#but alas!!! this is the clown website for clowns

[praetorqueenreyna]

I disagree with your take on men not being able to experience SA (even if Ianthe is a stupid character and its alarming that SJM only seems to villianize her female characters committing SA) but there's something to say about a group of people coming after you for saying men don't experience SA in the most unserious way possible when that group of people also unseriously support and romanticise the SA scene with Fey/sand.

its ACOTAR, a fandom rife with horrible SA takes and depictions but they can somehow set that aside to stan the whole entire series and all of its demeaning themes and characterizations. Its also not lost on me that this went from "you're not putting wlw ships in a survey" to a whole research session on your opponent to discredit the fact that they did do the survey twice and it was for petty reasons.

Once again I wish you hadn't worded your take on men and SA like that, but hey it's your space and we do curate our online experiences. If that person knew beforehand that you posted things like that, why do the survey? If they had to search your blog after the survey argument to put a weight on your general character to take away from the original argument? Still backhanded, still not very "curating your online experience". We're all 30+ years old on a website that is very unserious and has supporters of incest of all things. I'd like to think half the things we are into or say here are unseriously said/or not said at all out in our regular everyday lives.

SO I will fully admit that that post was poorly worded. It was a casual post that was never supposed to get any traction, just something to throw my opinion into the ether. Not a serious analysis of how SJM expresses power dynamics and sexual assault. Part of why it's so confusing is that I literally got bored halfway through the tags and just stopped writing things.

Of course men can experience sexual assault from women, regardless of anybody's sexuality or attractiveness. My point was that women in power do not systemically abuse men in the way that men do women. I'm tired of lukewarm liberal feminists (such as SJM) trying to make some point about how the true victims of patriarchy are men. And that online warriors like the people throwing a fit about this do literally nothing to help sexual assault victims of ANY gender, and think that attacking some random person over a random post counts as social action.

But I totally agree with you! SJM seems perfectly happy to show over and over again these villainous powerful women who are somehow skeevy enough to offput the horniest men in world, but are conventionally attractive and don't really do much other than aggressively throw themselves at men. Which ALSO was a point of confusion: that post was not about Ianthe and Lucien. Obviously Lucien doesn't want to have sex with Ianthe bc he's gay. It was about how Rhysand, Cassian, and Azriel are all written as these shallow horndogs who bang everything with tits, but are somehow genre savvy enough to know that Ianthe is a Bad Female Character and are disgusted by her. It's not cohesive, it's just a way for SJM to villainize a caricature of a person and make her male characters (who btw are WAY more sexually violent than Ianthe has ever been) seem like good characters.

But again, this kind of bad faith interpretation and virtue signalling has nothing to do with real victims of anything. Because if it did, they would have had an actual conversation with me, rather than putting words in my mouth over what I did and didn't say. Quite frankly, they're mad that I'm a Tamlin fan, and so they're trying to tear me down however they can. Like you said, first it was "well she's lesbophobic bc there are no wlw ships on the survey." Then when I made my point about how the people who complain about that do NOTHING to actually contribute wlw content to fandom, it shifts to me doing something else. If I kept up the conversation and tried to defend myself, I would be accused of some other crime.

ANYWAY this is exactly the kind of conversation I do enjoy having, so I do appreciate this ask! It is so important to cultivate your fandom experience and try not to take this stuff so seriously, especially for a series as poorly conceived as ACOTAR. Not all of my posts have been winners, but the actual content of those posts doesn't matter. Because I like Tamlin, I'm always going to be a criminal of SOME kind to these people.

I fully admit I should have just deleted the original ask because it was not sent to open a real dialogue. It's a lesson I have to keep learning over and over again, but maybe someday it'll stick!

[padfootastic]

yah so i have no idea why i wrote this bc it has zero context but like. it’s not wrong?

[i-like-eyes]

Trying to figure out how they'd work as puppets

More in depth analysis below the break

For those that don't know, typically the three most common variants of foam puppet are know as rod hand, live hand, and walk around. Examples would be Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Big Bird respectively. Rod hands are smaller in size and held up by, well, rods. Live hands have the puppeteer (or two!) insert their hand in a sleeve connected to the puppet for more interaction. Walk around puppets are full costumes the puppeteer wears, but what makes them puppets and not like, fursuits, is that there is still puppet mechanisms like moving the mouth or blinking.

Here is what comes from the website/Clown's tumblr:

Julie is a rod hand

Eddie is a live hand

Poppy is a walk around

Barnaby has a walk around and live hand

Howdy has a walk around and live hand

Sally is a live hand but "required an additional hand to help move her head, as it was much larger than other puppets"

Frank is said to have a fixed expression but his head could spin, rather he was rod or live or magic third thing I cannot figure out

Wally doesn't have any details regarding his puppet anatomy because he is special like that

Of note:

Julie likely has smth holding up all that hair (please be a fucked up skull please be a fucked up skull)

Poppy is a pretty standard walk-around puppet (she's just Big Bird), but I'm having trouble understanding how a human could fit into Barnaby or Howdy. Then again, 2d artwork of puppets tend to take liberties for the sake of stylization. So if someone were to make them IRL they'd either look really different or utilize tech I don't think was available in the early 70's

Howdy's legs could work on Squidward Spongebob Musical logic. Arms I have no clue, as a live hand he could have multiple people filling up those arms, but as a walk around idk cheap spider costume logic were the lower arms are attached to the upper arms ala a string?

