though I am not a member of any political party.) Maddeaux was subsequently targeted by an army of pro-liberal trolls, with criticisms of the stylish ex-fashion writer at times crossing the line into creepy. One especially skin-crawling post paired a photo of Maddeaux taken at a fashion event with the caption, “Really? Sabrina is a ‘conservative’? Not sure I’d wear that to Sunday school.”

Ickiness aside, this has all made for excellent publicity for Maddeaux, whose two-minute campaign announcement video now has nearly 400,000 views on X. Maddeaux, like Jivani, is an accomplished and telegenic young urbanite whom the Liberals would no doubt have loved to run themselves in a competitive Greater Toronto Area riding. As a columnist, Maddeaux wrote prolifically on issues affecting urban millennials like herself, notably housing. Her segue into Conservative politics is emblematic of the party’s rising fortunes among younger Canadians.

The prime minister also singled out 33-year-old Oxford MP Arpan Khanna in his Thursday address. Khanna was reportedly the target of racist campaigning during last year’s bruising Oxford by-election. More recently, he’s been at the center of heretofore unsuccessful Liberal and NDP efforts to stoke anxieties over alleged Indian election interference. A thinly sourced story published earlier this month by the transparently partisan Press Progress claimed that the vote that made Khanna the Conservative party’s nominee for Oxford is currently under investigation by CSIS. The Liberal party’s baffling attacks on three promising young Conservatives show, above all, just how dramatically party demographics have changed during the Trudeau years. Whereas the expression “stale, pale and male” once broadly fit the Conservative party caucus, the Liberals don’t seem to have a playbook for dealing with a diverse crop of young political talent that’s flocked to the Big Blue Tent under Pierre Poilievre.

Without the epithets “old”, “male” and “white” at its disposal, the once lethal Liberal attack machine now looks to be toothless.

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yorkscoffee · 10 months

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played fae farm during the trial week on switch ... the npcs are made of cardboard and there r some weird bugs and quirks in the game but i had a good time. may or may not have gone a lil insane and completed the whole story and made it to almost the end of summer year 2

gonna write out some thoughts

one of the weird quirks is that u can't name ur character. they will just simply be named after like ur steam or switch or whatever profile. unless u make a phoenix labs account then u can change ur name that way, but if u go offline at all it switches back to the profile name until u log in again (pause > multiplayer > login button; u don't have to actually do multiplayer just log in). very annoying when i do not like to play as myself in these games & also just a strange decision in general imo

character creator is decent but i would recommend going to the voice selection and hitting "silent" before actually getting into it LOL the noises the character makes get so annoying after a bit... the pronoun selection is nice (he she or they) & u can go back into the character creator using a craftable mirror so u can switch all that stuff up whenever u want

the storyline was cute; not exactly deep but the artwork was neat. i liked all the rhymes and the storybook-y feel. the sprites have nice designs. wisp mother should be a romance candidate but she is not

gameplay felt nice; i liked the auto tool switching and the double jump a lot, & having spells and potions that helped with farming was cool. very light on tutorials but if ur experienced with the genre its not too hard to figure out (idk how it is w/o experience bc i cannot un-experience things). having year-round plants that u use magic fertilizer on to change them into seasonal varieties was funky

animals are pretty quirky and a lil buggy. sometimes i would try to water a plant or something and a chicken would teleport to me from across the farm and get pet. or they would just wander away from the Sign That Is Supposed To Keep Animals Near It and get in the way. fences cannot stop them they will simply walk thru it. also in my experience my cows and sheep would stop giving milk and wool if i didnt enter the barn the day before, even if they had food? weird lil quirk there but once i figured it out it was fine

u can pretty much ignore the animals and their affection will still go up & theyll still produce things as long as u feed them, and also the only punishment for not feeding them is they don't produce things. very forgiving. something i thought was really interesting tho that they dont actually point out in game is that petting ur animals gives u some regen on ur stamina and magic and probably hp, which is Super handy and a neat mechanic that got me to continue paying attention to my animals anyway

decorating ur house with specific furniture gives u a "cozy home" bonus; basically this is how u increase ur hp/mp/stamina, which i think is also a pretty neat lil mechanic

