#and game progress for doomsday itself!

[moog-enthusiast]

HEY! do YOU want to see more moog art? are you curious about the sketches and doodles behind the scenes? are there things you want me to draw i haven’t? then have i got a deal for you!!

for $5 a month, you can join the member tier of my kofi, where you can do all of these things!

if you want to support but can’t commit to a monthly payment, no worries! i also have a red bubble page you can look through as well!!! one time purchase, one and done!!

i have wound up with a lot of sketching and doodling that remains unseen by most, including things regarding doomsday, ocs, and varying fanart! if there’s anything else you guys would like to see, such as timelapses or character playlists etc., let me know! i’m pretty open to whatever, and am happy to share my work however!

[dandelionjack]

the one thing, minor gripe, that sort of pisses me off is that there's a new threat of the world ending every fucking episode. not even the umbrella academy has a potential apocalypse pending more frequently than once per season. i understand that nothing could be more high-stakes than the fate of humanity itself but could we lower them a little? i get it's part of the genre and the campiness of it all but still

[nerdbaron]

I have been feeling awful for the past few days, so I thought I would give a huge update for anyone whom it may concern

(CW: Vent Posting)

If you have been following this blog for a long while, especially since the late 2010s, you may have heard me mention some big video game project I was working on. The game itself went through several different changes throughout the years, to the point where it could be considered several different games, with several different names. However, I kept them all grouped as one project in my head, known as Project Marian, named after a personal favorite song of mine. The goal was to achieve a dream I had since playing Undertale in 2015: to make something emotionally impactful like that game. The latest form of the project was a game called Galactic Prix, a story-driven racing game.

However, Galactic Prix, like all the games before it I've tried to make for this project, ran into major issues. There were issues with the story that I could not figure out how to resolve. Things I wanted to touch on but had no idea how. I would have to imagine that my attempts to make a captivating story would have had better results if I had actual experience as a writer.

The entire project itself has caused damage to my psyche as well. I suffer from generalized anxiety disorder, which makes me constantly horribly nervous about pretty much everything. This disorder and this giant project I held close to my heart combined to make me horribly afraid of the passage of time; I became worried that if too much time were to pass I would end up in a world where this project couldn't be done. As you may guess, this anxiety grew exponentially in election years, a time when every which way I would hear talks that "our future is at stake." The project left other effects on my mind as well. When I see or think about Undertale, the game that started this whole project, I slightly panic. The release of Deltarune Chapter 2, as good as it was, devastated me, and part of me has been seeing the release of Chapter 3 as a sort of Doomsday, mentally. I have grown antisocial, only really holding a conversation once every few days, but that may be more due to autism and external circumstances making it difficult for me to leave the house.

However, I kept going with the project, because I always thought that if I got something off the ground, some tangible form of gameplay to say "I am actually doing this," all the problems would go away. But that never happened. I would put together a few prototype elements, and then my entire brain would turn off. I tried everything to get around this wall. I switched between game engines constantly, to the point where I probably spent way more time comparing game engines than actually programming. I eventually stopped using game engines altogether in the hopes that they were the problem. I tried FNA and Raylib, and had a bit of fun playing around with them, but I still couldn't make any progress. And so I kept trying, and my mental state kept getting worse.

Therefore, late last month, I made the heavy decision to cancel Galactic Prix, as well as the entire project. It had caused me a lot of pain, and despite dreams of it becoming the next big thing, I knew it wasn't worth it. At the time, I didn't feel too bad about abandoning the project. I felt slightly freed, considering all the damage it had done.

However, earlier this week I suddenly grew extremely emotional. I blamed it on a small glass of champagne I had a few hours before, but the crying continued into the night. I couldn't figure out why i had become so sad. I then blamed it on the thing I was watching at the time, an online roleplaying production, since I was feeling emotionally moved by it, maybe inspired by it, but I could never dream of having the friends to do such a thing myself. But the sadness had settled around having horrendously low self esteem. It was earlier today that it hit me why: my dreams were all put in Project Marian. Now that project is cancelled. As of right now, my dream has been crushed. And I was getting emotionally gripped by an online production, which had in a few short months achieved what I spent seven years failing to do.

What do I do now? Part of me wants to make a huge article chronicling the history of the project, in order to truly document what it meant to me, and ultimately what went wrong. Maybe it would reveal that going through the project was a valuable experience, and therefore I would still have value even without it.

However, even more important is that I break out of this antisocial shell I am in. I want friends to hang out with constantly. I'm not that into roleplaying but I want to be with people who care about me enough to do so if we all wanted to. I want people who could help me work on whatever comes next, since one thing I learned from Project Marian is that these kind of things can't be done alone. And most importantly, now that the thing I put all my self worth into is gone, I dream of having people encourage me and keep me up until I can learn to find self worth in myself, project or no project.

[enniewritesathing]

What inspires your character story and design? Is there influence besides just liking how they look? Are you striving to tell a complete story or just tales (short story blurbs about their lives)? I struggle with wanting to add more when I haven't finished the stuff I have.

Also! Do you think you've advanced in your writing from say 5 years ago to now? Do you think you've improved?

I always wonder if I'm improving. I certainly wouldn't be writing what I do if not for positive (and not so positive) feedback from simblr and having a writing friend who shares my passion and vision for story writing.

Sorry if that's too many questions. Just curious to hear how others process. Thanks!

Oh, don't worry, you're not asking too much at all! :D

I'm gonna put it under the cut bc it's gonna be long, lol

So!

I don't think I was particularly inspired by anything other than the fact that John and Brian were from a previous, abandoned story. It was based on the game Organ Trail (think Oregon Trail but with zombies and other stuff, lol). They are very different from what they used to be; they weren't together for one thing (they were both straight!) and they were edgy. Brian especially, he was more of a doomsday prepper. John having long hair is a hold over from the story; he grew it out to cover his eye (severely damaged from a grenade blast), y'know that sort of thing. I dropped the story after a while because I lost interest in it. That and everyone involved died...

There's not really a big influence on how they look either. I kinda come up with what's good but also what's unique. I guess I'm not one of the ones who struggle making male sims. For a future story, I had to make some (like 7??) and I went to town on the random button until I found what I liked and shaped them from there.

As for stories? Over the years, I've went from being very long form to shorter stories. I guess tales is a better description. They do have some continuity like with John and The Werewolf, the dealings with Brian's aunt, John and Brian getting engaged. I know Bare Knuckle, a story where John fights a literal demon, sticks out like a sore thumb because of how bonkers it is, but I made the story because I thought it would be cool; it also pushed my pose making skills at the time. (It's clear that I made that for myself really... ^^;)

I'd get an idea and go "can I put either of these two in this situation? and how would they go about getting out of it? or make it worse? better?" etc. Would this be "canonical" or would it be an AU? It's fun for me to think like that. A lot of the time, I make it bc I wanna see it for myself, what kind of a take I have on certain tropes and plots and maybe someone else would too?

I feel like I've improved in the past 5 years. It's pretty evident in my earlier stories it was strictly dialogue and nothing else and thus, empty. It used to be so stiff, it's kind of embarrassing, but there's a reason why I left it as is and never went back to redo them. (That's key, I think). That and I can the progress of how I use to take screens versus now, how everything's laid out, the expressions, etc.

I've had my ups and downs writing -- I feel I'm kind of a tough sell with most of my stories for simblr. They're not serial (I do not have the attention span or energy to do this), not a really big cast... I could go on, but it'll come off as complaints and maybe whinging on my part more than anything else.

That and the content itself; John and The Werewolf in particular because those stories deals with things I don't really see too often. and y'know, the blood, torture, violence. it's just so messy. In fact, I don't really get too much of any feedback of any kind so I'm kind of out here doing my thing. I don't know who's actually reading what I put out or if it's even thought of at all. I just hope that they're a little entertained by it. (tho it wouldn't hurt for a recommend)

but I'm also extremely stubborn! I'll complain, but I'm gonna keep doing it. I have ideas and they're gonna exist and I love to see how things play out. Sometimes the boys surprise me and I surprise myself. :)

[musculargarbageman]

Im fallout fan and i need you to know America literally did bomb itself using a cold war with a communist country as an excuse, for the express purpose of flattening the country to make a fascist paradise that never came to be. thats kind of the point of the pre-bethesda games.

damn. typical huh. very American.

iirc in the Fallout games, it's implied to be China that decimated the US, but yknow what, my theory from now on is that the US just bombed themselves.

like lol, how impossible is that in a country where half the government thinks "being even slightly progressive" is an "incurable woke mind virus" and christian doomsday cults don't care about pollution or human rights violations or anything because "the rapture will happen soon, so who cares, life will be better in heaven" ...?

[desidov]

Des Reviews: The Lamplighters League AKA anticolonial Indiana Jones, or we have Fire Emblem at home, or a game fully carried by its artists and writers

There is a lot to love about The Lamplighters League. The setting is brilliant: set in the 1930s and inspired by adventure stories of the time, with magic, ghosts, and steampunk-esque technology. It's one of few games I've experienced where it truly feels worldwide, with each character shaped by a unique background and culture. Though a few of the playable characters didn't appeal to me, most did, which is pretty impressive for the size of the cast. Conversations at the hideout between your crew, your employer Locke, and other NPCs were the highlight of the game for me, and I'd trudge through missions just to unlock more.

Which brings me to my least favorite part of TLL: the actual gameplay. The real-time stealth segments are clunky and monotonous, with all of your varied characters having one of only three different abilities to use out of combat. Whether you get caught felt like luck of the draw, with some enemies oblivious to gunfights about 30 feet away, and some enemies alerting 20 more across the map because you stepped in a puddle. With that unpredictability, what should've felt like a satisfying puzzle was often an annoying tedium. Worse, getting spotted would trigger turn-based combat mode which would often be inescapable, even when the enemies fully lost sight of you and went back to their usual patrols.

The turn-based combat is generally better, but still mediocre. You have far more unique abilities to play around with, but good luck using them when you have to burn one of (usually) two action points moving a couple feet over, reloading, standing up, or using any item—especially when certain debuffs or getting knocked out will halve your action points. Combat has the potential to feel exhilarating and triumphant, but too often it's just a drag, made worse by the very small number of maps and often generic goals.

Back at the hideout, you have to choose missions to gain allies, story progress, or resources while juggling three Doomsday Clocks representing when each antagonist can take over the world. It's a fun idea to add stakes to every choice, though in practice, it can encourage you to do bland radiant missions to balance threat levels rather than prioritizing interesting and unique missions. The Breakpoints, where each clock passes a certain threshold unlocking new enemies and enemy abilities, are a great addition though. Otherwise, the progression felt fine, with different resources gained from each mission going into items and ability upgrades. The Undrawn Hand is a very neat way of building up characters over time and I love the variety of abilities you can add and upgrade, as well as the creative debuffs you incur when your characters suffer too much Stress. I do wish you could save certain cards for characters not on a particular mission, though.

The overall story is intriguing and held my interest. Locke is a fascinating central character, unraveling the past of the Lamplighters League is exciting, and each antagonist feels very different while all being fun to hate. The ending was a tad abrupt, and I would've loved to see a bow tied on some unanswered questions and a New Game +, but I respect when a game actually follows through on consequences of a big choice. (Wouldn't have argued with an epilogue like Fire Emblem: Awakening to lighten the mood slightly, though.) The optional lore around the ending was confusing, but the climax itself wasn't held back by it. I feel a bit cheated that it doesn't seem to matter if you kept your Clocks low or if you were barely scrapping by, but I'll forgive it for a high stakes finale.

Overall... 5/7 goldfish angels

[paulagnewart]

Sonic the Oz-Hog Act 6/12: Four Score and Three Games Ago!

Sonic Super Special Magazine issue 3 AU Publication Date: 4th June 2012 Price: $16.95

As our ancient Mayan forebearers gazed upon unspoiled lands from atop majestic pyramids, one can only imagine how they'd react to modern interpretations of their culture. How despite the transformations and advancements of western civilization, glyphs methodically chiseled to immense stone slabs continued to fascinate. How translations suggested the conclusion of their 13th b'ak'tun (or whichever term they preferred at the time) would unleash a time of speculation, panic and turmoil on a society often proclaiming itself as peak humanity.

Chances are they'd pause, stare at one-another, and share a good chuckle.

Such was the feeling of living through 2012. While the months slowly clicked down, prophecy morphed into profit seeking. Books, documentaries and movies sought to captivate audiences with doomsday diatribes. Local frugal publications printed tales of an impending destructive December. Murdoch's finest conservative newspaper covers heralded hastily photoshopped images of a drained Darling Harbour. Yet above all this doom and gloom, the impending extinction of all life on Earth meant something far more sinister; a grand total of zero new Sonic the Hedgehog media beyond that terrifying date.

Obviously the resultant cosmic shift would impact all of SEGA's output, but that didn't stop fans logging on to voice their outrage. "It's bad enough having to contemplate the crushing futility of a mortal universe…" wrote Shawn Nickeltenn, a youth volunteer at Marble Gardens Retirement Village who often posted under the alias of 'MightyPrower93' on the now-defunct Radio Free Robotropolis message board. "…But now there's not even the comfort of knowing that Sonic will continue with new games and comics under a new creative team in an entirely new universe for fans to complain about!"

Humour aside, the fandom didn't need rely on ancient Mayan calendars to spruike dark times for the blue boy, when financial and critical woes already plagued the House of Hedgehog. Sonic Generations started strong, as SEGA proudly boasted their 2011 offering broke all previous pre-order records in Sonic history. Critics loved it. Audiences loved it. Until sales tanked within a month against a flurry of other high profile games.