I do not know what to make of Sally needing extra help to hold up other than that's so specific it might become a plot point

Frank.

Okay Frank lacking details or having weird details that stand out is a running theme for him. He has no listed backstory whereas everyone else can say where there were from and who their family is. Every character's first name ends with a long "e" sound whereas Frank is. Frank. (His last name "Frankly" does cover that though). The fact that WHRP lacks any concrete detail on his creation is a story reason, what's the story no clue we are 5% in dudes

Regarding his puppet, he obviously had a fixed frown because puppet but also could spin his head. Now I have absolutely zero clue how you can have the head spin and also have room for the hand for the mouth, unless this is a rod puppet (Rizzo the Rat) where the mouth is moved by some other mechanism. All I can say is I'd suspect Frank to have a very stiff (read: not majority foam) head and body in order to hold up such a feature. If his head can detach, I can imagine a metal ring of sorts that his collar covers up

His arms are a different story. The website not clarifying how his arms work doesn't really mean there is anything particular about them, but I am going to over analyze is anyway dammit

Points for rod hand: arms/hands are slim, inspirations Bert and Mr.Robinson are rod hands, lack of other rod hands/variety reasons

Points for live hand: Sally also has slim hands but is live hand, not all live hands have thick arms (looks at how small Ernie's upper arms are compared to his fore arms), Beaker hasn't been listed as an exact inspiration for Frank but look at him, and most importantly is Poppy. Poppy is noteworthy for being the only walk around puppet without a live hand counter part. As a result of having wings for hands the puppeteer cannot realistically perform any of the baking tasks in her segment. As a result she gets help from Sally, Howdy, Eddie, and Frank. The former 3 are all live hands, and one can assume that because of this Frank could be a live hand as well

And finally I know he's said to not super expressive but my heart says that he would look great with the eyebrow mechanism Bert and other puppets have.

I should point out that puppets from the 90's (Dinosaurs and TMNT come to mind) used more robotics in order to achieve more expression with the characters, but I don't think that kind of tech was common place in the 70's and would apply here.

The big take away is that this post was made for practical reasons; I am just Quite Fond of researching this kind of thing. This will probably not get you any lore, but it could provide context for the characters. I personally suspect that Poppy not being able to fly or perform tasks she swore she could will play a big of her character. In general I think that what other puppets can and cannot accomplish will play into the theme of figuring out who you are. That's the real fun.

[animatronicappreciation]

There are plenty of Dave Thomas' creations we'd love to give the spotlight to (maybe we will someday; we've got to get through a lot of backlog first, though!), but this fella has been on my mind lately.

We have no information about Squeeky here. The only content that exists of him online is this video; literally nothing else. I've checked. All we know is that he was built in 1987 for a customer in Orlando. There aren't even photos of him on Dave's (archived) website like some of his other creations. Just this short footage, nothing more.

Given Dave's untimely passing (and, to my knowledge, not having anyone else to contact about his work), there's no way to get any further information on Squeeky. He intrigues me so much; his fluid movements, his design, the fact that he's a robot clown. Alas, he's completely lost to time, much like many of Dave's other creations, as well as so, so, so many other pieces of animatronic artwork worldwide.

Source.

-Mod Rat

[sflow-er]

Get to know me tag game

Thank you for the tag @putnamcapital! I had a really intense day today and this was a nice distraction.

Do you make your bed?

Yes. The bedroom looks and feels cluttered with the pillows and bedspread piled up on the chair, and I don't like that at all. Also, I feel like the sheets get icky sooner if I leave the bed unmade. I don't know if there's any truth to it, but the feeling is compelling enough.

What's your favourite number?

I prefer even numbers for some reason, and my faves are 8 and 12.

What is your job?

I'm a self-employed translator of factual texts. Articles, websites, brochures, instructions for use, etc.

If you could go back to school, would you?

Maybe. I was always interested in medicine but didn't take all the science courses in high school that I would've needed to study it in uni, so if I had infinite resources... Yeah, I could see myself going back to do those damn courses and then applying to study medicine.

It's an incredibly unrealistic scenario, though. I have neither the means to study full-time nor the energy to do it alongside work and other adult responsibilities. I also don't know if I could muster the motivation for another uni degree even if it was in a field I liked.

Can you parallel park?

In theory, yes. But the town where I learned to drive had a very small population and ample parking space, so I never needed to do it for real, and I haven't even had a car at my disposal since moving to the city (seventeen years ago this autumn).

A job you had that would surprise people?

Hmm, well, I was an extra on a TV show once! The gig was only a few days, but it was interesting to see the process and compare it to the final product.

Do you think aliens are real?

In the sense of there being other life in the universe, yes. Absolutely. In the sense of them abducting people, no. Definitely not.

Can you drive a manual car?

Yes, that's the norm in my country.

What's your guilty pleasure?

Fanfic. I also have a few embarrassing comfort movies (that I'm not going to name) and about 30 seasons of Survivor under my belt, so...no shortage of guilty pleasures here.

Tattoos?

