#and free ideas- since Bernie is gone from us

[takethesefictions]

you know what- I would watch and love the fuck out of an Ocean’s 14 movie in this economy and maybe ESPECIALLY because of this economy. #knowkingbetterbutonvibesonlymode

[tezzbot]

Okay.. so... fairly long post under the cut with the sort of background to my Sonic Underground AU!! If anyone's interested fjdgv I have thought about it a Lot lol

So basically, The background is that Eggman has definitely been up to shit since before Sonic was born lol and one of his sort of things when he I guess started out in villainy ? was he started trying to claim land and take over so that he could build his cities and theme parks and factories and what have you and rule over everything. So, after claiming some untouched land he started attacking “Mobian'' settlements, (not sure whether to stick with Mobian or what but the word gets my point across so I’m using it now sfgdh) and I guess started working his way up until he found Christmas Island, which is the small Kingdom Aleena ruled over at the time. This caused the Kingdom to fight back and started a war with Robotnik. However. Obviously the warzone was no place to be raising the Very recently born heirs to the throne (the three who would grow up to be Sonia Sonic and Manic, they might’ve had different names back then lol) and so Aleena with a Very heavy heart sent the three Far away, they had them sent to a dinky little orphanage in a fairly distant zone, intending to pick them back up when the war was over.

Unfortunately, Very early on in the triplet’s stay at the orphanage, when they were still practically babies, an unfortunate cot placement led to Manic being kidnapped sometime in the dead of night (don’t ask why they did it I just think it’s funny love and light). He was taken to a nearby city, and somehow managed to endear himself to Ferral, the leader of one of the larger sort of crime rings active there. This is where he learned to get by and live and thrive, little crime family they love each other and rag on each other so much smile smile smile.

Sonic stayed in the orphanage a lot longer than Manic, but doesn’t really remember his time there all that much. As soon as Sonic figured out how to, he ran. Ran as fast and as far as he was able. Ran until he had no idea how to get back. But he'd not a guilt on his conscience. He was free, for the first time felt truly free. He learned how to survive on his own and met a little two tailed fox cub and his life played out pretty much exactly the same as it does in the main line continuity :)

Sonia is the only one of the three who has any memory of staying in the orphanage and was the only one to leave there by regular means dgfhfg. At about five years old, she was one of a few girls from across the continent to be chosen to attend and live at an all girls school where they would grow into proper ladies™, being taught etiquette and manners and so on. She managed a fairly cushy lifestyle here but was never truly happy there. She obviously has her besties like Mindy, but it always felt far too restrictive and (figuratively) cold. So while she does do well there, she is slightly prone to getting in trouble and feels kind of belittled and invisible among her peers at times

So in the triplet’s maybe 3rd year? The war on Christmas Island ended and the Mobians were unfortunately forced to go into hiding. Aleena made it out and went into her own hiding in the form of laying low in a residential area in a nearby city, and attempted to blend in there for a few years before making the trip to finally reunite with her children. Unfortunately by the time she gets there, all three are gone :( Even though the orphanage may know where Sonia is, she feels as though she has failed all three as their mother and wouldn't be able to face any of them (despite the fact they're like. 6 year olds lol), and so retreats back to her city home.

Until, over a decade later, Aleena sees the world renowned hero Sonic the Hedgehog that she hears so much about, (maybe he’s just saved that part of the city from a badnik attack or something like that) and there is just… something about him that is so uncannily like her Bernie… His heroism and humility right down to his mannerisms, the being blue also adds to the effect. And… Aleena is not one to get her hopes up, but the chance of this being one of her missing children after all these years…

Then I’m thinking maybe, she is wearing the equivalent of the three medallions and, maybe as she gets closer to Sonic one of them has some sort of magical reaction ? or something I’m not actually sure. But something DOES confirm to Aleena that This is one of her kids oh my god!! And he’s just like his (other) mother… Aleena gets overwhelmed and ends up not talking to him. Sonic maybe notices someone in a long flowy jacket running away from the crowd, but gets distracted by the many other thankful citizens around him to really take note of it lol

This is when Aleena writes her letter to Sonic. She looks him up, tries very hard to find out where he lives. Ultimately coming up with nothing she’s like IS MY BOY HOMELESS?? But then what comes up eventually is a plethora of small garages and laboratories under the name Dr. Miles Prower and is like Oh! An apprentice maybe :) lol and so she rolls the dice and chooses one of those locations at random and hopes her message gets to him soon.

This is just the leadup to what would be the "main plot" of the AU and I do have more for it!! So if this like. Text based way of explaining my ideas is alright I can share more from the google doc if ppl are interested!! And maybe I'll doodle some stuff for it here n there who know (seems likely tho lol)

[withoutatrace-pkmn]

off screen rp

As stressed as she’d been about the prospect of the creature escaping her before she was able to capture it, in many ways Holly wished it had escaped in that final encounter.

That she’d gotten overconfident and used another quick ball, that she’d dropped the masterball when faced with its stare, that she’d missed her throw and the creature had vanished into liquid darkness.

Instead, she was now stuck with the quandary of having very much caught a creature of unknown origin that may or may not be even more scared of her than she was of it.

Guilt gnawed at her. Every time she shut her eyes she saw its gaze again, terrified and pleading. The way it hadn’t even tried to attack her. The way it seemed to think itself defeated the moment it saw what was in her hand.

But it wasn’t like she could just release it now she’d caught it. If she’d failed and the monster had gone on to hurt someone sure, she’d have felt pretty awful. But if she released the monster now, and it hurt someone?

No. For now, at least, it had to stay with her.

She’d only let it out of its pokeball a few times since its capture, and then only for a few minutes at a time. The first two times had been at night, and the creature had ignored her entirely then, instead choosing to resume its vigil of the night sky it had been carrying out when she’d found it. But the third and most recent time had been that morning, when the sun had long since risen.

It turned out the creature had no interest in a sky that wasn’t dark. It had taken one glance at the pale blue, then immediately looked down, and around, scoping out its surroundings.

Its eyes had found hers very quickly. Holly had returned it immediately then, before she could allow herself to figure out what emotion was behind them.

Her other pokemon didn’t like it. They cringed from the ball it was kept in, and the one time she had let them out at the same time her team had avoided the monster like a plague. Bernie had growled at it, long and low, fire instinctively coiling around her fangs. Holly decided then and there that her Pokemon were to never interact with the creature again.

What she wanted to do was shove the stupid thing into a box and never think about it again. Well, that wasn’t entirely true - what she really wanted to do was smash its pokeball under her foot and rip it limb from flailing limb. But even a monster didn’t deserve to fall victim to her impulses, and besides, realistically Holly didn’t like her chances in a one on one fight with it.

And then there was the way it had looked at her…

If only there was a place that was safe for her to just- release it. So it could be free, so it wouldn’t hurt anyone, so she wouldn’t have to carry its weight around with her everywhere she went. But such a place didn’t exist, she was sure. Where in the world could she release a monster where she could be sure nobody would ever fall victim to it? Its strange eyes, its writhing tendrils, its glistening crystals-

And with that thought, Holly found the solution to her problem. Laughably obvious, and so straightforward she was sure it had to be a bad idea. But it was, at least, an idea.

She hastened her pace, now determined to reach the next city as soon as possible. She had a plane to catch.

[robininthelabyrinth]

skdjjshddjdjsj au where jin guangshan dies early (and by early i mean exactly 2 days before the phoenix mountain hunt) and jin guangyao is panicking bc oh no his carefully laid plans, and oh no his hunt that he’d put so much effort into organizing, it’s gonna be all ruined... unless... he can keep this under wraps... and so he manages to talk jin zixuan into helping him “weekend at bernie’s” it! cue a half-sibling bonding experience of pretending your shitty dead dad is alive for Politics™

1

“I’m afraid our father’s not here right now,” Jin Guangyao said with a smile, and ground his heel down on Jin Zixuan’s foot.

“I think he went out,” Jin Zixuan said unconvincingly, and he only mostly looked like he was about to murder someone, possibly Jin Guangyao himself. He redeemed himself a moment later by adding, “Would you like us to send a messenger? I can ask my mother –”

“No need, no need!” the visiting sect leader said quickly, clearly having flashes of what Jin Guangshan might have ‘gone out’ to do (or rather, who) and the reaction of Madame Jin if she found out about it.

In all truth, Jin Guangyao might have preferred that to the truth, which was that Jin Guangshan’s stone-cold corpse was currently stuffed into a linen closet right behind the sect leaders that had come looking for him. 

How he had died remained, at the moment, a mystery, but either way it was extremely inconvenient. Jin Guangyao had only recently been admitted into the Jin sect and his position was still very unstable – and he most certainly did not want to be blamed, given that he had gotten his current position by virtue of assassinating a different sect leader that trusted him.

He politely showed the sect leaders out, closed the door, and turned to look at his half-brother. Soon to be his sect leader.

“I didn’t kill him,” he said.

“No, I don’t think you did,” Jin Zixuan said, and rubbed his nose. “Why hide him, though?”

“The Phoenix Mountain hunt has already kicked off! The sect’s entire reputation hinges on it.”

“And yours.”

Jin Guangyao shrugged, because it was true. After this, people would accept him as a true member of the Jin sect; if it failed before it even began, he’d be the recently accepted bastard son forever. “You played along,” he pointed out, a little curious.

“…I invited Miss Jiang to accompany me in the hunt, and if my father dies before I propose, the next time I can propose is in three years.”

“Okay,” Jin Guangyao said. “We’re in agreement. Here’s the plan…”

2

“I don’t know if this is going to work,” Jin Zixuan said, tugging at the sect leader clothing. “I don’t look that much like him.”

“It’ll only be from the back,” Jin Guangyao assured him. “Now – go!”

3

“Shit! Someone’s coming!”

“Shit. Here, grab him – put him somewhere!”

“Somewhere? Where?! There’s nowhere!”

“Under the bed! Under the bed!”

“There’s not enough time!”

“Hold on, I can throw my voice over to the other room; I’ll try to mimic him –”

“You’re a ventriloquist?”

“So what? It’s not that hard. Now shut up and let me focus.”

4

“I’m terribly sorry, Sect Leader Yao,” Jin Zixuan said insincerely. “As you can see, Sect Leader Jin is drunk.”

“Dead drunk,” Jin Guangyao said, still a little punch-drunk from the close call earlier.

Now it was Jin Zixuan’s turn to step on his foot.

“This early in the morning?” Sect Leader Yao asked, blinking.

“Lanling is a free-spirited place,” Jin Guangyao said with a smile that only looked slightly forced.

“Yes,” Madame Jin said from the doorway, her voice dry. “You’d be amazed at what people can get away with.”

Jin Guangyao nearly choked, and Jin Zixuan turned pale. “Right,” Jin Guangyao said, recovering through sheer force of will. “Excuse me, I think Madame would like a word…”

Sect Leader Yao left, and Madame Jin looked at the two of them. “You’re going to have to think of something better than what you’ve done so far,” she said flatly. “The closing ceremony is tomorrow. It would be impossible for him to miss it.”

“It’s fine,” Jin Zixuan said. “I have an idea.”

5

“This feels deeply unethical,” Wei Wuxian said.

“I know exactly what you did in the war,” Jin Guangyao hissed at him. “Up to and including Wen Chao.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it!” he exclaimed. “You only need him to walk up there and do the thing, right? No talking or anything?”

“That’s right,” Jin Zixuan said. “Thank you.”

“I’m only doing it because you’re getting engaged to shijie,” Wei Wuxian said. “I still don’t understand why she likes you, but I don’t want her waiting three years – you’ll set the date soon, right?”

“My mother’s already working on it,” Jin Zixuan said. “We should have a date ready in the next day or two, and then we can reveal – well, this. As long as the date is set, it can continue without violating mourning laws, since it would be my filial duty to continue with my father’s final arrangement.”

“Right,” Wei Wuxian said. “Okay. I’ll do this. By the way, who murdered him?”

“…you know, I almost forgot about that,” Jin Guangyao said thoughtfully while Jin Zixuan hit his hand against his forehead in despair. “We should probably figure that out, shouldn’t we?”

[qqueenofhades]

Re: the post you reblogged about Bush. I'm 21 and tbh feel like I can only vote for Bernie, can you explain if/why I shouldn't? Thanks and sorry if this is dumb or anything.

Oh boy. Okay, I’ll do my best here. Note that a) this will get long, and b) I’m old, Tired, and I‘m pretty sure my brain tried to kill me last night. Since by nature I am sure I will say something Controversial ™, if anyone reads this and feels a deep urge to inform me that I am Wrong, just… mark it down as me being Wrong and move on with your life. But also, really, you should read this and hopefully think about it. Because while I’m glad you asked this question, it feels like there’s a lot in your cohort who won’t, and that worries me. A lot.

First, not to sound utterly old-woman-in-a-rocking-chair ancient, people who came of age/are only old enough to have Obama be the first president that they really remember have no idea how good they had it. The world was falling the fuck apart in 2008 (not coincidentally, after 8 years of Bush). We came within a flicker of the permanent collapse of the global economy. The War on Terror was in full roar, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were at their height, we had Dick Cheney as the cartoon supervillain before we had any of Trump’s cohort, and this was before Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden had exposed the extent of NSA/CIA intelligence-gathering/American excesses or there was any kind of public debate around the fact that we were all surveilled all the time. And the fact that a brown guy named Barack Hussein Obama was elected in this climate seems, and still seems tbh, kind of amazing. And Obama was certainly not a Perfect President ™. He had to scale back a lot of planned initiatives, he is notorious for expanding the drone strike/extrajudicial assassination program, he still subscribed to the overall principles of neoliberalism and American exceptionalism, etc etc. There is valid criticism to be made as to how the hopey-changey optimistic rhetoric stacked up against the hard realities of political office. And yet…. at this point, given what we’re seeing from the White House on a daily basis, the depth of the parallel universe/double standards is absurd.

Because here’s the thing. Obama, his entire family, and his entire administration had to be personally/ethically flawless the whole time (and they managed that – not one scandal or arrest in eight years, against the legions of Trumpistas now being convicted) because of the absolute frothing depths of Republican hatred, racial conspiracy theories, and obstruction against him. (Remember Merrick Garland and how Mitch McConnell got away with that, and now we have Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court? Because I remember that). If Obama had pulled one-tenth of the shit, one-twentieth of the shit that the Trump administration does every day, he would be gone. It also meant that people who only remember Obama think he was typical for an American president, and he wasn’t. Since about… Jimmy Carter, and definitely since Ronald Reagan, the American people have gone for the Trump model a lot more than the Obama model. Whatever your opinion on his politics or character, Obama was a constitutional law professor, a community activist, a neighborhood organizer and brilliant Ivy League intellectual who used to randomly lie awake at night thinking about income inequality. Americans don’t value intellectualism in their politicians; they just don’t. They don’t like thinking that “the elites” are smarter than them. They like the folksy populist who seems fun to have a beer with, and Reagan/Bush Senior/Clinton/Bush Junior sold this persona as hard as they possibly could. As noted in said post, Bush Junior (or Shrub as the late, great Molly Ivins memorably dubbed him) was Trump Lite but from a long-established political family who could operate like an outwardly civilized human.