2012 marched on. Fans across the world were poised, primed, ready to celebrate their favourite masot's impending 21st birthday. Good timing too, for the rodent would undoubtedly need a stiff drink after future IGN subsidiary GameTrailers declared in early March that Sonic won the "well-deserved perch" in their Worst Blockbusters list. The beastial undertones of Sonic '06 proved horrifying enough, while Unleashed, Adventure 2 and the Olympic tie-ins "Do not deserve the cash they generated".

Between intense layoffs in their US and European divisions, and reports of SEGA suffering a predicted loss of upward 85 million dollars, rumours soon abounded of a potential series reboot coming 2014. Some hoped Nintendo or Archie would buy out SEGA, or try a new game in the style of then-hot Skylanders. Other commentators, optimistic as ever, declared "I don't see SEGA being around ten years from now. So the reboot idea seems pointless to me". It wasn't all bad however. US viewers got to see Sonic back on TV in January 2012 spruiking $380 automotive insurance. Probably the only "Progressive" media that hardcore conservative Sonic fans might enjoy.

Australian media meanwhile was enjoying Julia Gillard (and how refreshing it is to discuss a different Prime Minister for once), sadly for all the wrong reasons. By this point she was two years into top job, having successfully retained national leadership after a second spill motion from vindictive predecessor Kevin Rudd. This would not be the last time they went to loggerheads as she continued battling the vengeful former leader, entitled internal party members, and low polling brought on by a complicit conservative mainstream media. Elsewhere in June 2012, cunning linguist Flo Rida managed to whistle his way to number one on the local music charts, blowing away Carly Rae Jepsen. Men in Black 3's time travel antics weren't enough to stop Ridley Scott's Promethius bursting the box office. And in less than two months, Channel 9 would captivate audiences with their coverage of the London 2012 Olympics. Ultimately the home team reaped in a paltry 35 medals, with the swimmers having to pick up the slack by scoring ten.

A disappointing result. As would be fan reaction to Archie's third installment of their Sonic Super Special Magazine series.

Making its way to local newsagents over a week before Sonic the Hedgehog issue 235 and less than a week after Sonic Universe issue 39, the existence of this premium packaged product was already contentious among fans, with its often hedgehog hodgepodge of reprinted stories. Reviews this time around saw little improvement.

What should've been a turning point for the book with its "Exclusive story inside!" was anything but. "Oh boy, I can say I was disappointed with SSSM. The Sonic 4 plot? Tiny. To put it in a nutshell "Sonic, beats Death Egg robo, talks to Tails on Little Planet, fly off, hey look its metal." That's it. Bit of a shame really." or "Someone please tell me that the Sonic 4 ep 2 story will be more than five pages? That's all we usually get for game adaptations lately, and it's usually ridiculous.". Reader reactions ranged from "Oh geez, that sucks. You'd think for a 130-page magazine we'd get something a bit more substantial." and "Pretty much is a cas(sic) grab putting something slightly new in there to get people to buy it.", to "Yardley accidently drew Green Hill instead of Splash Hill..".

Setting aside the game adaptation, the special's remaining stories raised further eyebrows. Issue 176's 'Cracking the Empire' made the cut because... reasons, while Michael Gallagher and Patrick Spaziante's acclaimed 'Go Ahead, Mecha My Day!' ensured Archie literally gave complaining fans the finger. As opposed to 2008's Sonic Archive Volume 7, this version of issue 25's blockbuster story saw a further edit on the penultimate page, whiting out a finger used to represent the reader pressing a button. Resources such as the Archie Sonic Wiki may suggest the reason for such a change is unknown, but it's clear they did it to disguise the Caucasian pantone, making the insert feel more inclusive. Archie Sonic pulled quite a global readership for its time, thus fans could imagine themselves regardless of race in Sonic's shoe-erm, gloves, pressing the button to bring our loathed Big Round Guy crashing down.

For Aussie readers, and fans of Sally Acorn in bondage (a sentence this author never thought they'd unironically type), the inclusion of 'Reigning Cats and Dogs' was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. The two-part reprint specifically chosen to hype upcoming stories featuring Lupe and her Wolfpack proved a happy coincidence, as the latter installment completed a nearly 2-year long 'lost' Sonic story. More on that contentious matter in a later post.

As history has come to show, the world did not end right before Christmas 2012, and Sonic's adventures both in and out of comics would continue for many years to come. Much to the conviviality (or was that consternation?) of fans everywhere.

[overthinkingfandom]

In Staging Dramatics - Inconsistencies in the Disc Finale

(This has been written before the confirmation of staged finale from the recent lore. While everything here still holds up, the phrasing will reflect that for the most part.)

Check out the summarized version of this post!

/rp /dsmp

The disc finale is… weird.

It’s one of the biggest events which happened on the server, bookending the plotline which started it all. It’s also seemingly one of the most poorly written. Rushed, cliche and contrived are all words which could rightfully be used to describe the finale. Inconsistent and illogical are a couple more.

From small details which don’t add up to big plot points that fall apart under scrutiny, the finale is full of holes for those watching it with a critical eye. However, it does so with a strange selectiveness. Tommy and Tubbo are spared from such inconsistencies. Both of their characterization and skill remain consistent with their earlier portrayal.

Dream, on the other hand, is not.

To make things even stranger, the inconsistencies Dream displayed aren’t ones easily explained by some sort of character progression. They’re inconsistencies of skill, of method, of pure mundane preferences. Stuff that had no reason to change at all. Stuff that doesn’t change usually.

An expert chess player could have an off day. They could miss details, not think their plans through as much as they usually do and be otherwise distracted in various ways. But even at their worst, they still wouldn’t make the same mistakes new players would. Their knowledge and understanding of the game would prevent them from doing so. Their games would become sloppier, but their moves would still be intelligent ones. You would never catch them pulling a Fool’s Mate, no matter how sloppy they’re playing.

Dream is a strategist, and an expert one at that. Any of his plans during the previous wars could serve as testament to that fact. As such, if his plans were to suffer for whatever reason - he got caught up in his arrogance, his mental health was suffering, he got distracted by a pretty butterfly - it should come in the form of sloppiness or mistakes in the execution.

Yet, this is not what we see in the disc finale.

Instead, what we get is an inconsistent mess which contradicts both itself and Dream’s character in multiple ways.

Let us count (some of) the ways, shall we?

On January 16th, four days before the disc confrontation, Tommy logged on to the server to discover his house griefed and completely replaced with burning netherrack. Inside was a sign which read “Come see me Wednesday. You and Tubbo ALONE. If anyone else shows up the discs are gone forever.” (2:44) and a compass pointing towards Tommy’s discs.

Earlier in the day, Dream gives Foolish a tour of the SMP, where we can (indirectly) see that Tommy’s house was already griefed. As far as we, the audience, know, this is Dream’s first action ever since Doomsday on January 6th.

This tells us a couple of things:

Dream initiated the disc confrontation entirely of his own volition. He wasn’t reacting to anything. There were no external factors that we know about which caused him to do it. This was entirely because Dream wanted to do it and that means, he could’ve just as easily decided not to.

Dream had days, if not weeks, to plan the disc confrontation. We can be sure he had things planned out at least four days before it (the date he sent the “invitation”) but we can be reasonably sure he planned things even earlier. Long enough to decide he wanted Tubbo to be there as well, decide the place and create a lodestone and a compass pointing to it.

Those two things may seem obvious but they’re very important to establishing a framework of reference for Dream’s actions. If he’s just reacting to unexpected circumstances, there’s no use looking at his previous plans. Since that’s not the case, we can look at Dream’s previous planning and strategic habits to establish a baseline of how Dream would behave in these scenarios.

Why are we here? Just to suffer

Something which is consistent in all of Dream’s plans is that they are specific, achievable, and decisive. The disc finale should be no different. As such, we know Dream should have a specific reason for making the disc finale happen. Something achievable and decisive, which will either give him a distinct advantage or achieve a goal which can’t be undone easily.

This is something Tommy and Tubbo realized as well. They question Dream about the reason they’ve been forced to come, but Dream’s responding answers are not as straightforward as they first seem. (29:24)

Tommy: “Why did you need us here Dream?” Dream: “I have what you want and you’ve come to take it, right?”

Tommy asks why Dream needed them to come while Dream answers with Tommy and Tubbo’s reason for coming. A deflection. Dream gives an answer which on the surface seems related but doesn’t actually answer the question.

Tubbo: “Why would you even let us know you’re here?” Dream: “It’s better than being in an area where everyone else is. You know, it’s private, it’s secluded. We have time to ourselves.”

Again, Dream deflects. Tubbo asks for the reason why Dream let them know where he is (when before, they had no clue and so couldn’t do anything to him). Dream answers why he chose the mountain as their meeting location.

Tommy: “You left me a note saying that you’d be here and that only us two could come. Why?” Dream: “It’s been you and Tubbo since the beginning, right? You and Tubbo versus me for the disc.” Tommy: “Yeah” Dream: “That’s why you’re here”

“Dream, you know no matter what, it’s [me and Tubbo] versus you here. And you know we got to get those discs back.” (1:28:55) Tommy told him once. Now, Dream is echoing it in an attempt to deflect questioning. This is the third time he tries to provide Tommy and Tubbo’s reasoning when asked about his own, and it’s a major red flag. Once is a chance, twice is a coincidence, and thrice is a pattern.

A basic principle of persuasion is that no matter how good you think your reasons for getting something done are, they’ll never be as convincing as the reasons a person comes up with themselves. Similarly, there’s no lie more convincing than one based on the person’s own assumptions.

Any skillful persuasive individual knows that the key to success is to use the person’s own worldview in order to have a greater impact, and Dream has certainly showed his skill in such matters. That he is trying to use this technique here is incredibly suspicious. He seems to be trying to get the pair to stop questioning his motive, and doing so in a way where they would not notice Dream never gave them an actual reason.

Tubbo: “Why do you want us?” Tommy: “Why did you call us here? You said come here. Meet me. The discs would be here. That’s what you said Dream. Why?” Dream: “I did say that. Because, I wanted you to come here.” *Dream starts to tower* Tommy: “What are you doing? You got something to say or what?!” Dream: *Pulls out a jukebox in his tower to play Mellohi* “Let’s just listen to some tunes while we talk.” Tommy: “What is it you’ve got to say Dream?” *Tommy starts preparing to attack* Dream: “The music can speak for me.”

Unfortunately for Dream, both Tommy and Tubbo are perceptive and notice that they didn’t get the answer they want yet, so they keep questioning him in the same manner.

Fortunately for Dream, he knows their priorities and knows how to distract them. When Dream saw his attempts weren’t working, he switched tactics. First dodging the question again by saying “I wanted you to come here because I wanted you to come here” before baiting them with the discs in order to get them to shift their attention and forget about their line of questioning.

So what exactly was Dream’s reason for initiating the disc finale that he was so hung up on not only concealing it, but doing so in a way that neither Tommy nor Tubbo would realize he never told them the reason?

Well, if we go by his stated reasoning later in the disc finale, his goal seems to be to kill Tubbo and lock up Tommy. It certainly makes sense he wouldn’t want to tell them this before he got rid of all their items and had them at his mercy.

What makes less sense is that Dream would want them to not notice he never gave them a reason, especially considering he outright tells them his intentions later on.

This is made even weirder when we look at Dream’s previous behavior. Historically, when he wanted to hide information that he knows, he doesn’t do so via deflections. He just outright lies. We’ve seen him do so when he wanted to hide the identity of the traitor from Pogtopia, for example.

Dream: “I’ll say, the traitor in your ranks will be even more surprising than Eret and you won’t see it coming and it may ruin your whole plan so just, be wary.” (45:27)

The traitor Dream was talking about was Wilbur of course, who was the most obvious choice other than Techno at the time. Dream’s half truth worked beautifully to remove suspicion from Wilbur, both with the characters and the fandom.

However, we did actually see Dream using the same kind of deflections we see here in the past. Back during the Pogtopia arc, Dream presented himself as an ally for Pogtopia against Schlatt. We know for a fact this was a persona used as part of his plan as later on he tells Eret this:

Dream: “My plan is, that there is no Manberg, there’s no L’Manberg, there’s no Pogtopia, there’s just Dream SMP and there’s Dream SMP everywhere. And that’s been my plan since the very beginning. I’ve never wavered on that.” (41:46)

As far as Dream was concerned, Eret was a neutral party and saying such a thing to him wouldn’t have given him any advantage. Tommy, on the other hand, was an enemy and convincing him Dream was a friend was a huge advantage. As such, we can be reasonably sure what Dream told Eret is the truth and what he told Tommy was the lie.

Not that Tommy was quick to believe him, and he wasn’t shy about questioning Dream’s motives either. (59:56)

Tommy: “Why do you want L’manburg, Dream? You’re the reason we had to make L’manburg.” Dream: “Schlatt is ambitious and that’s a bad thing. He wants power, he wants land, he wants to expand. You guys, having your own little server where you just- You frolicked around in the flowers, that’s fine by me. I don’t care. But Schlatt-”

And here we see Dream pulling the deflections. Tommy asks why Dream wants L’manburg to exist again when he opposed its creation in the first place. Dream answers with why he’s against Schlatt, mentioning he doesn’t mind L’manburg.

Tommy: *Interrupting* “Well, it wasn’t fine by you when we had our war Dream, so this is an awkward change of tone.” Dream: “Well, I had a change of heart.”

Tommy pushes for more details, calling Dream out on the seeming contradiction between his current words and previous actions. Dream answers with a very informative, “I changed my mind because I changed my mind”.

Dream is bad at improvising lies on the spot, so whenever he’s questioned about said lies and doesn’t have a story ready, he falters and resorts to various types of deflections instead of coming up with a new lie.

If Dream’s stated reasoning of “locking up Tommy and killing Tubbo” were real, what should’ve happened - based on his past behavior - was that he gave some false excuse. Instead we see him acting the way he does whenever his persona is questioned and he doesn’t have an answer ready. This is incredibly suspicious, made even more so when you compare his later openness about his motives and plans to his caginess here about his reasons for bringing Tommy and Tubbo to him.

