#and i thought that it was very obvious that he was trying to repackage and handle through humour what's basically a

[delurkr]

Omg your favorite character is John?!! That's really interesting tbh I wasn't expecting that. I love him sm. Would you mind kind of explaining why he's your fave? No pressure of course :)

Yesss he's awesome lol. I have so many reasons and I'll never remember them all at once but I'll mention some of the main ones 😁

Neurotic, angry, cowardly, aggressively optimistic based on nothing but stubbornness, he's my exact type of fictional character lol. Not to mention he pretty much spends the entirety of the game defaulting to being dead wrong on just about everything, which is always a bonus. I don't know why I find these kinds of things hilarious instead of annoying but I do 😂

He's got good points too. He's a perfect repackaging of his previous doubles; they're made of all the same ingredients and it's a lot of fun to make the connections among them. He's grown more as a person though, with his alcohol recovery being an obvious example. He's got some awareness of his issues and he's working on himself; we love to see it.

Also he was the first character in the game to feel real to me, if that makes sense, like he felt like a whole person without me having to read into anything. He has a variety of interests for one thing and that always helps make characters feel real, but also he's just a hot mess of a human; he has a lot of stupid pretensions, inconsistencies, emotions dialed up to 11, ye olde internal battles of wanting to act one way and doing the opposite, etc etc. And this is a weird thing to try to explain but for all his literacy his speech is very unrefined. He fits the arrogant academic trope in one sense but there's a lot more to him than "reads books" and I love that for him.

He's part of some of the best dynamics in the game (I am obsessed with John/Andrew and John/Taylor). Also he's such an important part of the game as a whole, like imagine LH without John. Characters don't have to be that important to be my faves but there's more to work with when they are.

Shoutout to his design in general and his outfit in particular (he's so extra lol), the ✨sledgehammer moment✨ including the associated character development, and his lack of romantic storyline; and lastly his acting is really good and his voice is cool 😂 It's also relevant how some players immediately slap him with negative preconceived labels without giving it a second thought the entire game but I'll spare everyone the rant (it makes me more defensive of him, my saltiness on this topic runs deep). But the bottom line is that I love him very much and I love to see other people loving him, so thank you for this ask 😊

[sonechkaandthedynamos]

.

[csjw]

idol! jay x nonidol gn! reader

genre; just some sweet ole fluff

notes; barely proofread so sorry for the mistakes 😰

desc; distance makes the heart grow fonder, right? where you and jay desperately miss each other after only a month. (ft. a rambly jay)

—

Getting off the plane he only had one thing on his mind: what was the fastest way to your apartment from the airport? 

The blinding lights of the cameras didn’t stun him, maybe it was because of his publicity training or maybe it’s because of the fact that his mind was wandering - to your eyes, your smile, your scent. He was down bad like sunghoon said, he denied it at first but now he can see how obvious his love for you is, maybe being down bad wasn’t all so bad.

—

Heart hammering and bag jingling from the souvenirs he got you, he knocked on your door. Before he could even get a breathless ‘hi’ in (hey those stairs are no joke and your elevator has been broken for weeks) he was embraced in a giant hug. He was about to tease you for missing him but you shut him up quick with a kiss, so maybe he missed you a tiny bit too. 

“How was your trip?” 

You were beaming because even if it was only for a month calls and texts would never be able to live up to seeing your boyfriend right in front of you.

“It was great, missed you so much though. oh! But look I got you some stuff. We went to disneyland, it was so cool. Oh my god did I show you the selfie I got with goofy? The dude underneath the costume must’ve been huge! You can barely see jungwon’s face.” Jay says while pulling up said picture

You giggle, you really can’t see jungwon there.

“Okay but here I got you this cute little keychain” he points at each section of the keychain, “look there’s the castle and the little tinkerbell! Isn’t it cute?”

“Very cute baby, I love it thank you!”

“Mhm and there was this one ride that I know you would’ve loved, there were so many fast turns and the drops were kinda scary but I know you’re into that stuff.”

There was a rustling noise as he was making his way through his bag, then there was a small clatter before he finally pulled out a paper?

“What’s this?”

“Oh! We were walking around a college I think, and there was this guy saying ‘join my animal club’ or something like that (he now thinks that maybe it was a club for furries) but it had this cute baby deer picture on it so I brought it with me. Thought you might like it.” He was blushing hard now, cus maybe you thought he was a creep or something. This was definitely not as cute as the keychain. Oh god he should’ve just kept this one to himself-

You giggled looking at it.

Now he’s thinking that maybe it’s not that creepy, I mean you look like you’re enjoying it right?

“Thank you baby it’s really cute”

He let out a sigh of relief. 

“Um, okay I swear I have more stuff in here for you.” More bag rustling, and then a napkin fell out? You were confused, it was all crumpled why would he keep this?

“Baby what’s this?”

“Huh? Oh, that’s from this café we went to, it was really cute, but super bougie like there’s only one in the world and well obviously it was that one. And I heard it had a mean green tea and well I didn’t have that. I actually just had an americano, which honestly top three americanos I’ve ever had. Like wow their coffee beans must’ve been made of magic or something. And anyways you love green tea so I thought I’d save the napkin so that when we go there I could take you there and you could try it.”

“Wait – take me there?”

He was getting even redder now, if that was even possible. “Oh, well I don’t know when promotions and repackage are done I thought maybe we could go on a trip together there sometime. I mean we didn’t have much time to look around but it looked beautiful so maybe we could go and sightsee, just you and me I mean. Only if you wanna go too.” He chuckled nervously not meeting your eyes.

You took initiative in your own hands cupping his face with one, “I would love to go on a trip with you and sightsee and go on that rollercoaster and drink that green tea and do whatever the heck else you wanna do.”

“Oh, okay that’s great. Mhm yup!” Feeling a little flustered at your confident hand-face holding.

“God, you’re such a dork”

—

a/n; hi ! so this is my first writing post on here :D so plz be kind! all feedback is welcome and thank you all for reading <3 reblogs are greatly appreciated (´∀｀) i also don’t know why tumblr format makes it look so weird so very sorry abt that :,( also really bad header, i made it in like five mins

[kriffingunlucky]

Hey I absolutely adore your writing and was wondering if I could request a female reader with Crosshair where the reader is just straight flirting with him and he’s completely clueless to it?

Uh, totally? This is absolutely perfect. >:] And omg! Thank you so much, dearest! I really appreciate that. You guys liking my work is all that keeps me going. So these compliments make my world brighter. I put a "read more" link because this got longer than I was expecting hehe.

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

This has been going on for way too long.

Every morning for the past couple of weeks you greet Crosshair with a chipper "good morning, handsome!", or a compliment of that sort. A huge smile plastered on your face. The day goes on, your tasks get done, but you always follow him around and spend whatever time you're able to with him. Smiling all the while. You help him with anything he could possibly need help with. You compliment and tease him. You pat his arms and shoulders affectionately.

Why hasn't the clueless asshole caught onto your hints yet?

You really thought you were being pretty damn obvious. But it's also kind of cute that he doesn't really notice it, or at least think anything of it, at least; you hope.

You lay on top of the Havoc Marauder. Deep in thought. Eyes cast onto the stars above you.

Another Republic base in a small village you all have docked yourselves at to stock back up on supplies, another gift you've snuck onboard for Crosshair. And he still thinks nothing of the kiss that came with it. Damnit.

Chatter spread throughout the Republic occupied space, you casually walking with Wreckers huge poncho over your shoulders back to the ship, trying to be as inconspicuous as you could be.

Which wasn't very inconspicuous.

Because as you approached the Marauder Hunter did a double take at you, brows furrowing in suspicion at your form.

"Hello, (Y/n). What are you doing out?" He crossed his arms firmly over his chest.

You scoffed, placing a hand over your chest. Mock hurt in your voice. "Can a girl not go out and enjoy the city while she finally has the time?"

"Mmhm," Hunter takes a breath in. Giving you an up-down scan. "Why are you wearing Wrecker's poncho?"

"It is comfortable."

"But you have your own that fits you perfectly fine."

"Yes but his is comfier."

"Okay. But it looks as if you're hiding something underneath it. You're more bulky."

"Are you calling me fat?"

"Wha- No? Why would I do that?"

"Because you're mean! You're questioning me!"

"(Y/n)-"

"I am going to cry. And it's all because of you."

"I-"

"ALL BECAUSE OF YOU."

The Sergent throws his hands into the air, groaning, absolutely exasperated. He turns to walk back to where he was before. Loading things into the cargo hold of their small home. "Fine! Whatever! I just hope that thing you're sneaking into the ship for reasons that are beyond me do not involve me! At all!"

You grin as smooth as a tooka cat, sauntering your way into the Marauder, cooing behind you. "No worries, sarge. You'll never hear of this again."

Shedding off the large poncho you'd worn, you lay it on Wrecker's bunk, yelling through the ship. "Thank you for the poncho lend, Wreck!"

In which you get a hardy laugh and, "No problem, little'un!" in response.

Taking your time unwrapping the large basket of sweets you'd smuggled into the ship, you repackage them in a fancy way. Thinking it's rather pretty before you pick it up and scamper to wherever you thought Crosshair might be.

With no luck on your first attempts, you hear Echo's breathy chuckle. "He is outside, napping, surprisingly. You'll see him. He's laying out on the grass like a dramatic starfish."

You grin and yell a loud "thank you" as you jog from the ship, clearing your throat a couple times as you look for him. It really didn't take long to find him sprawled out in the grass. Eyes open, and looking up at the sunset that paints the sky.

Good, so I don't have to wake him. You thought in a sigh of relief.

You open your mouth to speak as you halted yourself in front of him. Standing above his head.

But when he looked up at you with his honey filled eyes, you were love struck again, and at an awkward loss of words. Again.

"(Y/n)." He greets curtly. Not having anything against you, really, but also not being super friendly with you. He was, though, very curious as to what is in that basket of yours.

He was re-situating to see whatever you had in your hands better as you began to gather your thoughts again. "Hi, Cross!" Was your very annoying, in your own anxious opinion, start. "I brought'cha something!"

The sniper raises his silver eyebrows, holding his hands out to take it from you when you offered it towards him. He hummed in confirmation and interest when he set it in his lap.

He was sorting through the contents, so you took that extended silence to speak. "I bought you some sweets from the village venders, because you're a sweet treat yourself!"

Crosshair snorted a small laugh, picking through the items and very silently judging them. You swallowed as you kept smiling. Worried you'd overdone it this time.

But when he looked up at you, meeting your eyes, his expression was absolutely beaming. No, he wasn't smiling. Nor was he really showing that he was happy with it through his facial expression par say. It was through the vibrancy of his eyes that you could tell he loved it.

They were extra shimmery.

"Hope you like it." You grinned, very satisfied with your results. And with a newfound confidence, you leaned down, kissing his cheek softly.

Turning around and walking away, practically skipping, actually, you left a dumbfounded but now quietly happy Crosshair behind you.

And you hadn't heard anything about it from him since. You rubbed your face, half of you frustrated and the other half was entertained by his obliviousness. You'd all eaten dinner together, and laughed about the day.

Tech said that you were making heart eyes at Cross the whole time, but, you refuse to believe that. Even though Echo and Wrecker second that accusation.

"I can be happy being his friend." You spoke to yourself, trying to convince your own brain of this, "He doesn't have to like me the way I like him."

The silence outside was almost mocking your statement.

"Who am I kidding?" You groaned into your hands.

Moments later, after you'd calmed down and just ended up silently gazing at the stars. You heard footsteps climbing the latter to the top of the Marauder. Lifting your head a tad from your laying position you make eye contact with Crosshair.

Letting your head thump against the ground, you sigh quietly. Not even really having much energy to chat with him. You hoped he hasn't come up here to scold you for your gift. Calling it "dumb" and "unprofessional", like you'd worried he thought it was.

"Hey, handsome." You mumble. Adjusting your hands to lay on top of your stomach, laced together slackly, eyes cast away from him.

Crosshair comes close to you, and stands beside where you're sitting for a couple of moments. The atmosphere a tad tense. And you knew it was only because of your tired mind.

You'd been so confident about flirting with him before. But you've slowly come to worry, well, you're at least just worrying right now; that maybe he understands you're flirting and is just ignoring you.

Crosshair sits beside you with a small thump, not saying anything still. Crossing his legs, then pulling something out of the ammo pack on his belt, he hands it to you open palmed.

"Here." He spoke softly.

You hummed and sat yourself half up on your elbows, furrowing your brows at what he holds. You couldn't really see it. It was dark and unlike him, you didn't have enhanced vision. "What's this?"

The sniper snorts. "Take it and find out."

You huff a laugh and sit up fully, taking the mysterious object from his hands with care. Inspecting it for a moment, you soon come to a realization.

It's a piece of candy.

One of the piece's you'd given him earlier, to be exact.