The point is: when you think Obama was relatively normal (which, again, he wasn’t, for any number of reasons) and not the outlier in a much larger pattern of catastrophic damage that has been accelerated since, again, the 1980s (oh Ronnie Raygun, how you lastingly fucked us!), you miss the overall context in which this, and which Trump, happened. Like most left-wingers, I don’t agree with Obama’s recent and baffling decision to insert himself into the 2020 race and warn the Democratic candidates against being too progressive or whatever he was on about. I think he was giving into the same fear that appears to be motivating the remaining chunk of Joe Biden’s support: that middle/working-class white America won’t go for anything too wild or that might sniff of Socialism, and that Uncle Joe, recalled fondly as said folksy populist and the internet’s favorite meme grandfather from his time as VP, could pick up the votes that went to Trump last time. And that by nature, no one else can.

The underlying belief is that these white voters just can’t support anything too “un-American,” and that by pushing too hard left, Democratic candidates risk handing Trump a second term. Again: I don’t agree and I think he was mistaken in saying it. But I also can’t say that Obama of all people doesn’t know exactly the strength of the political machine operating against the Democratic Party and the progressive agenda as a whole, because he ran headfirst into it for eight years. The fact that he managed to pass any of his legislative agenda, usually before the Tea Party became a thing in 2010, is because Democrats controlled the House and Senate for the first two years of his first term. He was not perfect, but it was clear that he really did care (just look up the pictures of him with kids). He installed smart, efficient, and scandal-free people to do jobs they were qualified for. He gave us Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to join RBG on the Supreme Court. All of this seems… like a dream.

That said: here we are in a place where Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren are the front-runners for the Democratic nomination (and apparently Pete Buttigieg is getting some airplay as a dark horse candidate, which… whatever). The appeal of Biden is discussed above, and he sure as hell is not my favored candidate (frankly, I wish he’d just quit). But Sanders and Warren are 85% - 95% similar in their policy platforms. The fact that Michael “50 Billion Dollar Fortune” Bloomberg started rattling his chains about running for president is because either a Sanders or Warren presidency terrifies the outrageously exploitative billionaire capitalist oligarchy that runs this country and has been allowed to proceed essentially however the fuck they like since… you guessed it, the 1980s, the era of voodoo economics, deregulation, and the free market above all. Warren just happens to be ten years younger than Sanders and female, and Sanders’ age is not insignificant. He’s 80 years old and just had a heart attack, and there’s still a year to go to the election. It’s also more than a little eye-rolling to describe him as the only progressive candidate in the race, when he’s an old white man (however much we like and approve of his policy positions). And here’s the thing, which I think is a big part of the reason why this polarized ideological purity internet leftist culture mistrusts Warren:

She may have changed her mind on things in the past.

Scary, right? I sound like I’m being facetious, but I’m not. An argument I had to read with my own two eyes on this godforsaken hellsite was that since Warren became a Democrat around the time Clinton signed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, she sekritly hated gay people and might still be a corporate sellout, so on and etcetera. (And don’t even get me STARTED on the fact that DADT, coming a few years after the height of the AIDS crisis which was considered God’s Judgment of the Icky Gays, was the best Clinton could realistically hope to achieve, but this smacks of White Gay Syndrome anyway and that is a whole other kettle of fish.) Bernie has always demonstrably been a democratic socialist, and: good for him. I’m serious. But because there’s the chance that Warren might not have thought exactly as she does now at any point in her life, the hysterical and paranoid left-wing elements don’t trust that she might not still secretly do so. (Zomgz!) It’s the same element that’s feeding cancel culture and “wokeness.” Nobody can be allowed to have shifted or grown in their opinions or, like a functional, thoughtful, non-insane adult, changed their beliefs when presented with compelling evidence to the contrary. To the ideological hordes, any hint of uncertainty or past failure to completely toe the line is tantamount to heresy. Any evidence of any other belief except The Correct One means that this person is functionally as bad as Trump. And frankly, it’s only the Sanders supporters who, just as in 2016, are threatening to withhold their vote in the general election if their preferred candidate doesn’t win the primary, and indeed seem weirdly proud about it.

OK, boomer Bernie or Buster.

Here’s the thing, the thing, the thing: there is never going to be an American president free of the deeply toxic elements of American ideology. There just won’t be. This country has been built how it has for 250 years, and it’s not gonna change. You are never going to have, at least not in the current system, some dream candidate who gets up there and parrots the left-wing talking points and attacks American imperialism, exceptionalism, ravaging global capitalism, military and oil addiction, etc. They want to be elected as leader of a country that has deeply internalized and taken these things to heart for its entire existence, and most of them believe it to some degree themselves. So this groupthink white liberal mentality where the only acceptable candidate is this Perfect Non-Problematic robot who has only ever had one belief their entire lives and has never ever wavered in their devotion to doctrine has really gotten bad. The Democratic Party would be considered… maybe center/mild left in most other developed countries. It’s not even really left-wing by general standards, and Sanders and Warren are the only two candidates for the nomination who are even willing to go there and explicitly put out policy proposals that challenge the systematic structure of power, oppression, and exploitation of the late-stage capitalist 21st century. Warren has the billionaires fussed, and instead of backing down, she’s doubling down. That’s part of why they’re so scared of her. (And also misogyny, because the world is depressing like that.) She is going head-on after picking a fight with some of the worst people on the planet, who are actively killing the rest of us, and I don’t know about you, but I like that.

Of course: none of this will mean squat if she (or the eventual Democratic winner, who I will vote for regardless of who it is, but as you can probably tell, she’s my ride or die) don’t a) win the White House and then do as they promised on the campaign trail, and b) don’t have a Democratic House and Senate willing to have a backbone and pass the laws. Even Nancy Pelosi, much as she’s otherwise a badass, held off on opening a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump for months out of fear it would benefit him, until the Ukraine thing fell into everyone’s laps. The Democrats are really horrible at sticking together and voting the party line the way Republicans do consistently, because Democrats are big-tent people who like to think of themselves as accepting and tolerant of other views and unwilling to force their members’ hands. The Republicans have no such qualms (and indeed, judging by their enabling of Trump, have no qualms at all). 

The modern American Republican party has become a vehicle for no-holds-barred power for rich white men at the expense of absolutely everything and everyone else, and if your rationale is that you can’t vote for the person opposing Donald Goddamn Trump is that you’re just not vibing with them on the language of that one policy proposal… well, I’m glad that you, White Middle Class Liberal, feel relatively safe that the consequences of that decision won’t affect you personally. Even if we’re due to be out of the Paris Climate Accords one day after the 2020 election, and the issue of climate change now has the most visibility it’s ever had after years of big-business, Republican-led efforts to deny and discredit the science, hey, Secret Corporate Shill, am I right? Can’t trust ‘er. Let’s go have a craft beer.

As has been said before: vote as far left as you want in the primary. Vote your ideology, vote whatever candidate you want, because the only way to make actual, real-world change is to do that. The huge, embedded, all-consuming and horrible system in which we operate is not just going to suddenly be run by fairy dust and happy thoughts overnight. Select candidates that reflect your values exactly, be as picky and ideologically militant as you want. That’s the time to do that! Then when it comes to the general election:

America is a two-party system. It sucks, but that’s the case. Third-party votes, or refraining from voting because “it doesn’t matter” are functionally useless at best and actively harmful at worst.

Either the Democratic candidate or Donald Trump will win the 2020 election.

There is absolutely no length that the Republican/GOP machine, and its malevolent allies elsewhere, will not go to in order to secure a Trump victory. None.

Any talk whatsoever about “progressive values” or any kind of liberal activism, coupled with a course of action that increases the possibility of a Trump victory, is hypocritical at best and actively malicious at worst.

This is why I found the Democratic response to Obama’s “don’t go too wild” comments interesting. Bernie doubled down on the fact that his plans have widespread public support, and he’s right. (Frankly, the fact that Sanders and Warren are polling at the top, and the fact that they’re politicians and would not be crafting these campaign messages if they didn’t know that they were being positively received, says plenty on its own). Warren cleverly highlighted and praised Obama’s accomplishments in office (i.e. the Affordable Care Act) and didn’t say squat about whether she agreed or disagreed with him, then went right back to campaigning about why billionaires suck. And some guy named Julian Castro basically blew Obama off and claimed that “any Democrat” could beat Trump in 2020, just by nature of existing and being non-insane.

This is very dangerous! Do not be Julian Castro!

As I said in my tags on the Bush post: everyone assumed that sensible people would vote for Kerry in 2004. Guess what happened? Yeah, he got Swift Boated. The race between Obama and McCain in 2008, even after those said nightmare years of Bush, was very close until the global crash broke it open in Obama’s favor, and Sarah Palin was an actual disqualifier for a politician being brazenly incompetent and unprepared. (Then again, she was a woman from a remote backwater state, not a billionaire businessman.) In 2012, we thought Corporate MormonBot Mitt Fuggin’ Romney was somehow the worst and most dangerous candidate the Republicans could offer. In 2016, up until Election Day itself, everyone assumed that HRC was a badly flawed candidate but would win anyway. And… we saw how that worked out. Complacency is literally deadly.

I was born when Reagan was still president. I’m just old enough to remember the efforts to impeach Clinton over forcing an intern to give him a BJ in the Oval Office (This led by the same Republicans making Donald Trump into a darling of the evangelical Christian right wing.) I’m definitely old enough to remember 9/11 and how America lost its mind after that, and I remember the Bush years. And, obviously, the contrast with Obama, the swing back toward Trump, and everything that has happened since. We can’t afford to do this again. We’re hanging by a thread as it is, and not just America, but the entire planet.

So yes. By all means, vote for Sanders in the primary. Then when November 3, 2020 rolls around, if you care about literally any of this at all, hold your nose if necessary and vote straight-ticket Democrat, from the president, to the House and Senate, to the state and local offices. I cannot put it more strongly than that.

[robertreich]

America’s Next President: Warren Sanders

There aren’t twenty Senate Republicans with enough integrity to remove the most corrupt president in American history, so we’re going to have to get rid of Trump the old-fashioned way -- by electing a Democrat next November 3.

That Democrat will be Warren Sanders.

Although there are differences between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, I’m putting them together for the purpose of making a simple point.

These two have most of the grass-roots energy in the 2020 campaign, most of the enthusiasm, and most of the ideas critical for America’s future.

Together, they lead Biden and every other so-called moderate Democrat by a wide margin in all polls.  

That’s because the real political divide in America today is establishment versus anti-establishment -- the comparatively few at the top who have siphoned off much of the wealth of the nation versus everyone else whose wages and prospects have gone nowhere.

Warren and Sanders know the system is rigged and that economic and political power must be reallocated from a corporate-Wall Street elite to the vast majority.

This is why both Warren and Sanders are hated by the Democratic Party establishment.

It’s also why much of the corporate press is ignoring the enthusiasm they’re generating. And why it’s picking apart their proposals, like a wealth tax and Medicare for All, as if they were specific pieces of legislation.

And why corporate and Wall Street Democrats are mounting a campaign to make Americans believe Warren and Sanders are “too far to the left” to beat Trump, and therefore “unelectable.”

This is total rubbish. Either of them has a better chance of beating Trump than does any other Democratic candidate.

Presidential elections are determined by turnout. Over a third of eligible voters in America don’t vote. They go to the polls only if they’re motivated. And what motivates people most is a candidate who stands for average people and against power and privilege.

Average Americans know they’re getting the scraps while corporate profits are at record highs and CEOs and Wall Street executives are pocketing unprecedented pay and bonuses.

They know big money has been flooding Washington and state capitals to cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy; roll back health, safety, environment, and labor protections; and allow big business to monopolize the economy, using its market power to keep prices high and wages low.

Most Americans want to elect someone who’s on their side.

In 2016 some voted for Trump because he conned them into believing he was that person.

But since elected he’s given big corporations and Wall Street everything they’ve wanted – rollbacks of health, safety, and environmental protections, plus a giant $2 trillion tax cut that’s boosted stock prices and executive pay while nothing trickled down.

Trump is still fooling millions into thinking he’s on their side, and that their problems are due to immigrants, minorities, cultural elites, and “deep state” bureaucrats rather than a system that’s rigged for the benefit of those at the top.

But some of these Trump supporters would join with other Americans and vote for a candidate in 2020 who actually took on power and privilege.

This is where Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders come in.

Their core proposals would make the system work for everyone and alter the power structure in America:Medicare for All based on a single payer rather than private for-profit corporate insurance; a Green New Deal to create millions of good jobs fighting climate change; free public higher education; universal childcare.

All financed mainly by a tax on the super-rich.

They’d also get big money out of politics and rescue democracy from the corporate and Wall Street elites who now control it.

They’re the only candidates relying on small donations rather than trolling for big handouts from corporations, Wall Street, and the wealthy – or rich enough to self-finance their own campaigns.

Only two things stand in their way.

The first is the power structure itself, which is trying to persuade Democrats that they should put up a milquetoast moderate instead.

The second is the possibility that, as the primary season heats up, supporters of Warren and Sanders will wage war on each other -- taking both of them down.

It’s true that only one of them can be the Democratic nominee. But if the backers of both Sanders and Warren eventually come together behind one of them, they’ll have the votes to take the White House, and even flip the Senate.

President Warren Sanders can then start clearing the wreckage left by Trump, and make America decent again.

[newagegs]

name: harleen frances quinzel

age: 34

date of birth: september 11th, 1992

fandom: dc

faceclaim: imogen poots

height: 5'4

pronouns/gender identity/sexual+romantic identity: she/they, nonbinary, bisexual biromantic

where have they been living since the return snap: between her apartment in coney island and one in gotham (mostly during the no man's land event)

what have they been doing personally and/or professionally since the return snap: harley is trying, to some extent to be an almost, kind of decent person. or more of a harley person, at least. she's working on moving past her trauma, results of which have been dubiously successful. helping in killing the joker, freeing ivy from arkham, moving to coney island (taking over an apartment that had been willed to her by an old patient), and working with more heroes (also dubiously successful, considering her penchant for violent solutions) have all been attempts she's made to distance herself from the past.

distancing being a loose term, considering harley's come running back to gotham many times, most recently during no man's land, taking territory in the city just to prove she still could. she was harley quinn afterall, still someone to be feared, even if she was doing a little rebranding.

if they are part/have ever been a part of SHIELD or the avengers team, when did they join and why: her relationship with the avengers is...complicated. she worked with them a little post snap and post suicide squad, mostly due to the fact that she'd made herself a sometimes ally of the batfam after her time with the suicide squad and having her record cleared. her time helping mostly centered around scarecrow, and it's been about a year now. she's never officially been a member of either, nor will she be.

do they currently live in the avengers compound: nada

moral alignment: chaotic neutral

dusted in the snap or not: hella nope

if they weren’t dusted, what did they get up to in those five years, be as brief or in depth as you want: the joker was dusted in the snap, and that sent harley on a bit of a...murderous rampage. she couldn't handle it, putting her entire identity into her relationship with him, despite the fact that she knew the relationship was abusive, at least on some unconscious level.

she was arrested, and put in belle reve for her crimes, not arkham, and put on death row. she wasn't there long before she was broken out, forced to undergo torture before being inducted into amanda waller's task force x, also known as the suicide squad.

she was on the suicide squad for four years, only breaking her loyalty once, when she discovered that pamela isley had been snapped, breaking into arkham and demanding that someone tell her it wasn't true. this happened early on in her time with the team, and she was forgiven for her "disobedience", eventually having the bomb amanda waller had had implanted in her neck deactivated and removed.

after four years her time with the suicide squad was considered done with, her record being cleared, every trace of her crimes being erased from every database they could be found in.

for all intents and purposes, harley was a new woman.

she didn't exactly use that freedom, going straight back to gotham, the place where her face was known more than anywhere else, not leaving until after the return snap.