Alas, no. I always wanted one but could never come up with a design/subject I was 100% sure of.

Favourite colour?

Red, green and dark grey. My least favourite colours are orange, yellow and purple (yeah, that makes me a terrible YR fan, I know).

Favourite type of music?

I'm one of those people who got stuck on the music of their formative years, which for me was alt rock from the 2000s (and a little bit from the 2010s). So, that. I do also listen to some later artists but the bar is much higher for them to become my favourites.

Do you like puzzles?

I love puzzles. Not necessarily jigsaw puzzles as I don't have anywhere to put those (or crossword puzzles as I'm surprisingly bad at those), but I do love games with puzzles in general (video games, escape rooms, board games that require some deduction...).

Any phobias?

Serious case of arachnophobia. I'm also afraid of bugs, clowns and (sadly) dogs, but I wouldn't say any of those fears are severe enough to count as phobias.

Favourite childhood sport?

Lol no. I hated sports as a child.

Do you talk to yourself?

Yes, on occasion.

What movies do you adore?

There are too many to list specific titles! I enjoy speculative fiction (scifi, fantasy, horror if it's not too gory), animated films, historical fiction, adventure, good comedy and some drama. I don't watch many realistic adult dramas or biopics unless I'm particularly interested in the filmmaker or subject matter. My least favourite genres are generic action, war, and anything focused on cars or sports.

Coffee or tea?

I love both but mostly drink coffee.

What was the first thing you wanted to be growing up?

Writer, I believe. Someone in my extended family claims I once said 'president' when they asked all of us cousins what we wanted to be, but I have no recollection of that.

No pressure tags: @scatteredpiecesofme @plantbasedfish @silvagrey @bluedalahorse @willedeservesbetter @palehottubchild and anyone else who wants to participate! I feel like I've seen a lot of answers already and I know I've also missed a bunch, so, sorry if that was you. And if any of you don't feel like playing, no worries whatsoever! 💜

[burins]

more JLI post dump! this'll be issues 6-10

6:

i know this reads different in 1987 but also i DO like it for dinah. also like of course she's friends with bruce

the rest of 6 is a lot of big-scale dr fate stuff which i know is DeMatteis' wheelhouse but which i also don't particularly care about.

7! we are now officially justice league international because the united nations choose to ratify the league. reagan is here! i warned you!

the fact that clark has to talk to reagan regularly, in the course of superhero comics, is so much for me to contemplate.

A) i think it's SO funny that bruce has a special earless cowl for going to space and wearing headphones. i realize this may just be an artistic mistake but i'm choosing to believe it's a deliberate costume choice

B) cold-war era comics!!!!!! really truly the geopolitics of superhero comics are fascinating to me. i have to do some digging to see what's been written on them

i capped this whole panel but i really just want everyone to focus on beetle. this is how you know he's queer is that in each issue he invents a new, gayer way to sit

LIKE

ok in issue 8 the league are moving into their NY and Paris embassies. as you might expect. shenanigans ensue!!

j'onn. ilu

J'ONN!!! ILU!!!!!

unfortunately for the next few issues the scans they put into hoopla are preeeetty rough in terms of quality (and so are the scans on the other website i sometimes use) so some of the dialogue is a little hard to read.

batman seems to have punched guy into a personality transplant. instead of a miserable he-man reaganite he's become like, pollyanna. it's extremely funny and frankly, as much as i enjoy him being a heel, nice to read him not sounding like clint eastwood.

booster and beetle (at the paris embassy) go out to hit on women. #justbrothings. booster strikes out very very badly with a woman he later learns is their local liaison. whoops!!

mister miracle crashes a helicopter through the NY building. also once again i love j'onn!!!!

we also learn about the (actually international) superteam the JLI are supplanting. sorry y'all. also very funny that we have this international superteam and then one year later we're going to get the wildly ill-fated new guardians. sometime i'll do a whole separate post on the new guardians except i don't really want to bc it would require me to reread that series,

9:

everyone is being mindcontrolled by the manhunters! i will admit that i do NOT know the difference between these manhunters and j'onn's manhunter situation. i will presumably learn this at some point.

guy is having a great time being personality-swapped and so am i

it is also time for feminism jokes. alas.

i DO love an ear joke though. more people should make fun of batman's ears they are objectively so so silly

we're also starting to get some good and ominous setup of a maxwell lord subplot. jli! it's not just jokes!

10: we're chasing the manhunters to space!

i'm learning so much about hawkman, a character i know nothing about. for instance. he is a cop???

also arisia is here. i have heard of her and her plotline. 😬 this issue comes out also several months before the writers finally let her and hal break up, but it's not a big plot point in the issue aside from one panel. uhhh csa/grooming cw if you go digging into that plotline? idk it's bad

cut to the manhunters BIRTHING CHAMBER?? this is explicitly how it's described. clark burns up the baby manhunters with his heat rays (fine! normal!) and the parent gets pissed and leaves.

i forgot to mention that this is the intro of gnort, who is a green lantern nepo baby.

i love him.

cut back to earth, where scott and ted are having shenanigans!

even editorial is bullying ted for his japes and jokes... he's my special little clown

[kulliare]

For the ask game: 19, 24, 27 and 41! <3

haiii thanks

19: What does your URL mean?