also flower breeding is a mechanic. 6 types of flowers, 6 different genes, 12 unique colors. works pretty much like acnh but also u can breed 2 different types of flowers (so like a rose and a tulip) and u'll have a 50/50 shot at getting one or the other. i got almost every color and i will be haunted by the white zinnia until i have an actual copy of the game. also the genes are actually displayed in a lil tooltip when the cursor is over the flower which is really really cool and good and i love that feature so so much it makes everything so much easier and less frustrating

the game doesnt tell u this iirc but crops and flowers can be moved if u go into the uhhhh build mode. like u can just pick up a whole plant and move it wherever. very handy for both flower breeding and just organizing things in general. u can just pick up and move almost anything, & if u can't u can tear it down and get all materials back. u cannot do either thing to a crafting station that has items in it though u have to get the items out first if u want to break it down or move it

flowers r very important if u like customization also. u unlock 2 color palettes (a grand total of 6 colors) automatically and u have to buy the rest. most of them cost like 30 of a particular flower + some other item + money. u can recolor furniture and outfits with ur unlocked color palettes which is nice

combat was fine, bonus points for the potion of i just want to mine please don't perceive me. also bonus points because there is actually a storyline reason for the monsters to be there; always hate it when a game is like "videogame... have combat. videogame Must have combat. i put monsters in cave. now this is a real video game :)" like nah tell me where those slimes came from. in this case the monsters are objects animated by wild magic and they have cute designs and goofy lil names like cannot (a cannon) and skello (a cello)

there are 3 dungeons in the game & the latter two have funky lil puzzle mechanics. if u aint like that then theres things u can make to skip most of em. i thought they were neat & being able to remove them pretty easily meant they didnt overstay their welcome. they also require specific potions so u don't like "die" (get teleported out of the dungeon, which is also what happens if u lose all ur hp) which would probably be cooler if pausing the game would pause the timers on the potions. i assume that sort of thing is because the game was made with multiplayer in mind; this is presumably also the reason why having anything pause time at all in singleplayer was added in an update after launch

(pausing also does not pause monsters. they will murderize u with the pause screen up. on switch u can just go to the home menu 4 a proper pause at least)

the npcs are as mentioned largely made of cardboard; most of the ones u can't befriend (most of the merchants) have the same pool of lines, and the ones u can have a few personal lines and a bunch of lines referencing things uve done in the game even if its been like 10 years since u did it (common in the genre). there are no events with the non-romance npcs or interactions between any npcs except for like some animations; every conversation witnessed is an npc talking to protagonist. the only events are the dates with the romance characters, which are just them and protagonist sitting around and talking with absolutely nothing happening. the dialogue is cute at least

romance npcs' statuses will sometimes get stuck for some reason (this happened to 2 of them when i played) but that i think should be fixable with the "reset relationship" button, which is a pretty cool feature (tho my understanding is it's also a bit buggy sometimes so ymmv)

festivals are just decorations in town and a shop in town hall (including the fae festival, which one would expect to happen in the fae realm). characters have a few unique lines referencing the festival. sometimes they reference... the Wrong festival. goofy lil oversight i think. birthdays are on the calendar but have no impact in-game

marriage is also very nothing; u get a cute wedding scene and then ur spouse just vibes around the farm sometimes. there is no dialogue about this. also other romance npcs' relationship status change to "past sweetheart" or something like that and u cant progress with them at all since ur not allowed to be friends with them

gift giving is also only for romance npcs and each one has a random item that is the only thing u can possibly give them that day. but like talking to them gives good enough points regardless

job quests (questlines related to each skill u have, given by npcs related to that skill) are neat lil "challenges" but u can only pick up one at a time for some reason. weird design choice imo. they give u a hat for doing all the quests and an outfit if u do all the quests And some 100% requirement (like getting every crop at least once for the farming quests, making one of each polished gem variety for mining, etc) which i think is pretty neat

overall i think i would compare it to story of seasons: pioneers of olive town (particularly in its initial state) in that the npcs are very nothing but the gameplay loop is very good and fun; between the two i would say fae farm has the better story tho lol

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crystalelemental · 2 years

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Another F2P clear, and I think it's time to talk about why some common units are a problem.