ramble a bit about them, their past, what their current motivations are: harley was born in brooklyn, new york, the oldest of four children. her interest in psychology started when she was in eighth grade, and a high schooler named bernie bash decided he was in love with her, going as far as to commit murder to prove his love, killing another boy that had been interested in harley at the time. he gave harley a taxidermied beaver as a gift before he was arrested, and after he was sentenced to jail she named it after him, keeping it as a momento of her first real relationship.

the fact that she wasn't disturbed by this, but fascinated, should've been the first sign that something wasn't entirely right with harley.

in her childhood, from elementary school all the way through high school, harley was a star gymnast, winning several awards for the sport.

she did college classes while she was in high school, and graduated at only sixteen, granted a full ride scholarship to several different schools, though she eventually chose gotham university.

she obtained her bachelors by eighteen as she already had quite a few credits racked up, and had a phd in psychology by twenty four, despite originally intending to go to school for veterinary and biological science. she did her thesis on the joker, believing him to be misdiagnosed by his previous psychiatrists.

she started out her residency at a prominent hospital in gotham, though was quickly transferred to arkham asylum when the joker killed yet another of his psychiatrists. she took on the challenge, fascinated by him and his psyche, and it didn't take long before he started talking to her, harley not falling for his taunting words, and never attacked. she thought she was special.

while working at arkham she was also the psychiatrist for pamela isley, requesting for her cell to be changed so she could have more access to sunlight, kind to her in a way that others weren't, and this earned her her loyalty before she ever became harley quinn.

on her tenth session with the joker, he revealed to her that he knew about the fact that her father had been killed by a drunk driver who had had the connections required to get off without any punishment. as a gift to her, he presented her with the driver's finger as proof that the man had been brought to justice.

it was here that harley started to fall, charmed by these actions.

harley's supervisor, dr.sterano, stole her notes, intending to publish them as her own findings, and in the process discovered harley's feelings for the joker. she confronted harley, who attacked her, enraged that her work had been stolen, brushing off any other accusations. she tried to kill sterano, but was interrupted by the guards. instead of surrendering, harley attacked them too, killing one of them. she broke the joker out of his cell, and he took her to the ace chemical processing plant, something that harley believed was another show of opening up, at least until she was pushed into one of the vats of chemicals, realizing too late what he'd intended to do. her skin was bleached and her mind was warped by the toxic fumes, but she lived long enough for him to drain the vat and fish her out.

she started to terrorize gotham alongside the joker.

she played a good villain, enjoyed bringing pain to others, though she had her limits. she spoke against the joker when children were involved, for one, which he didn't like.

he didn't like a lot of things about her, and harley forced herself to be whatever he wanted her to be.

she got pregnant not long into her career as a criminal, and she was being honest with herself enough to know that wasn't safe. she disappeared for several months, not coming back until after the birth of her daughter lucy, and the joker had barely even realized she was gone.

this hurt harley, but she stayed with him until he was snapped, and she was left alone.

one plot idea, big or small, you’d like to do with them: exploring a dynamic between both jason and dinah (because please). i'd love to explore more of harley's want to be a "hero" (however loose her definition of that might be), especially as civil war part two stuff starts moving forward.

mun details

name/alias: mekayla

age: 19

pronouns: she/her

timezone: pst

[thedreideldiaries]

Hey, friends! I thought I’d take this opportunity to expound in my political choices a bit - specifically to give some context for my choice of Sanders over Warren. Note for a few of my followers who know me elsewhere: this is copied over from other social media, so if it sounds familiar that is why.

First, I want to reiterate that I like Warren. So, if anyone reading this is torn between her and any of the other clowns who have thrown their sorry hats into the ring, then please: do me and the rest of the world a favor, stop reading this right now, and go ahead and give Warren your vote. I won’t be mad. Promise. If you’re on the fence between Warren and Sanders, though, then I implore you to read on.

Okay, is it just us in here? Cool.

For my friends torn between Warren and Sanders (like I was at the beginning of the primary), I’ve tried to distill my reasoning. As you know, a lot of the discourse surrounding Warren’s campaign constructs her as a younger, female version of Sanders. If I believed that, I’d be solidly in her corner, but a few differences between them make this simply not the case. Here are the ones I find most salient:

1. Let’s look at Bernie’s base. As much as we love to talk about representation in politics, a candidate’s demographic background tells us nothing about who they’re going to fight for. Their voting base, on the other hand, tells you who has placed their confidence in that candidate’s promises.

A good proportion of Warren’s supporters are white college graduates (young and old).

By contrast Bernie’s base is overwhelmingly working class, non-white, urban, and, perhaps most tellingly, young. You could attribute that to naivete, but I think something else is going on here: the demographic group with the most to win or lose from this election are people under 30. We’re the ones who will have to live with the most devastating effects of climate change, and we’re tired of the so-called adults in our lives not taking that rather pressing concern seriously. We don’t care if our candidate is old or young - we care if they listen. Which brings me to:

2. The Youth. Young people in America are disillusioned with democracy - not because we’ve decided it’s not a good idea, but because we’ve literally never seen it in action. We live in a corporate plutocracy where the financial barriers to running for office have rendered most politicians ridiculously out of touch. And Sanders, more than any other candidate in the primary, knows how to talk to young people.

And look - I’m planning to vote for whoever wins the primary. But if 2016 is anything to go by, if the youth demographic doesn’t get a candidate they can get behind, they won’t vote strategically for the lesser of two evils. They’ll stay home, and given what the Democratic party has done for them over the past 20 or so years, I can’t say I blame them.

3. The same goes for his endorsements. I’d be out of my lane if I spent too much time talking about what Sanders wants to do for people of color, but I think it’s telling that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar - three politicians showing real determination to shake things up in Washington - all chose Bernie over Warren. I think it’s telling that AOC cited his campaign, not Warren’s, as her inspiration for running for office (if anyone’s a female Sanders, it’s not Warren - it’s AOC).

4. Sanders is, quite simply, the genuine article. He’s fought for important causes (climate justice, healthcare, workers’ rights) since long before they were cool. He’s *not* perfect, but criticisms of him rarely touch his political history.

Warren’s record of activism is, by contrast, unimpressive. She used to be a Republican corporate lawyer, and while I absolutely respect that someone can change their mind about politics, and I applaud her for doing so, it worries me that what changed her mind wasn’t the Iran-Contra scandal, or the AIDS crisis, or the brutal crushing of the labor movement. It was the realization that Republicans were doing capitalism wrong. I can’t exactly argue with that (show me a Republican politician who truly supports a free market and I’ll eat my beret*), but it doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.

*This is a joke. I do not have a beret.

5. Warren’s a capitalist; Sanders is a democratic socialist, and I think the difference is important. Warren supports a wealth tax, and she wants everyone to have healthcare, and I appreciate that she has the guts to talk about those things on national television, but at the end of the day, she’s a proud capitalist who believes the system needs to be corrected, not overhauled.

Sanders is a self-professed democratic socialist, and has built a popular movement around that label. And honestly, I’m not too worried about redbaiting. Yes, it’s a common Republican tactic, but the sentiment of “yes I would vote for Democrats but not for Socialist democrats” is a rare one, if it exists at all. And if it works against any of the primary candidates, it’ll work against all of them. They used anti-Commmunist rhetoric against Obama, for goodness’ sake. Look how much of an advocate for the working class he turned out to be.

Courting the centrist vote is a waste of time. Tiptoeing around conservatives alienates left-wingers and doesn’t actually sway Republicans. It’s a bad move strategically, in that it makes us look like cowards, and morally, because it means not getting very important things done.

Sanders doesn’t want to play the game better. He wants to start a whole new game. Warren’s economics platform seems to boil down to “50s but less racist,” and while that sounds nice, it’s just not possible. We can’t go back there - we have automation now, not to mention a global economy the likes of which we barely dreamed of in the 1950s, and it’s not realistic to try to make that happen again. We need something new.

6. People over party. In a lot of ways, Warren reminds me of the best parts of The West Wing. I like that show, but it was a comforting fantasy - a vision of what the Democratic Party could have been like with a little more gumption and a lot more luck. It never happened because the Democratic party and politics aren’t like that in real life. I have confidence in Sanders because his loyalty isn’t to the Democratic Party. It’s to the American people. He’s proved that over and over again over the course of his political career.

7. Bernie is an organizer. The “not me - us” slogan is very telling. Democracy is participatory. We don’t just need a candidate with a plan to fix everything. We need a candidate with a plan who acknowledges that the people hold the real power. We need a candidate who respects the will of the people and inspires them to get involved. We can’t win this election and stop thinking about politics. We never get to stop thinking about politics. We need someone who can inspire people to keep fighting.

The heart attack was a big deal, but the truth is, it’s never been about Bernie as an individual. His immediate reaction after getting out of the hospital was “I’m lucky to have healthcare; everyone should have healthcare; let’s get back to work.” That, more than anything, has given me the confidence that Bernie wants his policies to last long after he’s gone.

Also, people regularly have heart attacks and live another several decades. This is *literally* why we have vice presidents. If Sanders can get elected and pick a good VP and a cabinet (plus, you know, fill any Supreme Court vacancies that happen to arise over his tenure), his health won’t matter as much, because we don’t need a messiah right now. We need a resurgence of participatory democracy. We need more AOCs to take the stage. We need young people at the polls, not just in 2020, but beyond that.

8. I don’t like to talk about electability for a couple of reasons. One: centrists love to bring it up, usually in the service of talking about how policies they have zero stake in will never work. Two: Trump was supposed to be unelectable, and we all saw how that turned out.

That said: Warren’s currently polling third, which is not a great place to be. And while I don’t share some people’s cynicism about Warren, I have to agree that her response to Trump’s attacks has not impressed me. I’m confident that if Trump attacks Sanders, Bernie won’t take the bait, because he’s so on-message you can’t get him off-message. Like I said: he had a heart attack and immediately spun it back into the healthcare conversation.

And the polls are clear: head to head, Sanders beats Trump. Warren’s chances are far dicier.

9. And the most important issue, without which nothing else really matters: the climate crisis. I’d love it if we could wait for the country’s ideas to catch up to Sanders’ socialist rhetoric, but the truth is we are running out of time. I’m voting for Sanders because I have two nieces under 5 years old and a nephew who was just born, and I want them to grow up on a habitable planet, and they won’t get a chance to vote on that. I’m doing it because I want to have kids of my own someday, and while I absolutely respect the choice of anyone deciding to reproduce right now, I don’t have the emotional energy to raise a family during an apocalypse. And while I like Warren, and she’s expressed support for a Green New Deal, Sanders is the only candidate I trust to both beat Trump in the general and put his foot down to the DNC and their ilk.

10. Foreign policy!

First of all: guess who else hates American Imperialism? That’s right; it’s Bernie Sanders. Significantly, he has the guts to bring up America’s habit of meddling in Latin America’s democratically elected governments, which is something you pretty much never hear about from pretty much any other candidate.

https://www.vox.com/2019/6/25/18744458/bernie-sanders-endless-wars-foreign-affairs-op-ed

Foreign policy came up a lot during 2016 primary, with Clinton’s supporters trotting out the bizarre argument that a long history of hawkish policies is better than no policies at all. What with all that, I was surprised to learn that Sanders is actually quite well-traveled and has a long history of trying to mend fences between the U.S. and other world powers: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/bernie-sanders-foreign-policy/470019/

When it comes to climate change and foreign policy, Sanders acknowledges not only that it requires innovation (let’s not forget his early and vehement support for the Green New Deal), but also international cooperation. From the link below:

“To both Sanders and his supporters around the world, it is impossible to fight climate change without international cooperation. To that end, a group called the Progressive International was announced at a convention last year held by the Sanders Institute, a think tank founded by the presidential contender’s wife and son.

“The network of left-wing politicians and activists hopes to fight against "the global war being waged against workers, against our environment, against democracy, against decency,” according to its website.”

He’s also popular with left-wing leaders around the world, and it’s those kinds of politicians who we need to get us out of the climate crisis.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/04/bernie-sanders-global-popularity-1254929

And finally, to stray briefly into comparison: again, I like Warren, but even so, I like her better domestically than internationally. The progressivism she touts at home comes up short abroad. I’m sure you’ve heard about it already, but I think it’s worth remembering that Warren voted for Trump’s military budget in 2017; Sanders didn’t. She talks a lot about peace, but her history on foreign issues looks pretty similar to that of other centrist democrats. This is a problem not only in terms of American Imperialism, but also because the U.S. military is one of the world’s leading causes of climate change. Her voting history and her cozy relationship with defense contractors have me pretty worried. This article goes into more detail about her history with various foreign powers as well as her general attitudes on American imperialism:

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/05/elizabeth-warren-foreign-policy

We all pretty much knew what we were getting with Clinton. Warren worries me not only because she seems to align with the rest of the party on our endless foreign wars, but because she keeps her support for the military-industrial complex behind a facade of progressive rhetoric that reminds me of the early Obama years. We can’t be let down like that again. Even if we ignore the devastating human cost, the planet doesn’t have time.

Further Reading - obviously I don’t agree with everything in every one of these pieces, but they offer a leftist critique that often goes missing from other, more superficial problems people bring up about Warren.

The polling bases of the primary candidates: https://www.people-press.org/2019/08/16/most-democrats-are-excited-by-several-2020-candidates-not-just-their-top-choice/pp_2019-08-16_2020-democratic-candidates_0-06/?fbclid=IwAR2G8np2q9N4P6DArdI-gPhA5Wp_SYDZPKQDpDhxVZ4YbwnAEmFd65swMOA

An interesting take on Warren’s policies vs Bernie’s movement: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/04/elizabeth-warren-policy-bernie-sanders-presidential-primary?fbclid=IwAR14wWjYDNuNMrXN7YjVFFFHXmoMWKpDVqBcbPBlQUUrA354iIyRAbKXG30

An opinion piece on the contrast between them:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/08/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-democratic-party-elite-2020-presidential-race?fbclid=IwAR3vA54QveM2cCTxQ2BbVXh_IICgTxweKVBLMRjhSFyyAdspnibJ50seDjY

Another one:

https://forward.com/opinion/432561/the-case-for-bernie-sanders-the-only-real-progressive-in-the-race-sorry/?fbclid=IwAR1vwONZ7azJQcoeo_KYNYiJ8ekzHhJsZ4Ms0UzDHI59j7Q6oio-5uJOGcI

Warren’s political history:

More about that from a different source:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/10/why-criticize-warren?fbclid=IwAR0NTP0cRbSnr-a6HCuxE-4SCJZEqU2EAL1Gnx70FME-9UMBg-xYE5t7g7Y

A prequel to the former (beware - this one’s scathing as heck):

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/09/the-prospect-of-an-elizabeth-warren-nomination-should-be-very-worrying?fbclid=IwAR03d5I5j72s4kQC9wgRSrXnbmWsp_9HUvRWBZwzcfsT9RsZP-lSAX4aPz0

[the-monkeies-girl]

Ray williams i fell for him first time he was on screen. Give me smooches and lowkey flirting please! Love your work by the way. Been following since you bh6 days keep up the good work! :D

anyway i cant wait for the movie to come out on blu-ray and so we can get quality gifs of Ray Williams. Have a meet-cute drabble. Reblogs and likes are super appreciated ! Love you guys - Miss. Em.

Title: Trouble at the Troubadour.

Fandom/Movie: Rocketman.

Pairing: Ray Williams x Fem! Reader.

Words: 1,605.

Rating: T. ( Implications of sex. )

Summary: What would happen if you met the young Ray Williams, who was there to keep an eye on Elton John and Bernie Taupin, at Elton’s first gig at the Troubadour?