Not that his plans make a whole lot of sense either.

What is the plan again?

We can learn a lot about Dream’s strategic planning habits from analyzing his previous wars. He has a tendency to overestimate his opponents and over-plans accordingly. He prefers to rely on his strategic ability rather than his pvp skills to secure victory. His weapon of choice is information warfare. His goals all share the same three essential traits: they’re specific, achievable and decisive.

During the disc confrontation we get to witness two of Dream’s plans, the one he tells Tommy and Tubbo in the attachment vault and the one he acts out in the disc confrontation.

Neither of these plans shows any of his planning habits.

If the differences came down to him simply trying out new tactics, that would be another matter. But they aren’t. The difference between Dream’s regular plans and his plans during the disc confrontation is that in his regular plans he doesn’t make amateur mistakes.

Let’s break it down.

Dream’s stated goal for the disc finale is to lock up Tommy and kill Tubbo. The way he goes about it is inconvenient for him on multiple levels.

1. If the goal is to lock up Tommy, then why is the fight not near the prison where transportation would be easy?

The place Dream picked is in the opposite direction to the prison, requiring that Dream would lead Tommy a long distance, seemingly on foot, through the very populated parts of the server. Whether in the overworld or the nether, Tommy would have multiple chances and opportunities to escape, find someone or get some gear. Maybe even he could get lucky and knock Dream into some lava. Why go through such an insecure route when fixing it would only require moving the fight somewhere closer to the prison? Or at the very least on the same side as it.

2. Why kill Tubbo?

Dream’s stated motivation for this is that he has “used [Tubbo] as much as I can” (53:05) yet that’s evidently not true. Dream still needs to get Tommy into the cell. He has to get Tommy to set his spawn in the prison. Both things that would be way easier and more reliable to accomplish by using the strongest piece of leverage he has, Tubbo’s life. And Dream is experienced enough in blackmail situations to know that destroying your leverage before you get what you wanted is a bad idea (53:36).

3. Why even lock up Tommy?

Dream’s stated motivation is that “[He] needs [Tommy] to continue bringing attachments to the server” (50:19). For this reason, he can’t kill him. Yet, how would locking Tommy up be any better when Dream’s own assessment of being locked up in Pandora’s vault is that may as well be “Three canon deaths and your ghost being dead.” (1:35:14)?

Does Dream want Tommy to bring his influence on the server or not? Because while he says he does, his actions indicate that he doesn’t.

A more logical version of this plan would be to lock up Tubbo as a permanent hostage in order to have Tommy running around bringing attachment to the server while under Dream’s control. Something like a more extreme version of the discs.

It would also not have anything to do with the attachment vault because showing it or even being anywhere near it is utterly irrelevant to the plan. It contributes nothing towards his goal of locking Tommy up and killing Tubbo. If anything, it makes the plan more risky because he’s stalling when he doesn’t need to.

Not that the attachment vault makes much sense either.

1. Not everyone is as attached to their stuff as Tommy is.

People can easily get out of his blackmail by simply giving up on whatever attachment they had simply because they value not being controlled by Dream more than that attachment. Something Dream should be very familiar with considering this is the exact thing he did with Spirit in order to neutralize Tommy’s blackmail.

2. Stealing from everyone makes everyone an enemy.

“If [everyone] got together and were organized,” Dream tells Punz, “I think we would definitely lose.” (0:45) Yet here he’s giving them all a reason to band together against him where before many were neutral about him and had no reason to go against him. This puts him in more danger despite the amount of leverage he would gain. When everyone is gunning for you, a single mistake can bring you down.

3. Dream is an accomplished manipulator. He doesn’t need people’s attachment in order to get what he wants from them.

Pogtopia, exile, getting the disc from Tubbo. All examples of Dream successfully pushing people to do what he wants without using attachments. While blackmail is an effective tool, it’s only one of many ways to get someone to do what you want, and a rather limited tool at that. One only needs to look at the entire disc war arc to see both the power and limits of blackmail as a manipulation tool.

All of which doesn’t even touch the existence of the attachment vault in and of itself. In order to enact this massive blackmail scheme, he would need to have a secure place to keep all of his leverage. The vault seems to fulfill this function, however there’s no security in it at all. With things kept out in the open and in item frames, anyone who wants to can just waltz in and easily take stuff.

And that’s not the only thing weird about it.

Dude, you can build?

While jokes about Dream’s homelessness are very common, the truth is that he had a base. Two of them in fact.

His room below the community house:

And his base at the side of the hill near the Prime Path:

There’s a bit of a common theme to them both. They’re small, simple and with a few useful things like a bed or an anvil or chests. Practically utilitarian, with only some minimal decorations. This is very in line with Dream’s practical nature. He was never one for dramatics when left to his own devices.

When he had an audience on the other hand? Well, that was a different story.

The entire vault here screams of dramatics, from the elaborate redstone elevator to the pictures of the discs on a wall of gold blocks to having a specific display spot for each item.

This isn’t the kind of place Dream would build for his own use. In fact, it’s unlikely he would build any place at all when hiding everything in his enderchest, in the prison or in an unmarked location underground would prove much more secure. This is the kind of place Dream would build in order to show off to an audience.

That makes sense though. Dream had time to plan how the disc confrontation would go. He knew that after he beat Tommy and Tubbo and took away their items he would take them to the vault to show it off. And if he was going to show it off, then make it as dramatic as possible, right?

This entire place is a prop Dream built for his little monologuing session, not meant to have actual practical use. And we can see it through more than his architectural choices.

Skeppy cage

Many jokes have been made about the Skeppy cage and not for nothing.

The entire thing is style over substance. The look of a cage rather than the functionality of one.

It’s incredibly difficult to keep anyone locked against their will anywhere in vanilla minecraft. A fact that the massivity of the prison and the time it took to plan and construct it would attest to. A one by two hole, with only some blackstone and iron bars blocking the way out, can’t hold anyone for long.

This is made even more egregious when you consider the fact Dream has a functional prison he can use and a big number of open cells for any number of people he wants to imprison.

Even if the blackmail plan is real, the attachment vault is clearly not an accurate representation of how it would go down. At best, it’s a visual metaphor for Dream intentions. At worst, it’s just something Dream built to make his monologuing more impactful.

Someone really likes monologuing, huh?

And whoo boy, does the disc finale involve a lot of monologuing on Dream’s part. In fact, monologuing seems to be the entire point of bringing Tommy and Tubbo down into the attachment vault because, as said before, bringing them there didn’t serve any purpose.

This is incredibly out of character for Dream.

Almost all of Dream’s victories can be attributed to successful information warfare on his part. To give a few obvious examples, the independence war where the L’manburgians got blindsided by the traitor in their midst. Manburg vs Pogtopia where his enemies didn’t even know to watch out for Wilbur pressing the button after they liberated L'manburg. Doomsday where everyone got too occupiedby Techno to notice or do anything about Dream up on the obsidian grid..

Many of Dream’s tactics act in service of this kind of information warfare. He regularly employs various kinds of distractions, red herrings, half lies and manipulations all in the service of this. Specifically in the service of hiding his goal and win conditions.

Yet, what we see in the disc confrontation is Dream laying everything out, from his goal to how he wants to go about achieving it to why he’s even doing it. He’s willingly giving up on the advantage he always relies on to win.

The closest he ever got to revealing his plans before they were completed was on November 16th, when he told Tommy that Wilbur was the traitor after all. This was done exactly 48 seconds before Wilbur pressed the button while everyone was being distracted by Technoblade’s attack.

Afterwards, when the fighting calmed down and everything was resolved, Dream was willing to explain further when people were confused on who the traitor actually was.

Dream: “The agreement me and WIlbur had was that no matter what, literally no matter what happens, he would detonate the TNT. That was the agreement. (...)And that’s why I was fine with surrendering, I was fine with doing anything.” (1:23:35)

Compare and contrast this moment with Dream’s monologuing in the disc confrontation.

One is after the plan was completed (making the information useless to his enemies). it was prompted by other people and Dream only says stuff about his actions and reasoning directly tied to them.

The other happened when the plan is very much incomplete, happened entirely of Dream’s own initiative and has Dream explaining everything even slightly relevant to the plan.

The only way they could be more different is if Dream didn’t explain his reasoning to his enemies at all. The way he didn’t during the independence war. Or Pogtopia. Or exile. Or Doomsday.

Dream withholding information is a bit of a running theme in his character.

One we even see in the disc confrontation itself.

Tubbo: “Who was [the prison] meant for originally?” Dream: “Ehh, you don’t need to know.” (52:17)

Up until that moment Dream eagerly answered all their questions (excluding those he deflected), yet for some reason this question is too much when moments later he goes back to monologuing? About what seems like a useless bit of information, no less. So what if the prison was meant for Techno or Philza or whoever else it could be. It’s not anymore. Tommy is going into it and that’s that.

Did you even try?

One of the common arguments when pointing out Dream’s uncharacteristic carelessness with the disc finale is that “he’s overconfident because he thinks he already won”. Except when you look at the actual state of progress on his plan this argument doesn’t seem to hold all that much water.

The vault itself is more than half empty. Out of 13 named displays, Dream only has 4. The Axe of Peace, which he got from Tommy during the disc finale itself. Beckerson, which Dream got during the first pet war. Henry, who died at Sapnap’s hands which triggered the war of the burning eiffel tower. And finally, Friend, who died during doomsday.

Two items he already had and two pets no one can confirm or deny whether he actually had them.

With knowledge of the revive book, it’s easy to think he went to all the trouble of reviving Henry and Friend for his scheme. However, did he really do it or did he just go out and get a random cow and a sheep he dyed blue? Can the other characters tell? Can the viewers?

Furthermore, there are a lot of attachments missing. Where are the display cases for Niki, Fundy, Quackity, Eret, Ponk and many others? All people who took action to stop Dream when given a chance. Was Dream planning on blackmailing half the server and not doing anything about the other half? Did he even know them well enough to know what attachments could be used against them?

It’s all just… lazy.

Dream didn’t already win, he barely even began! What we see is more a prototype of a plan than anything, made with stuff Dream already had or could easily get and then sprinkled with some dramatics on top and given a prop as demonstration in order to make it feel real.

And even as a prop, it had logical inconsistencies in it.

Aren’t you and Punz friends?

On December 17th, Punz and Dream talked about how they could stage a fake fallout between the two of them. Punz told Dream about the importance of his horse - Bumpkin - to him. His attachment to it, if you will.

Dream: “What’s something that’s reasonable that if I did you would turn against me?” Punz: “(...) I have Bumpkin, but I don’t really want you to touch Bumpkin. I’ve had Bumpkin for a while. (10:01)

(I’ve talked before about how the evidence seems to point towards Punz’ betrayal being fake. However, for the sake of argument let’s assume it was a genuine betrayal on his part which was prompted by Tommy’s bribe.)

Despite Punz being one of Dream’s only remaining allies during the time of the disc confrontation, there’s a display case for Punz’ attachments. However, it doesn’t list Bumpkin’s name. Instead, it lists Punz’s shulker box, a unique item at that time.

What makes this even weirder is that Dream didn’t have to choose. The existence of a display case for both Carl and the Axe of Peace tells us Dream didn’t mind hoarding two attachments for the same person. If nothing else it would’ve been much easier for Dream to get his hands on a horse, even a hidden one, rather than an item which spends most of its time in Punz’s enderchest.

Of course, all this begs the question, why would Dream have a very visible display case for Punz’ attachments when he not only knew the location of the base but actively got shown all of it?

Punz: “Dream has showed me the entire area that [the disc finale]’s gonna be at. He showed me everything.” (2:21)

Did Dream remove Punz’s display case and then for some reason put it back on in time for the disc finale? Why risk such a thing when Punz could come back and see it at any moment? Or maybe Punz knew about it and for some reason just didn’t mind that he’s helping in a scheme which would inevitably get turned on him sooner or later?

Neither situation makes much sense. Especially when we consider just how much of an over-planner Dream is (seen most blatantly during their strategy meeting for the independence war).

If we assume the finale is genuine, we also have to assume the blueprints Dream prepared for Techno to find were a backup plan of his just in case he gets locked up in prison, yet you’re telling me he didn’t think far enough to see that’s there’s a big possibility Punz would see that Dream is planning to steal and blackmail from him as well?

Pick one or the other. Those are not two possibilities which can exist at the same time.

If the finale is genuine, Dream should’ve seen Punz’ betrayal coming from a mile away. Not because Tommy bribed him, but because Punz has a sense of self preservation.

Hands in the air, you're surrounded(?)

There's strength in numbers and that's something the disc finale demonstrates well. No matter how powerful, fighting against fifteen people is almost guaranteed loss. This is something Dream even commented about.

Dream: “If [everyone] got together and were organized, I’m not sure I would be able to- how many of you are on the entire server…” Punz: “Yeah, there’s quite a bit of people on the server nowadays.” Dream: “And even if it was me and you and I know we’re both very powerful, I don’t know what 2v20 or whatever it would be. I think we would definitely lose.” (0:44)

So when the vast majority of the server came to confront him, Dream knew this was a fight he couldn't win. His only choice was to surrender.

...Or was it?

We get a peek at Dream's inventory when Tommy demands Dream drop everything and picks it up himself.

Among his things are two stacks of enderpearls, a totem of undying, two god apples and various potions which include turtle master and regeneration. More than enough for him to pearl to the giant portal right in front of him and survive the four seconds required to go through it.

Some quick math tells us that just from the totem, the god apples and Dream's baseline health, he would have 36 hearts. Meaning that everyone would have to inflict 9 hearts (18 damage) on him every second for four seconds in a row in order to kill him before he disappears to the nether. And that doesn't include the potions either.