Vs. Marshal BP Janine, who I actually love dearly for her buffing kit, is like...wildly inconsistent. Mostly because she cannot take a hit worth beans, and if you don't dodge, she will drop like a sack of shit. Legitimately, this is my only complaint with BP Janine. I think Endurance would've changed her life completely to being one of the best units available F2P. Without it, she's just so easily two-shot that it really hinders her survival. It doesn't help that, if she drops, Koga doesn't have the DPS to handle center before sync, and none of them survive it. It's just a very luck-based clear that, unfortunately, illustrates that while you can miss a perfect accuracy move 17 times at -1 accuracy, your foe will hit you with an 80% accurate move at +3 evasion no problem every time. Because computers have to cheat to win.

Vs. Shauntal Cyrus and Winona are perfect, they can do no wrong. It's mostly Drake. The defense buffing and Team Sharp Entry are nice for a unit like Cyrus, who gets pretty much everything he wants, and one-shots the sides under Rain. But also Drake's lack of healing makes him so frail. If it weren't for how strong Cyrus was, Drake would not last.

Vs. Caitlin While I have started to respect BP Sophocles, I find his issues to be fairly apparent. Mostly in that, he wants BP Surge for perfect offensive setup, but he needs BP Clemont for survival given recoil and the inevitable AoE spam after center drops. Using just BP Clemont means Sophocles has to spend three turns buffing, and he's not quite good enough to justify that in all scenarios. Using just BP Surge means getting barreled over, because he's wildly frail, and Endurance is nice but not sufficient to keeping him alive. And even with both, gauge issues exist, because you want Screech off of Clemont, can run out of MP moves for Surge who now has to attack, and Sophocles needs three gauges to hit a foe. He's strong enough to get the job done, but I feel like maybe I need to re-examine his partners.

Vs. Grimsley Bugsy can't one-shot Grimsley on second sync. I feel like that tells you all you needed to know. Bugsy deals like 17k with -6 defense, and it's not even enough. That's...wild to me. Like, before the advent of SC Train Bros, I'm struggling to figure out how people handled Snarl + Thunder Wave + tons of HP on a Bug-weak stage. Lusamine and Burgh are actively hindered, and Guzma isn't exactly a prime candidate for EX, not that his damage on sync would've been much better than Bugsy here. I dunno. This one suddenly seems tougher to me than it once did. Anyway, Nanu's out here earning his S-tier, because the solution was to flinch Grimsley before Thunder Wave and stall out a bit so Bugsy could hit him. I hit him twice. Turns out the magic number was thrice. Thank god for quad queueing.

Vs. Alder Okay. It is finally time. Roark! You have proven yourself in the crucible of battle (Moltres fight), but now you will be tested once more. Can you handle the Champion Stadi-oh, 30k on sync. Yeah, he's good guys, checks out. Legitimately, I feel like we kinda overkilled this stage. I brought Kangaskhan for Leer support, but also as a secondary flinch bot, just for funsies. Lodge Blue is decently tanky against physical hits, but this is Volcarona so...oops. Roark 100% has the fire-power to clear this stage. I want to be clear, it is not even close. He obliterates it. If he had EX, this would be disgusting. Without it, it's still a complete dunk on the offensive set. So long as his support can cap crit, and give a little extra attack, he wins. The big question is whether his tank can survive. And the best survival is not taking damage, so two flinch bots under the "boosted secondary effects of attacks" condition means no threat. Hey, don't blame me. The game handed me the parameter, I'm gonna dunk on a fool.

#champion stadium #unova cs

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real-life-senshi · 2 years

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Oh my god, here we go!!!! Miyuu totally just dug her own grave here!

They are watching this candid footage live and Keiko is confused, but Miyuu KNOWS WHAT'S HAPPENING.

You can tell Keiko figured out what's going on once Rika showed up on the screen with a victory sign as well. Rika looks like she's on full mischief mode. lol

Miyuu's background wails rewatching this scene are hilarious and absolutely what I would have expected from Usagi. lol

LOL at Rika's off-screen question and the crew's laughter!!!!! Miyuu takes -9999 HP and MP damage.

I love how good sports Miyuu is about all of this and throwing us so many behind the scene details. And she also continues to do that in her PGSM viewing party, which I love so much!