It’s a literal ‘eyes meet and sparks fly’ sort of moment for Ray. His heart fluttered excitedly, forgetting his surroundings for a moment and the fact that Bernie had been chatting to him a second ago before the music started, before Ray looked at you through a seemingly thick fog of smoke that was a barrier between the two of you. For a second, the young music producer was unsure if you had seen him like he had seen you, so clear in a room full of others, as you were being pushed around by people who were making their way in and out, but the single moment your eyes met, lights shining in your eyes like the sun afterwards as the stage lights above you readjusted and the spotlight found Elton on the stage, something hit the back of your head like a small headache.

He slips. The silky nature of his shirt caused no friction and Ray found himself almost falling straight on his face as he leaned against the wall next to him, trying to appear as calm and collect despite the riot that was stirring inside of his body. The moment Ray looks up, you’re gone and he laughs it off to Bernie who’s currently laughing his ass off but manages to mutter a small ‘are you okay, mate?’ to Ray who replies, “Might need some water, lay off the beer.” Before sliding his way to the bar, playing with the sleeves of his floral shirt nervously as his doe eyes gazed around and tried to spot you in the crowd.

You were lost, or so Ray thought as he leaned against the wood of the bar, his right side being pushed by a boy and girl together as they rocked to the music being played on the stage. Ray noted the song and elevated ‘la-la-la’s that were being sung by Elton so happily and leaned back against the bar, now facing the stage as he crossed his arms over his chest. 

“I’ve never heard this song before but I love it!” Ray’s thick eyebrows furrowed at the sound of that voice mixing in with the piano keys and singing floating around him and tightening its grip on his already fuzzy mind. That voice was speaking directly to him as he glanced to to the left and was struck down by a moment of a string of falsetto notes. You. The… The person he had seen across the way, the person who had been looking at him at the exact moment he had been searching for something. Something longing, something obscure, like a treasure map that had been passed down but he ultimately found it in your eyes as you raised your drink and pressed it to your lips and raised one of your hands and waved it along to the melody of the music.

“You…” He cleared his throat and laughed, tossing his head back as his brown hair followed the movement in the clouded room full of cigarette smoke and loud vibrations. It felt like the entire building was shaking with excitement much like his thoughts. “You like it? I brought him here! From The UK.”

“No way,” You giggled and covered your mouth, leaning towards him instinctively to hear his voice over the banging of the keys on the piano, “that’s got to be a line you use to get girls.”

Ray smiled bashfully at that, his slightly drunk mind wrapping around the situation finally as he experimentally put a hand on your waist to keep you near him, not wanting to risk the fact that you could disappear much like you had before. “I’ve got a one way to the party after the gig if that’s proof enough for you. I can even introduce you to him, the singer, I mean. Elton John. I discovered him! I’ve got a keen instinct with talent!”

“Very peachy keen.” Licking your lips, you caught his eyes again and let him know silently that the hand on your waist was welcomed by letting your hips roll towards him, subtly as if someone had bumped into you and you were forced to move closer. 

–

“Wait, wait!” You held up a hand and laughed hard, your upper half hunching forward with a small wheezing laughter that Ray found enchanting and cute, causing himself to laugh alongside with you. The firelight that was in front of you casted shadows against your face and his dilated eyes, which appeared more black now rather than his natural color of brown, admired. The scrunch of your nose, the wrinkles around your eyes and your laugh lines around your mouth, the glimmer of your teeth… Ray studied, much like he often did and he was enjoying. You two had found yourselves at the party that he had promised. A get together of people you didn’t know, other than Ray, Bernie and Elton who you had the pleasure of meeting. And you also had the pleasure of hearing how Ray met Elton and initially introduced Bernie to him to create a great singer and songwriting team. “You seriously laid all your chips on the table for them? For Elton and Bernie?”

“Yes.” Ray said and raised his eyebrows comically, realizing how risky it must have sounded now that he was laying down the fact that he had practically begged on his hands and knees to give them a chance, to convince Dick that Ray indeed had an instinct and sensed their talent. “I know, it sounds— well absolutely bonkers, but you know how some like to gamble? This was my idea of gambling and hey!” Ray licked his lips and chuckled, tilting his head to the side as your fingers idly played with the split open sleeves of his button up shirt. “It paid off! Here we are, America. Just played one rather successful night at the Troubadour! And we’ve still got more!!!”

“Y’don’t think you just got lucky?” You bit your bottom lip and found yourself cradling his fingers in yours tenderly. Ray’s eyes shot down and admired the sensation, how soft and gentle you caressed him with care as if he’d break right in front of you before his dark, doe eyes fluttered back upwards to captivate you into a slow stare. 

“I do-don’t believe so.” He admitted in a hushed voice and despite knowing that there was noise around you two, others talking, the cracking of the fire, the music playing from an unknown stereo, Ray felt as if it were dead silent. “I mean, if it were one time luck then how do you explain how we ended up meeting?”

It was your turn to tilt your head at that as a smile graced your features, your face turning towards the fire for a split second at the implications of his simple words. He was right; call it luck or fate, but you two met eyes and seemed almost destined to meet earlier thus leading you to this secluded moment under the starlight in front of a firepit, detached enough from the party that you felt comfortable enough to let yourself loose in front of him. “That’s a good point, Ray. I guess you’re not lucky and you’re just good at what you do.”

Wiggling his eyebrows at your compliment, you pushed his chest with your free hand and giggled, “Not like that!”

“I didn’t say it.”

“Yeah, but your face!”

“That’s simply my face.” Ray licked his lips and scooted towards you, lifting his hand and gesturing to his face, “That’s just how my face looks.” Now that the attention was drawn to it, you noticed how long his eyelashes were as they looked as if they were brushing against his cheeks as he glanced at your lips. They also shadowed against his rosy cheeks, the silence sinking in comfortably as you moved towards him this time. Ray stiffened momentarily, swallowing audibly when you dropped his hand and let your palm cup his thigh.

“So, you’re not lucky and… That’s just how your face looks.” Humming, you nodded and stifled a laugh.

“If you don’t believe me, we can test my luck.” He suggested, popping his mouth and peering back into your eyes though you didn’t mind the attention his gaze was giving your lips. Hoping that your face conveyed the emotion of ‘go ahead, try me’, your upper half straightened up before leaning towards him, both of Ray’s hands coming up instinctively and cupping your face tenderly between them. “You know, it’s not like me to kiss on the first date.”

“Is that what this was?” You teased, shutting your eyes and allowing him to close the gap whenever he built up the courage to do so. “Thought this was you just gettin’ lucky again.”

“Mmmm. Funny.” He murmured this time from almost gritted teeth before he softened his expression as plump lips rested against yours in a barely there sort of graze. It wasn’t chaste, in fact, Ray seemed to linger as you sunk into it, letting your lips apply pressure against his with a small inhale of satisfaction. Intensity broke out, your hands coming to rest on his chest and idly playing with the buttons around the silky fabric as you moaned, feeling Ray shift in front of you to deepen the kiss, one hand remaining on your face while the other slipped effortlessly into your hair to keep you close even when you pulled away with a small huff. “See? No-not lucky… just…. Good at what I do.”

“Mhm. Keep telling yourself that.” You joked against his mouth, dipping into him for another kiss.

[ain-t-bovvered]

15X01

bunch of tired and caffeinated Europeans ( plus a sleepy American) scream together, and then die and try to get on with their day ( lol AS IF)

Hello and welcome:

@purpleskiesandcherrypies​  (Nat)

@dean-winchesters-bacon​  (Kat)  

@waywardbaby​  (Zee)

@ain-t-bovvered  (Giulia)

Giulia: I HATE THIS

Giulia: BTW

Giulia: IF ANYONE WAS CURIOUS

Kat: Don’t worry you’ll hate it more later

Giulia: GREAT

Zee: Quit flapping your gums bitches

Nat : shall I count?

Giulia: Go when u post 🖕🏻

Nat : lol

Zee: Nice

Nat : i just go with GO

Giulia: Weak

Nat : ok

Nat : listen

Nat : 3

Nat : 2

Nat : 1

Nat : GO

Giulia: GREAT MUSIC

AH Y’ALL DON’T LISTEN TO THE LYRICS OF THIS SONG

Zee: Where’s carry on ?

♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ Think of seasons that must end ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ 

Nat : I DON'T REMEMBER HALF OF WHAT THEY SHOW NOW.  It's erased from my memory

Giulia: look at my stupid baby

♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ They will rise and fall again ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ 

Giulia: Oh look the dumb coffin

Nat : "I do believe in us."

Zee: John

♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ Everything must have an end ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬

Giulia: I DIDN T NEED JOHN AGAIN

♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ Take it calmly and serene ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬

BITCH HOW

Giulia: bye mary.Good riddance

♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ It's the famous final scene ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬

Zee: Maybe I should watch on mute

Kat: Shut up chuck

♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ It's been coming on so long You were just the last to know ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬

Zee: The fuck is this song ?

It's been a long time since you've smiled

Giulia: IDK I HATE IT

♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ Seems like oh so long ago Now the stage has all been set ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬

Giulia: bb Sob ....Them hair on fleek tho

Nat : What are the odds

Zee: BAMF Cas

Giulia: Idk seems so desperate

Kat: Always

Nat : So much grunting. So sexy

Giulia: AWE

♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ Now the lines have all been read And you knew them all by heart ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬

Kat: SAM

Kat: DEAN

Zee: He took jack

♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ Here it comes the hardest part Try the handle of the road ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬

Kat: over the shoulder like a sack of potatoes

ok I now it’s a serious moment but Dean skipping with his birb bowlegs is making me cackle so much i cannot

LOOK AT HIM ....*SNORTS*

oh look another meme

Giulia: Sam just casually shoving a ghost out of the way

♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ As the light fades from the screen From the famous final scene ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬

Zee: Ok

Zee: I hate it

Giulia: OH THAT TITLE CARD

Nat : Ah great title card

ok but ....* slows down frames and saves some of them* WHAT’S THIS

Whatever let’s just go back to more pressing matters

Lol that is so not Misha carrying Jack tho

Giulia: Misha’s fingers be that thick

Zee: Focus

Giulia: Lol dean reaching for that booze, I mean SAME.

Nat : AW CAS

Giulia: Awe SAM

Zee: Sam panting

D: He didn’t deserve this

Kat: Aw

S: Cass, is he here? C- C-Can you... Can you...?

Giulia: SAM 

Nat : "I don't think so"

Nat : I cry

Giulia: I CRY

Giulia: Sam’s pain is physical

Giulia: I cannot

I mean,...they do look like zombies. 

D: Chuck... He said, "Welcome to the End”.  What... What does that mean?

Zee: Welcome to the end

D: Cass? Come on, man! Ideas!

Team free Stress

Giulia: It means final season

D: Can you smite our way out of here?

Zee: Cas squint

C: No. You saw them. I would be overwhelmed, Dean.

Well I honestly thought Dean actually asked if Cas could fly them off there....which...well don’t think it can happen if the state of his wings are the same, BUT STILL, we don’t actually know becasue PLOTHOLES. But whatever man, I still love my show.

D: Great. So we go outside, we get ripped apart. We stay in here, w- what, starve to death?!

C: I wouldn’t starve

Nat : WELL GOOD FOR YOU

Giulia: WeLl gOoD fOr yOu

Kat: Love the sass

D: Son of a bitch

the fandom:  * CHEERS*

Giulia: Sure he knew

D: He's always so squirrelly, you know, with the...with the... the robe and the beard and...the smile that's, like, half-nice, half "I'm gonna rip your throat out. "

Giulia: Oh that true

Nat : Aw Dean

Giulia: AHAHAHA

Giulia: DEAN’s SALTY AF

Nat : Me

Zee: Those fingers tho

Giulia: Why don t they let cas do that, come on

Nat : So much grunting and panting in the first couple of minutes

Nat : I love it

Giulia: Gotta isolate just those

Nat: Cas doesn't want to help

Giulia: Nice

Nat : AH well

Zee: Hello

Giulia: …

Giulia: WELL HELLO GOOD MORNING TO ME

Nat : Now he did

a wild Jack appears

Nat : Ah

Zee: What?

Nat : what

Kat: Hahahahahaha

Giulia: JESUS CHRIST

Nat : IN THE HELL

Giulia: the fuck

Kat: Demon!Jack

Giulia: OH COME ON

Nat : AW DEMON JACK

d!Jack: HELLO

S: Jack! you are alive

oh Sam...baby

Zee: Shut up

d!Jack: I- I'd do the whole eyes thing, but, uh, yeah, no eyes.

Nat : WITH SASS

Team free confused

Zee: Blending

Kat: Weekend at Bernie’s haha

Giulia: SO GOOD THO

Nat : Nice glasses

C: Get out of him

Zee: What he said

d!Jack : Okay? Uh, where do I start? Like at the first day of school. Uh, hi.Uh, my name is Belphegor. And, I'm, uh, here from...

Angry Cass approaching

C: i said get out of him. I’m not gonna ask again

me: 

D: Cass. Let him speak.

C: He's an abomination!

Giulia: AWE CAS

Nat : Cas is having none of it

B: You're an abomination with that stupid, dumb trench coat.

Kat: You’re an abomination with that trenchcoat 🤣

Zee: I love Cas

Giulia: but also love Alex

Giulia: STUPID DUMB TRENCHCOAT

Zee: Listen to your husband Cas

C: He is defiling Jack's corpse!

D: But if he can help... [angrily] Jack's gone, alright?

Giulia: STOP IT DEAN

Giulia: sob

S: So we are...

B: The Winchesters

Nat : "I read the papers" lol

B: Anyway, I'm guessing this whole, uh, Hellmouth thing is kind of, uh, you?

i MEAN HE’S NOT WRONG

C: No. It was God.

B: Okay, okay. Look. I-I'm not some crossroad demon. I'm not even one of those black-eyed goons

Giulia: Who the fuck are u

Nat : Virgin puppies  EW

Nat : TwinSiEs

Nat : snorts

Giulia: We are NOT twinsies

Cas is ready to slap a bitch

Giulia: So strange seeing jack like that tho

Nat : But so good

Zee: He be good

B: Ohh. Little spell. You know, nothing major. Just need some graveyard dirt... and some, uh, angel blood.

Giulia: Yeah, of course, let s use cas again

*Snort* .... he’s so offeded

WHAT A MOOD

Nat : what

Giulia: What he do

Nat : WHAT

Giulia: Really

Nat : who is that

Nat: HOW

Giulia: Oh come on

Giulia: I DONT TRUST THIS

Nat : ME NEITHER HIGH FIVE

Giulia: TOO EASY

B: Hey it worked! High five

Giulia: WHAT

Nat : I'LL PUNCH YOU

Well I wouldn’t want to be the graveyard guys in the morning

Nat : Ah that music

Zee: Future deaths

Nat : Ah bloody mary

Giulia: “oH mY gOd” Who still does that anyway

Nat : Bloody Mary messes with cellphones now

Giulia: A bitch gotta get on with the future

Giulia: Those nails be nasty

Nat : Mhh...  She's more evil than before I would guess

B: I mean, come on. I look good.

Giulia: That cas squint

Giulia: Yeah Cas does not like

Nat : Cas is suspicious

Nat : They act like they're surprised about 2-3billion souls in hell

Kat: I was surprised the number was that low

B: Imagine a salt circle a mile wide No ghosts get in, no ghosts get out.

S: Yeah. Great. Okay.

C: NO. That town... Harlan, Kansas...is less than a mile from the cemetery.

D: Then we get everybody out.