Considering how not all of them are skilled at pvp and how undergeared some of them were, their chances to pull it off don't look that good. Sure, many of them would give chase afterwards but even without taking into consideration Dream's skills it's easy to see it would be futile. The dude has fully enchanted netherite armour, gapples, a whole lot of pearls and fire resistance potions. He could disappear in seconds just by pearling away and then hiding in lava or some walls.

And evidently, I wasn't the only one who thought about this.

Tommy ends up blocking the portal later on in such a way so as to prevent anyone from trying to escape through it.

Not that this was Dream's only chance to escape. Both times after he was killed, Dream respawned away from everyone else. They didn't know where he was. They didn't know what he was doing. He could've run away after Tommy has proven (more than once) that he's willing and able to kill Dream.

Yet time and again, he comes back to certain death, all the while acting like he doesn't believe Tommy would kill him.

Even when he starts to believe it after having been killed twice, it still doesn’t make sense.

Dream: “Tommy, why would I come back down?” Tommy: “Because, Dream, if you don’t come back down, I’ll just kill me. And then this server… you won’t have any more fun. So, you come down, right now.” (1:03:50)

Sure, one might look at Dream’s claim of attachment to Tommy and Tommy threatening to kill himself and see it as a reasonable incentive to make Dream come down but, like most of the disc finale, this too falls apart when under scrutiny.

Even assuming Tommy is willing to follow through on his threat (a big assumption in its own right), why should Dream care? He has the revive book. Tommy killing himself is just an inconvenience because he would have to be brought back. Something Dream himself has said many times later on in the timeline.

(Which of course, also begs the question, why would Dream say Tommy is too valuable to kill when he can just bring him back to life no matter what? Saying such a thing is a pure disadvantage for himself, as Tommy so aptly showed when he leveraged that fact against Dream. It doesn’t give Dream any sort of advantage either. It just takes away the option of threatening Tommy’s life in order to get what he wants.

And as we were shown in the prison stream where he took Tommy’s final life, it was also a lie.)

Either Dream turned into a naive moron overnight who can't understand something which is right in front of him, or he's willingly coming back and letting himself get killed.