#pgsm oshiokiyo dvd 4 #pgsm trivia #lol #khmyh liveblogs #khmyh rewatches pgsm #sawai miyuu #izumi rika

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peckhampeculiar · 2 years

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Race to replace Harriet hots up

The competition to succeed Harriet Harman as the Labour party’s parliamentary candidate for the constituency of Camberwell and Peckham is hotting up with a host of contenders jostling for prime position.

Harman has represented Camberwell and Peckham since 1997, having also represented the previous constituency of Peckham since 1982. Last September she announced that she would be standing down at the next general election, precipitating something of a rush among local politicians keen to represent what was – at the last election – the 19th safest parliamentary seat in the UK.

Two contenders – Sunny Lambe and Maurice Mcleod – are now out of the race. Mcleod, a leading anti-racism campaigner who currently represents the Battersea Park ward in Wandsworth, was controversially prevented from standing as this paper was about to go to press.

Mcleod said he was “blocked by the Labour party machine”, adding: “I am deeply disappointed by this unfair decision taken behind closed doors, which denies local members the opportunity to vote for me.”

He added: “The reasons given are as frivolous as once liking a tweet by Caroline Lucas. This was plainly a factional intervention.” He ended his statement by wishing those who have made the longlist the very best.

Here is The Camberwell Clarion’s guide to the candidates still in the running.

Johnson Situ

Situ – who was interviewed in the last issue – is a senior adviser to London mayor Sadiq Khan. Before working at City Hall he served as a councillor for the Peckham ward from 2014 to 2021 and was also a cabinet member of Southwark Council for five years, helping to create 2,000 local apprenticeships as well as being a key player in Southwark’s council house-building programme. His backers include Rio Ferdinand who said:

"When Dulwich Hamlet FC were forced out of their ground, Johnson fought alongside me to bring them back to their rightful home at Champion Hill. As a councillor he stood by the club during tough times and I know that as an MP he will always stand up for his local community. I'm proud to have grown up in Peckham, and I know that Johnson, like me, is proud of Peckham, and ambitious for its future. That's why I'm backing Johnson Situ as the next MP for Camberwell and Peckham."

Marina Ahmad

Born in Bangladesh, Ahmad was raised on a south London council estate. A trained barrister who has formerly worked for the Crown Prosecution Service among other roles in the public sector, she has been the London Assembly member for Lambeth and Southwark since May 2021. She has previously stood three times unsuccessfully in the general election in the constituency of Beckenham and is currently chair of the GMB southern region race network, as well as the founder of social policy think-tank Race on the Agenda.

Evelyn Akoto

Akoto grew up on the Aylesbury Estate and is currently a councillor representing the Old Kent Road ward, as well as Southwark Council cabinet member for health and wellbeing. Akoto officially launched her campaign to succeed Harman in October and has previously stood unsuccessfully for the position of Labour candidate for Lambeth and Southwark in the London Assembly elections. The mother of three founded the Southwark Safe Spaces initiative, which provides support to domestic abuse survivors.

Peter Babudu

Babudu attended St Thomas the Apostle secondary school in Peckham before studying PPE at the University of Oxford. He represented the Rye Lane ward on Southwark Council from 2018 until 2022, working to reduce and eliminate exclusions within local schools. He is now the assistant director of research and youth understanding for the Youth Endowment Fund, an early intervention organisation that tackles youth violence and crime.

Miatta Fahnbulleh

Fahnbulleh has been the chief executive of the New Economics Foundation think-tank since 2017. She also previously served as the director of policy and research at the Institute for Public Policy Research and was an adviser to the former Labour party leader Ed Miliband from 2013 to 2015. She also worked in the strategy unit for then prime minister Gordon Brown during the global financial crisis of 2008. Born in Liberia, Fahnbulleh arrived in the UK with her family as refugees in 1986.

Neeraj Patil

A doctor and A&E consultant for the NHS, Patil was previously a councillor in Lambeth and was mayor of the borough from 2010-11. He has been a governor at King’s College and St Thomas’ hospitals and plays an active part in promoting community cohesion between Indian and Pakistani communities in the UK. In the 2017 general election he stood in Putney, where he lost to then education secretary Justine Greening by 1,554 votes, achieving a 10.8% swing for Labour.

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