C: How?

D: WE LIE

Giulia: what else is nee

Giulia: Nee

Giulia: New

Nat : lol

Zee: New

Nat : Nee

Giulia: Great Another typo that will hunt us all

Giulia: Why this time the blood looks fake af

Nat : That my car

Zee: Woman in white

S: Dean, this could be our woman in white.

D: Dude. We sent her to Hell years ago.

S:Yeah, but she could be back.

Nat : Dean just realized

D: Well, if she's back, then they're all back. Every last one that we ever killed.

Giulia: I also just realized that we are seeing them again. My babies. I hugged those bitches S.  O. B

Nat : Aw bb

Kat: Lucky you

Zee: Giuls bb. Shut the fuck up please

I must say tho....that must have felt really depressing for them...I mean..all their work just ...puff....

Giulia: Fuck clows

Nat : Ah no

Giulia: Fuck them

Nat : Stupid clowns

Giulia: Fuck off

Giulia: Drive the fucking car into the door

Nat : Wouldn't get through.

Kat: No keys

Nat : Not enough space to fully accelerate

Zee: So much science

Giulia: Ugh true

Zee: Wtf is sam’s hair?

D: We can handle the evac, so why don't you grab Crowley Jr. here whatever he needs for his spell?

C: NO

D: 

Well he didn’t expect that 

C: Dean, I can't. I-I...I can't even look at him.

Giulia: AWE CAS

Nat : Aw Cas

Giulia: AWE AWEEEEEE

Giulia: IM HURT.IM BADLY HURT

C: Um... I...

Awe I think even Dean expected that reaction from Cas. I’m so hurt y’all....so hurt.

WHAT ARE THOSE ROLLING EYES DEAN JFC

Giulia: that sheriff a bit out of it

Kat: Small town. Probably doesn’t have to do much

Nat : Jack probably has his own agenda. "Jack"

Giulia: Yeah

Belphy seeing the gun with that ridiculous nerd name: um....what’s that?

D: Don’t worry about it

B: ok cool

B: So, people are, like, crazy good-looking now, eh?

D: what

B: I mean, the last time I was on Earth, I mean, I was human. Ah, it was a while ago. I mean, but, you know, we were all worshipping308 this giant rock that looked like a huge penis, and...

Giulia: Wait what

Kat: Huge penis rock

Giulia: thank you

B: Anyway, folks back then, they were, uh, ugly. You know? Had a lot of humps. I mean, a lot.

B:  Look at 'em now.

D: 

B:I mean, look at you . I mean, you're, uh, you know, gorgeous

Giulia: HE IS

ALL OF US : WE KNOW

Nat : GET THE FUCK IN LINE FAKE JACK

Kat: BEHIND ME

B: So, uh...who was... he, anyway? 

D: He was our kid. Kinda.

Zee: Our kid

Giulia: OMG NO SOB

Nat: I cry

Zee: Shut up dean

Kat: OUR KID

Giulia: IM SO HURT

D: Alright. So, what do you need for this spell?

B: you know, nothing much. Big bag of salt.

D: Easy

B: And a... And a human heart.

Giulia: a human heart

Nat : what else ,easy

Kat: OF COURSE

Giulia: CAS LOOKS YUMMY YUUUUUMMY

Kat: OF COURSE

Giulia: LOOK AT HIM

Nat : Giuls people are dying

Giulia: HEWWO

Zee: And thicc

Nat : "insert Kim K gif"

Giulia: WELL AT LEAST THEY HAVE A NICE THING TO LOOK AT

Giulia: Nice thic, tan things

Giulia: With great hair

Giulia: Nice eyes

Giulia: I should focus

Nat : Cas saw?

Zee: Yeah

Giulia: So thic

Kat: Aw poor dead girls

Nat : GIULS FOCUS

Giulia: That shirt is crying for mercy

Giulia: Yeah yeah Sorry

Giulia: *keeps looking at those pecs*

Giulia: NO SAM WITH KIDS IM WEAK

Zee: Sam should stop exhaling like that

Nat : NO

Kat: Jared is 4 times the size of that kid

Giulia: STOP HURTING HIM

Kat: Yeah

Zee: Yeah bitch

Giulia: YAS CAS

Kat: I KNOW

Nat : Did Sam treat his bullet wound tho

Giulia: Probably just patched up

Giulia: angel with a shotgun

I love when Cas take care of Sam...so soft.

Nat : that's not a big bag of salt, Dean

D: Rowena, we need your help, so move your ass. What? No, I'm not...Move your exquisite ass, please.

Zee: Exquisite ass

Kat: EXQUISITE ASS PLEASE

Giulia: MOVE YOUR EXQUISITE ASS

D: Here’s your salt

US: Thanks we have plenty 

B: im a fan

Giulia: NO

Zee: Oh no bitch

Zee: NO

B: Yeah, I-I didn't want to say it in front of the other guys,but when you were in Hell, with Alastair, I, uh... I got a chance to watch you work. And, I mean, the things you did to those people, I mean, it wasn't torture. 

Kat: FUCKING ASSHOLE DEMON

Nat : OH NO

Giulia: BAD CHOICE OF WORDS

Giulia: FUCK

Nat : IT WAS ART

Kat: iT waS ArT

Giulia: Is it bad that I wanna watch that tho

Zee: WATCH WHAT?

Nat : YES

Giulia: DEAN’S “ART”

Zee: Wtf is wrong with you ?

B: And then every door in Hell just sprang open all at once.

D: Wait. Every door? Even the Cage?

Nat : Even the cage

Nat : OH NO

D: And Michael?

B: Well, last I heard, he was just sittin' there. Yeah, but if he got out, I mean... Ugh.

Giulia: Lol ADAM

B: I mean...he wouldn't hold a grudge, right?

Giulia: *SNORTS* SURE

Nat : Ah that looks nasty

Kat: YALL WATCH CAREFULLY COMING UP

Zee: Can I love Cas in this ep?

Giulia: Oh cas can mend shirt too

Nat : SNORTS

Nat : WHAT DO YOU MEAN

Nat : Ah

Giulia: i don t like what is going on

Kat: JUST WATCH

Zee: Fuck

Nat : I HATE THIS KAT

Giulia: WHAT

Nat : AH NO

Giulia: NO

Nat : SHIT WHAT

Kat: I TOLD YOU

Giulia: WHAT WAS THAT

Nat : WHAT IS GOING ON

Nat : EVIL SAM IS IN THAT WOUND

But let us take a blurred , closer, look tho: 

*GASPS*

THAT’S THIC BEARD DEAN

YUM

those are definitely black eyes. 

WHAT IS GOING OOOOOOOOOOON

Giulia: Oh I remember that clock, leave a comment if you do too.

Nat : btw All the ghosts don't look very scary

Kat: All these ghosts look old af

Zee: Them bow legs

Giulia: Look at that strut

Kat: Fresh would be better lol

B: cOOL

Giulia: Zee’s that u

Casually punching a hole into someone chest to rip a heart out

Giulia: Got a heart

Nat : WHAT

Kat: Damn fake Jack

Zee: Get away kid

Nat : YOU DON'T SAY

Nat : GOOD FOR YOU

Giulia: Oh the lake ghost

Giulia: Oh ya RUN BB RUN

Kat: That kid is too calm

Zee: It’s not ok

Giulia: it s noooot

Nat : No, he didn't

Nat : Sam did

Zee: You shot me

Giulia: SNORTSP

Kat: You shot me 🤣🤣

Kat: Bad ghost bad

Giulia: Well that was scary

Nat : Stop hurting Sam

Zee: STOP HURTING SAM

Giulia: OH LOOK I LOVE CAS WITH THE SHOTGUN

Zee: WE BEEN KNEW

Nat : OF COURSE YOU DO

Giulia: AWE HE S SAVING SAM

Nat : The ghosts all look weird af

Giulia: True

Kat: They are 15 years older okay

Giulia: Must be the daylight

Zee: I don’t trust jack

Giulia: well is not jack

Giulia: AWE

Nat : AH HE IS FAST HE HAS LONG LEGS

Giulia: I’m worried about Misha's hip

Zee: Shut up

Giulia: Shut up

Kat: AAAAAHHHHH SHUT UP

Giulia: Good gif to use

Nat : he said it like Stepford Sam

Kat: MMHHMM

Giulia: Right?

Giulia: Listen to that PUR

Kat: SO GOOD

Giulia: the angel thing

Nat : So 4 people fit in the back

Nat : lol

Giulia: GOOD TO KNOW

Nat : Ah, not sexual

Zee: Or two horizontal ones

Kat: Well one is a small child

Giulia: Me and Nat are small child size

Nat : Yes

D:  You okay?

C: Yes, but...

Giulia: UGH

Nat : lol

B: Wow! Awkward WANNA TALK ABOUT IT

Zee: Is that a no?

Nat : LISTEN TO HIM DEAN

Zee: That’s a no

Kat: Ooohhh they so pissed

Giulia: SO PISSED

Giulia: SO TENSE

Nat : SO HOT

Giulia: THEY SHOULD RELAX

Giulia: I JUST HAPPEN TO KNOW HOW

Giulia: what

D: Right now we get you fixed up.

S: what

Nat : I'M FINE

Giulia: Yeah open that shirt

Nat : Do you hear that

Nat : FIIIIIINNNEEEEEEE

D: We've been going nonstop. Let me see it.

D: There's no exit wound.

Giulia: DON T TALK LIKE THAT

Nat : Yeah, sure Jan

D: Hey, do you remember when we were little? What I would do to distract you whenever I'd rip off a Band-Aid or something like that?

S: Yeah. You'd tell some stupid joke.

Kat: Omg such a soft moment

Nat : Aw

Nat : Don't come up with old stories now. I'll cry

D: Come on. Knock, knock.

S: Who's...*HISSING*

D: Still got it

Kat: My boys 😭

Nat : It's Jensen face

The little shit face 

Giulia: Well I don t see white foam

Nat : Are you surprised?

Zee: My god

D: Just when we thought we had a choice. You know, whenever we thought we had free will. We were just rats in a maze. Sure, we could go left. Sure, we could go right. But we were still in the damn maze. Just makes you think, if all of it... you know, everything that we've done...What did it even mean?

S: It meant a lot. We still saved people.

D: Yeah, but what for? You know?  Just so he could throw another End of the World at us and then sit back and chug popcorn?

Giulia: I wanna chug popcorn

Nat : Yeah, ya did Sam

Nat : But I get Dean

Zee: Sam still believes

S: But now he’s gone

Nat : YA THINK

S: He gets bored and... and... and... and pulls the ripcord.I mean, that's what he did with Apocalypse World and... and probably with all of them. He moves on, starts another story. But you know what?

Giulia: GOOD

S: For the first time. It's just us.

Zee: What’s one more apocalypse right?

Giulia: 

“What’s one more apocalypse right?” -shit that SPN fans says

S: When we win this, God's gone There's no one to screw with us. There's no more maze. It's just us. And we're free.

D: So you and me versus every soul in Hell? I like those odds.

D: Well, you know what that means.

S: We got work to do.

Giulia: WHAT

Giulia: ALREADY

Nat : WHAT

Zee: Why is it over ?

Giulia: ...it flew

Kat: Hehehe

Nat : FINISHED?

Nat : EH

Nat : WAIT WAS THAT 40 MINUTES ALREADY

Kat: That end though

Giulia: ...what

Nat : What

Giulia: What happened

Kat: The throwback

Zee: Yeah it was

Giulia: what trip was that

Zee: I just exhaled

Nat : What was that

Giulia: WE VE GOT WORK TO DO

Giulia: That was so fast

Kat: SOBA

Giulia: TRAILER

Nat : I hate them

Zee: Oh come on

Nat : i am watching trailer now

Giulia: EH NOTHING MUCH

Kat: Yeah

Nat : LOL I KNOW AS MUCH AS I DID BEFORE

Kat: WHAT

Nat : WTF

Kat: IT’S OVER

Nat : I am not overly impressed

Nat : Dean didn’t finish his knock knock joke

Nat : I’m sangry

.

Next -----> 15x02  "Raising Hell"

.

.

.SO ...that was our last first episode screening, ever....GREAT.

If you want to get tagged send an ask HERE or to @waywardbaby or a smoke signal, idk whatever I’m tired af.

TAGS: @wayward-angelgirl​  @destiel-honeypie​      @mariekoukie6661​      @dragontamerm​       @closetspngirl​    @rainflowermoon​     @mattiecat​       @bunnybaby121115​  @aliaitee2​    @jacks-word-of-the-day​     @4evamc​       @dammitsammy​     @legendary-destiel​   @winchesterprincessbride​    @destielhoneybee​    @castiellover20   @ravenhg​ @evvvissticante​

[mobius-prime]

144. Sonic the Hedgehog #79

The Discovery

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: FRY Colors: Frank Gagliardo

Welcome to the beginning of the Sonic Adventure adaption! Now, as you know, the world of the comics is very different from that of the games, which means right away we're faced with the task of finding a way to fit the story of the game into the world of the comic. We have three stories ahead, two of which do just that, and the third of which is the conclusion to the long-standing Tales of the Great War arc. Time to dive in!

Sonic awakens from his sleep early in the night to find Nate tapping away at his computer, explaining that he's trying to hack into Robotnik's computer network to spy on his current doings. At that moment he's successful, and finds a worrying message about invading the Mystic Ruins, prompting Sonic to immediately take Nate to warn the king about this situation. Apparently Nate is even more familiar with what's going on than he let on, telling the king that Robotnik appears to be invading the Hidden City of the Ancients.

Despite Sonic's worry, the king insists he's fine and merely tired, walking off to get some rest, which Sonic does as well. The next morning he awakens to find his house full of his friends, all working together to cook a huge breakfast, as they've all been chosen by the king to go to this city and act as official liaisons from the Kingdom of Knothole. Amy, being part of the group helping to cook breakfast, has a fairly reasonable request given the situation.

Now, can we just recall that Tails joined the Freedom Fighters at its inception when he was like, four? I get that the others tried to shelter him from dangerous missions and whatnot even back then, up until the events of his miniseries, but now Amy is asking, based on a precedent set by someone her age, if she can be allowed to prove herself as well, and immediately finds herself getting shot down. Honestly, I'm with her that they're being totally unreasonable here.

While everyone packs up for their trip, the king and Elias watch from a high up walkway among the trees, noting how happy and carefree Sally seems at this moment. The king is happy for her, wanting her to have a little bit more time to feel happy before he tells her about her mother's worsening illness, and is surprised when Elias already knows due to overhearing him and Dr. Quack talking about it previously. Elias then suddenly gets an epiphany, realizing there may be something he can do to help cure the illness, and rushes off as a suspiciously Overlander-looking group of girls fawn over him from the sidelines. (I know they're not Overlanders, but damn, they could have at least added extra fur or something to make it more obvious.)

Oh, boy…

The Chaos Factor

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Frank Gagliardo

Knuckles has found himself plagued with dreams lately - nightmares, more like - of a strange, watery being absorbing the Master Emerald, the Floating Island falling into the sea, and everyone he cares about on the island perishing because he failed in his duties to protect them. He wakes up with a jolt, still perturbed by what he saw in his sleep.