Considering how he didn’t bring up the revive book when he could’ve easily spared himself his first two deaths, the latter seems more likely than the former.

~~~

These are not all of the inconsistencies by far, merely the ones I felt to be the most solid. There are many more circumstantial inconsistencies. Once you start watching the finale with a critical eye, more and more plot holes start popping up until it starts to resemble a swiss cheese rather than a coherent story.

The more familiar you are with Dream’s tactics, the worse it becomes. Offering information freely when keeping it a secret was his key to victory. Abstract goals and no win conditions when his goals all being specific, achievable and decisive is part of what made his planning so efficient. Destroying leverage he could still use when leverage was the very heart of his success in the disc war.

All objectively bad tactics that he has shown in the past to know better than to pull off.

At this point, there are only two explanations as to why the disc finale went down the way it did. Either the writers didn’t know how to close the disc war arc and so they decided to be lazy and just tie it off by repeating many stereotypical endings to that sort of story, butchering the characterization of one of their characters in the process. Or Dream, the character, planned it all as a giant distraction for the purpose of getting locked up.

And well, there’s certainly a bunch of evidence that he planned the disc confrontation long before it actually came to be.

[gourmetprincipito-blog]

One of the weirdest and worst parts of being an artist in the internet era is the unavoidable commodification of something that was previously entirely personal. Trying to make a living as an artist means constantly pitching yourself to everyone all the time, it means conversations about how to transform your poetry and expression into more accessible and more lucrative versions of themselves. It’s a brutal and extremely intimate example of how capitalism infects everything in society.

As a young punk kid I was deeply inspired by bands like Bomb the Music Industry! and Defiance, Ohio, who proved it was possible to carve out a niche in counterculture without compromising your ideals. Free digital downloads of all music, spray-painted t-shirts instead of merch, and booking shows in all ages and inexpensive venues blew me away as a kid and I emulated it with my music career as well.

But even in these spaces - the most progressive and least commoditized I’ve seen in my life - the game of capitalism is still not really something you can withdraw from. In fact, trying to exist outside of the traditional structures just forces you to do *more* of what you disagree with. Independent artists have to be their own publicists, managers, agents, etc. and it so quickly becomes something entirely different than you set out to do.

Few pieces of art even approach this dilemma but even fewer do it with such clarity and profundity as “Side Projects Are Never Successful,” by Bomb the Music Industry! Perfectly expressing the begrudging acceptance of our situation with a tongue in cheek declaration that we are all born businessmen and all creations are products, illustrating how capitalism spreads itself over every facet of society - even its perspectives and philosophies.

“The glares on our windshields, we can’t even see each other’s eyes. Just McDonald’s cups and wrappers that they’re throwing at full speed. And yes, I long for a shadow, and yes, I always appreciate the irony that the only cool cover that allows us to see is a goddamn billboard! Yeah a billboard is the only thing preventing us from blindly crashing.

And we’ll never see a city not marred by advertisements, we’ll never see a future not working for these companies. It’s sure as shit not getting better so we might as well accept it now.

But that really shouldn’t cheapen anything because, baby, we’re all born to be businessmen. Every Fugazi record has a catalog number and a price tag, and every independent label is selling you another goddamn product.

But no, *we’re* not slaves to the music. No, *we’re* not slaves to the company, baby,

We do what we’re born and raised to do and when you’re creating something you’re producing something and the act of producing leads to the creation of a product.”

The song beautifully pairs this commentary on capitalism and art with another on the apocalypse and the futility of rugged individualistic and billionaire doomsday prepping, effectively shattering the concept entirely in a few lines.

“That orange ball, yeah that burning orb of fire in the sky is gonna explode and we’re all gonna die. Except for the privileged few who, quote unquote, “think ahead,” and drive their SUVs down to their bomb shelters. Complaining about no air conditioning because, baby, we ain’t got no more electricity.

They wanna rise with the sun, be a leader with a gun. Be a leader of what? Like a hundred and one? Fuck if, I’m gonna hang out on the rooftop when it comes.”

These two threads join in a hypothetical where, post-apocalypse caused explicitly by capitalism, capitalism still defines the social structure. It also parodies accelerationism and doomsday preppers again, effectively showing that the things these communities hope to achieve for themselves and society through apocalyptic scenarios are simply negative byproducts of capitalism. A punk rock reiteration of the famous Mark Fisher quote, “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”

“When it’s dark, it’ll be night time, baby, and I’ll get my ass on up out of this mess. The only stores that are open, baby, yeah, they’re gonna sell beer and they’re gonna sell ice cream and we’ll drink drink drink and get drunk drunk drunk. And we’ll talk talk talk about how much much much, how much fun we had, yeah, we were fucking the world.

When the sun drops you ain’t gonna be hungover the next day. When the comet hits there won’t be any bills to pay. When the bomb drops it’s gonna be a four day weekend, hey hey. When the sun’s gone I’m gonna feel great! Finally!”

Jeff Rosenstock, the songwriter behind Bomb the Music Industry! and now working as a solo artist, once stated his belief that, in a culture of disposable products and disposable people, cynicism and post-truth, obsessed with outrage, etc. the most punk rock thing possible is to build lasting communities and foster positivity. To remain hopeful and work toward something better.

That inspired me over a decade ago and I try to keep that in mind on a daily basis. We don’t have to wait for or cause the apocalypse to improve things for ourselves and our neighbors and our loved ones. There is still good to do, even in a bad system.

[foreverlogical]

A recent rush hour morning at one of New York’s busiest stations looked nothing like the pre-pandemic days. The chaotic energy at the heart of America’s biggest city is muted — now just a handful of mask-clad workers tunnel their way through the dingy underground corridors.

As economies of major cities crawl out of the Covid-19 abyss, transit systems that keep them running are in for an uneven recovery — and as the disease threatens a resurgence in winter months, mass transit systems around the globe are facing potential financial ruin without bailouts from governments that are also in deep fiscal holes.

European capitals have collectively recovered half of their usual riders, while major North American cities have seen a much slower return to public transit. But none are close to full ridership after nearly a year, and the dearth is laying siege to transit coffers from New York to Berlin.

With spot resurgences of Covid in the U.S. and Europe, the return to transit has stubbornly plateaued at low levels once unfathomable to city leaders. The world may not experience pre-pandemic “normalcy” for at least another year, leaving systems starved for fare revenue as government coffers dry up.

For transit authorities, the multi-pronged attack that will have cascading effects in the biggest cities in the world: Economies can’t fully recover without transit and transit can’t fully recover without the return of economies. The dilemma worries transit officials here and abroad over what the Covid-19 pandemic will mean for the future of transit, which even in the best of times depends on taxpayer support to keep operating.

“It does feel as though that commuting arrangement where millions of people went in five days a week from nine to five — those days, I think, are gone,” said Alex Williams, director of city planning at the Transport for London. “I think more people will want to work in a flexible way where they are coming into the office a few days a week rather than five days a week. And we need to reflect on that and think, ‘what is the public transport service we provide?’”

New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority has warned it may have to cut service up to 50 percent and gut its $54.8 billion capital plan to improve its aging system without federal assistance to see it through the crisis. It’s facing a $10.3 billion deficit through this fiscal year and next.

The state of New York has allowed the MTA to borrow $10 billion for operating purposes because of the pandemic, a move that would bring its debt service to $675 million annually starting in 2023. But borrowing could be more expensive than in the past as interest rates on MTA bonds have risen since the public health crisis began. Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s have downgraded MTA’s transportation revenue bonds twice since March with a continued negative outlook.

Throughout the U.S., transit systems have called for $36 billion in federal aid to make up pandemic-related shortfalls, on top of the $25 billion in collective aid they received in late March.

The MTA alone is losing close to $200 million a week to keep its current level of already-reduced service during the coronavirus pandemic.

The International Association of Public Transport, based in Brussels, estimates that European mass transit agencies will collectively face $45 billion in farebox revenue losses by the end of this year, leaving local transport systems “literally fighting to survive,” according to a group of European transit CEO’s who have been urging their governments to help fund the losses.

Why transit in certain cities has recovered faster than others is down to a variety of factors. The reopening of schools, offices and restaurants and gyms all boost ridership, which is largely determined by the success of public health measures in lowering the rate of Covid-19 infection.

Cultural attitudes are also at play. Americans are typically more car-centric than their European cousins. Local officials have varied in their response to increases in vehicle traffic — with some, like New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio taking a hands off approach, and others actively trying to find alternatives. Public health messaging around Covid-19 and the risk of mass transit has varied, potentially influencing public perception of using subways and buses. And governments have generally been more willing to subsidize transit losses in Europe than in the U.S. (A Joe Biden presidency might change that dynamic as the Democratic candidate has shown support for rail.)

But transit officials and experts interviewed by POLITICO said the formula for a return to transit is relatively simple: ridership has returned in places where more of the economy has restarted. But with scattered outbreaks returning in Europe and the U.S., those numbers could become increasingly volatile.

After a robust economic return in Paris, for example, the government recently enacted a strict curfew as cases there surge. In New York there’s been a slow return to indoor dining and in-person schooling, but neighborhood outbreaks are threatening that progress, to say nothing of office workers who may not fully return for another year.

“Transit ridership is a health and economic indicator,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, the former commissioner of New York City’s Department of Transportation. “One of the biggest determinants of ridership isn’t how safe transit feels in itself, but the economy as a whole.”

And transit agencies are grappling with what a protracted recovery in ridership will mean for the services they provide.

Transit companies will need bailouts to make sure services can persist. Transport for London, which is the operator and regulator for the U.K.’s network, is calling for an additional £2 billion (or roughly $2.5 billion) in aid through December to avoid a “doomsday scenario,” but Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been reluctant. Berlin’s local authority owned metro operator BVG could raise ticket prices to cover some of its losses. The MTA is considering fare hikes as well, but with ridership cratering there’s only so much it can raise prices without driving straphangers further away.

Washington D.C.’s Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has warned it may have to make $200 million worth of cuts without additional federal aid, including cutting rail and bus service and closing the rail system earlier in the day.

In the U.S., negotiations between the Trump administration and Senate Democrats over a new Covid-19 stimulus package have been at a stalemate — leaving transit operators in the lurch.

“Transport authorities all around the world are needing central government support to see them through this unprecedented crisis,” said Williams, of the Transport for London.

In the U.S. it’s unclear when or if that will happen.

By the numbers

Fewer than 20 percent of riders have returned to Washington D.C.’s rail system. Transit agencies in New York, Toronto and Chicago are still only reporting roughly one-third of their usual ridership on subways, while metro systems from Milan and Berlin are seeing between 50 percent and 65 percent of their usual ridership. Cities rapidly approaching their pre-pandemic ridership levels include Paris and Vienna — which have recovered at least 70 percent of riders on their metro systems.

Each of those cities took similar response measures to the Covid-19 outbreak — shutting down businesses and telling large portions of the workforce to remain at home in the months of March and April. But they have operated on different timelines for recovery.

New York has offered outdoor dining but only allowed restaurants to offer indoor dining a few weeks ago — while cities like Berlin and Paris (until recently) have offered it for several months. Fans are trekking to championship games for soccer in some parts of Europe while stadium seats for baseball and football games in most of the U.S. remain empty. Concert halls and theaters in New York City are similarly dark.

The rate of workers returning to the office and the start of school has also varied.

Transit experts have traced the surge in metro riders in Paris to the start of school on Sept. 1. New York didn’t fully reopen its schools to in-person learning until late September, and more than half of students have opted for all remote schooling.

London has also seen a slow return of its workforce and is similarly reporting transit ridership numbers more in line with North American cities, as opposed to its mainland European counterparts where workers returned much faster.

A second wave

While some cities have seen a resurgence in cases as they’ve restarted their local economies, studies out of Tokyo, Paris and Austria have not traced cluster outbreaks to mass transit. Hitoshi Oshitani, a professor of virology at Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, along with other experts, has said riding buses and subways is safe as long as masks are worn, the systems are well-ventilated and people refrain from talking.

And while some cities have retroactively restricted economic activities like restaurant hours in response to a second wave of Covid-19, transit experts said they so far aren’t seeing the same impact on ridership as they did during the first set of Covid-19 restrictions.

“That’s the main difference with the first time — now we see the ridership with public transport is growing despite the second wave,” said Mohamed Mezghani, secretary general of the International Association of Public Transport. “People are using public transport and [are] maybe not as concerned as they used to be as they were four or five months ago.”

Information and misinformation

Outside of the economic recovery, there are also perceptions unique to particular areas that are driving transit habits.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told U.S. commuters in June they should drive alone instead of taking public transit to work. Following a wave of criticism, the agency updated the guidance to advise driving alone “if feasible” and recommended alternatives like biking.

“These kinds of messages are of course confusing to people,” Mezghani said. “I think in the U.S., in general, people are really afraid of using public transport.”

An MIT report in April claiming that New York subways “seeded the massive coronavirus epidemic” also left a sour taste in many residents’ mouths about the prospect of taking mass transit. The study itself has been widely panned.

Transit safety is a major factor influencing the return of office workers in New York, with 28 percent of 150 major New York City employers ranking it as a primary concern influencing the pace of workers returning to the office, according to an August survey by the Partnership for New York City. Forty-six percent ranked it as their second concern after the status of Covid-19.

The European Commission did recommend loosening restrictions on “individualised transport” in the early days of the pandemic, but also advised that cities ramp up the availability of “collective transport options” and communicate in a way that “helps to restore the trust and confidence of passengers regarding the safe use of collective transport.”

Most public transit authorities have taken similar measures to limit the risk of Covid-19 exposure and ease riders’ concerns, such as requiring commuters to wear masks and increasing cleaning regimens. Some took those precautions even when the CDC and World Health Organization were still not recommending widespread mask usage.

But some were more proactive than others in their messaging.

Vienna — which has seen the one of the highest rider return rates — launched a concerted campaign in May to convince riders that mass transit is safe to take.

Transit leaders in London and Belgium have also launched campaigns to get commuters back on mass transit. Following criticism about metro crowding as the city faces a rise in Covid-19 cases, Paris’ Delegated Minister for Transport Jean-Baptiste Djebbari defended the safety protocol for public transport and insisted it isn’t a particularly strong vector for spread.

While the New York MTA requires passengers wear masks and has increased its cleaning regimen, it faced criticism for being slow to do things like mandate masks for its workers and fine riders who don’t wear masks. Messaging was also sometimes confused where transit officials encouraged returning to the system but Mayor Bill de Blasio at first said it was reasonable for people to use cars instead.

Similar patterns emerge

While there are variations in recovery among cities, there are some common trends throughout the pandemic.

Generally speaking, buses have seen a higher rate of recovery than subways or trains. Many cities — including New York, Toronto and London — boast at least half of bus riders have returned since the height of the pandemic.

“The buses far and away are moving a lot of people,” said Stuart Green, a spokesperson for the Toronto Transit Commission, adding the agency has since redeployed more buses because of the surge in riders.

Commuter rail lines that stretch into more suburban areas have suffered the most.

New York’s MetroNorth rail line is reporting only a 21 percent return of riders on weekdays. In Toronto, only 18 percent of riders have returned to the MetroLinx system that runs seven commuter rail lines and regional buses — while 40 percent of commuters have returned to its subway and streetcar systems.

“If I had to pick one mode that appears to be at risk — and this is true not just in New York — it’s commuter rails and the recovery in ridership there,” Pat Foye, chair and CEO of the MTA, said in September.

And transit leaders collectively fear what the displacement from mass transit will mean for the environment.

Car usage has increased at a much faster rate than mass transit ridership, even in cities like Paris that have rapidly expanded bike lanes to discourage car use. Transit advocates have criticized New York for moving slowly on the rollout of bus and bike lanes, particularly after de Blasio advised New Yorkers to “improvise” their commutes. Traffic in New York has largely reached pre-pandemic levels.