"I thought I'd thank you for giving me those nice sweets." He commented, almost bashfully, when you'd looked up at him with a smile.

"Of course, honeypot! It's my pleasure." You grin and wiggle your body from side to side. Scooting a tad closer to him. Your heart fluttering when your actions earned a small smile from the man.

You love it when he smiles. Especially at you.

"Don't call me that." He huffed out, but with no venom in his voice. Shaking his head as he watched you re-situate closer to him.

"Awww," You whine playfully. "Why not, beautiful? You're as sweet as honey! It's a perfect fit."

"No. It's cringy."

"I'm hurt by your words," you joke as you gently lean your head onto his shoulder. Breathing in a big breath. "Can I call you honeybear?"

"Oh," He snorts, "Please no."

"What about just honey?"

Crosshair sighed, smiling, even though you couldn't see it. And laid his head on top of yours. "That will be acceptable if you insist on with these dumb honey themed names."

You giggled - arm hooking around his, small hand laying on top of the other's larger one, (e/c) eyes fluttering closed - then sighed. "Perfect."

And that is when Crosshair realized, he realized he was catching feelings for you. But much to his unknown relief, he's lucky you felt the same, because all of your pickup lines and pet names still haven't clicked for him. Not yet at least.

Just wait until he asks Tech about it.

[shotorozu]

HI AIDHAIHDHAJD I HOPE YOU’RE DOING WELL RN BUT I SAW THIS POST ON TIKTOK AND- BQKDHQIHAHA ITS SO FUNNY IF IT’S OKAY TO YOU CAN YOU PLEASE DO THAT ONE FOR KAMINARI, BAKUGO AND SHOTO 😭😭

IT’S JUST SO??? BAHAHAHAH THANK YOU THOUGHT ILY🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️

(https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSJRWVY2g/)

giving them boxers with your face on them

(tiktok trend)

character(s) : kaminari denki, bakugou katsuki, todoroki shouto (bnha)

legend : [Y/N = your name] they/them pronouns used, quirk not mentioned

headcanon type : fluff, crack (x reader)

note(s) : PLEASE I BURSTED INTO LAUGHTER WHEN I READ THE TITLE, AND IM NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO LAUGH THAT MUCH 💀💀

no proof read— wrote this at 12am so,, if there are any mistakes, i’ll fix them later!

»»————-　♡　————-«

kaminari denki

you saw a tiktok of someone giving their boyfriend a pair of boxers— but it had their face on it. so, you KNEW that you NEEDED to give this to denki.

beforehand, you asked his besties— sero and kirishima, to help you out on this tiktok. because,, if you asked someone else, it would’ve DEFINITELY been questioned (and obviously, they were willing to help)

but let’s be honest, when you told them what exactly you wanted to get done, they bursted into laughter 💀 and it took them 10 minutes to recover

it didn’t take long for you to receive the pair, and you also managed to conceal the pair of boxers with dark packaging. all that’s left is your boyfriend’s arrival

now— you’d think that denki would know about this new trend going around, but surprise! he doesn’t know 🗿

and even if he did know, i feel like he’d be caught off guard anyway— if you saw someone’s face on a piece of underwear, you would be surprised too

when you were setting up your phone (for the tiktok) that was when denki comes in, “hey Y/N! whatchu doing?”

“hi denki, look! i want you to open something i got you— and it’s custom made.” this sparks his interest no pun intended, and he hurries on to open it

and he is NOT DISAPPOINTED

he doesn’t even comment on the fact that your phone is out which he assumed was for tiktok and he bursts into uncontrollable laughter, practically snorting

“PLEEASEE WHY DO YOU HAVE YOUR FACE ON A PAIR OF BOXERS? I WASN’T EXPECTING THIS—” and he really meant that.

after you finished filming the tiktok, denki basically SPRINTED to the bathroom, so that he could wear the boxers 💀 he has to cherish your gifts as soon as he received them, right?

he’ll talk about them once in a while, “remember the time that you gave me those boxers? plEASE it’s still funny.”

the tiktok does incredibly well, and heck— it even came to the point where the tiktok’s sound went viral 💀 gathering 11k videos under that sound

bakugou katsuki

the idea never crossed your mind— and the tiktok didn’t show up on your fyp. but it did show up on kaminari’s fyp

you’d be scared because one, he’d scold you for spending too much money on ‘stupid pair of boxers’ which you worded in katsuki’s words

and two— this is bakugou katsuki 🧍 pranks and trends like these don’t really work on him, and you’re also scared of angering him?? you value NOT dying in the hands of an angry bakugou katsuki, okay?

but i don’t think that should be your concern anyway, the fact that you even managed to tame katsuki— was enough

back to the topic, kaminari basically dared you to give katsuki that because “he’d appreciate anything from his dearest s/o, riiigght?” and he’s not wrong

so, you receive the custom made boxers in the mail (with your face SLAPPED on it’s front) and you make sure to repackage the boxers

so that the wrapping would conceal the boxers’ print— and so that the surprise would be a tad bit more effective.

when you were discreetly setting your phone up for the tiktok, that was also when katsuki came from his daily workout routine

he’s just like 🤨 when he sees you all excited— and when he also sees the package

“what are you all excited about?” he’ll ask after pecking your lips,“idiot?? don’t tell me yo—”

“no, no! it’s for you, this time!” you reassure him, “i promise it’s not anything funny!” too bad katsuki believes you

he walks over, and immediately tears the wrapping— “what the,,” when he opens the package, he is NOT pleased 🧍

“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?? YOU’RE GIVING ME BOXERS WITH YOUR FACE ON THEM??”

you just laughed out loud, rolling onto the floor in pure laughter— and katsuki can only stare at the boxers in shock, “you’re gonna wear them, right?”

“no, fuck no.” he’s so done with your shit

“aww pleaseee? those were expensive, AND they were custom made.” he’s so disappointed wjdnsjs

“i—” he sighs, “you’re lucky that i love you. i would’ve chucked this.. thing in the trashcan.”

it’s,,, the thought that counts for sure! he’ll probably wear them once in every blue moon though.

kaminari watches the tiktok, and ends up having the biggest field day— on the brighter side! your wallet isn’t that empty anymore.

if you’re curious about the tiktok’s results, it does well— it’s almost scary, considering how the tiktok blew up FAST

todoroki shouto

pleaseeee 💀🖐

now,, shouto would’ve thought that you wanted to gift those boxers to him GENUINELY. like,, sincerely

not like a gag gift, but more like a “oh hey shouto! i saw these boxers while shopping, and i thought these would look great on you.”

and you’d also think that shouto would’ve gotten a lot more used to the social thing— in a way, he has.

but,, boxers with YOUR face on them??? that wasn’t in the run through, tf

you were shopping online for clothes, when you suddenly got the greatest idea to surprise your boyfriend with a pair of boxers—

that had your face on them 💀

you don’t actually mean to tease him, but you’re just really curious on how he’d react to seeing the boxers (and if he’d actually wear them)

you place your phone in a not so obvious area— but it was also high enough to capture his reaction. when you get the boxers, they actually came in black packaging so,, less trouble!

“hey love,” he greets you with a quick kiss on the lips— and he quickly notices the black package that sat right next to you. “what’s that?”

“oh, speaking of which—” you hold out the box, “open it!”

and shouto is like,, hmm.. because you didn’t tell him what exactly the gift was, but either way— anything from you would be worth the suspense im sorry, but you’re just trying your best to hold yourself back

when he opens the package, he’s surprised to see what appears to be shorts, but when he unfolds the pair of ‘shorts’

😯 “is that..” he’s at a loss for worrd, completely BAFFLED at the sight of your face on a pair of boxers. out of all of the things he was expecting, it,, wasn’t this

YOU JUST CAN’T HELP BUT LAUGH AT THE FACT THAT HE’S LIKE 😯 ➡️🧍

shouto’s so confused, because why are you laughing? was this not genuine? is this not a social cue he doesn’t understand? why would he not like them??

but he’s surprised for sure, so he does laugh, “Y/N, i’d appreciate anything you’d give me. so, this was not any exception— but this was certainly the most interesting gift you have given me.”

setting all of jokes aside, he takes good care of the boxers— commenting on how he doesn’t want to tarnish the fabric, or the print of your astonishing face.

he wears them when he’s not going anywhere 🗿 so occasionally, you’d catch a glimpse of those boxers in the laundry—

he’s not very shy about it, since “you gifted me them so.. i’m using them.”

when you posted the tiktok, it does extremely well— and it mostly consisted of comments like “LMAO WE KNOW HOW MUCH YOU WANTED TO LAUGH” “he was genuinely surprised lmaooo”

»»————-　♡　————-«

likes and reblogs are appreciated, thanks for reading!

i do not own bnha/mha and it’s characters. boku no hero academia/my hero academia belongs to horikoshi kohei, i only own the writing and i do not profit off of my hobby

do not plagiarize, reupload, translate, or use my works for audio readings without permission

[solo1y]

The Batman movies have been getting darker. After the bright and silly 1960s series, everyone thought the 1980s Tim Burton Batman was dark. Then the 2000s Christopher Nolan Batman happened. Surely, we benighted simpletons thought, it can’t get much darker than this? But here we all are. Every twentyish years we get a new, darker reboot. Pity the cinemagoers of 2045 as they leave the new incarnation of Batman (Timothée Chalemet) in stunned silence, afraid to go home and drag their loved ones into their new, despair-ridden worldview. 

The Batman (Robert Pattinson; he’s fine, don’t worry about it) isn’t just dark thematically, it’s dark literally. Everything happens at night or during the day in badly-lit buildings with high ceilings. Even in The Dark Knight, there is a scene in the sunlight where Bruce Wayne spends the afternoon on a yacht with an entire Russian ballet company. There’s none of that in this movie. The only light is from the reflection of red-and-blue police car lights or the oddly muted illumination in the nightclub which forms one of the main locations.

Whenever Bruce Wayne makes an appearance, he is almost indistinguishable from Batman: sullen, dark, antisocial and somehow simultaneously looks like he just got up and he hasn’t slept in three days. This is the first movie where I want to look like Bruce Wayne more than I want to look like Batman, who seems awkward, lumbering and sometimes even clumsy by comparison. 

In every scene he’s in, Batman stomps around in big clumpy boots that he got from Demonia and they do not look or sound conducive to the gymnastic combat stuff you expect from Batman. 

He gets knocked out to the point of unconsciousness. Twice. He keeps missing obvious clues and he ultimately fails to prevent the bad guy from executing his evil plan.

In one scene he completely mishandles his bat-glider (or whatever that thing is) and whacks off a bridge and a lorry, smashing into the ground at high speed. If this were literally any other Batman movie, it would be a laugh moment. No one laughed in my cinema. There was a collective sharp intake of breath, though. Apparently, we were more concerned that he might have actually hurt himself. It’s that kind of movie.

Although they’ve never been a priority, his people skills in this movie are truly awful. Any time he is confronted with a genuine human emotion of any kind, he freezes wordlessly in what I’m hoping is fear and not revulsion. 

The script is good enough, however, to lampshade the old joke about Batman’s superpower being privilege (repackaged by a black Catwoman in a comment about the bad guys as “white privilege”).

One thing very much in its favour is that it's not trying to be a Marvel movie. Don’t expect a fast-paced, witty action movie. After the success of Joker, it looks like The Batman is not connected to any of the Extended-Universe-Justice-League movies we all know and tolerate. DC might be figuring out that its best bet is to stop trying to copy the billion-dollar Marvel juggernaut and keep making great standalone movies. If you make a good movie, people will want to see it regardless. 

This movie is more like a dark, brooding police procedural. At times it could almost be an episode of Law & Order directed by David Lynch. It's a proper, old-school Batman movie minus anything whimsical or humorous.

It's paced (and even plotted) like one of those 1970s psychological thrillers with Gene Hackman, except in those movies everything is a shade of brown and in this one everything is a shade of black. It moves slowly, proceeds in a straight line from beginning to end and it involves a massive, all-encompassing conspiracy between drug smugglers and law enforcement which threatens to destroy the only good cop in the city. 

If you've seen The French Connection, you'll recognise a lot of this. That’s a good thing. 

[popculturebuffet]

House of Mouse: The Stolen Cartoons Review (Patreon Review)

Hello all you happy people! It’s Patreon Review Time. Since my 5 dollar or higherr patreons get 1 review a month, Kevin my 10 dollar patreon is using one of his to celebrate the 20th anniversary of House of Mouse by having me review a random episode a month. And for this month we’re going all the way back to the start with The Stolen Cartoons!

I already introed house of mouse back when I reviewed “The Three Cablleros” episode but for a refresher: House of Mouse is a 2001 cartoon about Mickey and Co running a club. Mickey is host, Minnie plans the show and runs the books, Donald tends to the VIP”s and co owns the club with Mickey, Goofy is head waiter,  Daisy runs guest services, Horace is technical support, Clarabelle is a gossip monger with no clear actual job, and Max is Valet. The show was used to repackage shorts from the short lived show Mickey mouseworks, using the club setting as a wraparound and said club was attentend by all the various characters from the disney canon. It’s as awesome as it sounds. 