Well, that's probably not good. Man, Knuckles must be the heaviest sleeper of all time if he somehow slept through his entire island the size of Delaware plunging violently into the ocean from eight miles up. Back in his HQ, Robotnik is ecstatic at how well his plan has gone so far, conveniently recalling it all in detail for the benefit of us readers. Apparently, he found all his information on an obscure data file that his previous self overlooked, about a mystical being with immense power made of living water, locked within… yeah, you thought I was gonna say the Master Emerald, right? Nah, man, this is the comics! No one's in the Master Emerald except ol' Mammoth Mogul. The being is locked instead within a black emerald hidden in the Mysterious Cat Country, which if you'll recall all the way back to the map in Sonic Super Special #2 is located at the equivalent of South America's east coast. Robotnik had his roboticized slaves excavate the emerald for him and smashed it to let the being out…

Well, he let something out all right. He decided that looking for seven Power Emeralds was totally lame, and instead decided to fly to the Floating Island, where he found himself briefly surprised to see Echidnaopolis filled with, well, echidnas, since his data files indicated Knuckles was the only echidna on that island. Yeah, your files are a liiiiiittle outta date, buddy. He broke through the force field erected to keep intruders out of the Chaos Chamber with ease, and shattered the Master Emerald before anyone could retaliate, flying off with the pieces as the island fell from the sky. But remember who we just said was in the Master Emerald in this universe?

Once again, with feeling: oh, boy…

Tales of the Great War (The Conclusion): Life Under-Ground

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Chris Allan Colors: Frank Gagliardo

It's time to finally finish up this story, still being told by Jules and Bernie around the campfire to their eager listeners. When Uncle Chuck left to start up his chili dog stand, Bernie still tried to reason with him that he should try to find a cure for her husband's robotic state, but he was firm in his feelings of failure and refused to try anything for fear of making it even worse. Frustrated, Bernie tried to take matters into her own hands by heading to the lab, only to see Julian using her husband as a lab rat. She yelled at him for being so disrespectful, but Julian, true to form, had other plans.

That's honestly horrific. Chuck went looking for Bernie when she went missing, and found her as a robot within the lab, where Julian "helpfully" informed him that she tried to mess with the roboticizer but foolishly set it off while inside. Of course, this only ensured he was even more guilt-ridden than before, and now he faced the daunting task of trying to raise Jules and Bernie's infant son, trying to figure out how to explain to him when he was older what had happened to his parents. In the end, we already know that his explanation of them being "lost in the war" stuck with Sonic throughout his life, and that his uncle was roboticized as well before he got any real answers. When Chuck regained his free will, however, the first thing he did was take a power ring to a handful of other roboticized individuals within Robotnik's factories, including Jules, to help them regain their free will as well. He built a small secure base within the sewers of the city for his new spies, and soon freed Bernie's mind as well, leading to a tearful-in-spirit (because they're robots, remember) reunion between the two. They both told Chuck not to tell Sonic of their state, wanting him to remember them as they had been when he was young until the war was over, which as we know kind of ended up being a bad idea given how betrayed Sonic felt as a result. But hey, everything is all right now - well, I suppose not everything, since Chuck is a slave once more…

Two problems - first of all, y'all had months to dig into this zip disk when Chuck was still a free man, during the period of peace in between the two Robotniks. Why the hell didn't he help you decode it then? Second of all, this disk is never mentioned again in the comic. They just completely forgot about it and never brought it back. I suppose it was full of nothing but him talking about random goings-on within Robotropolis while he was a spy or something, since it ended up not being important at all. Ah well!

[comicsnsuch]

Tales from the Dark Multiverse

Hi! Thanks for finding this tumblr. The plan is to share and write about comic books, comic book art, other things that interest me and such, thus the name of the tumblr. Maybe you share some of the same interests, or maybe you’ll discover something new.

I’m going to try to post as frequently as possible, but that frequency will vary depending on what real life is like week to week. On slow weeks, there will be more stuff, on busy weeks less.  You get it.  Hopefully if you check in now and then you’ll find some new content.

I work (worked?) in a comic book shop, but as I have been recently reminded, due to the COVID-19/Coronavirus epidemic, I am non-essential.  Thanks State Government! Always good to have a self esteem boost! 

Anyway… I love comic books, reading them, talking about them, (thinking about) making them and so on. Always have, always will. I wanted to have an outlet for sharing that while I can’t be in the shop doing it face to face with customers and random strangers. 

I’ll be writing short reviews for what I’ve been reading, new stuff, old stuff, posting pics, etc.  

 Feel free to comment, but please keep it friendly. Assholery will not be tolerated.

To start with I just finished reading all of DC Comics Tales of the Dark Multiverse one shots. 

                                     I made this in MS Paint!

These started coming out in 2019 and the last one was released in early 2020. The idea behind each is Tempus Fuginaut, a sort of Watcher type character for the DCU (who I think debuted, or at least I fist remember seeing in the Sideways ongoing, a Dark Nights Metal spin off) observing the multiverse and introducing a story that takes an important moment in DC history and asks “what would have happened if things had gone differently?” DC’s version of What If?  in a nutshell.

       That’s Tempus Fuginauts big ol’ head in case you were wondering

 As the “Dark” in Tales of the Dark Multiverse might imply, these are not happy stories.

The first one shot that was released was Tales of the Dark Multiverse Batman Knightfall by Scott Snyder and Kyle Higgens with art by Javi Fernandez.  

This was probably my least favorite of the five issues. Since the “No Justice” mini series event I’m over Scott Snyder. I feel he has so many ideas rattling around in his head that he begins one story, gets too excited about the next one and leaves you underwhelmed with the current arc but dying to read the next. (That being said I of course checked out Batman Last Knight on Earth, having read his and Capullo’s entire New 52 Batman run I didn’t want to miss their “final” word on Batman, but have not read his just wrapped run on Justice League which I hear was quite good). 

I read this one right when it was released a few months ago, so my memory of it might not be the best.  

This one centers around the Knightfall event where Bane breaks Batman’s back and Jean Paul Valley/Azrael takes on the role of Batman. In this reality Bruce never recovers and Jean Paul remains Batman becoming Saint Batman, a Bats Azrael mash up. Javi Fernandez does a great job on the art and Snyder loves chopping people up. 

                                                      Gross.

Definitely worth the read if you’re interested in it or are a fan of Batman or just the Knightfall era. If you grab this series in collected format it’s not so bad that I recommend skipping it, just not my favorite from this batch of books. 

Next up is Tales of the Dark Multiverse Death of Superman by Jeff Loveness with art by Brad Walker and Andrew Hennessey. I really enjoyed this one, it was a good quick read and had a nice arc to it. One of the better issues from this series if you’re asking me.

Right after Superman dies defeating Doomsday in the Death of Superman story arc, the rest of the Justice League shows up, literally as the blood is drying.Ten seconds too late. Lois Lane blames Supes’ death on the heroes for not being there to aid him. 

She makes her way to the Fortress of Solitude and thanks to the Eradicator gets herself all the powers of Superman. She then goes about dishing out justice, with extreme prejudice, to the villains the heroes normally let the revolving doors of the DC justice system handle. This involves a couple of great scenes with Batman and Lex Luthor. Loveness nails the dialogue and the character arc he puts Lois on is great to read. 

                                  Walker and Hennesey do it again!

There’s more to this story than I’ve put here, but I don’t want to say too much and ruin your enjoyment of it if/when you read it.

Special shout out to the art team of Brad Walker and Andrew Hennessey. I feel like they don’t get enough love. They killed it on the Demon Hell is Earth mini, and from what I can tell are crushing it on Detective Comics. Dudes can draw. Spread the word!

Then we move onto Tales of the Dark Multiverse Blackest Night by Tim Seeley and Kyle Hotz. 

This one was a bit wordy, but a lot of fun! I would put this one in the middle of the pack. 

Seeley brings together an interesting bunch of characters including Sinestro, Dove, Lobo and the New Gods! The plot is a little complex, but basically after the Color Corps lose the battle against Nekron in Blackest Night, Sinestro is looking for a way to undo the damage done and becomes a pawn in Scott Free’s plot to do the same. 

Give Seeley a Lobo book or a Hawk and Dove book, or a Mister Miracle book!. He gives each character a unique voice which makes their joint travels through the plot that much more fun to read.

Kyle Hotz’s  art in this issue reminds of a 90’s Image Comic in the best possible way. Lots of detail and cool poses. I also see a lot of Bernie Wrightson in there with Hotz’s heavy use of black and the sinewy musculature of the characters. The book is worth the price of admission to see his renditions of Dove and Mister Miracle. 

                                                          kewl!

 I’m glad to see Hotz working more or just seeing more of Hotz’s work. I don’t know if he fell out of the industry after drawing the original The Hood mini for Marvel with Brian K. Vaughan, working with Eric “The Goon” Powell on Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Odditys, doing art on Carnage Mind Bomb and more I’m sure ( I just can’t remember it all), or I just wasn’t paying attention to what he was working on. If it’s the later, shame on me, if it’s the former, welcome back Mr. Hotz, you’re crushing it and I look forward to seeing more from you. Check out more Kyle Hotz work by following him on Instagram @kylehotzcomics.

Let’s not neglect the oft overlooked inkers! I’m not sure who inked what, but on a guess, Dexter Vines and Walden Wong brought a smooth, cleanness to the proceedings with lots of nicely tapered lines. Again just guessing here, because I don’t know for sure, but Danny Miki used a finer line bringing a scratchy-ness the others didn’t but also amazing detail and clarity on some of the portraiture in the later half of the book. 

Who’s next? Why it’s Tales of the Dark Multiverse Infinite Crisis!

This one may have been my favorite. When the original Infinite Crisis series came out it was a period  where, due to personal lack of enjoyment, I wasn’t reading much of DC’s output, but I did read the Countdown to Infinite Crisis one shot this issue takes as it’s jumping off point. After having read this issue, it makes me want to go back and read Infinite Crisis. I would say that’s the sign of a good issue.

In this alternate reality Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, kills Maxwell Lord instead of vice versa, making himself the head of Checkmate. He then goes about trying to prevent the coming crisis. It’s kind of a tale about absolute power corrupting absolutely, it’s also an underdog tale about getting in over your head.

                Sorry if these images aren’t the best, I’m new at this!

James Tynion IV does a great job catching you up on any old DC continuity plot points you may have forgotten or never knew about in the first place.If you’re reading Tynion’s current run on Batman, or his work on Detective Comics and Justice League Dark, you know he can handle a complex plot like this and does a great job condensing it all down to a single issue.  Aaron Lopresti and Matt Ryan handle the art and they do a great job. Always happy to see Lopresti’s name on a book I want to read.

Bonus points: You can never have too many Ted Kord, Blue Beetle comics, especially when Booster Gold pops up, even if only momentarily. 

If this series leaves you wanting more Blue and Gold action may I direct you to Booster Gold (2nd series) #32 thru about 38ish for some quality comics.

Final one, Tales from the Dark Multiverse the Judas Contract!

I’m not as old as my writing may imply so I had to read the Judas Contract in collected format about 20 years after it was originally released and after having seen it on many a fanzine’s (Wizard) best of list.  When I finally got to read it I wasn’t super familiar with the Titans of the era and already knew the big twist in the story, so it just washed over me without any great effect. None of the shock that someone who was reading it fresh in the 80’s might have experienced. 

I ended up liking this twisted take on the Judas Contract much more than when I read the original. “Sacrilege!” I know, I know, but like I said there was no surprise when I first read it, while this one zigged instead of zagging multiple times and kept upping the ante in scale. 

Kyle Higgins and Matt Groom do a great job reinventing a classic that I’m sure many people had high expectations for. This was a fun faced paced tale.  I enjoyed the hero moments Dick Grayson and Wally West were given. Like the Knightfall one shot Higgins co-wrote with Snyder there’s no shortage of dismemberment and disfiguration, which is neither a plus or minus in this situation, just thought it was worth noting.

Tom Raney handles the art chores here and he does a fine job.  Some of the figures seem a little squat, and their heads are too big in certain panels. Could I do better? No, so who am I to say anything? I just noticed it, here and there, it took me out of the flow of the story every now and then. That’s all. Big fan of his work on Stormwatch and Outsiders with Judd Winick. I also hear he’s super nice, so if you’re ever at a convention where Tom Raney is, seek him out! 

                                      They seem squat, right?

It’s worth mentioning these books are all done in DC’s prestige format and are extra long at about 48 pages each. All covers are by the fantastic Lee Weeks. A nice way to spend the afternoon.

There’s the first post. A little longer than I thought it would be. If you made it this far, I hope it was clear and you understood what I was saying and I hope you liked it and want to return for more. 

Until next time!

[thisnerdsadventures]

the last two weeks

Just two weeks ago, my friends and I went out to Yamato’s for the first time. 

It was sponsored by our dorm, so we racked up a nearly $1000 bill. We had a great time, but the end of our brunch came, and a few of us took a walk to the common for a Bernie rally, and the others went to the BPL to study. Afterwards, we all wound back on campus, and went about our Saturday doing the usual psetting. The current source of stress was the cup of grapes situation that spiraled wildly out of control, but in hindsight, it seems so inconsequential now. Eleven days ago, my friend and I went to Harvard for the day to decompress from everything. It was a beautiful day - the sun was out, we were wearing our light jackets. We went for ramen for lunch, shopped at a shoe store, and searched hopelessly for hand sanitizer. I had promised to work on my UROP but felt I deserved a day off, as I had been working tirelessly for a while. We walked around, taking it all in, I talked about how I was excited for our dinner on Friday and going to Michigan later in April for a conference. It looked like things might get better. The next day, the rumbling started. Harvard sent an email forbidding international travel. We had heard of the situation intensifying in Italy, but we were still nervously waiting to see what would happen. There were crisis-related rumblings on top of the usual school stress and all the things that had not gone well this semester, and just like that, the next day, MIT took it a step further and cancelled all large major events and banned international travel.

This was the first shock. Just earlier that day, I argued with my friend about her decision to back out of our spring break Spain trip due to coronavirus concerns. But now, five hours later, I sat on the ground in my friend's room as the shock passed over me. Every group chat was nonstop. What about CPW? What about Senior Ball? What about Springfest? Our spring break plans were definitely in the gutter now. Every question sent chills and dread down my spine. I heard someone ask whether commencement would still happen, and I cracked, not being able to face this eventuality that I prayed wouldn't happen. The rest of the day was gone, lost to the questions and stress and emails that ensued from this notification. But there were still personal conflicts. Personal problems, academic stress bubbling up to the surface for weeks, and it was coming to a head. Our dinner just over a week ago nearly didn't happen, but luckily a few of us still went to Harvard for a wonderful time. Our conversations surrounded how Harvard followed our footsteps just a day later on cancelling major events and how changes were so drastic. We contemplated whether the policy would be extended and whether our summer plans would be affected, but decided that that was too far in the future to worry about. So we ran across Harvard in the 30 degree night, snow falling from the sky, enjoying our time, not knowing what was to come. I spent what would be the last weekend preparing for a case. I prepped nonstop and thought I did really well on it in class, just this past Monday. It was a beautiful Monday, we biked to Panda Express with nothing but light jackets and we wished that every day could be like that, feeling like summer had come early in Boston. The situation outside was worsening, and we were watching closely to see what would happen. My friends from LA were trying to convince me to go to San Diego with them for a couple days now that my Spain trip was definitely cancelled. Over Twitter, we found out Princeton closed first, demanding it's undergraduates not come back from break, but i went to bed that Monday early, to prepare for a full day of research to come Tuesday, as my Tuesdays usually go, unblocked to make progress on my research. When I woke up Tuesday, there was something wrong. I knew from the blast of notifications from every group chat on every social media account I owned. My Harvard chat was 100+ messages deep by 9:30am from their closure and eviction of undergraduate students. I sat up immediately in bed and opened the other group chats, trembling. Another group of my friends were already organizing storage and coordinating travel ideas in the case that we would also be following suit after Harvard. 