my url doesn’t mean anything— i meant to use it as a last name for an oc when i was like, 13, but realized the rp website i was gonna rp the oc on was not for me (sorry mizahar. some of the drama on that website was insane tho)

also its good i didn’t use this name for other sites really bc i’ve realized it’s such a weird thing to pronounce. once had a streamer say kulliare and it was so weird because she went french with it and i was like so confused at how she said it bc it was not what i was imagining at all

24: Do you have a collection of anything?

no unfortunately i am like a penny pincher in a way i’m trying to stop— actually maybe the answer is like art prints. i have a Collection on my wall and it is beautiful even though they’re a little slanted and not quite right but it still makes me go :) whenever i look at them

my fave print rn is like a clown cat print but i’m debating printing my vaguely tarot card carmy up bc i love my boy rn

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?

i hate most sounds— someone talking loudly grates me the most though (ironic bc i talk loudly!) sound i love is probably soft mumbling of people in background, like end of a party type vibes at sunset. or my playlist lol. i think the sound has to be controlled for me

41: What was the last book you read?

chugged through how lucky and boyfriend material on a flight just now. i enjoyed how lucky but boyfriend material i enjoyed more— hall has obviously been on tumblr and the fanfic vibes are obvious so that helped in a way— i enjoyed the banter the most though and oliver was a very good character who i wish there was more sad fanfic abt… but alas both of the boys r my fictional type and there is minimal fanfic😔 also am trying to not get into the vector cover romances rn so i will likely not read anything similar for a bit

[chamerionwrites]

Among the more annoying people on social media are the ones who leave inane, insensitive, or just plain obnoxious comments on a post and then - upon being even mildly confronted about this - belligerently insist that if you're going to post on a public website where random strangers can see your post they can say whatever they want. #1, BIG She Was Asking For It energy. #2, I go out in public around random strangers every day and while technically speaking any one of them can put on a clown nose and spray me in the face with silly string, most of them have manners. And #3, they always seem to think that they've hurt my sensitive snowflake feelings when mostly I just want to study them in a lab. Yes dude, I, an adult who is familiar with the internet, do expect a certain amount of obnoxious commenters. What I'm unclear about is why you have decided to be an obnoxious commenter. "Why did you think this was appropriate" was a sincere question. I'd add your response to my ongoing scientific study, but alas the subjects mostly just get big mad and rant about how the interwebs are a wild west free for all before blocking me so I'm afraid the data isn't very compelling

[qqueenofhades]

As someone who has followed you since your Captain Swan days (The Lightbearers will always hold a special place in my heart), the biggest congratulations for your move and your new job. You’ve earned every bit and deserve it. Thank you for always being a wonderful source of wisdom and a bringing a healthy dose of reality to this clown website. Your future students are beyond lucky. Congrats again and welcome home. ♥️

Aww, thank you so much! This is so sweet and I appreciate YOU for sticking around through my various clown phases/hyperfixations/rants. It feels simultaneously as if it just started and if it was a million years ago; at this time last week, I wasn't even here yet, which seems ridiculous. There is definitely a lot to learn at my new job and only so much that I can actually do just yet, as half my time has been spent emailing IT like DOES THAT LOGIN WORK NOW, I KINDA NEED THAT. So yes, attempting to strike the fine balance between proactive contact and obnoxious pestering. Alas.

Anyway, most likely no teaching for this academic year, while I learn the ropes of everything else I have to do, but hopefully that will start sooner rather than later. (Fingers crossed.) I'm already eyeing up various departmental courses like HMM I CAN DEFINITELY TEACH THAT, and I will make sure to mention it in the "plan your future career" document they want me to submit, because human resources departments tee em. So yes, I am excited.

[jovialturtleface]

Rambling about greeting cards

It's hard for me to recognize when I've obtained a new special interest, it's always in hindsight like for the last three years I became really into greeting cards specifically those with fun art styles and cute gimmicks, I justified this interest by giving them away as intended but I cherished the moment I put them into an envelop and sealed it... I did keep some for myself! I have a SpongeBob singing birthday card unfortunately I found out recently that it has stopped working and I don't think there's any way to repair it, hopefully the audio is archived online somewhere. It's a very cute card, although I neglected to grab the envelop with it since it was a last minute grab. I never got to celebrate my birthday much so it's nice...

I also have a Hoops & Yoyo talking card too, hence why I drew that fanart of them when I did. They're very cute characters, simple designs but a lot of charm but tbh it might just be the nostalgia talking I used to love browsing their website they had a lot of those electronic cards' and flash animations. In general I have a fondness for greeting card characters, even the ones who are one-off designs! I really wish the cards had artist credits but alas....

Oh yeah I do have a clown card, it was at a thrift store and I thought why not. Lately I haven't been in a situation where I can freely buy cards so the latest card I've gotten is from a month or two ago, a nice Kuromi shaped card.

I also actually made a few cards myself, nothing too elaborate just me drawing the front and writing a nice message for family and also I got to finally use up some stickers I was hoarding... Oh yeah I also really like to collect stickers hehe maybe I should write about that?