The voice cast, which I didn’t intro thorughly last time, was equally awesome with all the actors for the characters at the time, all legends in the industry. Wayne Allwine as Mickey,who played the character from the late 70′s to his death, Russi Taylor as Minnie and the Triplets, who did the same and was also married to wayne, Tony Anselmo, who should be thorughly familiar to readers of this blog and donald duck fans as his voice since Ducktales, Voice Actress Tress Macneile as Daisy, likewise,  Jason Marsden as Max and Voice Acting Legend Jim Cummings as Pete. All except Allweine i’ve profieled before on this blog in various other series, but Wayne, outisde of a very minor role in black cauldron, only voiced Mickey, and to me is the defntiive voice for the guy, though Chris is getting close. 

The other notable members of the cast i havent’ covered are April Winchell, who while tremendous, I will save for an episode Clarabelle is actually in more, and Bill Farmer. I have a great amount of Love for Bill and like everyone here, he was a vertran of the industry by the time he showed up in this series. His defining roll far and away is goofy, who was, to my delighted surprise his FIRST voice audition, having studided PInto Colving’s voice well to the point you can barely tell the difference between the two, and having inherited the roll around the same time as Russi and Tony. He’s the voice of Goofy I and most kids from the 80′s onward have grown up with and is the best at the roll by far, having chances for depth and nuance Pinto wasn’t allowed with the Goofy Movies and other works. IN general he’s just THE goofy to me. He’s also the voice of horace and pluto, and currently voices Hop Pop in Amphibia which is super noteworthy as looking at his filmography like a lot of the sensational 6′s va’s he’s only voiced goofy or Pluto for most of his career. But hey like Tony, if you only do one charcter might as well be the fucking best at it. He also has a show on Disney Plus with him and dogs I need to watch yesterday. 

So with our cast out of the way, and not much history to go into, join me after the cut and we’ll see how House of Mouse got it’s start and if it was a good one. 

Breaking from my usual format for House of Mouse and doing the shorts as they come up int he main story for two reasons: The first is that the shorts are integral to the plot and the second is that there’s way more main story this time around than usual, likely to properly set things up. 

So we open at the House of Mouse with Mickey Adressing the club and showing off the general premise of this being a club for all of the various heroes and villains of disney to hang out and what not. He also presents the house rules which are no smoking (Fair and should’ve always been a thing), no villianous schemes and no eating the other guests, all helpfully demonstrated as he says them. We also get to see the others in action: Minnie handling the schedule and the crew, Donald welcoming the guests, and Daisy running the desk and getitng brainwashed by Jafar into giving him a table. Max also is providing his job as Valet which surprised me because I genuinely thought he didn’t join the cast till season 2.. despite the fact he’s right there in the credits.. which are the same for ALL THREE SEASONS. 

So things are going well.. so naturally that’s when Pete shows up to try and ruin things. Look he’s having a hard time after the divorce.. several years ago. Okay maybe he’s always just been a dick and that’s why he’s divorced in the first place. Point is he naturally wants to shut the club down, boot them out, and wreck up the place like any natural cartoon villian or real estate scum bag landlord. Pete just happens to be both because he can multitask. .and because it’s basically the same thing you just have to be animated for one of them.  Thankfully whoever the previous Landlord was, i’m going with Shere Kahn given the setting, his roll in tailspin and the fact the obvious candidate, scrooge, would make no sense here given a later episode where he guest stars, wrote into the contract that as long as the show goes on, they can stay in business. Pete stews over this and naturally plans to stop the show while Minnie, in a cute bit, comforts a nervous mickey and just tells him to play some cartoons. So...

Pluto Gets the Paper: Wet Cement and Donald’s Dynamite: Magic Act I”m covering both of these at once. But as I said the animated shorts this time are one big sized one and two of the shorter ones to make more room for the story. Which is fair: this is the first episode, and thus needs to set up the premise. The series isn’t story driven but your first episode should still feel like one, ease you into the world and get you situated and THEN can do the normal format. It’s also in the episode’s favor as the heavier story focus meant a BETTER story than most season 1 episodes, on par with the two season 3 episodes i’ve covered so far. 

The shorts themselves are fine. So far this is the only Pluto Short i’ve liked as it has a neat enough gaga: Pluto has to get the paper in wet cement. Why did the paperboy throw it in wet cement instead of in the driveway, I dunno but given this short is well.. short and just meant to deliver on some quick gags, I’m not going to question it. It’s the first Pluto short i’ve covered without any dog sexual harassment, i’m not looking a gift dog in the mouth. 

The other short short played right after is part of a series where Donald ends up trying to get rid of a round bomb that shows up wherever he is....

It’s pretty damn funny, though being a huge Donald fan i’m obviously biased, but even removing my donald duck brand sunglasses, I will concede this was objectively fun.

But the cartoons stop as, true to the title, they’ve gone missing! Horace is found tied up, the cartoons are gone and Pete is obviously responsible. and hilariously so as the rope has his name on it and he says “I don’t know horace horsecollar” There are a LOT of good gags in this one, i’m leaving a lot out for time’s sake. 

So Mickey and Minnie come up with a plan: Mickey sends the.. Quackstreet Boys.... to stall. Now it may shock you but I actually LIKE the backstreet boys. Not to an extreme amount but I did grow up with them, and even now find their music pretty damn good. No my issue is this parody is weak, mostly running entirely on the title pun. The most I can give them credit for is using the outfits from their second album cover. No I wasn’t kidding I did grow up with them. You saw that everywhere so even if I didn’t enjoy their music then and now, i’d know it. But it just feels really weak, like they had no idea what to DO with the boys and instead just slapped them in a lame parody. It dosen’t help i’m not a fan of the classic version of the boys outside of the comics, as I feel later productions should’ve had them actually be distinct, and it took until 2017 to pull that off with the reboot, something I fear may be undone in future productions. Please.. don’t.. you can have Cristina Vee voice them all, I don’t care about the voice I just want to be able to tell them a apart. So yeah I don’t like it but it dosen’t drag the episode down. Just something I wanted to have a moan about. 

So they split up: Mickey, Minnie and Goofy go to shoot a cartoon while Donald runs the club. Naturally he rebrands.. but what really is telling is everyone boos him when he tries to mc.. just for not being Mickey. While Donald does have a massive inferiority complex here, desperately wanting to one up mickey.. with moments like this it’s hard not to see why> He’s JUST as big a star, just as talented , maybe not as nice but just as likeable. He even co-owns the club. But ironically only Mickey Himself, and Daisy of Course, treat him like an equal. To everyone else it’s Mickey’s world and he’s just the sidekick. It’s no wonder he spend sthe entire show desperately trying to outdo mickey: he doesn’t hate the guy, even if he wouldn’t admit it.. but he just wants to be loved too. Sure it’s part ego.

Mickey does return though with the new cartoon. And our only sizeable one so. 

Hickory Dickory Mickey: This is a REALLY good one with a simple enough premise; Goofy wants Mickey to take him to the airport at 6am tomorrow.. which Mickey balks at. 

Seriously i’ve woken up at 3-4am to go to the airport or on road trips. Waking up at 5:30 is pretty standard. Goofy also has good reason to ask as he once BROKE MICKEY OUT OF JAIL. And as seen up top the flashback is done in black and white AND with their old models. I just.. love everything about this and it had to have taken extra effort to make new models for the old models and thus extra money for a quick joke. So kudos best part of the episode. But with his hands tied Mickey is forced to take him and Goofy leaves him his clock which won’t stop ticking. So we get just.. nonstop good gags as Mickey tries to sleep with standouts being his trying to drown it out only to get the tick station, the tock station on the radio and the clock channel on the tv. He also tries to mail it and naturally it comes back thanks to a kangaroo when he ships it to Australia..a nd then get’s progressively batshit as he mails it to HADES (comes back in a puff of smoke) and to the 1920′s (It comes back in black and white with arms and legs). It’s just.. really damn good and I suggest seeking it out. I have liked other shorts better but this was a good one. 

Pete still gloats as they’ll need more cartoons.. only for one to fall out of his jacket and Mickey to shake the rest out. We then get a fun chase between the two, SO many good jokes, my favorite being him dressing up as a dalmation only for Cruella to take measurements, before being cornered by the three and the elephant from tarzan who throws him out.. right next to pepper-ann and her mom “Don’t touch the villian dear”. Good crossover.. and another show that like House of Mouse is not on disney plus don’t ask me why. 

So our heroes win, we get our usual sponsorship and unusually we see the guests leave, a nice bit I wish they did more. All’s well that ends well. 

Final Thoughts: This episode was fantastic. It introduces the cast well, sets up our villian, our basic premise and while only having one major cartoon, uses that as a plot point and it’s a damn good one. A fantastic start to the series and frankly the best place to start if your curious about the show. I’d like to thank Kev for sponsoring this review. If you’d like your own review you can look at comissoin details on my blog or get one guaranteed every month by becoming a 5 dollar patreon. You get one guaranteed review a month, acess to my discord server for my patreons, and to pick a short when I do birthday specials. And contributing to my patreon gets me closer to my stretch goals, even one dollar helps. Next goal not only gets reviews of the super ducktales mini series, but also a darkwing duck episode EVERY MONTH. And with the plug done, i’ll see you at the next rainbow. 

[incarnateirony]

So, some DeanCas thoughts.

I went on a rant in a GC today -- in a good way -- and I felt like sharing my mood with the class.

First of all, I’m going to disclaimer this. I am a bi!Dean supporter, even if the following text seems to be dismissive of elements of it along the ride. But when it comes to Dean and Cas -- other, extensive, very loud wearing-a-sign-for-the-stubborn-folks that have chosen to miss the other blatant drops -- isn’t even necessary to me. On an LGBT rep level I understand it, even if I’ve had talk about the unfair moving goalposts that het culture has trained is into that they, themselves don’t have to meet -- but that’s another rant.

My general thoughts on Destiel come around the fact that what they have transcends anything explicitly about sexuality. But that isn’t a way to try to call it bromance, or claim it isn’t queer, or slap that now highly abused queerplat on as the refurbished dogwhistle for bromance rather than what it was intended for -- it’s still definitely, and majorly, queer umbrella.

It’s a nonbinary entity with a transcendental love for a single human being learning to reflect that, and to return it, even if he struggles to comprehend it. Jensen Ackles has even said similarly, himself. That alone makes Castiel canonically LGBT+ umbrella, as much as naysayers want to bob and weave around that. It’s impossible for Castiel to ever be a cismale. Literally impossible. It’s not subtext, it’s literally any basic understanding of gender theory.

But that’s just the beginning.

This nonbinary (nonhuman) entity has little to no interest -- especially when extradimensional -- to engage in any form of survival instinct that it doesn’t natively have. It doesn’t eat, it doesn’t sleep, it doesn’t urinate, and while he’s immortal, not even everybody poops. His species doesn’t breed. It has no instinct for that installed as a base line mechanism, just a learned taste for it unique to each individual, which he’s barely had time to explore -- when human, much less an angel without the biological impulse, much less in a busy lifestyle forever engaged. He might twist a demon around his finger to throw her over a flame like a bridge, he may entertain new ideas, but these are fleeting, distant ideas. So it’s never about that. What they have isn’t just about that.

This nonbinary entity has no specific demands of the man it loves, but will do almost anything with and for the man it loves. Be that dying, or watching the Lost Boys for the 127th time, or wearing a cowboy hat, or restraining -- or at least hiding -- most impulses to roll its eyes at the bad jokes. And if and when it all settles -- if they haven’t done so already -- maybe lay together. Because that IS a thing that humans do.

The queer and/or homoromantic nature of their relationship is still there. It’s still queer. And it’s not even remotely plat. Applications of queerplat recently on them are an outright appalling misuse of it beyond its intended purpose -- a repackaged idea of “bromance” now that the old dogwhistle has lost its effect. It’s entirely possible to remove fanon goggles and still look at the show and watch the sheer difference in handling between plat, frat, and romantic connections in the show.

It’s queer-romantic. But as said, if and when that dust settles, if it hasn’t quietly already -- between heartsong tethers more powerful than the forces of creation and destruction hearing the cry of pining, between mystery mixtapes, jilted lover emotions, and wifely parallel fates -- it’s not natively specifically about if Cas is a dude, or a chick, or w h a t e v e r. Should the day come that we find out Dean and Cas did the dues, it’s not because Dean is bi, or gay, or str8, or any of that -- and it’s not because Cas is or isn’t a dude. It’s because it’s Cas.