I dashed to my computer to access all the other texts and call my dad, who was still awake in Taiwan. He told me to calm down and to wait. But just 30 minutes later, a screenshot leaked, confirming our worst fears - we would also be leaving campus in just a week, moving out for the semester. all classes would be online. My stomach dropped. In my attendance-based class, 2/3 of the class was present, and most were on their phone, checking for updates. We all anxiously waited the rumored 1pm email that would make it official. Everyone knew at this point, and seniors were feeling it all now, the shock, the grief, the celebration already of 4 years on campus. My friends and I cracked open a bottle of wine and took pictures on Killian with the hundreds of other students partying until 5pm. At 5pm though, the email released. It was official. All undergraduates were to move out in a week.

My floor exploded - flights frantically booked. What about storage? I called my mom and she was on it - Sunday afternoon flight booked, same one as my friend. And there was nothing to do except stare out the window of my friends room into the Boston skyline and finish off my wine bottle. And like many of my graduating peers, I realized that my senior year was done, and that I had not even a week to say goodbye to my home and to my friends. I started sobbing, nonstop. I hadn't cried like this since high school. My head of house started up a video call to the whole dorm, and hearing them talk logistics made me cry harder, and when I thought I stopped, I checked my phone and found an email from my professor berating the administration and acknowledging our irreplaceable loss. I cried again, harder. would commencement happen? Even if it did, my dad wouldn't be able to fly into the country. I continued to sob at the thought. After two hours, I eventually found my way to my friends bed where I fell asleep next to her until dinner, and with my eyes no longer swollen from tears, I wandered down to the dining hall with them. We saw other seniors, who had also been crying, judging from the redness in their eyes and cracks in their voices. The pain felt numb for me at this point. My friends stuck around for a bit, and we played some video games. No one on the floor was working, as we all had too much going on in our heads. The house team worked tirelessly to organize storage, and few of us slept that night. We stayed up chatting in the lobby about our families and going home and afterwards lied in our beds, sleepless, staring at the ceiling. The next day, I had just one class to go to, as large classes had been cancelled already. The campus was buzzing with yesterday's events. And in that class, we said our parting goodbyes, and many of us teared up yet again. But we laughed so hard too in that class, as we shared stories from our case just two days ago and for a moment, we forgot our pain. We took a class photo before we parted ways. After class, we lined up for an hour, each and every student, to personally thank our professor. 

My senior friends and I shared many meals together, and we parted, saying we'd see each other once again before we left. I watched my best friend take her swim test and watched as giant friend groups of other seniors came and cheered on their friends, fulfilling their last graduation requirement. To watch everyone support each other in these trying times brought warmth to my heart. I went home and ate dinner with my floor family, as we sat on the windowsills and drank boba and ate grilled cheeses. I was exhausted though, so I planned to go to bed at midnight, but I received a message from my best friend - she no longer was leaving on Monday, she was leaving in just eight hours.

I ran to maseeh and helped her pack until 5am. We packed up her curtains and I held her as she cried because she thought her parents were going to help her pack up her last year, just as they helped her screw in her curtains at the beginning of the year. I helped her store her stuff in the student center and we threw out bounties of trash and food. After I left, I knew with a sinking feeling that I wouldn't see her again for a while. And she cried a few more times and left early Thursday morning. When I woke up, she was gone. So I started cleaning and packing. The first boxes arrived in the green living room. In cleaning out my room, I found stuff from my first days of freshman year, my 8.02 exams, my chemistry notes, old electronics projects hidden away in boxes. And it was finally the end of my road, and so it was time to say goodbye to them. I spent so long mindlessly throwing stuff out, I had forgotten to leave McCormick until I finally went down to the lobby to hang out. And I hung out there for two hours, talking to everyone and anyone. I did a boba order for the ballerz, and my floor did yet another free dinner, so we once again ate together, laughing over the copious amount of free food on the kitchen table. Five or six of us returned to chatting and laughing about studying at home with family around in someone's room. A friend of mine invited us over to play Smash at BC, so we went and played a couple rounds. We returned to slowly packing until 11pm.

Things had been looking ok, as my dorm had dropped large amounts of money in buying everyone nice food. But when everyone received the emergency message from MIT telling us to leave by Sunday instead of Tuesday on Thursday night, the dorm exploded. Group chats started going off endlessly, with rumors of students already being sick or being quarantined on campus. I ran to my friends room, where she was already on the phone with her family, rebooking her flight for Saturday. "Just two days?" I thought to myself. "Not even two days I have left now with her and everyone and this home." She hung up the phone and started spilling rumors of Boston Logan closing on Monday. I melted to the floor, having a full panic attack. The dorm’s chat, another dorm’s chat, and every friend group chat started inciting even more fear and panic with each additional rumor. My ears were buzzing and my vision was blurring as I continued sitting on the floor. GRAs were woken up and started doing rounds on each floor, even though it was well past midnight at this point, to check on all the residents, many of whom were gathered in clusters around the floor. I went downstairs to talk to my GRA when I received a text from my friend. Chills ran down my back - "California might shut down within 24-48 hours." I did the math. The flight I rescheduled to just an hour ago was in 45 hours on Saturday afternoon. I felt another panic attack creeping up on me, so I ran off to talk to my friend. I went back up to my floor, where people were still yelling in the kitchen. She was off to the side, frantically still talking on the phone. Once I had calmed down a bit, I pulled her aside and told her about these messages, and she confirmed them in another group chat, showing me essentially a screenshot of a screenshot of a message in an unnamed group hat. Speechless, I stood in the hallway with her facing me. I guess she didn't know what else to do but hug me and reassure me it would be ok, because we had hit the point of simply not knowing what to do but say "I'm so sorry" to each other, as if it would ease the pain. I stayed up till 4:30am packing. My other friend called me, imploring me to change my flight to Friday, just 12 hours from then. I asked her bluntly, acknowledging my lack of family around the country - "if I can't go home, where am I supposed to go?" She promised I could stay with her in Texas and I stared back in disbelief, that we would reach this point of possibility that we would have no place to go, but that people would be so nice to open their homes to others who simply had no other place to go. I stared at my hopelessly unpacked room, the half consumed cider on the desk, and my sheer exhaustion, which had been kept awake by adrenaline. I called my mom again, who I'm sure was also was sleepless and asked whether our neighbor had also changed her flight. She said she didn't know whether they were able to change it. The next morning, two people woke me up two different times. Early in the morning, I fought for laundry machines and finished up most of my packing. That afternoon, I hung out in the lobby with my friends again and screamed out the window on a beautiful day as we blasted BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY into the courtyard. My dorm had a senior sendoff, complete with a senior gift and confetti, and a walk to Pomp and Circumstance, which was touching, considering we might not get commencement at the end of the year. But having everyone there to celebrate our little community and watch us walk to receive our fake diplomas and take senior pictures meant a lot to me.

Shortly after, I went up to the penthouse to watch the sunset for the last time. I had watched so many sunsets on top of that rooftop, as it was my goto spot when things went wrong. And things had never quite gone so wrong as this time. I looked at Fenway, where I went to my first Red Sox game, and Prudential, where my favorite gelato place is, and over to the right where BU is, where my friends and I run along the Esplanade. Every building, I could pin a memory. I watched the cars run down the bridge, where my friend and I pulled an all-nighter and watched the most beautiful sunrise. I watched the river slowly churn along and thought about how much I would miss seeing this every day. To think that just two weeks ago we had been yelling at each other about taking grapes out of the dining hall, that we were angry at each other for doing A or not doing B or saying C, all these problems were so inconsequential now. When you have just a few days left with the people you love, you remember that being around them and laughing and smiling with them is the most important thing, bottom line. I wrote letters to my friends to thank them for being them and sealed them into envelopes for the next day, and returned downstairs to store my stuff in the storage pod and eat dinner. Afterwards, we lied on our bare mattresses and laughed until 2am. My friend returned from maseeh also late that night, her eyes red from saying goodbye to her senior friends. I said good night and see you tomorrow, for what would be the last time for a while. That last morning, I said goodbye to so many people. It didn't really feel like goodbye, or maybe it hasn't set in yet. I watched my first friend leave in her Uber, and I hung out with my other friend until she left just an hour before me. And then it was my turn to leave, as I said goodbye to all the GRAs and my area director, promising I'd be back. And I took that one last walk out the front door. Halfway down the driveway, I took one last look back at the building I called home for four years, a place that had changed so much since I entered it four years ago, but has also changed me so much too. I thought about where I met my friends for the first time, the midnight piano in the GLR, the many nights spent talking until late night in 4 and 5 west. But the car was waiting, so I turned back to my ride to the airport, and I gave my friend one last hug and watched her wave as I drove away, down Memorial Drive, one last time.

[rinn-e]

Contact Lenses

Elton tries these things called ‘contact lenses’. Bernie is confused.

~

~

~

The bathroom door was locked.

Bernie Taupin frowned.

To be precise, the locked door wasn’t the reason for this reaction. That alone wasn’t a thing out of the ordinary and it wouldn’t have made Bernie hesitate by itself. He was used to waiting after all. And especially used to waiting for Elton.

How could he forget that one time Elton himself suggested to go see a film when the local cinema had the nice idea of offering its customers the possibility to buy one ticket, get one free? (particularly nice for two struggling musicians, or rather one musician and a guy who wrote some words on a piece of paper)

In the end, they hadn’t seen a film that night. Bernie had seen a lot of Elton sitting in front of a piano, had listened to a lot of singing instead of dramatical shouting and fake crying. (to be honest, he didn’t remember which film had been on that night but he didn’t tire of complaining to Elton just how much of a masterpiece it would have been, this film they hadn’t watched because one certain Music-Man had forgotten the time)

(What he hadn’t said was that he’d listened to the true masterpieces right here in the living room)

Bernie also liked to remind himself of the time they’d encountered a cat on their way back to the house of Elton’s mother. He had been dying of hunger and absolutely not willing to stop for an ugly animal. And it hadn’t even been only ugly!

That thing had been a creature out of a nightmare, all dirty and sticky hair which might have been white once but ended up resembling more of an ash grey. Small and tiny, it had looked like a newspaper that had been dunked into a drain channel, dried, and dunked in again. (it had been smelling like that too)

Elton’s glasses must have been broken. There simply was no other explanation for that squeal of glee (quickly fought back but memorable all the same). When he had gone to his knees to reach out a hand (to pet that monster?), Bernie had wondered for a second if there were a record for the most violent shiver of disgust ever endured by a human in the Guinness Book of Records. He might have broken it at that moment.

Luckily (or unluckily?) the cat had let out a high-pitched roar as if suffering from an identity disorder backing off as if someone had threatened to set its tail on fire. It had vanished within seconds behind a near hedge putting Batman to shame.

(the look of disappointment on Elton’s face had been almost adorable)

And that wasn’t even taking the hours used for dressing and redressing and reredressing into account!

All in all, Bernie wasn’t lying when he said he waited a lot.

Nevertheless, he shouldn’t have waited that long today.

When he had encountered the unmoving white paint of the door three hours ago, he’d decided to eat breakfast first. After that he’d decided to read a chapter or two out of the book he’d got from the library. Then he’d decided to drink a cup of tea (and he hadn’t circled the small path between the bathroom door and his room while sipping heated, flavoured water, no).

In the last quarter of an hour he’d worked on his latest song texts.

When he found himself standing in front of that damned door the next time, he needed to go in there. For real. (after rereading the written lines he’d realised that he’d forgotten page two in the bathroom, it should be lying comfortably next to the glass with the toothbrushes, white one (his own) and a blue one imprinted with feathers of a peacock (Elton’s))

(Elton’s was prettier)

An unfortunate coincidence.

His decision to knock against the door was further supported by the shout vibrating through the walls as if someone were dying in there.

“You’re… alright, mate?” The bizarre urge to laugh danced through his mind but he didn’t want to be mean.

“I’m alright! Never been more alright, Bernie!” Elton didn’t sound alright. He sounded like an angry person would sound unsuccessfully trying to suppress its anger while speaking.

He sounded like someone that would rip your head right off your shoulders if you even dared to breathe in their direction.

Bernie waited a few seconds with his hand hovering in the air listening to Elton murmur something like what a dumb invention and don’t even know why I’m doing this. A growl, a sigh, another growl. (who knew that he could make such frightening noises?)

Bernie hadn’t frowned this long since the time he’d learned that 29th May is officially Put a Pillow on Your Fridge Day.

He decided that it would be safer to let page two stay in the bathroom a while longer.

When the bathroom door wasn’t locked anymore, he was sitting on top of the stairs with a new piece of paper trying to come up with a good title (and failing).

“You can go in there now,” a muffled voice said behind his back. “I’m done.”

When Bernie flinched out of surprise he felt the pencil wavering between his fingers, felt it falling through the gaps and felt a pang of relief as he managed to catch it at the tiny piece of eraser at the end.

He turned to look at Elton and froze.

The pencil won its treacherous game and clacked to the ground, then clacked to the next step of the stairs, then to the next, then to the next, then to the next, then to the next, then to the next, then to the next, then to the next. And then to the floor next to the kitchen.

Bernie blinked.

“You… look different.”

Elton lifted his brows (had they always been that big, or, well, had they been there at all?), brows that weren’t hidden by red, pink, golden, blue or silver rims of glasses, his lips slightly pursed. His arms moved upwards as if he wanted to cross them only to change his mind as he let them fall back against his sides.

“Good different or bad different?”

“Hm. I don’t know.” Bernie shrugged, then smiled. “Do you want it to be good or bad?”

“Hm.” Elton tilted his head. “I don’t know.” He snorted, quietly, before chuckling, then almost laughing as if liking the sound of it and wanting to cling to its warmth a bit longer. (Bernie wanted it at least)

His face twisted to an expression between a grimace and a smile. “It had been a pain in the arse to put them in but it might get better over time, don’t you think?”

“It might.” Bernie grinned making a vague gesture towards his own face. “I wouldn’t be the one to know.” He paused before folding the empty piece of paper neatly in two, stuffing it in the back pocket of his jeans and standing up. “Wait a second.”

When he rushed to his room he didn’t need to look back at Elton to know that he was rolling his eyes.

~

“Here you go.” Bernie gave him a smile and a thumbs-up, almost giving in the urge to ruffle through the honey blond hair. “As good as new.”

This time, he did see Elton rolling his eyes beneath the neon-green rimmed glasses (who said that Bernie couldn’t engage in some atrocious shopping himself?).

“Isn’t the whole point of contact lenses that you don’t need to wear glasses?”

“You like them, don’t you?”

~

“Maybe.”

~

~

~

[qqueenofhades]

Could you expand a bit on the "death of expertise"? It's something I think about A LOT as an artist, because there are so many problems with people who think it isn't a real job, and the severe undercutting of prices that happens because people think hobbyists and professionals are the same. At the same time, I also really want people to feel free to be able to make art if they want, with no gatekeeping or elitism, and I usually spin myself in circles mentally thinking about it. So.

I have been secretly hoping someone would ask this question, nonny. Bless you. I have a lot (a LOT) of thoughts on this topic, which I will try to keep somewhat concise and presented in a semi-organized fashion, but yes.