Greeting cards are nice, they're also a little sad I guess like mentioned above the electronic ones won't last forever so you might as well cherish them while you have them or maybe invest in ones with different gimmicks like that one that came with finger puppets. One day maybe I'll take a few pictures of what I have... Probably on my side idk if anyone would want to see much of that here. Ah this was really long but it's not like I get many chances to rave on about cards, even if nobody's reading at least my words will exist for a little bit here.

[aperture-of-bullshit]

Would reallllly love it if I could reblog a version of a post that doesn’t have the fucking clown that is uncle roger linked on it in a reblog but alas. Tumblrs a dog shit website that loves removing key features of its platform for the sake of appealing to users who aren’t even here and may never be here

It was this post btw

[buttercupsfrocks]

Yo, Tumblr! Well what a crappy summer it's turning out to be. Flash floods. Premature reacquaintance with the central heating. Overcast but sweat-inducingly humid. Sunshine for five minutes. Rinse and repeat till autumn, (just in time for the next lockdown according to a virologist I heard interviewed on the radio over the weekend). Ho hum. Be that as it may I've managed to get an awful lot of wear out of this frock. It's one of three items I've bought from the ASOS Collusion label this year, the others being a second dress with an absolutely bonkers print, (think Jane Austen heroine goes cyberpunk), and a pair of lurid pink/purple snakeskin print culottes I had to have taken up by eight inches by the local tailor. (They're fab despite this. I must have ummed and aahed about them for at least three months before finally stumbling across a review that said they were great for apple-shaped folk, whereupon I decided to go for it. And I'm very glad I did because the review was spot on).

Nope, I've no idea why I seem to patting an imaginary dog on the head in this photo. Moving on.

Alas I've mislaid a photo of me wearing a remarkably similar dress in the early 80s, (print, shade of neon yellow, and length wise), so I can't do the compare-and-contrast I intended. I once enjoyed a memorable first kiss in that frock and think maybe that's why this one called ito my heart. It's cotton, (supposedly eco friendly but who the hell knows since the high street lies through its teeth), still on the website, and comes up quite large so I'd suggest sizing down if you're feeling the least bit iffy.

I really like the shape of these earrings, which cost a mere £11 and also come in a transparent neon yellow I'm sorely tempted by. Plastic hoops seem to have become my default no-brainer of late. I'm not quite sure where they've all come from. I'm beginning to suspect they breed when I'm not looking.

As you can see I've teamed it with my Bronx ersatz Birkenstocks from a couple of years ago but I've also accessorised comme ça:-

I recently decided to make some trainer-esque additions to my wardrobe during the sales. I may actually have gone a bit nuts on this front with a lavender pair from Ecco and a leopard-print pair from Clarks, (but they were £31 from £79 and so comfy I couldn't say no), but my trusty Nikes that I've had since God was in short trews really need to go in the bin, and all the designs I bought can be worn with dresses as well as trouserings, which is more than I can say about my Nikes. I mean I could but, being short with big feet, I always feel like I'm wearing clown shoes whenever I try.

Yes, the sleeves are slightly weird and make me look more like a quarterback than ever but at least they're not puffed. I also think it will be layerable come September so you may rest assured you'll be seeing it again in due course.

[lastsonlost]

The star begins a libel trial against a U.K. tabloid that called him a "wife beater." No matter the verdict, he's destined to lose.

If there's a single word to describe Johnny Depp's status at the moment, I'd go with zugzwang, which chess aficionados know to be the moment when a player basically gets cornered into making a move that will inevitably lead to an even more inferior position. On Tuesday, the star actor appeared in a London courtroom to take on the U.K. publisher of The Sun for characterizing him as a "wife beater" in the print edition of an April 27, 2018, online article.  Unfortunately for Depp, it seems to be a defamation trial that's a no-win situation.

Depp appears to think that success is achievable at a proceeding that will last several weeks and feature all sorts of inside details about his life plus celebrity friends including Paul Bettany and Winona Ryder. Depp is claiming that during his tumultuous marriage to Amber Heard between 2015 through 2017, he didn't actually throw a phone at her, slap her across the face, and grab her by the hair, as she once testified in a deposition during one of the nastiest divorces in Hollywood history. Perhaps Depp will play audio tapes in an effort to claim his ex-wife was the abusive one in this stormy relationship. It won't matter because there's really no reversing the damage that Depp has incurred these past few years.

That should have become obvious on June 26 when it was revealed that Disney was working on a new Pirates of the Caribbean, this time featuring a female-fronted cast led by Margot Robbie. In other words, at the exact moment when a U.K. judge was deciding on whether to actually proceed with Depp's libel suit after the actor's attorneys breached a court order by failing to turn over a series of text messages concerning the procurement of drugs, Depp may have lost his most lucrative role. A source tells The Hollywood Reporter that Jerry Bruckheimer would like to at least nod to the popularity of the Captain Jack Sparrow character in the coming film if the controversies die down, but at this point, Disney is resistant. Depp is too controversial. (Disney didn’t respond for comment.)

So Depp will pursue a favorable verdict and a nominal damages award from a trial that's playing out under English defamation standards — in other words, where the burden of truth is on the news publisher to establish rather than Depp. Meanwhile, over the next few weeks, amid an international pandemic, Depp will surely incur additional reputational harm from these prying court proceedings, the impetus for which was a column questioning J.K. Rowling's defense of Depp being cast in the adaptation of her book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It's hard to sue one's way out of controversy.