“I thought you’d gotten over trying to label me.” - Castiel, 5.04

If, under the supposition that one day physicality is confirmed, we were to put a label on them -- their specific engagement is more demi in nature than it is anything about bisexuality; it’s not about loving either/all genders equally in Dean’s case, but about not seeing a gender. A demi-pan arrangement, if you will, over a queer-romantic relationship. And again, I say this as a bi!Dean supporter, but not with obligation of specifically attaching the profound and complex nature of their relationship to what has read as, at least, bi-Dean subtext (if not deadass text for people who are choosing not to plug their ears and make absurd excuses at certain moments or are just that hetnorm.)

Don’t even try to get started arguing about Jensen’s Dated Hot Take. Actors are flawed. Actors get all kinds of ideas tangled in their heads. Mark P plays Lucifer as redeemable and deserving redemption in his head but that doesn’t bear any semblance to what’s actually going on in the product, that doesn’t make it remotely canon. Jared Padalecki thinks Sam isn’t Jack’s dad despite his own character calling him his (and the others’) kid. Actors are not writers, and at times, actors don’t even realize what they’ve communicated and presented. Or what the people making the content they’re acting for have, for that matter. Just don’t. Don’t shit up this post and go down that road. Do not be that repetitive, cyclic asshole that thinks you’re making a stellar point by being eternally regressive and on echo of things that basic logic and understanding of creative process shreds before it ever sticks a landing. Spare us all some time.

What they have is unique, powerful, intensely romantic -- and, at some point, went so far as to transition into outright domestic. If there’s a backdoor set of hanky panky going on that doesn’t make camera because it shifts the genre or mood of the show, okay -- disappointing by standard of anyone wanting to catch that roving representation goalpost we help push around unintentionally in the interest of winning arguments we’ll never win. A man can ask a woman if she wants to go to dinner as the closing act of a show without ever affirming they’re both straight (they could be pan! Straight isn’t canon! HurRr) or interested and never seeing physicality, but we all have operating brains. Mulder and Scully, a het pair that kissed, still had noromos doing mental gymnastics to try to explain why it wasn’t REALLY canon. 

People who don’t want it will never accept it. That’s something the generation wants to get used to now. But let’s make sure we don’t also move ourselves into an era of performative gays where every character must come out and say, “I AM BISEXUAL, NO REALLY, REALLY REALLY” at the top of their lungs for the great interpersonal nature of people in general to be taken as valid. Straight isn’t a factory default where it doesn’t need to be confirmed but everything else does. Start taking ownership of LGBT+ rights to exist in their obvious romance without letting het culture make YOU run the goalposts around for them in a trap game. (”If they don’t kiss, it doesn’t count! Also gays just make everything about kissing, it’s never just about a romance, you all just want porn! AHAH! Checkmate.”)

Don’t defend the content as if you have to prove it. Own it. Own your right to exist without performing. Own your right to love whether or not it works out. Own your right to be you. Culture is getting to a point where the regressives that loathe it have to defend themselves, not the other way around. Own that. Drop anchor. Don’t run to meet them in the middle, there’s never a middle, let’s look at the democratic party slide to meet the red team in the middle. Same shit, guys.

So back to the hanky panky thing -- even if that came out? Sure, as a bi Dean fan, I guess I’d be happy. But I’d also not try to label it. I’d take that lesson from season 5 Castiel. Because it’s something well beyond labels, as long as we accept that it is queer, and it is beautiful.

[laurens-lil-fics]

Hallucinate - Matt Murdock x Powered! Reader Part 1

Series Summary: When members of a criminal organization start flooding precincts all over New York, turning themselves in, Daredevil must investigate to see what new player has them running for the hills.

Chapter Summary: Matt, Foggy and Karen are among a group of lawyers called to the 15th precinct police station when a wave of baddies show up to turn themselves in. But what’s sent them scattering in the wind?

Word Count: 1936

Warnings: Violence, kidnapping

Author’s note: I’ve been wanting to do a powered! reader series for a while with Daredevil and I think I finally have a good way to execute that. I hope y'all enjoy!

The call came around 1:30. 

Matt was about halfway down with the takeout Karen had brought him when he heard Foggy cheerfully answering a call from Brett. His tone completely changed once Brett started speaking. He heard everything, but still bothered to ask what had happened once Foggy ended the call.

“It’s the 15th... Hell, not just the 15th, stations all over Hell’s Kitchen are getting tons of perps just walking in and asking to be processed.” Foggy said, repackaging his noodles and quickly doing the same to Matt’s and Karen’s lunches. 

“Wait a minute, so Brett wants us to go down there why?” Karen asked, glancing between the two.

“Every perp is entitled to a lawyer, I can’t imagine we’re the only ones he called...” Matt said, standing and quickly putting on his suit jacket. 

Karen quickly called them a cab, and the three were on their way to the 15th. 

It was Hell pushing through the crowd of people just outside the entrance. News reporters, lawyers, investigators, even some people waiting to turn themselves in. If it wasn’t for Brett, the three would have probably been stuck outside.

“You guys got a preference? Take your pick, not a lot of em are very talkative...” Brett said, leading them towards the interrogation rooms.

“I thought you said they were turning themselves in, how are they doing that if they’re giving you the silent treatment?” Foggy asked.

“A lot of em are parole violations, some of em are guys we’ve been trying to find on petty charges. I think it goes a lot deeper than that, though.” Brett explained.

Matt could feel a headache coming on from all the commotion, people shouting they stole this or defaced that, all trying to get locked up as quickly as possible. Despite the sensory overload, he tried focusing his hearing for anyone in an interrogation room who seemed the most on edge. Someone who would give up information easily.

He found his target. He could smell the pit sweat from 5 rooms away where they stood. Once they stood in front of the door, Matt tapped Foggy’s hand, prompting Foggy to ask Brett to let them in that room.

The man’s heart sounded like it was about to thump out of his chest and into oncoming traffic just from the sound of the door opening. 

Matt, Karen and Foggy took their seats on the opposite end of the table from him, making their introductions. 

“So, Mr. Mackie, says here you turned yourself in because of a parole violation?” Karen asked, glancing between the man and his file.

He quickly nodded his head glancing between the three. “Look, just have them send me back to prison. I only got like a year on my sentence, just get them to send me back for the year.” He sputtered. 

“Mr. Mackie, it says you had a 10 year sentence, you’ve been spending the past 6 on parole. Why give up 9 years of good behavior? And so suddenly?” Foggy asked.

“Does it really matter?!” Mackie snapped, his heart rate spiking. “I broke my parole, I broke the law, I should be locked up! I want a different lawyer, you two ask too many questions!”

Foggy and Karen sighed softly, getting up to leave only to stop when they saw Matt planted in his seat. “Mr. Mackie, lemme have a moment alone with you, without my partners. I want to get this sorted out just as much as you do... the sooner you and I can cooperate the sooner we can get your court date scheduled.”

Mr. Mackie considered the offer for a moment before quickly nodding, sending Foggy and Karen out into the hall.

“Mr. Mackie...” Matt began, motioning to the door. “It doesn’t take a genius to know something else is going on here, what with all the other people outside, trying to get in here...”

He shook slightly, shutting his eyes before giving a frustrated sigh. “We were supposed to all come in separate... go to different precincts all over the city, make it look in...incon... not suspicious, yknow?”

“So you know all those people?” Matt asked, leaning in closer as Mr. Mackie glanced at the two way mirror. Mr. Mackie leaned in as well.

“We...we work together...” he mumbled.

“For someone... dangerous? Someone who threatened you?” Matt asked, his tone gentle so not as to scare his client into kicking him out of the room.

“It’s not the boss...” he whispered. “It’s the person after the boss...” Without warning, he pulled away from Matt, looking wildly around the room as if someone had caught the two of them. 

“Easy, Mr. Mackie, easy. Let me help you, do you know who it is?” Matt asked, keeping his voice level despite his obvious confusion. He didn’t hear anything suspicious nearby, nothing that could have alarmed Mr. Mackie.

“No! I don’t know what you’re talking about, I just violated my parole! That’s all I did is violate my parole!” He shouted, refusing to meet Matt’s gaze.

Defeated, Matt stood up before setting his card down in front of his client. “Well... if any other details about your parole come up... give me a call. I’ll come down here as soon as possible.”

Before Matt could leave, Mr. Mackie spoke up. “My parole... I broke it at the docks... the ones by West 57th...”

It wasn’t much of a lead, but that’s all Matt had to go off of. He told Foggy and Karen what he had learned, assuring them he’d be careful when he got to the docks. 

He was perched on the roof of a warehouse, one close enough where he could get a view of the docks and be able to run to them incase he saw anything suspicious. 

2 AM and no activity so far, save for some teens skateboarding by on their way to a bodega. 

A part of him worried Mr. Mackie had given him a false lead, something to satisfy him to stop asking questions about whatever his “job” was. Those fears were quickly discarded at the sound of several vans approaching the docks. 30 minutes passed without any movement, until Matt focused on the sound of a boat engine slowly approaching. 

It sounded too big to be a speedboat, maybe a yacht, but what would a yacht be doing at 2 AM in the Hudson in the middle of Winter?

Once the yacht was close enough, he could hear the sounds of people sobbing below deck, about 10 or 12.

“Holy shit...” Matt mumbled, sprinting down the fire escape and towards a cluster of shipping containers right beside the dock. Just as he climbed atop a container, the people were being taken from the ship and dragged towards the vans.

Armed guards waited outside the vehicles, looking around for any intruders. 

“Looks like tonight’s going off without a hitch.” One spoke up.

“Yeah, right when all those guys up and quit with their tails between their legs. More money for us.” another snickered, adjusting his hold on his rifle.

Another spoke up, this one sounding like he was ready to jump out of his skin. “You don’t think she’s really gonna show, do you?”

The first guard scoffed, it sounded like he nudged the other with his elbow. “Don’t be such a chicken shit. She would have gotten here by now. And if she does decide to show up,” he cocked his shotgun, “she’ll be getting a face full of this.”

Matt stood from his crouching position as the people were dragged closer to the vans, preparing to leap into action.

Before he could move, and just as a guard caught sight of him, he heard someone’s heart beating somewhere nearby. It was different, irregular almost. And hovering just above him.

“It’s Daredev-” before the goon could finish, he was sent flying into one of the vans, screaming until he made impact. The rifles the others were holding began to slowly twist and contort before flying out of the guard’s hands.

Matt could hear the wind whipping against the person’s clothing, their joints creaking as they twisted their hands and flicked their fingers this way and that. Vans went flying into the river, guards were sent this way and that. Those who had hold of the people they were attempting to kidnap began to clutch at their heads, screaming in pain and giving the people enough time to sprint away and hide.

The person slowly descended, glancing at Daredevil as they went. Once their boots hit the cement, they slowly made their way towards one of the men writhing on the ground.

Matt ran to the hostages who watched the scene in horror, only becoming more scared when they saw a man in a devil costume standing before them. “There’s a police patrol nearby, if you run you can make it to them in time and get to safety. Tell them to send back up to the docks as soon as possible.”

Some of them nodded, others looked like he had just spoken a made up language to them. Nonetheless, they all took off running in the same direction.

Matt leaned against the wall of the shipping container, listening as the person kneeled beside one of the guards.

“This can all stop... this can all be over.” She spoke, her voice muffled by the mask that covered the lower half of her face. “You just have to tell me where Blum is. And I’ll let it end.”

“Fuck you!” he spat, earning a sigh from the woman. 

“You never make it easy, do you?” she lamented. She raised a hand to his head, tilting it from side to side.

Matt wasn’t exactly sure what was happening, he had no idea who this woman was, if she was willing to kill these men or what. Just that she was after someone named Blum.

His train of thought was interrupted when she sighed disappointingly. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”

One of the more tenacious goons slowly stood up, trying to sneak up on her with his pistol at the ready.

Matt emerged from his hiding spot, throwing one of his batons at the man just as he fired. The impact made him miss, but still alerted the woman in front of them.

She flung her hand in their direction, causing the two to freeze in place. It was almost as if there was an energy around Matt feeding off of him, making him stay still. 

The woman stood up and approached Daredevil, her eyes trailing over his figure. “Daredevil... big fan. I’ll have to get your autograph later.”

Next thing he knew, he was sent flying towards a shipping container, smacking into the side of it. Upon impact, she kept his body planted against the metal.

She turned to the guard that tried to fire at her, only to be interrupted by the echo of numerous police sirens headed their way.

She turned back to Daredevil and released her hold on him, letting him fall to the ground. He felt absolutely drained, he could have fallen asleep then and there on the docks if she had kept her hold on him for just a second longer. At least that’s what it felt like.

“Next time don’t get in my way, Daredevil. This isn’t your fight.” With that, he heard her boots leave the pavement, and the wind whip past her until she had flown out of his hearing range.

Matt forced himself to stand up and run from the docks, just as the police arrived.