“It is a pandemic crisis, but behind this crisis is a much bigger crisis — and it’s the climate crisis and don’t forget that,” said Alexandra Reinagl, managing director of Vienna’s Wiener Linien.

Hanne Cokelaere and Joshua Posaner contributed to this report.

VISIT WEBSITE

[beginagainbugle]

In this issue of The Daily Bugle …

Headline: Lord Lords over Tech! New York city set abuzz with its brightest minds in science and innovation announcing new projects. With presentations from everyone from Alchemax to Stark industries we’ll be breaking down the biggest breakthroughs of the weekend. Read more top-notch analysis inside!

Front page: Rumors are abound after Captain Marvel joins Maxwell Lord in a real time presentation of LordTech’s newest Guardian™ security system. Is the hero economy the new gig economy? Or simply an extension?

At 8:30 the skies over Manhattan were alight, not with intergalactic visitors or doomsday devices, but with fireworks. The sight was fitting as Maxwell Lord, the young entrepreneur from National City, smiled. When one thinks of a science expo their likely to think of hours of dull introspection on the physics that allow our technology fueled lives to operate but that was not the case during the hour and a half slated for LordTech East’s first project. The subsidiary of LordTech, a security staple best known for it’s government contracts, has expanded into a number of other projects since making a home in New York City including its medical clinics aimed at bridging the gap in medicine concerning the extraterrestrials among us and subsequent alien-oriented work initiatives, has come back to its routes with the launch of it’s GUARDIAN™ line of security systems which will soon be implemented in many state and federal buildings across the country and it’s WARDEN™ line, a commercial alternative. With this it was also announced that LordTech would be partnering with familiar faces with it’s Heroes Program with it’s ad campaign heavily featuring Lord’s “trusted friend and confidant”, Valor, who also made his first public appearance since his highly publicized shooting last month, during the presentation to demonstrate the Bio-Encryption aspect of both security lines.

Page 3: Bruce Wayne makes waves with Drake industries introduction.

From the dark skies of Gotham City comes it’s shining beacon, and that’s not even thinking of the famed Bat-Signal that takes over the clouds. Wayne Enterprises own Bruce Wayne made an appearance outside of his home town for the first time in what might’ve been years, usually making his own announcements from the safety of his office, or leaving the many figureheads of Wayne’s massive company reach to their own devices. The former Playboy offered a warm greeting to everyone and professed that projects that had been previously announced were moving ahead as scheduled. There wouldn’t be much news on the WayneTech front besides a few key updates to pre-existing software. However, the surprise was to come later, for Gotham’s Favorite Son was sharing the spotlight with one of his own. Presenting Tim Drake, one of Wayne’s adopted sons, he explained that he had bought the younger’s company when it belonged to his since deceased father when it had been facing bankruptcy. Passing the now revived company to his son, Drake Industries was to thrive again under it’s new, and rightful, management. From there, Drake took to the stage, explaining with vigor his plans to create a cybersecurity network able to be installed and applied to computing devices worldwide. This unnamed network has been supposedly in a prototype Beta for some time, but Drake looks to launch sometime in the very near future.

Page 6: Stark industries stuns with the unveiling of nanotech. clinical trial lists are already filling and stock is on the rise. Is this the return on Tony Stark? Read what our experts think on page 6!

Stark Industries finally presents to the world a brand new concept that has been at the forefront of Iron Man and recent Avengers technology for the past twelve months, harnessing multi-universal concepts and ideas as well as building on previous iterations. It is called nanotechnology, and its uses, according to Head of R&D at S.I. Tony Stark, are practically limitless. Although the material used to create the nanobots is kept under lock and key in the vaults of the company, the basic principle is that they are powered by clean, arc reactor energy, housed in a unit that can be kept on a person’s body either on their chest, wrist, stomach or wherever there is space on their skin.

The first trialed use of this nanotechnology in the general public is in medicine and healthcare. Teaming up with Rand Enterprises, Stark has been working on new, intuitive prosthetics following his personal experiences in Berlin. These prosthetics not only provide limbs to those who have suffered traumas, but also act to heal internal disabilities as well. Results from trials have been promising in regards to insulin production management, blood constituent monitoring, hormone replacement, and many others. Stark is to give a speech on the subject at the expo, titled: “The Future of A.I: Bettering the World Through the Human Brain.” The United States military has voiced their interest in potential use for combat injuries, but it has not yet been confirmed whether Stark has signed these contracts or not. The uses of nanotechnology that can be seen in the Iron Man armor are extraordinary, allowing the suit to form and repair itself during combat situations, as well as provide immediate first aid to the person wearing it. Stark has also demonstrated that weapons can be formed through pure force of thought and will, however rejects that nanotechnology will be linked entirely to neurons of the general public during its initial introduction. Regardless, the future looks bright, and this spark of genius is sure to put Stark back on the map!

Page 9: The illusive Lena Luthor makes first public appearance since The Seige on New York. Will L-Corp’s dip into Virtual Reality mean progress in the medical field or are it’s ethical implications a ticking time-bomb? Read more on page 9 and decide for yourself!

L-VR lenses are the next piece of technology produced by L-Corp. The contact lenses are the latest in virtual reality technology based in an augmented reality designed by some of the worlds best world building architects. The lenses are entirely run through cell towers, allowing the lenses to be used seemingly anywhere. The lenses connect not only to their brain, creating NPCs based on memory and allowing the user to warp the world around them, but they also connect to a user’s biology, making the virtual reality feel as real as this one. Fail safes are tied into the user’s biometrics to allow the user to escape at the push of a virtual button if stress becomes too much. Currently, all locations in the L-VR map are real-world locations but game managers are working to integrate more and more locations every day, including maps of other worlds or even fantasy dimensions. Users are able to submit ideas for locations and adventures to L-Corp for pending approval.

In her presentation Ms.Luthor asserted, “L-VR is only available in its beta-form to select psychiatric hospitals as an experimental program working with patients suffering from PTSD in order to help them overcome their triggers. Plans are in progress to expand this to help other trauma victims and patients recovering from serious illnesses as a form of combatting depression and anxiety. In the coming years, L-Corp has hopes to make L-VR available in retail form, allowing anyone to turn their dreams into virtual reality.”

[giannimaldonado]

Album Of The Day: Satan Is Watching

When most people born after a certain period of time think of the genre that is “country”, and what it has morphed into in the context of this day and age, a lot of unpleasant images spring to mind. Pretty boy, clean cut, poser rednecks who’ve never seen a farm outside of their music videos, trying to pretend to be another “honest Joe” when they couldn’t be any further from such a thing, making trashy, twangy glam rock mixed with watered down trap music/EDM for white southerners who might have interesting views on those of different races, rolling around in million dollar sports cars while adopting the moniker of “working class”...is probably what your mind immediately begins to conjure up in that brain of yours.

I honestly can’t say that I blame you. Country, or, at least, MAINSTREAM country, has lost its way completely. Luke Bryan, Brad Paisley, Tim McGraw, and Blake Shelton polluted this once proud, grassroots, amazing genre with pandering, trite garbage aimed at making money off of dumb hicks in the bodies of frat boys whose trucks cost more than your own damn house.  Gone are the days when country music was filled to the brim talent, creativity, passion, and heart. Now, this “jock country” has taken its place, having thoroughly fucked country up the ass a few too many times that it has lost its way. For good, perhaps.

Underground country’s usually no better. There’s some exceptions (we’ll get to those soon), but for the most part, it, too, has gone off the rails and destroyed itself completely. It’s often just indie folk or what have you with even more acoustic guitars, though perhaps with more twang, whiny vocals that are trying (and failing) to recreate a stereotypical southern accent, a reliance on cheap gimmicks, sarcasm, and irony to carry their trash because the excrement can’t do that itself, and a musical quality that tries SO hard to imitate the great Mr. Cash, but is little more than a cheap, pale imitation that folks who wear WAY too much flannel and wire rimmed glasses will eat up like it’s the second coming of Joy Division.

No matter how you look at it, country has been thoroughly gentrified for the most part, just like many genres that were previously for a much different variety of people. Like trap music, or blues, or hardcore punk, or black metal. All of the original meaning is gone, driven out by money hungry label executives, clueless and ignorant listeners, and musicians hellbent on half-assing their way to fame and fortune.

It’s a crying shame, it really is.

But fret not, dear reader! There is still a soft, seedy underbelly of the country genre that has taken the long dead (yet forever revered and loved) sound of “outlaw shit”, as Mr. Jennings would put it so eloquently, to its most logical extreme. One that would make Nelson, Cash, Haggard, Coe, and others that might’ve been at the top of their “underground”, “anti-mainstream” game seem rather...accessible. These aforementioned artists and their peers are still greats who, in their primes, were powerhouses that made some of the greatest works the genre would ever produce. But when compared to this particular sound...they just don’t hold up as well. The rawness, the grassroots nature, the down-to-Earth (and sometimes below the Earth) attitude, the simplicity, the honesty, the bluntness, the intimacy, the melancholy...all of it gets turned way up to eleven. It’s dark, it’s mischievous, it’s harsh, it’s gritty, it’s angry, it’s bitter, it’s darkly humorous, it’s lonesome, it’s ornery, and it’s damn sure pretty fucking mean.

Call it whatever you want. “Southern gothic”, “dark country”, “death country”, “gothic country”. It doesn’t matter what name you apply to it. All that matters is that it’s country. Real fucking country. Country meant for the guttersnipes, punks, street urchins, hobos, peasants, and forlorn drifters. This ain’t pretty boy music. This isn’t nice, Christian contemporary that you can play at your local uptight establishment. These aren’t harmless tunes your the posers can get drunk and go mudding to. This is country as it was meant to be. The eptiome of the term “outlaw shit”.

There’s a plethora of wonderful bands in this scene. Sons Of Perdition, Sixteen Horsepower, whatever project Jay Munly’s got going on this time around, The Dead South, the early days of The Devil Makes Three, The Builders And The Butchers, Wovenhand, Ghoultown, Coffinshakers, The Pine Box Boys, and, of course, everyone’s favorite descendant of the Williams family tree. The third one, that is.

But all of those fall short of that truly, truly, TRULY horrific honky-tonk, old-time, folksy, backwoods atmosphere that this duo produces. One that hails from the isolated, empty thickets that lie out in rural Wisconsin. A mentally disturbed pair of “prophets of the country doom”, as they have decided to label themselves. A fine example of those who have gone completely mad, completely sad, and doing so makes them feel very glad. They revel in their craziness, and while no album sounds the same, each one is marred by a couple of recurring themes: humanity is worthy of being sent straight to the fiery depths, these boys are depressed beyond your wildest comprehension, a rebellion against both God and Satan, and a desire to document the lifestyle of society’s forgotten ones, hated ones, and feared ones.

Let me introduce you to Those Poor Bastards.

Fitting name for a couple of enigmatic, largely unknown, extremely obscure pair of men known simply as Lonesome Wyatt (impassioned orations and guitar-based melodies) and The Minister (everything else).

The Minister is completely anonymous, with no one having even seen his face, while all that’s known about Lonesome Wyatt is that he’s from Wisconsin, (probably) lives alone, and is likely of an unsound state of mind.

Why is that all important? Well, go listen to their albums, and then you’ll find out why these little intricacies are vital to the dynamic duo’s imagery, music, and cult status.

While all of their material is quite good in my opinion, today we’re going to look at my favorite album from them, and possibly my favorite album from any country artists EVER! Everyone, please proceed to throw on “Satan Is Watching.”

What you’ll first be met with Lonesome Wyatt letting out a loud, wild, manic screech that almost doesn’t sound...human. It’s not even a word. Just an unhinged howl like Lonesome Wyatt’s been possessed by some sort of demon from the pits of Hell, having taken over the “doomsday preacher boy” to spread the wicked gospel. A hell of a start to an album of any kind, let alone a country album. It’s bold, but it lets you know right off the bat that they aren’t fucking around. This is going to be a rough ride from start to finish, and you’ll be left quaking in your seat once Those Poor Bastards has pierced your mind, heart, and soul with their fiendishly unholy sound. A truly nihilistic piece of art about how this world is foul and wretched, and deserves to burn to a cinder.

But that’s just the first song.

Things only manage to get worse from there. Everything from songs about how Lonesome Wyatt’s a degenerate who revels in just how much filth and squalor he lives in, to songs (well, more like suspiciously suicidal rants) about how life is fucked and there’s just no point in living it anymore, to various “take that!” pieces towards lovers who have wronged him in times that have long since passed, presumably. Typical topics for country artists, but contorted and warped to the point where they sound like miniature horror stories being yelled and hollered by a crazy, top-hat wearing yokel than the struggles and strife that are endured by the common man/downtrodden fellow. Hell, there’s even a Johnny Cash cover! A twisted, perverted, scummy, bone-chilling, haunting, eerie take on the previously wholesome, innocent love song The Man In Black made for June. I can’t exactly look at it the same way, what with these mysterious hooligans having thoroughly butchered it.

Instrumentation is minimalist and simple. Nothing too fancy or technical here. It’s quite self-explanatory. Despite how evil it is, the rhythms are still toe-tappingly catchy. The drums, being pounded upon by the fiery hands of The Minister, provide anything from a nice, plodding beat you can stomp your feet to, all the way to a rowdy raucous of a banger that’ll have you doing some sort of line dance with the living dead. Lonesome Wyatt beats upon his acoustic guitar like it owes him money. Not even really playing it. Just smashing the strings until weird, disgruntled, odd noises come out of it. He also seems to thoroughly shatter his ability to talk without a sore throat, pushing his voice to its very limits. The bass compliments everything very well, providing a creepy, fuzzy, dirge-like texture in the background to keep the menacing tone alive and well.

All in all, while this may not “experimental”, “avant-garde”, or even “progressive”, this is certainly an album that’ll give you the heebie-jeebies, and for a country album, it is most certainly “out there”. It takes the usual country tropes, and either turns them into something out of a David Lynch movie, or subverts/plays with them to fuck with the audience and make them contort their face with confusion...and excitement. A spooky bit of acoustic noise that’ll restore your faith in country music, and remind you that there is still a small resemblance of a spark left within the dying genre.

Please, I highly recommend you check this out.

This has been another installment of “Esoteric Warfare”, and remember...

NOISE, NOT MUSIC!

[twatd]

(And I Feel Fine)

Once more, we return, with the second of our essays on The Wicked + The Divine #41. Alex has already talked costume changes, now it’s time for Tim to dive into the bigger picture. Spoilers, speculation and scrying follow after the cut.

Tim: What is this unusual feeling? I’ve reached the end of an issue of The Wicked + The Divine and my heart is full of… not the usual dread, or curiosity, or frustrated anticipation? I’m not heavy with the crushing inevitability of death, or the fact that all our heroes will inevitably let us down. I think this is… hope?

Issue #41 stands apart from the rest of WicDiv in that it provides us with a series of unqualified victories for our protagonists. We confirm that Laura managed to save everyone from dying within the O2. She frees Urðr and the other Norns. Together, they liberate Mimir, Luci, Tara and Inanna, then successfully escape. Baphomet provides Mimir, Luci and Inanna with excellent new goth bodies, and in the process starts to move on from his abusive relationship with the Morrigan. And Cassandra, fresh from kicking some Valkyrie arse, seems to have a plan for what to do next.

For a comic that usually parcels out every step forward with a bittersweet cost, or two steps backward elsewhere, that’s a lot of positive momentum in a single issue.

In a conventional narrative, this kind of turn in the protagonists’ favour at this point in the story is common. After the clashing agendas and confusion of the second act, we need to boil the conflict down to a simpler one that can be wrapped up in a satisfying fashion. That means certain plot threads need to be tidied up before the conclusion. Giving our heroes some hard-fought wins after all the pain they’ve been put through sustains the audience, and sets us up for a final big cost that must be paid before good conquers evil.

But since when is WicDiv a conventional narrative? And is it even headed towards a traditional ending? Two issues into the final arc, the question of what kind of ending we’re headed towards looms large. After the most recent issue, the template laid out above seems like the natural one. There’s the definite feeling of a shoe left to drop somewhere, given that Minanke, Baal and Woden are all still out there, plotting and pursuing. And hasn’t Laura earned some kind of happy ending? She’s certainly been put through the emotional wringer over the past 40 issues and – if there’s any Persephone juice still left inside her – 6,000 years.

There’s reasons to be distrustful though. To start with, ending in such a conventional manner feels very un-WicDiv. Gillen has some history with tragic endings [eyeballs Journey into Mystery] and WicDiv has, from the very first page, been preparing us for a story where everyone ends up dead. One of the strongest thematic throughlines has been the inevitability of death, and for the story to swerve away from that at the last minute in the name of a happy ending would feel disingenuous and dissatisfying on a few levels.

And fairly unlikely, within the narrative itself. Woden, Baal and Minanke are three of the most competent and powerful gods, and Laura’s plan seems to rely on convincing the stubborn and uncompromising Baal over to their side – hardly a straightforward prospect. Plus, there’s the lingering threat of whatever the Great Darkness actually is, and Minanke’s planned doomsday virus. Laura et al may have rallied their forces together finally, but in terms of foiling any schemes, they’ve got a long way to go.