Given this situation, it's no wonder Hollywood insiders are increasingly puzzled over Depp's moves. I spoke to several industry attorneys and publicists, all of whom offered some variation on the theme that the public would likely have forgotten Depp's years-old troubles but for court actions that keep reminding everyone.

“One of the things you’re always balancing is, how do you respond to accusation? Do you add more fuel to the fire or let it dissipate?” asks Howard Bragman, a longtime crisis manager in the entertainment industry.

Says Neville Johnson, an attorney who has previously brought suits against tabloids but questions the star plaintiff's wisdom here: “Depp doesn’t need the money [from any damages award] and it is not going to enhance his reputation.”

***

How did Depp find himself at the point of zugzwang? More and more, one has got to question Depp's reliance on attorney Adam Waldman. Depp has many attorneys, and the others seem to be the ones actually doing the hard work in court, but Waldman has become Depp's mouthpiece and also looks to be the lawyer who has emerged as the star's svengali of sorts.

Who is Waldman?

A search on Google (where he referred this reporter instead of agreeing to an interview) yields some clues, though hardly anything definitive. Unlike most attorneys, Waldman maintains no bio page these days. A few years back, Waldman's D.C.-based Endeavor Group did have a working website, but no longer. A trip to the Internet Archive reveals that Waldman once took credit for overseeing "all corporate aspects" of the landmark antitrust trial United States v. Microsoft, being the "principal architect of several ground-breaking initiatives" including the Center for Global Development, and even predicting the 2009 financial crisis with a "seminal law review article" authored all the way back in 1993. That would be when he was a student at American University, which did indeed confirm his graduation in 1995.

Waldman, according to reputable press reports, seems to have been involved in various dealings with the Kremlin, Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. He had a lucrative ($40,000 per month) lobbying contract with Deripaska, was registered as an agent for the Russian government, visited Assange nine times in one year at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, apparently in connection with efforts to strike a deal with the DOJ, and more. His associations have become fodder for intrigue among reporters and lawmakers even if there’s a lack of public evidence of anything more than Waldman having a talent for landing recurring, if minor, roles in real-life Russian political dramas.

I'd say that Waldman's foray on the periphery of the industry hardly matters, except that it appears Depp is publicly burning bridges with the sort of abandon that one hardly ever sees among big Hollywood stars. Depp's recent legal pursuits include battling his former money managers over the disposition of hundreds of millions of dollars; splitting with longtime transactional attorney Jake Bloom; and, of course, continuing to face off against Heard again and again and again, including in a separate defamation suit against her over an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post. That latter case is currently scheduled for trial in Virginia in January 2021.

That's a lot of legal work, and Waldman appears to have taken on a central role. As Stephen Rodrick put it in an often-cited Rolling Stone article, "Waldman seems to have convinced Depp that they are freedom fighters taking on the Hollywood machine rather than scavengers squabbling over the scraps of a fortune squandered."

Waldman is also conducting a public experiment on social media. In a nutshell, do tactics of preaching to a choir of a small number of Twitter accounts achieve anything outside of politics? Most attorneys don't pick fights with the media during a big case, particularly in the weeks before trial. Not Waldman. For weeks, he's been goading reporters at The New York Times who apparently are investigating him, and he's been whipping his followers into a frenzy with attacks on Rodrick, Variety ("Saudi Arabia's Variety"), THR ("too much corruption") and other journalists and news publications. (That said, Waldman may not be above going to his own favored media outlets. Depp's attorneys have been accused in court papers of leaking to outlets like The Blast, which seems to be to Depp what Fox News is to Trump.) He's also litigating on Twitter, presenting evidence procured from Depp's cases, and overall, exhibiting highly unusual behavior for a working attorney.

To what end? That one is very hard to answer. But if anyone in Hollywood is ready to take on "fake news," the ticket of Depp-Waldman should be deemed real contenders.

***

In the era of #MeToo, allegations of misconduct get attention — and deservedly so — but some newsrooms have traditionally made a distinction between behavior in the workplace and domestic conduct, with the latter being perceived as tabloid fodder. This time, though, an ugly divorce proceeding has transformed into something quite more.

Alas, the trial of John Christopher Depp II v. News Group Newspapers Ltd has now begun.

On July 7, Depp himself took the witness stand and accused Heard of being sociopathic, a narcissist, and completely emotionally dishonest. He insisted her "sick" claims of abuse are untrue. And in opening statements, his attorney David Sherborne said, "This is not a case about money. It is about vindication."

Depp, in fighting a battle against an unflattering headline, is merely going to draw more attention to The Sun's accusation that he's a "wife beater," especially once Heard gets on the witness stand. At the end of it all, no matter the verdict, this trial will likely do nothing to tamp down the controversies that have tarnished his career. He's elevated a tabloid columnist's random musing into something that's going to be covered by serious news outlets for weeks, months, years on end.

For that, Johnny Depp should regain his senses and fire his lawyers.

Vindication ain't possible. The damage is done. That's the only thing a successful libel claim shows.

__________

What kind of Weinstein bullshit is this?  So what, If he gives up on getting Justice for what hes been through Hollywood might throw him some crumbs? 