[rumbelleshowdown]

Delivery for You

Author: Bouquet Prompts: must be a mix-up; secret; jinx Group: B

It wasn’t uncommon for Storybrooke’s library to receive packages. Book drives would sometimes send small town libraries excess copies of books if they’d gotten an overwhelming number of the same title; and the dedicated librarian, Belle French, use the modest budget she was afforded to keep as many new titles as possible on the shelves.  So she didn’t think anything of it when a package ended up on the stoop of the libraries back door one early morning.

The town was just beginning to wake up as Belle hummed to herself while carrying the package into the small storage room that made up her office.  New books were always a delight and she was sure that it was a sign that the day would be a good one.  The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and in an hour she would go get her morning coffee from Granny’s and perhaps get a chance to see the shy pawnbroker as he sought to fulfill his own caffeine needs.

Most people in town were wary of Mr. Gold, he owned most of the property in town and had a penchant for deals that he expected people to uphold, but Belle found him rather charming instead of sinister.  He was withdrawn from most of the town, but where others saw ill intent and an old miser, Belle saw someone that was painfully shy and using his fine clothes and sharper wit to keep other from noticing.

Slowly she’d been trying to get to know him better.  He was skittish around her first, regarding her smiles and pleasant greetings with no small amount of suspicion.  But when it became clear Belle wasn’t after something he’d let his guard down enough to nod and return her greeting with one of his own and a small smile.  Her own smile had only grown at the sight and Belle had felt a warm kind of delight fill her when he’d begun greeting her first.  Belle’s intent had only been to begin a friendship with the mysterious man everyone warned her to be wary of, she did love mysteries after all, but soon she’d found herself feeling far more than friendship towards the reserved pawnbroker.

Belle, for all her bravery, hadn’t yet acted on her new feelings for him.  Every time she had tried to ask him out for something casual and low pressure they’d be interrupted, and she couldn’t very well march up to his house or store and ask him to dinner, it had been hard enough to get him to smile at her.  It was almost like they were jinxed to never have a moment alone together.  But today Belle was going to change that, something felt different when she’d woken up and the surprise package was only the beginning, she was sure of it.

Placing the package on her desk she grabbed her box cutter and sliced through the packing tape with practiced easy.  Flipping open the flaps of the box she dug through packing peanuts of the books inside; but the thing she grabbed didn’t feel like a book, and when she pulled it out it certainly didn’t look like a book either.  In fact, it wasn’t a book at all.  Belle stared in confusion at the box of men’s hair dye in confusion.

Touch of Gray

The label proclaimed in silver lettering above the face of a handsome model with sculpted cheekbones and perfectly coifed hair.  Curiously Belle pushed more plastic peanuts out of the way to find several more items hidden within.  Protein powder, a set of DVD’s proclaiming they could get you fit and a self-help book about how to talk to woman.  It was very obvious that this package wasn’t for the library, even if there was a book in it.  There had been some kind of mix up, and no doubt some poor soul was waiting for their package so they could begin to change their life.

Carefully Belle repackaged the contents of the box, trying to make it look as if it hadn’t been opened and taped it closed once more.  It was a simple enough mistake to fix, she could just bring it to the right address before the library opened and no one would be the wiser that she’d looked through their things.  Satisfied with her idea, Belle turned the box to the side to find the address.  It was one nearby, which would explain that reason it was dropped off, no doubt the mailman was as used to her getting packages as she was and hadn’t read it clearly.  For a moment, as Belle stepped out of her door, she realized she didn’t actually know the address of any of the buildings beside the library.  Storybrooke was so small that she’d never needed to, but that was another problem easily fixed.  Her phone was able to show her the way to go, but once she reached her destination she had to double check to make sure she’d ended up at the right location.

Before her was Mr. Gold’s Antiques and Pawnshop; the last place she had expected to end up when she’d begun her short journey.  Belle stood at the entrance of the door for a long moment, looking in through the window and caught sit of Mr. Gold, impeccably dressed as always, as he flipped through one of his ledgers.  Shaking her head she pushed the door open, she wasn’t going to get anything done by just standing there and staring.

The bell jingled pleasantly as she stepped in and she couldn’t help but feel pleased that when he looked up and saw it was her he smiled.  Then his eyes slipped to the box under one of her arms and his smile faded.

“Miss French,”  He said, capping his pen and closing the ledger with crisp movements.  “What can I do for you so early this morning?”

“It seems I’ve gotten some of your mail.”  Belle replied, holding the box up.

“Ah, I see.”  He said, looking at the box with a mixture of distain and embarrassment.

There was a long awkward moment of silence as Belle held it up before she cleared her throat and placed it on the counter.

“Well, I suppose I should be getting back to the library.”  She said awkwardly.

“It’s been opened,”  Mr. Gold said as he looked down at the place where she had retaped it.

“Has it?”  She asked, her cheeks betraying her as they burned scarlet.

“Yes.”  Was all he said, his own cheeks beginning turn pink.  “I suppose that means you’ve seen the contents.”

“Not on purpose,”  Belle said, trying to make him feel better.  “I thought it was more books, for the library.”  She added lamely.

“Ah.”  He said, as he twisted his cane within his grasp.  “Then you know that I…”  He trailed off, looking painfully awkward and making Belle’s heart ache for him.

Without thinking she reached out and grasped his hand on top of his cane to make him stop and look at her.

“It’ll be our secret.”  She said with a smile.  “We all want to look our best, I wouldn’t leave my apartment without brushing my hair or putting makeup on and this is no different.”  Biting her lower lip and taking a chance she added.  “But for what it’s worth, I don’t think you need any of it.”

“Y-you don’t?”  He replied, his eyes widening.

“Not at all.”  Belle said with a shy smile.  “You could be wearing a paper bag and I’d think you were the most attractive man I’d ever met.”

As soon as the words were out Belle felt like kicking herself.  He didn’t need her confessing something like that when he was clearly self-conscious about his looks.  She’d been trying to go slow and coax him into a date and now she’d blown it, no doubt he’d slam all his walls back down in her face and send her running from the shop with some well-placed icy barbs to protect himself.

“I think of the two of us you’re the only one that could pull of bag chic here.”  Mr. Gold said instead, taking her by surprise but making her laugh.

“We could be a matching pair.”  She teased back, making him chuckle as well.  Belle realized she was still holding his hand and he hadn’t fled from her.  Biting her lower lip she said.  “Do you think perhaps we could match our outfits one of these nights?  Perhaps not paper bags, but something less revealing, at Granny’s?”

“I’d like that,”  Mr. Gold replied.  “I’d really like that.”

[holytheoristtastemaker]

 The food sector has been hard hit by COVID-19. Learn what some of those issues have been, how some companies have escaped the worst of it and what lessons are most important.

For the first time in four decades, Phil Borgic, a pig farmer and owner of Borgic Farms in Raymond, Ill., wanted leaner pigs. 

"I spent 40-plus years trying to figure out how to keep the pigs healthy, grow faster and produce more meat," he said. "I never thought I would have to call somebody up and say, 'Hey, I want my pigs to stop growing.'"

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked -- and continues to wreak -- havoc on the food supply chain. From the outset, the pandemic disrupted the supply chain, forced restaurants and schools to close, altered consumer habits and caused other ripple effects.

Meat disruption

The meat industry has been among those profoundly affected by COVID-19.

In Borgic's case, that meant working with a nutritionist to keep his 200,000 pigs under the weight limits until he could sell to a packing house that wasn't closed due to COVID-19. He considers himself fortunate that only two of the four packing houses where he delivers his animals was shut down.

What he learned from this crisis should prove helpful going forward, he said.

Like Borgic, Jim Fulk, owner of Springdale Farm in Ashland, Ohio, faced pandemic disruption. And like Fulk, he was luckier than some in that he was able to sell some of his animals -- in his case, cattle -- to a local slaughterhouse.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the price of cattle at auction fell from about $1.30 a pound live weight to $1.09 a pound, at the most -- resulting in quite a hefty loss considering that each cow weighs anywhere from 1200 pounds to 1400 pounds, Fulk said.

I never thought I would have to call somebody up and say, 'Hey, I want my pigs to stop growing.'

Phil BorgicOwner, Borgic Farms

Major meat processing plants had slowed down and even shut down due to COVID-19 outbreaks in the facilities. This caused delays across the meat processing industry, leading to a drop in demand from slaughterhouses as well as the prices for cattle.

A lot of "cattle normally getting killed [at processing facilities were] not getting killed," Fulk said.

For the month of May, red meat production was down by 18% compared with May 2019, according to the USDA. For example, 2.28 million head of cattle were slaughtered in May, down 23% the previous year.

Farmers had to make decisions about the surplus that they couldn't sell.

While on one hand, meat prices rose early in the pandemic as consumers panic-bought cheaper cuts, reports surfaced in April and May that millions of pigs, cows and chickens would be euthanized and animals aborted because they couldn't be sold to slaughterhouses or food facilities.

Panic-buying and COVID-19

Panic-buying was one of the most obvious results of the novel coronavirus.

As COVID-19 numbers rose and lockdowns became a reality, consumers didn't buy as much fresh food, said Brian Frank, general partner at Food for Thought Worldwide (FTW) Ventures, a food tech-focused venture fund based in San Francisco. Instead, many consumers stocked up on pantry staples because they didn't know how long the quarantine would last. That led to shortages, which stores responded to by creating purchase limits.

In addition, with so many businesses and organizations shut down, companies that used to sell to restaurants and large institutions had to figure out how to sell directly to consumers.

For example, Cheetah, a San Francisco e-commerce company that delivers food to restaurants and hospitality service companies had to start doing direct-to-consumer sales to clear their inventory, Frank said.

"They would drive a truck to basically a parking lot and people would drive their cars up, pop their trunks, and they would drop a box of groceries in your trunk for you," he said.

COVID-19 food supplier disruption

Supplier disruption and the subsequent shortage of raw supplies has had a profound effect on food companies. Some companies have been more fortunate and have turned to new suppliers, limited production or brainstormed other solutions. And in some cases, being smaller has paid off.

Cleveland Kitchen, a company that produces fermented sauerkraut as well as fermented dressings and marinades, has been holding its own thanks to a narrow niche and supplier availability, said Luke Visnic, chief operating officer of the Cleveland-based company.

The company requires red cabbage and green cabbage, and deals with one grower for that, Visnic said. It has another supplier that deals with the non-cabbage ingredients, such as jalapenos, garlic and fresh peppers.

"That supplier did a lot of restaurant business and so it was a blessing for them to be able to continue to work with us," he said. "But we know … a lot of retailers that have had massive issues since mid-March because they're dealing with so many different suppliers that are having a tough time manufacturing [their products]."

Pandemic hindsight is 20/20

COVID-19 is forcing companies to make rapid and previously unheard-of adjustments, said Kim Hirsch, manager of advisory services at Fusion Risk Management, based in Rolling Meadows, Ill. If companies had anticipated the pandemic and its corresponding supply chain risk, they could have taken multiple steps that would help them during this COVID-19 crisis, she said.

"[These include] varying supply chains geographically to keeping raw materials in stock and revising sick policies to incentivize people to stay at home if they had been exposed," she said. "In hindsight, companies will realize much could have been done in advance."

A good pandemic plan could have helped companies consolidate the number of items they will sell in a crisis and vary their supplies, Hirsch said.

"Proper pandemic planning can seem daunting to those without experienced providers or guidance," she said. "Today, the value of allocating resources and [the need to prioritize] proper planning has become abundantly clear."

It's not too late for many producers to prepare for what is still ahead and take proactive action, Hirsch said.

While many other industries and companies have the luxury to move their employees to remote work, the crucial employees that staff the nation's food supply facilities must physically work on those production lines, Hirsch said. Similarly, retail employees who sell food are also on the front lines every day and risk contact with thousands of people who could transmit COVID-19.

"To secure the U.S. food supply chain, protect employees and allow them to return to work, companies must be able to conduct immediate and consistent workforce testing, ensure every employee has [personal protective equipment] and strictly enforce social distancing mandates," Hirsch said.

But protecting food workers, who traditionally work in close quarters, has not been easy. By many accounts, COVID-19 is sweeping through many food plants and other food-related businesses.

Focusing on supply chain resilience

Global agricultural commodities processor ADM (formerly Archer Daniels Midland), headquartered in Chicago, has taken other steps to avoid any hiccups in its supply chain during the pandemic.

"We have a network of food and beverage developers across the globe in over 50 innovation centers," said Ana Ferrell, vice president of marketing at ADM. "And so we've been very frantically working to address the industry demand coming from retail when it comes to [developing new products]."

For example, ADM has sent product demos to its customers' homes to foster continued collaboration, she said.

On the consumer side, ADM has seen a surge in shoppers looking for plant-based meat and dairy substitutes as well as those indulging in more comfort food, savory snacks and nutrition and snack bars, Ferrell said.