On top of that, there’s the question of if we’re even going to get an ending. Sure, the series is going to finish, but WicDiv is a story built on cycles. It’s called the Recurrence for a reason, and for all the progress Laura and others have made in undoing Ananke’s millennia-long schemes, there’s nothing to suggest that previous Pantheons haven’t got just as close. When Minanke takes a moment to celebrate her apparent victory in #39, her tone is still playful, implying that she’s still treating everything as a game and that Persephone getting this far along was irksome, rather than filling her with bone-chilling fear. We know Laura has a plan to bring Ananke’s scheme to an end right now, but even if she succeeds in the now, it might not topple the Recurrence as a whole.

That kind of pyrrhic victory would certainly fall in line with the tone of the book. Mortality. Inevitability. Once again, we return.

If we’re trying to fathom what kind of conclusion the series is heading towards, perhaps our strongest guidance is the name of this final arc: “Okay”.

Even ignoring the barbs of those quotation marks, “Okay” suggests both resignation and acceptance. It suggests that nobody gets everything they want, but, in the end, there will be some kind of peace. No apocalypse, but perhaps not the end to the cycle of death and rebirth that we’re all hoping for.

Or maybe something new will be forged in its place – a new structure designed to inspire humanity, one with a whole new set of rules, flaws and loopholes. Maybe the only way to win the game is to make a new one.

Trying to nail down any concrete plot points for the final few issues feels like an exercise in futility – Gillen + McKelvie are far smarter than I am, and have (almost certainly) dedicated more time to thinking through these last few beats. But in terms of tone, we’re likely looking at both highs and lows, and I doubt the final page of the series will have the same kind of punch-the-air, simple satisfaction that #41 brought. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t nice while it lasted, though.

Like what we do, and want to help us make more of it? Visit patreon.com/timplusalex and pledge to gain access to exclusive blogs, ebooks, mixtapes and more.

[rkjei]

   WELCOME TO THE MGAS   //   episode five       . .       #4011  -  김진희.*  KIM JINHEE.     ━━━━━━       .   .   .     HATE MONSTER, 4MINUTE x EXO                   TEAM STYX.

this round, jei’s just full of mixed feelings.

on the one hand, there’s the bitter taste of failure.  it sinks into her bloodstream like a poison when she hears that they’re in the bottom for their performances this week, which means that someone is going home.  jei can only hope that it’s her, that none of the boys on her team have to suffer such a cruelty when they just want to follow their dreams.  this is their dream, it isn’t hers.  life though, is cruel - or maybe the judging panel is crueler.  how can they say that she has more talent than jeno does? how do they decide the tipping scale of who has more talent than another?

it’s frustrating, and terribly so, but jei can’t say anything at all.  the only reaction she has is a tight pull of a frown on her lips and the way her brows knit together when jeno says goodbye to them one last time.  if it was up to her, this wouldn’t be happening.  if it was up to her, she’d be the one running free and he’d be the one staying to try another week.  after all, that’s what jeno wants.  it seems that in this world, what you want isn’t what you get.  

so why does anyone do it? why make it a dream if all anyone does is get hurt on the path to victory? she seems to answer her own question, though - after all, jei’s never been one to take the easy path.  if she’s a fighter for the things she wants, it makes sense that others would be, too.  

for this, though? this isn’t a future jei has in mind, so it’s not something she wants to fight for.  for all of jei’s devotion to her teams and making sure they try and get to safe places just because she doesn’t want to hold them back, it wasn’t enough.  whether or not she wants this for herself, she still wants it for them.  and that’s why it hurts, indefinitely, to see jeno walking from the stage and even after as the new teams are announced and she’s expected to go through this all again for one more week.  hopefully, just one more.

and it’s on the other hand that there’s familiarity.

perhaps it’s a small reprieve, a little bit of mercy after two weeks of being thrown into the fires with people unknown.  this time, for the first time in the entire competition, she’s been given someone she at least had the pleasure of an acquaintanceship with, and also - another girl, which would have been enough to make her content in and of itself. being given both feels a bit suspicious, like icing too sweet on a cake but jei has learned to take her blessings while she can on this show.  

it’s only afterwards that jei realizes that it’s odd, considering she never really thought of anything on the mgas being a blessing in the first place.  then she remembers sungwoon, hyunjin, and everyone else on her previous teams.  oddly, jei thinks that maybe parts of the show weren’t so bad, after all.

THE WEEK BEGINS and jei starts to question her sanity.  the thought that any of this could have been a blessing is obviously a stretch, and it’s proven in the first few minutes with the boys alone.  this is by far the oddest team she’s ever been thrown into the fires with, and jei’s not sure she’ll be able to survive the first three days - let alone the week required to get to doomsday.  for all her initial relief that came with at least knowing someone on her team, it did not save her from the variables of those she did not.

in fact, jei’s fairly sure the only purely sane one is doyeon, though that’s not really a surprise.  after all, she’s female.

it all begins when they try to come up with team names, and that’s only just the start of jei’s suffering.  somehow, they got on the idea of greek myths, probably from moon bin - which is fine on its own, of course.  she actually enjoys mythology herself, as she had to study it in her courses for university, but when someone suggested team cerberus, it was the beginning of the end for her hopefully peaceful week.

after all, team cerberus was the birth of “ team woof”, which meant the birth of the boys barking in her face for a laugh on their own behalf.  every time it happens, jei somehow manages to find a camera and the look on her face is one that says give me death.  still, though, for all the joking aside, jei doesn’t say anything and allows them to have their fun.

fun with friends seems hard to come by in this competition, anyway.  and if the fun and games don’t hinder the progress of their team in the long run, jei isn’t the kind to put a stop to it.  but she is the kind of person who will look dead in the eyes every time someone tries to woof at her.  she’s absolutely certain that this is a big plan concocted by moon bin to torture her because he’s scared of her, but that’s another story for a different day.

eventually, though, they go in a not so different direction with styx as their team name.  not too different, of course, from cerberus who guards the gates of the damned but this is apparently a theme that they’re running with this week, considering the songs they’re mashing up are hate by 4minute and monster by exo.  thankfully, minho knows well enough how to mix songs on his own and make a mashup because otherwise they’d be left to search blindly on the internet for one.

THIS WEEK, jei is asked to help with choreography considering her first stage with dynamiq was a unique one.  this time though, she feels a little better about it - even though she considered the first stage a disaster because there was no one she could ask about skill levels and she only saw them doing well, at least this time there are a lot of strong dancers to be able to make suggestions if something doesn’t work or if it doesn’t match the skill of what they can do.  even the least skilled of the five of them is still on the average side.

the problem is the theme.  it’s nothing .. bad, not in the scope of the song and definitely not when it comes to the lengths of her creativity.  it’s mostly just a bad concept in jei’s eyes, who would have preferred to trek the path of a more horror - based concept instead of a creepy nightmare of a twisted love gone wrong.  there’s too many memories that surface with the idea of a toxic love, ones that she doesn’t really want to remember.

still, it’s what the team decided on, so she has to deliver.

which means more late nights.  especially since this time, there’s a lot more singing involved than the past two weeks - it comes with the territory, probably, considering the mashup.  there’s just a lot of singing, a lot of dancing, a lot of everything.  

it’s something that jei has come to expect, being tired.  but it’s more odd that she finds that no matter how late she comes in, the boys are still there doing their own practice.  they too, must find fault in themselves that jei can’t see. after all, working hard is one thing but destroying yourself to clutch at safety is another thing entirely.  thankfully, with a few days worth of convincing, she manages to get them to at least sleep in the corners of the practice room and to go home and shower once in awhile.  no matter how important this is to them, and how important it is to the team, it’s not worth them getting sick over.

even if all they do is woof when they see her.

.. except haknyeon.  he likes to say nyan.  at this point, it’s like she’s begging the cameras to kill her when she looks at them.

it’s still early in the week when jei is seen looking completely flabbergasted.  “ what is big dick energy.”  the words don’t sound like a question even if they should be since she has absolutely no idea what the phrase means.  they sound more like an accusation, mostly because jei feels like she should be offended.  after all, the male anatomy isn’t really even that strong if the way men react to it is generally anything to go by.

they’re sitting around at dinner when moon bin tells her that she has .. whatever big dick energy is, all the while making minho practically howl with laughter.  it makes her feel like she’s justified in feeling offended, because if it’s that funny certainly it’s not a compliment.  her eyes narrow as she waits for a response, but of course, she doesn’t really get one.  they’re too busy laughing amongst themselves, and jei simply sighs in defeat.

when will this week of hell be over? with all the jokes, she can barely even concentrate on her thoughts, or the things that linger in the back of her mind that haunt her when they go through their choreography together.

it’s only later that jei realizes that this is a good thing.  even if jei will end the week still unsure about whether or not they were complimenting her with whatever big dick energy really is.

DOOMSDAY comes and there’s something that sits on her chest.  whether it’s the thrill of the stage or the anxiety that will come later when the judges have to rate their performance, she’s not sure.  the first time they critiqued her performance, they said that there wasn’t enough skill to go around to pull it off.  this time, though, jei hopes they’ll say the opposite.  they’ve all worked hard this week, and all the skills are there.  

they just have to pull it off and prove it to them.  in spite of the random behaviour throughout the week, it’s .. a little odd, but jei thinks that they actually worked well together.  it can be seen in the quiet way she says woof before they leave the kt building for the final time before performing - maybe, just maybe, she cares about them a little after all.  even if the whoops from the boys are a little embarrassing, she’ll accept it if it means that it makes them happy.  if it helps them to relieve their stress even if by just a little.

perhaps sometimes a little comedy is good for the soul when you’re worrying about other things - like, competing against your own team, for example.  or competing against members of your past teams that you’ve grown to care for.  jei knows about this all too well, because she’s spent a lot of time lately thinking about how hyunjin is holding up, or how sungwoon has blamed himself like she did when she was a leader for dynamiq.  her feelings can’t get in the way though.  they can’t make her any less devoted to the team she has now.

competition is healthy, sometimes.  she’s just not sure if it’s healthy in this stifled environment.  jei thinks she’ll always hate the way the judges force a stage in the short timespan of just a week to decide whether or not the people on it are worthy of being kept around or not.

this time around, they’re team b so they don’t have to wait too long before it’s their turn to take the stage.

the first performance flies by though, and before jei can even think it seems, they’re the ones being led to perform.  “ as above, so below; we are team styx -”  the team introduction is one that was inspired by the horror aspect of their stage.  then it’s the personal introductions, one by one.  once upon a time, there was a point where jei thought the only thing important to know about her was just her number and her name.  sungwoon taught her differently, and this week, she offered a suggestion to go along with their team introduction for something more personal.  

to work on her own brand, if you will.  it’s a little embarrassing, but it’s worth a shot.  “ capturing your gaze so you can’t look away, i’m the medusa of team styx - #4011, kim jinhee.”

then, it’s time.  they take their places on the stage, jei kneeling on the floor and the lights going completely dark save for the spotlight on her and doyeon, whose head is laying in her lap.  she’s the one to start the song off, again - it needs to be a strong beginning, to prove that their stage isn’t one that the audience can look away from.  her fingers are brushing through doyeon’s long hair as she looks down at the girl “ sleeping” in her lap, and begins to sing along with the music.

your eyes are telling me liar liar liar, don’t lie to me i don’t wanna know anymore i don’t wanna know know know not anymore, no no no, it’s over

their stage is one that leads the audience into a nightmare - doyeon’s nightmare.  they pulled a lot of aspects from psychological horror and melded it with the concept of a toxic love, and funneled it into a dreamscape of the girl who faced an awful relationship and has trouble forming new ones, in spite of growing interest in those around her.  the only one that she can trust is her best friend, her “ saviour” in it all.

it’s made clear that the villain of this story is moon bin, his dancing aggravated and angry to go along with the words that he sings.  throughout the choreography, jei is by doyeon’s side or behind her, a memory and a belief that someone is always at your side when you need it most.

in her heart, jei knows this isn’t necessarily true, but it works for the choreography and their story, in any case.

her singing parts are always very distinct, and make an impact on the song as a whole, regardless of whether or not she has as many lines as doyeon and moon bin or not.  it’s done purposefully this way - her role may be in the background, but always there.  a reminder, that doyeon can be saved if she wants it.

i don’t wanna know all the same excuses everyday i don’t wanna do all the same arguments everyday it’s meaningless, i am tired

the choreography turns a little more wild after this.  introducing haknyeon and minho into the storyline as potential suitors, but doyeon’s fear getting the worst of her - that’s their part in this story.  through the movements, and the lyrics, it’s like they’re becoming new horror stories, similar to the one she had with moon bin - although far from true in the real world, it’s obvious on the stage.  he’s a malevolent presence in all of this, guiding the other boys to destroy her heart with no remorse.

but jei won’t have it.  after all, she’s the saviour.

by the end of the chorus and doyeon’s last line, she’s laying back down on the floor - a reminder that this is, again, just a dream no matter how nightmarish it may seem.  but with every creeping line that bin sings, her body twists, turns, contorts - that is, until jei stands between them.

your eyes are telling me i don’t wanna know know know not anymore, no no no, it’s over

bin can’t get closer to doyeon this time, because jei brings him to his knees.  not every nightmare has a perfect ending.  not everyone can be saved.  this time, though, doyeon lies still.  this time, there can be a happy ending when the stage goes dark.  jei just hopes that it’s enough to get them through to a safe spot.

but if anyone has to go home, it should be her.

[jaybeartodd]

The Darkest of Times Pt 1. -- Jason Todd x fem. reader

Summary: Scarecrow has reigned his terror over Gotham causing a citywide evacuation. Unfortunately, not everyone had the privilege of being evacuated. The Reader and her friend are managing in a bunker until he goes missing. During one of her searches she meets a certain Knight. 

Parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Permanent Tags: @vividmjs @alohabucky

Warnings: cursing, violence

A/N: So this is a little story I have a few ideas for that I might progress with. It takes place during the Arkham Knight storyline but I am changing some of the events to fit the reader being there. Enjoy :)

“I’ll be right back, Pete.” After giving your cat a reassuring pet, you sling your empty bag over your shoulder and with a large huff, you open the sealed door to your hideout. This ‘hideout’ consists of an old bomb shelter from some doomsday nut. All that it took was a net of branches and leaves to cover the door. Its proximity to virtually nothing and camoflauged appearance, it certaintly made itself ideal for escaping the attention of the evildoers currently have the time of their lives in Gotham’s new situation. A ‘new situation’ created out of terror-inducing gas courtesy of Scarecrow or at least you assumed this was his MO. Suffice to say, you have not been able to check the news.

Your eyes rake over the empty field, figures being made out of shadows by the paranoia that settled itself within you that awful night. Not everyone had the courtesy of being picked up by the buses hauling citizens out of the city and not everyone had the courtesy of having somewhere to escape to. Luckily your friend, Anthony, knew about this shelter and your life has been since spent with you two huddled underground as chaos ensued above ground. A rich man’s fortune in comparison to the many who met a much different and agonizing fate. A shudder rolls through you at the memories full of screams and nightmares.

When you had first arrived, you spent about a week down there with the scarce supplies already in the bunker. The supplies depleted fast and left the two of you without any other choice than to brave the outside mayhem. Deciding that risking both of your lives at once was ludicrous, you and Anthony took turns finding new grocery stores and convenience stores to break into that weren’t completely ransacked. It was always a dangerous game but you became more relaxed as weeks went by without incident.

It was routine. It was safe. That is, until Anthony went out by himself and hadn’t returned.

Weeks flew by and worry buried itself deep in your stomach. Your failing hope aligned nicely with your scarce supplies.  This has led you here; a knife strapped securely to your thigh and determination that hardly dissipates with each trip that turns up empty.

The plan you have stuck to has you scouting the closest convenience stores and work your way out in hopes he is hiding out somewhere of which you are both familiar. This is fueled by the hopeful mentality that he is simply in hiding because it has not been safe to return to the bunker yet. This would be more convincing if it hasn’t been so long since he disappeared.

Your boot crunches over broken bottles and you wince at the noise echoing in the emptiness. You know this store has been cleaned out of any food, courtesy of you and Anthony, but a small part of you hoped Anthony would poke his head out from one of these aisles and joke about you taking too long.

But with each empty aisle, you feel your stomach plummet further.

“Looking for something, sweetheart?” a gravelly voice startles you from behind. You turn your head to expose a stout man with a menacing grin aimed at you. His outfit consists of heavy armor and plenty of weaponry to intimidate you. You swallow and give a nervous smile as you stumble back.