JUST SHUT UP AND SUFFER IN SILENCE!  ACCEPT THE LIES THAT WERE SPREAD ABOUT YOU! LET YOUR ABUSER WIN!

 I wonder if this clown would tell metoo victims not to get Justice?

[kjissexy1994]

WORDS OF SHAKESPEARE: The Return of a very Supa Occasion! (Special guest: Richard)

On the 19th of June 2021, my old friend, Maiwel alumni and acting veteran Richard and I went to the Supanova Comic and Gaming Convention at Sydney Olympic Park in Homebush Bay. The 2021 edition of Supanova was the first time in two years that it was held in Sydney as last year’s edition was called off due to “You Know What” alongside Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth.

To implement with the health and safety protocols, the layout of the convention was more smaller and laid out to comply with physical distancing measures as well as entering via a QR Code.

When I first entered the Dome Exhibition centre seeing all of the convention goers and Cosplayers of superheroes, sci-fi and anime. I kneeled down and proclaimed “HALLELUJAH!” as many of the convention fans from NSW were starved of a taste of a full-on convention since the world went upside down early last year (Outside of the smaller edition of Oz Comic Con titled OCC POP UP which was held earlier in March of this year).

Supanova contained a teeming amount of Cosplayers from DC Comics and Marvel Superheroes, Rick and Morty, Steven Universe, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Doctor Who and Power Rangers, Cosplayers from anime such as My Hero Academia, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Naruto and Disney films including Mary Poppins, Mulan and The Little Mermaid, Cosplayers from Video games including Overwatch, Pokémon, Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat, Cyberpunk 2077, Final Fantasy, Sonic the Hedgehog and Undertale, Cosplayers from Web animations for instance including RWBY, Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss as well as various furry Cosplayers and cosplays of my childhood such as Pingu. There was also a very innovative cosplay such as an attendee dressed up as a giant functional Nintendo Game Boy System! The costumes looked absolutely well designed and spot on as I asked kindly for photos!

A number of RWBY fans and Cosplayers noticed me wearing Jaune’s Pumpkin Pete Hoodie. I must admit, I’d make a pretty good Jaune cosplayer if I could get his armour, his “Crocea Mors” sword and shield and dye my hair blonde!

There was also the Cosplay stage across from The Dome where there was a competition for the very best and innovative costume, as well as seminars of the bigger name Australian celebrities.

Speaking of the celebrities, Due to the international borders being closed until either the middle of next year or when the majority of the population of Australia is vaccinated, Supanova relied heavily on home grown talent from our country for example (but not limited to) Manu Bennett, David Wenham, Josh Lawson, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Georgia Haigh, Nicholas Hamilton and frequent Supanova Attendee, John Jarratt who is famous for portraying the infamously ominous and frightening Mick Taylor from the horror movie franchise “Wolf Creek.” I still remember being scared straight to high heaven watching the movie when I was very young due to Jarratt’s portrayal of the heinous horror character next to Bill Skarsgard’s portrayal of Pennywise the clown in Stephen King’s IT Chapters one and two, but alas Jarratt was a very generous and friendly larrikin!

There was a lot of great activities to do including the “Black Widow Obstacle Course” where you had to complete a number of tasks within the time limit in order to win a prize, Star Wars Lightsaber demonstrations and tutorials and the “Battlecry” LARP (live action role playing) battle displays and demonstrations where you could fight your friend or one of the friendly Battlecry veterans such as Sammy Owen from the recent Medibank Commercial with a rubber sword or axe. This was a very great debut for my LARPING alter ego, “Boar-Head: The Sworded Brawler” and I am very interested in joining a Battlecry LARP group in the future!

There was a very colourful display of artwork, comics and prints at the Artists Alley, with various comic book artists from across Australia such as (but not limited to) Queenie Chan of Fabled Kingdom, Anthony Christou of Luminous Ages and Camillo Di Pietrantonio famous for illustrating the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IDW comics.

The Fabulous Wonder Mama also made a guest appearance as she is a superhero representing the LGBT Community.

The Artists Alley also had tables of independent artists selling comics, prints, bookmarks and badges available. Looking at the artwork made me feel like I was at an Art Museum for the fans of pop culture!

For those who want to spend some dough, there were also stalls selling new and vintage comics and trading cards, Pop Vinyl Figures, Animation cells from cartoons and movies of yesteryear, Action figures and gaming consoles from the eighties and nineties, LGBT pride flags, rock and metal band t shirts and apparel and Plushies from Japanese anime and video game franchises such as Pokémon and Digimon. There were also games to play such as Super Smash Bros Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch so fellow gamers can smash their friends out of the arena! For the con-loving geeks who were hungry, Dominos had a stall selling various flavours of pizzas and garlic bread and the canteens in the Sydney Olympic Park Dome sold fish and chips, bagels, sushi and coffee. Byron Beef Jerky also had a traditional stall selling all kinds of flavours such as Teriyaki, Chilli and the infamous “Devil’s Doo-Doo!” (Not for the faint hearted!)

Whilst Supanova Comic and Gaming Con in Sydney was a fun event for the inner nerds, parts of the con had to be completely modified and or removed in order to be healthy and safe for example, the discontinuation of handing out free goodie bags containing the guidebook and map of the layout of the con and other cool things making both the map and guide digital exclusive via the Supanova Website.