"We've seen both kinds of demand areas picking up very rapidly for us," she said.

Looking to the future, ADM has established an internal pandemic council to manage the different measures it has taken during the pandemic.

"We've been on top of this since early January because we have significant operations in China," she said. "So we've anticipated some of the potential challenges that we would face in North America, where we are so big, and we don't necessarily expect a return to what used to be the norm anytime soon."

That proactive mindset is critical.

While companies are certainly facing challenging issues, they can take action to keep their supply chains operating more smoothly, Hirsch said. Companies must prepare for a second, perhaps steeper, wave that could hit on the heels of relaxed social distancing rules.

Producers and retailers can proactively map out their supply chain weaknesses, attempt to identify alternative supplies and work with their existing vendors to understand how solid their supply lines are likely to remain, Hirsch said.

"Sometimes a shortage is due to geography, as some regions are more heavily impacted than others, and sometimes it's a result of having to substitute alternative ingredients for harder-to-find ones -- so flexibility will be key," she said.

Those companies producing perishable materials will need to calculate a minimum supply of material they need to maintain as well as pinpoint alternative markets, Hirsch said.

We all need to focus not on returning to normal, but on adjusting to a new normal that finds us better prepared.

Ana FerrellVice president of marketing, ADM

"In many cases, there will be an abundance of raw ingredients that were previously being used in commercial operations such as hotels, restaurants and schools," she said. "Companies would do well to thoughtfully maximize these supplies according to demand, negotiating to repackage commercial supplies and ingredients for consumer sales."

Retailers also must be prepared to limit purchases of sought-after goods [when needed], Hirsch said.

"This pandemic will fundamentally change business operations going forward, and we all need to focus not on returning to normal, but on adjusting to a new normal that finds us better prepared," she said.

The overarching lesson this pandemic has taught all businesses is that running tight supply chains with little to no excess may be the most inexpensive way to operate day-to-day, but it will never be the way to mitigate risk, Hirsch said.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): So the Friday after Thanksgiving, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with a dozen other federal agencies, published a hefty report on climate change that contained some pretty bad news: The U.S. and world face dire environmental consequences if immediate action is not taken.

But … that isn’t exactly a new finding. What seemed to be particularly noteworthy (other than the timing of the release, which came when many Americans, including reporters, are taking time off from work) was that it involved a number of federal agencies essentially contradicting every stance President Trump and his administration have taken on climate change.

You were on Friday’s press call, Maggie. What do you make of it?

maggiekb (Maggie Koerth-Baker, senior science writer): Yeah, it was interesting. I’d say there was a good 45 minutes of that press call that was different reporters trying different ways of asking the same questions: Why is this thing being released the day after Thanksgiving, when that wasn’t the original plan? What do you think of the president’s rejection of climate science? What does it mean when your report and the White House contradict each other?

And each time the people from NOAA and the National Climate Assessment would just kind of stonewall them. Back and forth — a question about the politics, a response about how the real news is the results of the research.

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): And I’m guessing the leading questions from reporters in the vein of, “Why was this released the day after Thanksgiving?” have to do with the administration trying to tamp down coverage of the findings, right?

maggiekb: Yup. And the answer wasn’t very satisfying. They kept saying it was because they wanted the report to be out before a couple of big, upcoming scientific meetings where people will want to talk about the findings. But they never responded to the point that, you know, you could have accomplished the same thing by releasing it this week.

I think it’s obvious to most people, at this point, that the politics are important. At least as important as the scientific findings. Because we already know the science — “we” being the public, I mean. There’s not a lot in the assessment that is really going to surprise anybody who knows the basics of climate change. What matters most at this point is what we do with the findings. And if the political reality is that we’re ignoring it …

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): OK, let me ask a dumb question of the rest of you. Why would the White House let the report be released at all? Could they have just squashed it if they wanted?

clare.malone: I believe it is legally required for them to produce a report.

natesilver: See, that’s why I said it was a dumb question.

clare.malone: Lol, no!

maggiekb: Yeah, these assessments started because of an act of Congress. But it’s not a dumb question at all. I had to stop and think for a minute and remember that.

sarahf: I think it was smart of the Trump administration to not be visibly involved and to avoid the debacle the George W. Bush administration faced after a memo surfaced showing how they wanted to sow confusion about whether scientists agreed on the existence of global warming by changing the language they used to describe climate change.

clare.malone: Yeah, the Bush administration got in trouble with the way they tried to finesse scientific findings! In the lead-up to Trump’s inauguration, we wrote about the ways that previous administrations have fudged public releases of scientific data.

maggiekb: I think I’m mostly surprised the Trump administration hasn’t replicated what Canada did. Back in the early 2010s, the conservative government basically just blocked all federally funded climate scientists from talking directly to the press. There were several years where papers would come out but you couldn’t get interviews with any Canadian authors.

clare.malone: But political finessing works! I was honestly shocked by the findings here.

The New York Times

The idea that people with more education who are Republican are less inclined to be worried about climate change just seems so counterintuitive.

sarahf: I, too, was really surprised by that piece, Clare. The split between parties tracks with what we know about how divided Americans are by political party about climate change, with Republicans largely opposed. But do we think that some of education-based split within the GOP could be because Republicans with less education are more likely to live in rural parts of the country that are more directly impacted by climate change?

clare.malone: I don’t think the regionalism thing sounds exactly right, but what do I know!

I did buy the idea that college-educated Republicans might be more attuned to the ways that the issue was politicized, i.e., greater exposure to partisan news sources.

natesilver: OK, another dumb question: What degree of independence does NOAA have? Could Trump try to install a bunch of climate “skeptics” within leadership positions at the agency?

sarahf: Ha, remember how well Myron Ebell worked out as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency as part of Trump’s transition team, Nate?

maggiekb: Also not dumb, Nate. I honestly don’t know the answer to that. It seems like he certainly could nominate a skeptic if he wanted. The guy who is nominated for that role, Barry Myers, isn’t a climate skeptic to my knowledge, but he comes with a whole host of conflicts of interest. He owns AccuWeather and has spent years advocating for agencies to stop making publicly funded weather data available to the public except through companies like AccuWeather, who can repackage and sell it.

clare.malone: Whoa.

That’s a thing??

Big Weather?

maggiekb: Oh, yes.

But then, on the other hand, getting Myers confirmed doesn’t seem to have been a big priority for the administration, or he seems to have been met with significant resistance from Congress. This Washington Post story is from April, but he’s still in limbo.

clare.malone: Wow. Well now I’m woke to Big Weather.

maggiekb: You missed my spreadsheet of how many members of the Myers family are employed by AccuWeather or other companies that might represent a conflict of interest, Clare.

It gave me headaches.

clare.malone: Yeoman’s work, Maggie.

Here’s a question that’s very much related to this report: How much does the U.S. pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement screw up world progress on this? A lot, right?

We’re sort of the big ole missing piece if you’re talking about the economic cooperation needed to forestall further damage, right?

maggiekb: I mean, climate change is an international issue. And our country is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the world. The fact that we haven’t been part of the international, cooperative work on this in decades is, yeah, a big deal.

That’s before Paris, too, of course. This goes back to when we never ratified the Kyoto Protocol. But I think there’s a very good case to be made that American partisan politics — and the way that partisanship has settled around environmental issues — is a huge part of why we aren’t tackling climate change in a big way, globally.

sarahf: So does this report move the conversation forward for the U.S. because it was published by federal agencies, instead of, say, a group of scientists affiliated with the United Nations who published a report in October that also predicts catastrophic global consequences?

Or does it not really move the needle at all? And if it doesn’t, what does that mean for the U.S. if we don’t take action?

clare.malone: I honestly think I have an uncertain handle on how urgently the American public thinks about climate change.

I will say that the particular hellishness of the California wildfire stories seems potentially motivating for people.

I’m curious as to whether 2020 Democratic candidates will put climate change front and center.

maggiekb: Environmental stuff isn’t on the top of a lot of voters’ political priority lists, that’s for sure. It’s a thing we fret about, but not a major thing we vote on. Or tell people we’re going to vote on, anyway.

natesilver: The public is reasonably convinced that climate change is real and manmade.

Gallup

And in general, the public has become more convinced of this in recent years.

Trump may even have made people more concerned about global warming because public opinion often moves in the opposite direction of what the president believes, especially if the president is unpopular.

maggiekb: Oh, that’s an interesting thought that some people might disdain Trump strongly enough to get over doubts about climate change. But are there a lot of people who both dislike the president and weren’t already on board with climate science? I guess maybe some of the Republican #NeverTrumpers?

sarahf: Rep. Carlos Curbelo lost his re-election bid, but there is the House Climate Solutions Caucus, which he helped found. It has a number of Republican members and, according to that POLITICO article, the caucus apparently tripled in size after President Trump announced his decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord.

natesilver: I mean, there’s certainly a position, which was once pretty fashionable within the GOP, that climate change is real and manmade but that we need market-based solutions, more research and development for carbon-capture technologies, etc.

That was Romney’s position, right? Not that long ago.

maggiekb: God. I guess you’re right. It feels like a long time?

clare.malone: Maybe Sen. Romney will take it up again …

natesilver: Of course, Republicans may not have actually been interested in any substantive actions, including market-ish stuff like tradable permits. But there was at least lip service to the notion that climate change was real and the science was basically right.

sarahf: That’s right. Taxes on carbon have long been an incentive to get conservatives on board! But it increasingly feels like without immediate action, we’ve missed the point of no return if we take these reports at face value. So I guess my question is: What comes of this?

natesilver: What happens? The Democratic candidate for president makes a bigger deal of climate change than Clinton did in 2016. If he or she is lucky enough to win, they pass something through the House. But then it gets stymied in the Senate because the Senate has a built-in bias toward rural, agricultural states.

The nature of the Senate — not Trump — is the biggest barrier to U.S. action on climate change in the long run, in my opinion.

maggiekb: And what they propose is probably not as sweeping as it needs to be to really deal with the problem to begin with, if I can get climate hawkish here. And it’s probably for the same reasons that Nate just explained. We have a lot of forces in the U.S. that push our climate policy toward “not radical” solutions even as the problem becomes increasingly radical.

sarahf: I hate to echo what Clare said earlier, but it probably will take widespread hellishness like the California wildfires to spark the U.S. to take radical action, and even that might be naive.

natesilver: I mean, in some ways the climate change “debate” was a template for Trumpism. It involved a backlash against elites and empiricism, but the ultimate beneficiaries of the “populist” stance are not necessarily working-class voters so much as big, rich businesses.

Which is not to say that there aren’t some voters in some regions who would be hurt by efforts to mitigate climate change. There certainly would be, especially in the short run.

But it’s sort of a faux-populism where, conveniently enough, the populist stance also serves the interest of big, established businesses.

maggiekb: Unfortunately, I think you’re correct about the parallels here, which makes finding a solution to mitigate climate change hard. Also, fun cameos from misinformation campaigns!

Can’t forget those.

[ramialkarmi]

Music honcho Lyor Cohen played hardball with YouTube for years then shocked everyone by joining the enemy. Here’s how he stayed on top and why he says it's time haters 'liberate' themselves (GOOG, GOOGL)

   Lyor Cohen spent 30 years in the recorded-music industry and then after witnessing the rise of digital distribution, he swapped sides. As  YouTube's global head of music, he is overseeing the launch of YouTube's new subscription service.

Cohen isn't just a former music industry insider. He waged a bare-knuckled public-relations fight against YouTube a decade ago when the two companies failed to come to terms on a licensing deal. 

Cohen's renaissance as a digital executive may seem ironic, but it holds some valuable lessons for startup founders, media executives or anyone wishing to remake their career.  

On the day Lyor Cohen resigned as Chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group in September 2012, he appeared headed for obscurity.

I covered digital music back then, during the blackest period in the history of recorded music. The rise of digital distribution and music piracy had chopped annual revenue in half, from $14 billion to $7 billion. The top five recording companies were reduced to three.

During the freefall, I had seen countless middle-aged label managers flee the sector or get forced out. Finding another job in the business was near impossible. But Cohen refused exile.

Where once he attacked tech companies for not properly compensating music artists, Cohen surprised everyone — and angered some — by flipping sides. After three decades in the record business, Cohen is now global head of music at YouTube, the world’s premiere video-sharing site which he joined in 2016.

How he managed to claw back into center ring is a powerful testimonial for startup founders, media executives and anyone facing a downturn in their industry.

Don’t fear to venture into areas where you’re not an obvious fit

Cohen is 6-foot, 5-inches tall and blue-eyed. His parents immigrated to the United States from Israel. According to a 2001 story in Rolling Stone magazine, the fact that he was often the only white man working in urban music or that he sometimes faced anti-Semitism didn’t deter him.

He loved rap and hip hop and learned to spot and develop talent. He became skilled enough to eventually rise to the top of Def Jam, the famed recording company.