“Nope, I’m good,” you reply shakily and reach for your knife. He eyes your hand with a look of disdain. In a hopeful deterrent, you whip out the knife to hold it menacingly in front of you.

“Not one step closer buddy,” you say retreating towards the exit. Once you feel at a safe distance from him, you spin on your heel and sprint towards the door. Your reach for the doorknob is cut off with a loud bang and a sharp pain in your leg. The shot does its job and you crumple to the ground with a cry. Your thigh oozes blood underneath your shaking fingers from the fresh gunshot wound.

“Shouldn’t have brought a knife to a gun fight,” he chuckles and saunters towards you. You fight against the pain and start to drag yourself backwards.

“Shouldn’t have assumed you were the only one with a gun,” a robotic voice taunts. A spray of bullets immediately follows and you cover your face as they ricochet through the room. The dust settles and you slowly open your eyes to see a man place heated guns back into his holsters. He wears a strange blue helmet with glowing eyes and ears that strangely resemble a certain Bat vigilante. His towering figure is clad with heavy armor that has a display of red across the chest. The emotionless mask turns towards you as he begins walking closer. You hold up your knife with one hand while trying to scoot away with your other one.

“Back off, er, whatever the hell you are,” you mentally slap yourself for not sounding as brave as you had hoped. He stops and tilts his head curiously.

“I believe I am the man that just saved you.”

Your teeth grind heavily as you conjure up the most venomous scowl.

“I don’t need saving especially from guys who look like Optimus Prime.” A grunt escapes your lips and you stop scooting backwards when you bump into a door. Your leg hurts like a bitch and the blood trail following your movement makes your stomach do flips. The masked man chuckles an unnerving robotic laugh.

“Even if Optimus Prime can suture up a bullet wound?” His hands come up to cross against his chest, leaving the decision to you.

You let out a sigh of frustration knowing fully well that you won’t be able to make it back to the bunker like this.

He seems to take that as a go ahead and pulls out supplies from one of his pockets. His gloved fingers grasp your pant leg and rip it along where the wound is. The pain, matched with the realization of you now being officially down to one pair of pants, elicits a groan.

His hand brushes harshly against the wound as he starts wiping the blood from it. A hiss makes its way through your clamped teeth in response.

“It helps if you talk about something else,” he advises, sounding strangely sincere.

“Okay, did you really kill that guy?” you question. He raises his head and looks at you.

“And what do you think?” he challenges. Without any response from you, he returns to the task at hand.

“I think that killing is wrong.” His laugh further frustrates you into believing him to be condescending.

“You sound like someone else I know. That guy with the loose trigger finger was a criminal with horrible intentions towards you and now he is somewhere where he can’t hurt anyone.” His tone is mostly masked by the modulator but you can still detect a hint of annoyance in it.

“Oh, so you are the designated good guy that decides who deserves to li-” a scream rips through your sentence as he digs into your wound.

“Sorry, gotta get the bullet out,” he informs without an ounce of remorse. Your nostrils flare and you breathe through the pain by focusing your attention on him.

“And to answer your question, no I am not. But I am the current best option.” He pulls out the bullet and tosses it aside before pulling out a flask from another one of his million pockets.

“Best option for whom?” you ask through grimaces as he pours what you assume is alcohol to sterilize the wound. His head shakes in laughter.

“Do you always interrogate your saviors?” The dripping sarcasm seeps through the robotic voice. Your only response is to scoff as he finishes up suturing your wound.

“Hey!” you protest as he grabs ahold of your shirt and rips it. He tears off a piece and wraps it around your leg.

“Well I am certainly not ripping my favorite shirt for someone who has been chastising me since I met her.”

Without a proper retort, you stay silent and he pulls the makeshift bandage tightly to make it secure.

In a rather abrupt move, he stands up and clears his throat.

“I know people driven to crime because it is their only way out. I don’t think you can see that far from your high horse,” you speak softly. The thought driven by the painful memory of your own father falling into that exact trap and being punished for it.

“Oh trust me, I know better than anyone. Now, do you have a hole you crawl back into or something that I can take you to?” he inquires. The Arkham Knight prides himself in hiding any and all semblance of emotions. And this is no exception as he doesn’t let on to the fact that this conversation has stirred something in him that he had not felt in a long time; remorse.

“Yes, I have a place. No, you can’t take me to it,” you respond and stand up shakily. Sweat drips down your forehead and you swipe away the tearstains on your cheeks.

“You still don’t trust me?” he surmises incredulously. 

“No, because anyone still left in this hell hole of a city is usually a criminal,” you state and he takes a step towards you.

“And so does that make you one?”

“I don’t know. Do you feel the ‘good guy’ urge to shoot me and send me ‘somewhere I can’t hurt anyone’?” you shoot back while staring at him defiantly. He growls at this and turns backs around.

“Fine, good luck using your snarky ungrateful attitude and bum leg to make your way home.” he spits and strides away. With the utmost maturity, you make a face at his retreating figure. 

The weight of the situation final settles in. You hadn’t even made it two stores in before getting shot and not finding any trace of Anthony nor any supplies you are in desperate need of.

Now isn’t the time for panic or self-loathing...

Shaking yourself from a downward spiral, you search around for something to stable yourself on. Luckily the bullet didn’t hit any bone but damn did it still hurt to put weight on it. Your eye catches a metal barred piece of a shelf on the ground. In the world’s biggest stroke of luck It is just big enough for you to put your shoulder over and use as a crutch. After what feels like an exhausting eternity of never-ending pain, you manage to grab a hold of it and use it to support yourself.

“Ah-ha! Take that Optimus Prime!” you whisper victoriously. You hobble out the door but immediately stop when you hear talking.

“Where is he, Knight?” a gruff voice demands. 

“The big city,” the familiar robot responds. You peek around the corner of the building and have to take a break from exerting yourself. There is no way you are going to make it back to the bunker like this. As the men continue arguing, you search for something helpful. Your search zeroes in on a car parked on the side of the building closest to you. Bingo.

You take a deep breath and limp as fast as you can towards the vehicle. It looks like a modified tank and you have a hunch it belongs to your robotic friend. They are too distracted by their fighting that they don’t notice you slip into the car. 

“Don’t leave your car unlocked in Gotham,” you whisper while closing the door as quietly as you can. You search through the thousands of controls looking for a way to turn the stupid thing on. With a victorious exclamation, your fingers brush against the rather obvious Engine button

“That looks promising,” you laugh and punch it. The engine roars alive underneath you and the men jerk their heads towards the noise.

“Oh shit,” you exclaim and grab onto the steering wheel while slamming a foot down on the gas. All you see through the blurred objects around you is a very angry man sprinting after you shouting probably the most delicate of phrases. 

With only a few dumpsters as collateral damage, you make it to the main road. Your eyes remain pressed wide as the car pushes over a hundred miles an hour. This is definitely a far cry from your little Camry you drove in high school.

Hell, with this speed you can easily make it to a store with supplies. So that’s exactly what you do. The adrenaline of the drive numbs your pain for the moment so you carefully make your way into the grocery store and start shoving things into your bag. Once it is full, you limp back into the car and make your way towards the bunker. 

If you weren’t afraid of a certain someone using their guns on you, you would use the car to track down Anthony. But you know that will have to wait until you are healed. And who knows, your optimist side proposes, he might have returned while you were gone.

You park the car a little ways away from the bunker so that he can’t use it to find you. Your hand freezes on the bunker door when you realize it isn’t sealed. Anthony?

You carefully make your way down bubbling with relieved excitement.

“Anthony, I am so friggin’ relieved you are back. You’ll never believe what I-” Your entire body comes to a complete halt as you stare at a far cry from your familiar friend.

“Who is Anthony?” Optimus Prime himself asks while holding Pete in his hands. At a different time you might have laughed at how absurd he looked in his uniform with a small cat in his arms. An obscenely different time, maybe.

“Give me my cat back,” you demand, staring him down icily.

“Give me my car back,” he retorts while holding the cat closer.

“Are you seriously holding my cat hostage?” you fume but he remains stoic.

“Fine! Your car is parked about a half mile that way,” you point, “I never planned on keeping it! I just needed a way to get home/ get supplies. How did you find me anyways?”

He sets the cat down and Pete immediately gravitates towards the cat food you have stuffed into your bag. You set it down, keeping an eye on the large presence occupying your living space. Secretly, you crave human contact you have been deprived of for weeks. But did it have to be this guy?

“I know where most of the shelters are and don’t remember seeing you in any so then I did a quick scan of nearby bunkers and voila. You know, grass is a pretty shitty cover,” he responds smugly. You take an angry step towards him but immediately regret it and resort to sitting on one of the beds instead, dragging your bag with you. This is all done with the deduction that if he wanted to shoot you, he would have done so already.

You begin taking the contents out and dish out some of the cat food onto the floor. Pete walks up and starts ravenously licking it.

“What are you still doing here?” you ask, looking up at his still figure annoyed. 

“Why don’t you stay in one of the shelters? They have resources so you don’t have to go out and get yourself shot,” he says softly. You scoff with a roll of your eyes.

“Yeah and be a burden to them. I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, clearly.”

“Plus,” you continue, ignoring his comment, “Where do you think the first place Scarecrow is going to attack?”

“He won’t attack the shelters,” he responds coldly.

“And how would you know that?” You stop sifting through your bag and stare inquisitively at him. He clears his throat.

“I just do.” He remains tight-lipped causing you to sigh in frustration.

“Well, great conversation. Thank you for patching me up but don’t you think you should get back to shooting criminals with your self-righteous pistols?”

His helmet swivels around as you can only guess means he is looking around until they land on the empty bed next to yours.

“Who is Anthony?” he questions. pacing through the small space. An idea suddenly occurs to you.

“He is a friend of mine. You haven’t happened to see him have you? He is my age, a couple of inches taller than me, brown curly hair, a bit scrawny?” He stares at you for a few seconds before shaking his head.

“No, can’t say I have seen him.” Your face falls into a frown and he feels the sudden urge to turn your mood.

“But I can keep an eye out for him,” he suggests, immediately lifting your features.

“Seriously? Thank you so much. I would owe you a lot,” you gush and he snorts.

“So I save you from being assaulted and then stop you from bleeding out and you steal my car. I offer to keep an eye out for some guy and you ‘owe me’. I feel like we passed owing me awhile back, Doll.” Your nose scrunches at the nickname. 

“Yeah well I am not forgetting that you kill people.” you bite back.

“I don’t expect you to,” he says so softly it sounds like a thought. And with that, he turns on his heel and starts climbing out of the bunker.

“Wait!” he freezes. “What do I call you? You know, besides Optimus Prime.”

“Jay.” The name is spoken so quickly and so clipped, you barely register it. You sit there completely dumbfounded and a little whoozy from the day’s turmoil. A feeling stirs within you that seems to say he didn’t really mean to tell you his real name. 

[ischemgeek]

Lessons from growing up in the gun rights movement

I grew up in the gun rights movement, and I’m really glad to see it’s finally getting a lot of attention as a major part of the broader far-right extremist movements out there. My view, having grown up in it, is that the gun rights movement, as it currently exists in North America, is almost a cornerstone of far right extremism - it’s involved in most far-right extremist movements out there right now. Your own opinion of gun control as an issue may vary, but I think it is important for everyone to understand this movement and what it looks like. 

The gun rights movement is a single-issue movement. Hard core gun rights types will literally ignore every other issue and vote only on who is going to be the most permissive on the gun issue, even if the person in question goes against all of their other beliefs. Like most far-right movements, they’re made up of a mix of True Believers (like my parents) and people who manipulate the true believers for money and/or power (NRA execs, gun company execs, Alex Jones types, etc). There’s a lot of overlap between gun rights extremists, sovereign citizens, the Patriot movement, various Christofascist groups, social regressivists, hate group members, bigots of any and usually several varieties, hard-right militia movements, and doomsday preppers. In fact, most of the extremist gun rights folks I’ve met cover at least two of those bases (my parents, for example, are gun rights extremists, Patriot movement supporters, bigots, and doomsday preppers). So it’s hard not to talk about the others while you talk about gun rights extremism, but I’ll try because that’s a whole can o’ worms there and I could go on for way too long. Officially, the gun rights movement is neutral on the left-right spectrum. In practice, it gets the overwhelming support and membership from various hard-right and far-right movements, and is not a place you want to be advertising your left wing views.

There are five keys to remember when dealing with the gun rights crowd on this kind of issue: 1. They believe any social problem (including the problem of shootings) can be solved by more guns. See the mantra of “The only thing that stops a Bad Guy with a gun is a Good Guy with a gun.” They marinate themselves in propaganda about lone heros single-handedly saving the day with their trusty self-defense weapon. Often they’ve convinced themselves that they – Mr 70YO doctor with no formal combat training or Ms overweight and out of shape 35YO business person who plays paintball once in a while – would be this Great Hero if something ever happened, and they’ll even express some eagerness over the idea in unguarded moments. They genuinely believe the only thing stopping them from being a hero is lack of opportunity. So when you pooh-pooh the idea of some middle-aged teacher with no combat training single-handedly stopping a school shooter because that’s fucking ridiculous (and it is fucking ridiculous don’t get me wrong – trained experts in that kind of tactical response have at best an 18% hit rate in real situations, can you imagine what an untrained person does?), you’re threatening their own self-image and making them feel personally insulted. Cuz, after all, they’re Joe or Jane Ordinary, too. 2. They believe any attempt to regulate gun rights whatsoever is the first step on a slippery slope to overarching totalitarianism, because if they don’t have their guns, there is nothing to stop (insert boogeyman here – the government, the New World Order, whatever) from taking over. They believe the above because most of them are right-wing authoritarians and fantasize about being the ones in control with absolute authority to do whatever the hell they want – and they feel if that’s what they want, that’s what everyone wants, and only constant vigilance will keep them and theirs free. 3. They believe that any incident involving a gun can be explained by other factors, other than the mere presence of the firearm. Baby shoots mommy in the grocery store and kills her because he was playing with her gun in her purse? That’s the mom’s negligence for storing her weapon improperly, not the gun’s fault (never mind they advertise some weapons as purse weapons…). School shooter? Mental health, not enough armed people in the school to respond, terrorism if the shooter is brown, if the shooter didn’t have a gun he’d use a bomb or a knife, etc. Crime? Tougher policing is needed, not “punishing” the lawful gun owners for the actions of the criminals! I could go on. 4. Their primary tactics in these cases is to delay, deflect and distract. Step 1: Delay. This is not the time to talk about gun control. How dare you politicize this tragedy? Step 2: Deflect. The problem isn’t guns in school, it’s [other issue – violent video games, mental health, whatever]. Step 3: Distract. If you really want to protect children, why don’t you [arm teachers/set up SWAT teams and an armed perimeter on every school/etc]? or Those kids weren’t really victims – they were crisis actors! They know what they’re saying is ridiculous, but that’s not the point – the idea is to buy time for the public attention to move somewhere else, because they know that once public attention is no longer on an issue, the government isn’t going to act. 5. Under no circumstances will they ever argue honestly. They will say they support “reasonable” gun control, but they are lying. They want to seem reasonable so they pretend a compromise can be found and instead work to sabotage it by finding ridiculous sticking points until you give up in frustration, and then they’ll paint you as the bad guy.

So, what I’m saying is: No tragedy will ever be enough for the gun rights crowd. The True Believers are in a cult to the god of gun culture. Nothing will convince them head-on. They pretty much have to find their own doubt somehow and de-radicalize. And the others are too amoral to give a shit. Weirdly, the too-amoral ones are the ones it’s easier to reach – if you can convince them it’s better for them to side with you, they’ll change camps. Think the Republicans who all of a sudden found in their hearts a bit of support for gun control measures in the past week.

As hard as it is to do, what the US needs to do to make progress on this issue is to completely write-off the gun rights crowd and go after the moderate and mainstream conservatives, the swing voters, and the left wing. If you can make it obvious it’s political suicide to take NRA money and support NRA positions, that’s how you win. The kids from Parkland are doing a great job – by refusing to let the three Ds work. They insist they want to be talking about gun control, so they refuse to delay. They redirect the conversation back to guns by providing counter-evidence to the claim and returning back to the topic at hand. And they make fun of the outrageous ideas but – critically – refuse to be distracted. If you control the political conversation, as the kids are doing, you control where politics goes.

The gun control issue itself is more complicated than either side is making it out to be right now - on the one hand, strict gun control does directly result in a drop in mass shooting events and a drop in the lethality of mass casualty attacks. On the other hand, poorly applied gun control can and will lead to a racist end result (think ‘stop and frisk’ - the law doesn’t have to be explicitly racist to be applied in a racist way). Those are both important, valid points that are in need of discussion. I do believe in the end, waiting periods, safety regulations, licensing of owners, and mandatory training is all going to be a net positive - but then, that’s pretty close to the system we have up here, and I’m white, so I admit I might have some implicit bias there. I don’t pretend to have all the answers. I do claim to know the inside of the gun rights movement, because I grew up in it.