I can mostly speak about this in regard to academia, especially the bad, bad, BAD takes in my field (history) that have dominated the news in recent weeks and which constitute most of the recent posts on my blog. (I know, I know, Old Man Yells At Cloud when attempting to educate the internet on actual history, but I gotta do SOMETHING.) But this isn’t a new phenemenon, and is linked to the avalanche of “fake news” that we’ve all heard about and experienced in the last few years, especially in the run-up and then after the election of You Know Who, who has made fake news his personal brand (if not in the way he thinks). It also has to do with the way Americans persistently misunderstand the concept of free speech as “I should be able to say whatever I want and nobody can correct or criticize me,” which ties into the poisonous extreme-libertarian ethos of “I can do what I want with no regard for others and nobody can correct me,” which has seeped its way into the American mainstream and is basically the center of the modern Republican party. (Basically: all for me, all the time, and caring about others is a weak liberal pussy thing to do.)

This, however, is not just an issue of partisan politics, because the left is just as guilty, even if its efforts take a different shape. One of the reason I got so utterly exasperated with strident online leftists, especially around primary season and the hardcore breed of Bernie Bros, is just that they don’t do anything except shout loud and incorrect information on the internet (and then transmogrify that into a twisted ideology of moral purity which makes a sin out of actually voting for a flawed candidate, even if the alternative is Donald Goddamn Trump). I can’t count how many people from both sides of the right/left divide get their political information from like-minded people on social media, and never bother to experience or verify or venture outside their comforting bubbles that will only provide them with “facts” that they already know. Social media has done a lot of good things, sure, but it’s also made it unprecedently easy to just say whatever insane bullshit you want, have it go viral, and then have you treated as an authority on the topic or someone whose voice “has to be included” out of some absurd principle of both-siderism. This is also a tenet of the mainstream corporate media: “both sides” have to be included, to create the illusion of “objectivity,” and to keep the largest number of paying subscribers happy. (Yes, of course this has deep, deep roots in the collapse of late-stage capitalism.) Even if one side is absolutely batshit crazy, the rules of this distorted social contract stipulate that their proposals and their flaws have to be treated as equal with the others, and if you point out that they are batshit crazy, you have to qualify with some criticism of the other side.

This is where you get white people posting “Neo-Nazis and Black Lives Matter are the same!!!1” on facebook. They are a) often racist, let’s be real, and b) have been force-fed a constant narrative where Both Sides Are Equally Bad. Even if one is a historical system of violent oppression that has made a good go at total racial and ethnic genocide and rests on hatred, and the other is the response to not just that but the centuries of systemic and small-scale racism that has been built up every day, the white people of the world insist on treating them as morally equivalent (related to a superior notion that Violence is Always Bad, which.... uh... have you even seen constant and overwhelming state-sponsored violence the West dishes out? But it’s only bad when the other side does it. Especially if those people can be at all labeled “fanatics.”)

I have complained many, many times, and will probably complain many times more, about how hard it is to deconstruct people’s absolutely ingrained ideas of history and the past. History is a very fragile thing; it’s really only equivalent to the length of a human lifespan, and sometimes not even that. It’s what people want to remember and what is convenient for them to remember, which is why we still have some living Holocaust survivors and yet a growing movement of Holocaust denial, among other extremist conspiracy theories (9/11, Sandy Hook, chemtrails, flat-earthing, etc etc). There is likewise no organized effort to teach honest history in Western public schools, not least since the West likes its self-appointed role as guardians of freedom and liberty and democracy in the world and doesn’t really want anyone digging into all that messy slavery and genocide and imperialism and colonialism business. As a result, you have deliberately under- or un-educated citizens, who have had a couple of courses on American/British/etc history in grade school focusing on the greatest-hit reel, and all from an overwhelmingly triumphalist white perspective. You have to like history, from what you get out of it in public school, to want to go on to study it as a career, while knowing that there are few jobs available, universities are cutting or shuttering humanities departments, and you’ll never make much money. There is... not a whole lot of outside incentive there.

I’ve written before about how the humanities are always the first targeted, and the first defunded, and the first to be labeled as “worthless degrees,” because a) they are less valuable to late-stage capitalism and its emphasis on Material Production, and b) they often focus on teaching students the critical thinking skills that critique and challenge that dominant system. There’s a reason that there is a stereotype of artists as social revolutionaries: they have often taken a look around, gone, “Hey, what the hell is this?” and tried to do something about it, because the creative and free-thinking impulse helps to cultivate the tools necessary to question what has become received and dominant wisdom. Of course, that can then be taken too far into the “I’ll create my own reality and reject absolutely everything that doesn’t fit that narrative,” and we end up at something like the current death of expertise.

This year is particularly fertile for these kinds of misinformation efforts: a plague without a vaccine or a known cure, an election year in a turbulently polarized country, race unrest in a deeply racist country spreading to other racist countries around the world and the challenging of a particularly important system (white supremacy), etc etc. People are scared and defensive and reactive, and in that case, they’re especially less motivated to challenge or want to encounter information that scares them. They need their pre-set beliefs to comfort them or provide steadiness in a rocky and uncertain world, and (thanks once again to social media) it’s easy to launch blistering ad hominem attacks on people who disagree with you, who are categorized as a faceless evil mass and who you will never have to meet or negotiate with in real life. This is the environment in which all the world’s distinguished scientists, who have spent decades studying infectious diseases, have to fight for airtime and authority (and often lose) over random conspiracy theorists who make a YouTube video. The public has been trained to see them as “both the same” and then accept which side they like the best, regardless of actual factual or real-world qualifications. They just assume the maniac on YouTube is just as trustworthy as the scientists with PhDs from real universities.

Obviously, academia is racist, elitist, classist, sexist, on and on. Most human institutions are. But training people to see all academics as the enemy is not the answer. You’ve seen the Online Left (tm) also do this constantly, where they attack “the establishment” for never talking about anything, or academics for supposedly erasing and covering up all of non-white history, while apparently never bothering to open a book or familiarize themselves with a single piece of research that actual historians are working on. You may have noticed that historians have been leading the charge against the “don’t erase history!!!1″ defenders of racist monuments, and explaining in stinging detail exactly why this is neither preserving history or being truthful about it. Tumblr likes to confuse the mechanism that has created the history and the people who are studying and analyzing that history, and lump them together as one mass of Evil And Lying To You. Academics are here because we want to critically examine the world and tell you things about it that our nonsense system has required years and years of effort, thousands of dollars in tuition, and other gatekeeping barriers to learn. You can just ask one of us. We’re here, we usually love to talk, and we’re a lot cheaper. I think that’s pretty cool.

As a historian, I have been trained in a certain skill set: finding, reading, analyzing, using, and criticizing primary sources, ditto for secondary sources, academic form and style, technical skills like languages, paleography, presentation, familiarity with the professional mechanisms for reviewing and sharing work (journals, conferences, peer review, etc), and how to assemble this all into an extended piece of work and to use it in conversation with other historians. That means my expertise in history outweighs some rando who rolls up with an unsourced or misleading Twitter thread. If a professor has been handed a carefully crafted essay and then a piece of paper scribbled with crayon, she is not obliged to treat them as essentially the same or having the same critical weight, even if the essay has flaws. One has made an effort to follow the rules of the game, and the other is... well, I did read a few like that when teaching undergraduates. They did not get the same grade.

This also means that my expertise is not universal. I might know something about adjacent subjects that I’ve also studied, like political science or English or whatever, but someone who is a career academic with a degree directly in that field will know more than me. I should listen to them, even if I should retain my independent ability and critical thinking skillset. And I definitely should not be listened to over people whose field of expertise is in a completely different realm. Take the recent rocket launch, for example. I’m guessing that nobody thought some bum who walked in off the street to Kennedy Space Center should be listened to in preference of the actual scientists with degrees and experience at NASA and knowledge of math and orbital mechanics and whatever else you need to get a rocket into orbit. I definitely can’t speak on that and I wouldn’t do it anyway, so it’s frustrating to see it happen with history. Everybody “knows” things about history that inevitably turn out to be wildly wrong, and seem to assume that they can do the same kind of job or state their conclusions with just as much authority. (Nobody seems to listen to the scientists on global warming or coronavirus either, because their information is actively inconvenient for our entrenched way of life and people don’t want to change.) Once again, my point here is not to be a snobbish elitist looking down at The Little People, but to remark that if there’s someone in a field who has, you know, actually studied that subject and is speaking from that place of authority, maybe we can do better than “well, I saw a YouTube video and liked it better, so there.” (Americans hate authority and don’t trust smart people, which  is a related problem and goes back far beyond Trump, but there you are.)

As for art: it’s funny how people devalue it constantly until they need it to survive. Ask anyone how they spent their time in lockdown. Did they listen to music? Did they watch movies or TV? Did they read a book? Did they look at photography or pictures? Did they try to learn a skill, like drawing or writing or painting, and realize it was hard? Did they have a preference for the art that was better, more professionally produced, had more awareness of the rules of its craft, and therefore was more enjoyable to consume? If anyone wants to tell anyone that art is worthless, I invite you to challenge them on the spot to go without all of the above items during the (inevitable, at this rate) second coronavirus lockdown. No music. No films. No books. Not even a video or a meme or anything else that has been made for fun, for creativity, or anything outside the basic demands of Compensated Economic Production. It’s then that you’ll discover that, just as with the underpaid essential workers who suffered the most, we know these jobs need to get done. We just still don’t want to pay anyone fairly for doing them, due to our twisted late-capitalist idea of “value.”

Anyway, since this has gotten long enough and I should probably wrap up: as you say, the difference between “professional” and “hobbyist” has been almost completely erased, so that people think the opinion of one is as good as the other, or in your case, that the hobbyist should present their work for free or refuse to be seen as a professional entitled to fair compensation for their skill. That has larger and more insidious effects in a global marketplace of ideas that has been almost entirely reduced to who can say their opinion the loudest to the largest group of people. I don’t know how to solve this problem, but at least I can try to point it out and to avoid being part of it, and to recognize where I need to speak and where I need to shut up. My job, and that of every single white person in America right now, is to shut up and let black people (and Native people, and Latinx people, and Muslim people, and etc...) tell me what it’s really like to live here with that identity. I have obviously done a ton of research on the subject and consider myself reasonably educated, but here’s the thing: my expertise still doesn’t outweigh theirs, no matter what degrees they have or don’t have. I then am required to boost their ideas, views, experiences, and needs, rather than writing them over or erasing them, and to try to explain to people how the roots of these ideas interlock and interact where I can. That is -- hopefully -- putting my history expertise to use in a good way to support what they’re saying, rather than silence it. I try, at any rate, and I am constantly conscious of learning to do better.

I hope that was helpful for you. Thanks for letting me talk about it.

[milwaukeestories]

Brooklyn sits in a wheelchair, behind a fold-out table, to welcome volunteers to the Bernie Sanders Dubuque field office the weekend before the Iowa Caucuses, the first leg of the Democratic nomination process. Buses and caravans of volunteers are coming in from all over the Midwest — Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and even Ohio — and not one of them gets by without Brooklyn kindly asking “sign in please, don’t forget to sign in.”

Brooklyn came to Dubuque in October after being seriously injured in a home invasion, landing at a Dubuque shelter not far from where we are standing. After a few interactions with Bernie folks, Brooklyn found her way into the campaign office. It was the efforts of staffers to reach out on a human level, Brooklyn said, and the kindness they showed that influenced her decision to stay. Since December she’s been a mainstay at the campaign headquarters.

“I was crying for about thirty minutes this morning,” Brooklyn said Thursday morning, over the phone. “I don’t want all our hard work to be for nothing.”

In a startling move, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez called for a site-by-site recount Thursday afternoon, just as a Bernie Sanders became apparent after an unprecedented three-day delay in reporting caucus results. The announcement, which comes as about three percent of the voting data has yet to be released, casts even more doubt on an already dubious process.

Late Monday night, after nearly two percent of results came in, the Iowa Democratic Party announced that no more results would be reported that night in order to verify results. In the wake of this announcement, with more than 98 percent of the results yet to be tallied, Pete Buttigieg declared victory. Tuesday night, the Iowa Democrats released 64 percent of the vote, which showed Sanders with a slight edge in votes and tied with Buttigieg in pledged delegates. However, pundits focused coverage on Pete’s two percent lead in State Delegate Equivalents (SDEs).

One of the measures used to calculate pledged delegates, SDEs are, in and of themselves, meaningless.

Even as late as Wednesday morning, the New York Times predicted, based on SDEs, that a Pete victory was all but guaranteed. However, as more and more precinct data came in, Sanders’ vote lead widened and folks began to draw attention to reporting inconsistencies in a number of precincts, where Sanders should have received more delegates or Pete should have received less. The errors were corrected, contributing to the Sanders surge.

The New York Times was caught with its pants down on this one.

By Wednesday, the New York Times predictor had gone dead so the company could “evaluate how it is processing the results of satellite caucuses.” These gatherings, hosted in other states, or at different times, were incorporated for the first time this year to include voters that weren’t able to attend a regular caucus because of work shift or location. The Sanders campaign made a distinct effort to turn folks out to these caucuses.

At the time of Perez’s announcement, Bernie is ahead by 2,500 votes, has 547 SDEs to Pete’s 550, and both have 11 pledged delegates, the measure that ultimately determines the nominee. With about two percent yet to be reported, the Sanders has claimed victory. The DNC has not said whether it will release the remaining data before a recount.

Folks on twitter noted that the staggered rollout allowed Buttigieg to grab headlines and dominate coverage, as some pundits criticized Sanders for not performing as well as expected. Many Sanders supporters were already skeptical of the process after emails and other documents verified the DNC had influenced the 2016 primary in favor of Hillary Clinton, who lost to Donald Trump in an election that featured the two most unpopular presidential candidates in U.S. history.

Just recently, there have been reports of party insiders attempting to change convention rules to allow superdelegates — often party elites who can vote for any candidate they like — to vote on the first ballot, shielding the party from the potential controversy of a second vote that overturns the will of the people. As former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in 2016, “Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists.”

Likewise, Sanders is largely ignored by establishment news corporations, despite regularly drawing large crowds and polling well nationally, particularly with youth of color. Regardless, his campaign — which stands on a platform that prioritizes environmental, economic and racial justice — is drawing the attention of folks who feel left out of the process.

The idea that we should be able to access medical care if we are sick, go to school if we’d like and support our families without working ourselves to death, is not controversial among working people. In fact, in my experience, it has been unifying.

Brooklyn, in the campaign office.

Shawn hadn’t planned to caucus but was open and said he would look into Bernie further.

Mary caucused for Bernie!

I was encouraged to speak with folks who’d committed to caucus for Bernie, and to bring others along. In a few cases, I was blessed to share this message of solidarity with folks who had not yet heard. I listened to people as they shared, and they listened to me. For a moment, we were present with each other.

“This is a people’s campaign, not a for-profit endeavor; this is not politics-as-usual ― this is a movement. And, as long as we remember, we will never be defeated.”

Many of us distrust the political system, and politicians, in general. And, as the Iowa Caucuses have revealed, this distrust is well-deserved. But I trust you. And, I trust Bernie Sanders.

So, let us not lose sight of ourselves. Let us not forget ― this is about relationships. This is a people’s campaign, not a for-profit endeavor; this is not politics-as-usual ― this is a movement. And, as long as we remember this, we will never be defeated. 

We shall overcome.

“When I came here, I was broken,” said Brooklyn. “You all helped put me back together.”

  “Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

This is a people’s campaign, not a for-profit endeavor; this is not politics-as-usual ― this is a movement. And, as long as we remember this, we will never be defeated. #NotMeUs #WeWillWin Brooklyn sits in a wheelchair, behind a fold-out table, to welcome volunteers to the Bernie Sanders Dubuque field office the weekend before the Iowa Caucuses, the first leg of the Democratic nomination process.