"Lyor is probably the coolest white dude in the game," Irv Gotti, a black record producer who worked with Jay-Z and DMX told Rolling Stone. "He's a white Jewish guy, but I think everybody respects him like he’s black.”

When Cohen and the now disgraced music impresario Russell Simmons sold Def Jam for more than $100 million, Cohen pocketed a fortune.

Cohen also isn’t a natural fit for tech. He battled digital music retailers at the negotiating table and in the press. Warner and the other labels sued some sites out of existence for enabling piracy. They even sued customers for file sharing. Yet, he’s now at YouTube.

Don’t pose. Play to your strengths and don’t hesitate to raise your voice

During the downturn in the music sector numerous displaced middle managers from the labels tried to adapt to the new environment by repackaging themselves as digital experts.

Not Cohen.

“I’m just a music guy,” Cohen said during an interview with Business Insider last week. “One of the things that I think that I’ve been really encouraged to do by (YouTube), and one of the things that I thought was most critical was to be my most authentic self.”

He says Google has plenty of technologists. He concerns himself with YouTube’s music experience. And of course, he oversees YouTube’s relationships with the big labels, Universal, Sony and his former employer, Warner.

It was at Warner where Cohen first interacted with YouTube. In 2008, YouTube and Warner had reached an impasse in negotiations over music licensing.

Back then, sources told me that at the 11th hour of protracted negotiations, Warner suddenly made new demands.

YouTube responded by pulling down Warner’s music from the site without warning (though Warner would insist it took its music down) and alerting the press. The message was clear: No deal. YouTube didn’t need Warner’s music at that price.

Warner is still the only major label to have refused to license YouTube, albeit only for a short time.

YouTube’s users posted so many unauthorized clips of Warner’s music videos that the label became overwhelmed trying to take them all down. Nine months later, Warner finally threw in the towel.  

In Cohen’s retelling of that period during our conversation, he downplayed the animosity that defined Warner and YouTube's early relationship, even casting himself as a peacemaker between the two sides.

Cohen: YouTube came to the record companies, negotiated licenses and then came back every three years to do it all again. And I said, because I didn’t understand, ‘Why is this happening? Why is YouTube and Google being vilified when they’re actually solving...

Business Insider: Wait. Let me stop you. I covered that. It was you. You were a hawk and...

Cohen: Excuse me...

He raised his voice to interject and moved his 6'5"  frame forward in his seat to get closer. The YouTube PR person stopped typing. Nobody moved. This is the Cohen I had heard about for years, the charmer who could instantly turn up the intensity in negotiations or with those who displeased him; the guy Doug Morris, the former Universal Music chief, once described as an "Israeli general."

Cohen: You have to understand the context, because yes I did pull our content from YouTube. But this was the context: It was very early on at YouTube and YouTube did not have a clean and well lit place for our premium content. So our CPMs suffered because advertisers didn’t know what they were going to get. Are they going to get a cat video or Jay-Z video. That’s what bothered me.

I kept going to them and saying ‘If you could separate your butcher market by having premium meats there and the sausage and the scraps over there, I’d be very happy.’

Business Insider: Were you correct? Did you take the correct position or…?

Cohen: Of course. You saw what they did. They cleaned it up. Now they solved …piracy is way down.

Don’t be afraid to rip up everything and start over. To create, you must be willing to destroy.

Cohen also provides a lesson in removing emotion from business decisions. He spent 30 years in music, forged friendships, and made millions. Then, he accepted the YouTube job and cast some of what he built away. To some in the music business, Cohen had betrayed them. One longtime music exec at an indie label told me last year that he considers Cohen nothing but an “opportunist.”

“Of course there are haters,” Cohen said last week, “but there are only haters if I actually paid attention. I don’t pay attention.”

The tech sector shouldn’t have any complaints. Afterall, Cohen only did what everybody in tech advised back when Napster, Grokster and LimeWire enabled widespread file sharing.

On message boards techies gleefully warned “old-media execs” to “adapt or die.”

And that’s sort of the advice that Cohen offers to his old business partners now.

Business Insider: What would you tell your critics in the music industry?

Cohen: Liberate yourself, and let’s move on. Let go of the CD. Get to know the people that frighten you.

Business Insider: Is that what you did?

Cohen: Yeah. Liberated myself. I can’t stand the CD.

Business Insider: But back in the day you...

Cohen: Enjoyed its benefits...It made us a lot of money. Anyhow what goes up comes down, the evolution of life. Get to know the people in tech and you’ll realize that they’re littered with people like T. Jay Fowler (one of the YouTube managers heading up the company’s new subscription music service that debuted on Tuesday). He’s actually a music executive who happens to work in tech. If they see and speak to him, they would realize he’s not to out to hurt our business.

SEE ALSO: YouTube's Lyor Cohen says to forget about YouTube's rocky past with the music industry because the real threat is Spotify and Apple

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why cockroaches are so hard to kill

[vrheadsets]

VR vs. Half Measures

If I was smart I’d talk about Star Wars today, for obvious reasons, but I’m not and there’s a matter that’s been on my mind for a little while recently and something that is probably overdue being vocalised in general. It’s about videogames, videogame development and virtual reality (VR). That, and why I’m increasingly convinced something needs to change – and fast.

Let’s go back to one of the most recent videogame announcements and the thing that kicked this off in my mind: L.A. Noire. You didn’t need to try hard to hear the rumblings of that before the announcement arrived, and as someone who never got to play the original but who had been impressed by the efforts put into storytelling, I was excited at the possibility of a title that you could easily say was underappreciated in its time getting a second chance. Not only that, but Rockstar had seen the potential there and was even going to make the step into VR with L.A. Noire. If Rockstar was ever going to go VR I’d thought L.A. Noire with its storytelling and game mechanics were a natural fit, so I was pretty pleased.

When I got to read about it however I was left rather disappointed. We were not getting L.A. Noire in VR. We were getting L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files, seven cases recreated from the original. Not even the minor chuckle of seeing a couple of outlets refer to the game continuously as ‘LA NOIRE’, like they were just randomly bellowing French at various points in their stories, could stop me from sighing a bit internally at that.

When we, and by ‘we’ I mean the industry at large (including those who report on it) discuss VR, we invariably get drawn into the benfits of ‘the experience’. What you can feel, how immersed you are in the world, how the fictitious world can become real. Fair enough, it is the unique selling point (USP) and ultimate end-goal of immersive technologies – to take you away from the real world and make that real. Yet, again we’re left with the perception of VR being some optional extra; bonus content you put in to look flashy. VR is not the experience at the moment for many, it’s not the selling point, it’s just a selling point.

We constantly say that content is key. You know it. I know it. They know at HTC. They know at Oculus and at Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE). They know it on tech portals and our fellows over at other VR/AR websites – hello to those there who surprisingly read this week after week – know it too. On Reddit or Neogaf (or wherever)? You know it. Hell, those who aren’t even into VR know it

We’re now well into VR’s first generation but we’re still not getting the full deal. How many videogames from the big boys have had VR shoehorned in at this point? How many titles are ‘added VR missions‘? I don’t mind so much for smaller devs doing this, but come on. We can do better at this point. Studios are making money, VR in videogames is grabbing headlines. People absolutely raved about the VR is Reisdent Evil VII biohazard, so much so it might well have changed the direction the series takes from here on in. So why doesn’t anyone actually go for it full bore instead of these tentative steps? An end is likely to be signalled for the first commercial generation within the next six months, heck it could happen as early as tomorrow thanks to Oculus Connect 4. With the next consumer versions, the CV2s of this world, set to take the torch and guide us all into the future.

Yet currently, when we get content and we talk about the immersive experience as a whole, even after all this time, we’re not always getting said whole. Where’s my full experience? Why aren’t we, at this point, onto the truly big VR productions? VR isn’t going away from gaming, no matter how much some wish it so. So… COME ON. Enough delays and lollygagging. Believe me people in the comments section, we’re as tired of wave shooters as you are. I want to get stuck into a big immersive world – so where’s my Immersive Role Playing Game? My IRPG? (I came up with that term the other day and the Editor insisted I use it at some point because he loved it so much. So feel free to start using it judiciously.) Where’s my killer app? Heck, I’d settle for a ‘lesser charge of manslaughter app’ at this point to show some progress.

We’re getting parts. We’re getting measures of VR. Measures of support. Measures of interest. The results for which can vary wildly as a result. Bethesda’s trinity is a great example of this. The best experience looks set to be Doom VFR, which just so happens to be the one made for VR and not being converted in some way. The worst looks to be Skyrim, a title which has been repackaged so many times at this point it’s in danger of choking itself to death with bits of brown tape and bubble wrap.

VR might, sadly, just be a step too far for that, judging by some previews.

The scope of development needs to step up a gear, and do so sharpish. While in the meantime developers also need to be far more aware of the presentation and perception they are projecting. Because that’s also part of the problem. Whilst it’s good we’re getting VR, these ‘bits’ do not help the perception that VR is nothing but an expensive add-on, or that the videogames are not whole experiences, If that’s the case, why not improve the perception of things in the short term by altering the presentation,

Think of it this way: Say we go to a bar and, because I am a very nice sort of chap, I say that I’ll buy you a drink. For the purposes of this example, let’s use a standard pint glass – we’re a British based publication after all – which this is as close an approximation to as I can get at the moment.

Firstly, let’s get the most important point out of the way. I just bought you a drink and yes this does indeed mean that by reading this whenever you see me next, you now owe me a refreshing beverage. Fair’s fair. (Wait, this also it means I get to claim expenses for several hundred drinks? Cha-ching!)

Now some of you may be thinking this glass is half empty. Some of you may be thinking the glass is half full. To those people: what? Don’t be silly, that not the point. The point is I’ve only presented you with half a drink. Oi! What the heck, Kevin!?

Except I never said I would buy you a pint. I said I would buy you a drink.

Unfortunately, the way the drink has been presented leaves you immediately disappointed and underwhelmed. Where’s the rest of it? Why the half measures? Now if the bar staff had chosen a different glass for the drink, you wouldn’t have said anything – because you wouldn’t have known any better. You’d have consumed what which you were given and would judge it as a whole – and not as a half. Yet the volume of content would ultimately be the same. It’s just your perception of it. Had we been in a bar and I gave you a drink in that fashion, you’d end the evening with a negative opinion of the bar and of me. The same then is true for VR.

So there we go. Perceptions, presentation and volume. All of these need to improve. It’s the only way things can move forward, because they’ve been standing still too long.

And standing still gets you nowhere.

      from VRFocus http://ift.tt/2kBPbb8

[nicemango-feed]

Professor Jordan Peterson: Charlatan Conservative Christian Perpetually Paranoid about Pronouns & Postmodernism

Trigger Warning: If you don't like feminists or leftists, avert your eyes. This could be upsetting.

***

I ran a little contest for the title on Twitter, while there were so many great suggestions

Well, an anagram of Jordan B Peterson is desert banjo porn

— Martin (@NataliasDad) July 28, 2017

Kermit the Monologue

— Liam van der Spek (@SpekOfTheDevil) July 28, 2017

Misunderstanding Bill C-16 for $55,000 a month

— JD-800 (@thejd800) July 28, 2017

"Old Man Yells at Cloud: the Jordan Peterson Story"

— brane bzkl (@Buzzkill_AOC) July 28, 2017

I went for the wayyy too long alliteration angle, since I felt it captured the essence of his nonsense best.. 

He's so verbose I can't narrow down 11 paragraphs about NESTING into a title

— Paul City (@RealPaulCity) July 28, 2017

Shout out to @somestingray for inspiring that! 

professor peterson’s postmodern paranoia

— Ray (@SomeStingray) July 28, 2017

-----

Pic From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awot-d8U9Cc

Ah...Jordan B. Peterson - I remember a time when I had no idea who that was, and my life was better for it.

Who is this guy? Well...For those unfamiliar he is a ‘controversial’ conservative university professor, in my own progressive city *sigh*....at University of Toronto.

He's your average conservative Christian, with an added dose of hardcore gobbledygook with the audacity to criticize postmodernists for the same. Step aside Deepak Chopra! There's a new snake oil salesman in town. And this time he's smuggling in extreme conservatism AND atheists love him. Apparently one of the *most requested* guests of all time on Sam Harris' podcast!

Why is 2017 like this. Nothing makes sense anymore. 

jordan b peterson: a looney twist on the old school Christian conservative

— peppermint (@strengthgentle) July 28, 2017

Gosh, remember when the atheist scene used to ridicule charlatans like Deepak instead of embrace them as some of our favourite intellectuals simply because they ‘trigger’ libtards, and dump on trans ppl, ‘the left’ and feminism - all the favourite bogeymen of the internet atheist movement! ...resulting in this strange alliance with a man who literally brought himself to tears while reading his own essay which mentioned ‘a loss of faith’. 

Goddammit, make atheism great again. 

It really amazes me that he criticizes flowery 'postmodernist' language for much of the same type of nonsense that comes out of his own mouth. He rose to fame last year when he had an unbelievable temper tantrum about Ontario’s bill c-16 somehow taking away his freedoms by protecting trans people from discrimination. He’s been shown  to be misrepresenting the law, but his popularity only grows in this climate where facts hold little value, and anything of substance is dubbed 'fake news'.

Peterson has no qualms associating with people on the far far right...he even appeared on a nazi's podcast. A woman who has literally advocated violence against people of colour refusing to leave the hypothetical ethnostate. 

Host of that show is another extreme race & IQ obsessive wanting to deport non-whites. http://pic.twitter.com/QF00K9Tr3d

— Nikolashvili (@ViniKako) March 12, 2017

He may very well not be aware of all her views, but googling someone or looking at their social media is the least you can do before appearing on their show and lending them your legitimacy as a professor. If you are this blinded by your hatred of the left that you're going on Nazi shows to talk about 'Western Civilization'...you probably should not be teaching kids. 

As a critic of leftist mumbo-jumbo, its funny he describes the average university class as a postmodern neo-marxist indoctrination cult (h/t @somestingray). He wants to start his own online university scarily enough...He plans to 'cut off the supply to people running the indoctrination cults', i.e., universities. And don't you worry... he's working on a way to differentiate between 'post modern course content' and 'classical course content'.

In a time where mainstream media institutions are being discredited by right wing nutjobs, so too are educational institutions. Now, hold on to your kekistani undies, i’m not saying there aren’t ever crazy instances on campus, I’m not saying never criticize universities or The Left. There’s plenty to criticize... but there’s no proportionality….this response, as in...idolizing Jordan Peterson the guy who’s somehow repackaged old school conservatism as something new and hip…as an antidote to 'the left gone wild, drunk on the power of premarital sex, immorality, independent career women and loss of faith'…I mean come on...I've heard this shit before...

I grew up in Saudi Arabia. 

Just check this rulebook for men he wrote a few yrs ago. (h/t @21logician) 

It’s full on insanity.

And spare me the obvious - 'these are metaphors'… yes I know he’s not calling for literal child sacrifice. 

Still crazy. 

Build the crystal palace. O-kay then. 

Look I consulted with my ancestral spirits…and they warned me not to watch Jordan Peterson content…but silly lady-brain of mine.. didn’t listen. So here we are. 

Now I’m trying to compile as much of JBP’s bs into one blogpost as I can tolerate sifting through in one sitting. For someone sooooo upset about his free speech allegedly being taken away over bill c-16, he certainly doesn’t extend that courtesy to other groups. 

Here he is in 2011 discussing how atheists aren’t an oppressed or excluded group in the west, perhaps even dominant, and how he’s not a fan of atheist advertising. An Ad on a bus pissed him off ffs, meanwhile calling people what they want to be called is a violation of his rights.  Full video of his ad chat here 

Jordan Peterson on pro-atheism billboards. This would be a good topic for discussion @SamHarrisOrg http://pic.twitter.com/JQdhfvgyo8

— Tom Bloke (@21logician) December 28, 2016

Why maybe Dawkins *should* be oppressed he said. Jeez Jordan, why so angry?

maybe @RichardDawkins should be oppressed @jordanbpeterson http://pic.twitter.com/MiaGNIosA3

— Tom Bloke (@21logician) December 28, 2016

"If you don’t have any faith in an ultimate authority that says life is sacred, what’s to stop you from mobilizing everything you can to kill as many people as you can…."  That's real original Jordan. 

Jordan Peterson talking about Stalin's lack of religion. This is as feisty as Canadian TV gets I think http://pic.twitter.com/gzzpDcfXVj

— Tom Bloke (@21logician) December 27, 2016

Here’s some more laughable god stuff:

Proof itself, of any sort, is impossible, without an axiom (as Godel proved). Thus faith in God is a prerequisite for all proof.

— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) November 26, 2013

To think of how popular he is among atheists cracks me up (and makes me sad). This anti-left stuff in the era of the rise of the right...sure makes for some strange bedfellows. 

In his two hour conversation with Sam Harris he couldn’t really define 'truth'. He is basically the religious conservative version of what he criticizes re:postmodernism. Dislikes the pronoun Xir because apparently thats just leftist nonsense….but can’t decide on what truth means. 

Just a quick glance at his Twitter timeline will show that he posts bs memes of his own gibberish quotes..and people love it! 

I honestly can’t understand…has the human population become this dumbed down? Is this reflective of a failure of our education systems?…that people hear a string of multi-syllabic words and are immediately wowed/lulled into some sort of illusion that they are smarter than they thought? His fans also have a habit of saying “but you haven’t heard ALL his lectures… if you had, what he was saying would make sense” - come on. Surely something of his has to be able to stand on it’s own. 

I mean what the fuck does this mean?

one last meme before bed http://pic.twitter.com/KQQkPTRYAq

— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) July 25, 2017

To be fair though, somehow I guess it's possible you've stuck to his .. I dunno..mythology, psychology lectures which are supposed to be better....but still, how are you unaware of his crazy side? The side that's made him rich and famous? 

Peterson is a top earner on Patreon making over 55K *a month* (remember this number) last time I checked…which he’s planning to use to launch an online university, to influence more young minds into his way of thinking. 

I just googled him right now and came across a reddit thread asking whether he was a prophet, because he’s turning Western Civilization back to Christianity….FFS.. this guy’s following is legitimately creepy. 

This is the person who thinks college SJWs are bad, but is upset that Disney’s Frozen is *propaganda*… 

Why...you ask? 

Because it showed that two female characters did not need a man to be successful. (h/t @21logician) 

Heaven forbid we indoctrinate our kids into evil-leftist-feminist-cultural-marxist-postmodernism. 

Shameful Disney…don’t you know that all female characters should need a MAN….that’s how God intended it after all. 

No wonder he’s spooked by the Trans Agenda of jailing him for mistakenly saying the wrong pronoun some day. Poor guy. 

This man is in charge of teaching young minds. And with his own online postmodernism-proof university he will be more influential than before, 'radicalizing' more people. Alarming. 

***

He also has some very disturbing ideas about sex. In his mind the left encourages ‘sexual predation’ by saying that sex is for pleasure and you can have it when you want…we should allow any form of sexual expression and not discriminate against any of them. But at the SAME TIME they want to jail men who make unwanted sexual advances. 

Yes Peterson, its called consent. We can have free sexual expression and consent simultaneously .. this isn’t hard. 

how the hell can you have free sexual expression and also not rape people http://pic.twitter.com/AWM0gu7rHR

— Tom Bloke (@21logician) February 13, 2017

And who's he discussing this with? None other than Stefan Molyneux - known extreme misogynist who blames women for all evil in the world, crazy conspiracist and racist. 

This isn’t the first time i’ve heard Peterson rail against casual sex. If I close my eyes, It’s almost like I’m back in Saudi Arabia. 

everything is so fucking melodramatic with this dude. if you don't do sex and procreation his way you're getting ENSLAVED @jordanbpeterson http://pic.twitter.com/lawOmTOxlm

— Tom Bloke (@21logician) December 18, 2016

***

Which brings me to the JBP lecture clip I watched, that all this build up is for:

What. The. Fuck. Did I just see/hear, and what decade am I in… one can forget they exist in 2017 and not 1950 while listening to Peterson. The fact he’s giving lectures like this to young people and they aren’t laughing him out of the room, means that there are some real regressive people out there who want to take us back in time, and hey guess what.. these ones aren’t on the left. 

It's horrifying how popular he is. 

So the video is posted, not by him but some other YT user (called biased asshole lol) and titled “Peterson on Western Women”. 

I’m already gritting my teeth, I hit play… despite the warning from my ancestral spirits, and my crystal palace is crumbling before me, letting the howling winds in. I offer myself to god as a sacrifice...but alas, it's too late. 

At the start of his talk, there’s the obligatory mention of declining birthrates of course, civilization is failing because women are working more procreating less. This is the stuff that endears him to the #TradLife Alt Right nutters. 

This is the woman from his Western Civilization podcast appearance.

(screenshot via @vinikako)

(screenshot via @vinikako)

This young mom is the face of Mormonism's Hateful Alt Right. Full article here

Next in the lecture, Peterson questions why women would want positions of power at all. I’m paraphrasing here, 

‘ladies... trust me you don’t want these powerful positions, men are crazy to have ‘em in the first place… but you know how men are lulz….crazy hardworking and competitive. You also don’t want powerful positions because extra money doesn’t help, and billion dollar corporations are reaaaally complicated to run ok? There are lawsuits, and you have to travel a lot. & shit Just…trust me ladies u don’t wanna get involved in this mess.”

7:29 (now this is an actual quote I’m no longer paraphrasing) he continues on to deter women from wanting positions of power 

“If you’re half crazy and you have a lot of money, you’re going to be crazy a lot faster I can tell you, because it frees you from all sorts of constraints”

[some weak excuse abt how lottery winners are unhappy and if u are prone to a drug problem, then the money will just speed it up]

THIS IS ONE OF PATREON’S TOP EARNERS FFS. What business does he have telling women that money is no good and will just make you crazy. He makes 55K a fucking month. 

This shit continues:

7:46 “being broke stops you from dying if you’re a cocaine addict” ok JBP ..lol...you’re realllllly trying hard to stop women from having careers here. 

7:56 “If somebody dumped an infinite amount of money on you what makes you think you wouldn’t unravel completely?”  - is he describing himself? 

(Click to enlarge)

9:30 “The older I get the more I understand marriage and family are of primary importance” - yeah ok.. I think we get it. #TradLife

9:32 - "The more I see women in particular, they hit 35-40 …and they’re not married…and they don’t have kids…and they are not happy. Cuz what the hell are you gonna do from the time you’re 40 till the time you’re 80?! You got no family… you got no relationships? What are you gonna do?! Go run your company?!!! Yeah well… if you’re 1 in a 1000 that will satisfy you.”

LMAO Peterson, you nutjob. If someone just says this shit in Urdu or Arabic, it will be no different than the mullahs who are afraid of women being empowered and independent. More polished sure, but he is a professor at one of Toronto’s best universities after all. This is an embarrassment. I mean, he should be far off from Mullah-rhetoric, not spouting essentially polished versions of the anti-woman turds that come out of their mouths. Having babies isn’t the only thing that gives women meaning, purpose or happiness in their lives, you absolute dinosaur. And there are other forms of relationships out there. My dad is way more progressive than you, and I’m certain he’s a lot older..heck so is my granddad. 

The idea that running a company would be satisfying to a woman...as opposed to raising children is simply unfathomable to him, no wonder he spends his time freaking out about this (and pronouns) in 2017 because he’s unable to adjust to modernity. I got news, there are other things women do aside from having kids. They are complete human beings even without kids….imagine that! 

I mean this is some serious insecurity around women succeeding. And lets not forget his bullet points for men:

Hmm. 

***

11:22 - Then we get into the “yeah women have it rough but you do live 8 years longer, so thats not trivial…TESTOSTERONE IS KILLING MEN.” (emphasis mine)

“Men do almost all the dangerous jobs and outside work. There’s lots of reasons that men get paid more than women that have *nothing to do with prejudice*” - ok by this point in the video I’m laugh-crying. This is so ridiculous….

“each sex has it’s own unfairness to deal with, but to think of that as a consequence of the social structure….come on really?!"

*lolz guys…there’s plenty of injustice to go around, men do all the hard work around here, why do you whiny women think its some sort of systemic thing, sexism is a leftist cultural marxist myth* 

The video ends on note of JBP saying there’s no gratitude for how far we’ve come because we aren’t outside all day lifting rocks and shit. I kid you not. 

Sexism isn’t real because bad things happen to everyone, and we are no longer lifting rocks. So quit yer whining cultural marxist feminists….do what you were actually put here to do and fulfill your life’s role, make some babies…otherwise what are you even doing with your life. Money sucks (for you), positions of power are way too hard (for you ladies). K thanks bye. Donate to my patreon. 

Lecture summed up right there. (Ok he didn't actually plug his patreon there)

According to his logic he should be grateful about how privileged he is to earn so much and be a professor and quit *his* whining about cultural marxism and postmodernist SJWs...because you know, he's not out there lifting rocks and shit. 

*The Truth* about Jordan Peterson is...he's full of shit and he's dangerously bridging the gap between the far right and the mainstream...and young people are falling for it. 

----

Thank you to my Patrons who make this work possible. Truly, truly appreciated. 

If you'd like to support my work you can do so here via Patreon  

It's no Peterson level gold plated patreon, but if you want to counter people like that, do consider supporting content creators who push back against this stuff, there aren't many and they need your support. Say what you will about right wingers, but they definitely $upport their people in combatting the evil leftist agenda. 

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