Another notable absence was the Australian Wrestling Federation wrestling ring where the pro wrestlers of the aforementioned promotion would host a series of three wrestling matches per day and the wrestlers would hand out free autographs, this really kind of hurt me as a fan of pro wrestling for sixteen years but it’s better to be safe than sick. At least the Battlecry LARP displays and demos filled in its place!

For the seminars, gone are the days of staff handing the microphone to the audience for the Q&A’s as they have to lineup behind the microphone in order to ask an interesting question to the guests.

I also didn’t like how some parts of the convention was a bit squashy when you first entered, in the artist’s alley and in some of the stalls. Like I said, we are in a receding health crisis and we need to wear masks, be physically distant, wash our hands and get the much needed vaccine shot against the you know what!

All in all, Supanova had a amazing return to full flight in Sydney despite the scare earlier in the week and the lack of International guests. I was starved of a full on convention throughout the year of misery last year and as a person on the autism spectrum, cons are such an amazing way to make new friends and to show out your inner geek, nerd,fanboy or whatever via cosplaying, gaming, greeting guests, purchasing artwork and so on and so forth all in a very safe measure!

I give this year’s Supanova in Sydney a 7 out of 10. This edition was absolutely different compared to last year’s and I have strong confidence that next year’s edition in Sydney and abroad will have well known and beloved international guests back to the much loved Comic and Gaming convention next year, just in time for Supanova’s 20th birthday!

Next time I am in Sydney, I will be going to the Vivid Festival which will be in August so stay tuned for that!

Happy trails!

K.J (Kane)

[snflwrvol-28]

23.07.2020 is some date. It had been a hell of an adrenaline rush! From waking up before the sun came out to smiling like an idiot while listening to Liam and Niall on air. From jamming for 6 hours straight while listening to NRJ to crashing every radio station website and app . From being on top of the world reading the boys tweet about One Direction(especially when Louis mentioned Zayn) to sobbing and howling while watching the #10yearsofonedirection premiere.

And all this while the website kept on showing the same message. Though the day came to a weird end for me, but for some the whole night was left and we all had our hopes up again🤡 When I woke up today I thought I'd see Zayn had woken up too, but alas he didn't...But the website is working now and it's beautiful! We asked for the Infinity MV but they are providing us with 4K videos of their old MV's the whole week. And also the complete San Siro concert which got taken down just a few days back (now we know why) So that's something to look forward to I guess.

So it seems like the boys do have something in store for us... and either they are playing with our hearts again or we are getting CLOWNED again🤡

Either way,

👉🏼THIS IS NOT THE END👈🏼

✨WE CAN LIVE FOREVER✨

[eddiekaspbrxks]

@eddieklapbak​: Hi :) i love your fics and I’ve only read a couple of them ( i need to read more ) but i was wondering if you’d be interested in writing a reddie fic where eddie gets a really bad flu and hes pissed about it because hes eddie but richie comes in hot taking really good care of him and shit ??? If that’s too fluffy or boring dont worry about it

(i redirected this to my sideblog for organisation’s sake, I hope that’s okay)

Word Count: 1281

AO3 link in notes

Eddie Kaspbrak supposes that one would expect, were someone to go on a week-long skiing trip with his six best friends, and were they to come down with a cold sent directly from hell—an analogy Eddie hadn’t ever expected to use, but which after ten hours lying in bed with a headache and a hacking cough seemed rather fitting—for their boyfriend to take care of them. One wouldn’t have expected, though, that Eddie would come down with a cold (him, of all the fucking people—Bev shared cigarettes with anyone she met, and Richie, god knows, probably hadn’t washed his hands in months), or that, when it happened, the boyfriend in question would be Richie Tozier. Richie and medication wasn’t a combination he’d exactly fantasized about, and he wasn’t sure that it was going to work out without at least a heart attack and maybe a very, very small house fire.

Or a fucking huge one, who knows. There’s no overestimating Richie.

“So,” Richie cries in a British accent, walking into the room with Eddie’s toiletry bag nestled in his arms, “come on then, talk me through this.” He unzips the bag—it’s “almost as big as your suitcase,” Stan had said, (which is ridiculous, it’s a solid quarter at most, and bright red, just in case Eddie’s in a hurry and needs to see it from a mile away (or in case Richie needs to find it, because holy shit that kid is blind, but he doesn’t seem to be showing any appreciation for Eddie’s color-picking skills at the moment), and dumps the contents onto the bed.

“Dude, careful with that—if you break my aspirator, I swear to god—” Eddie cries, leaping up a little and then grimacing when his head throbs.

“Hate to break it to you, Eddie Spaghetti, but you’ve got bigger issues right now than your made-up asthma.”

“Shut up, your fucking nasal voice is making my head hurt,” Eddie moans, covering his face with his hands.

“I’m serious, Eds,” Richie says, face mock solemn. “Your worst fears have come true. This is what you’ve been protecting yourself from your whole life, and alas, your brave efforts have gone to waste. Edward,” he places a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I’m not sure you’re going to make it out of this alive.”

“It’s a cold, man.”

“I know!” Richie cries, like a proud parent. “The first cold of your life! You’re finally growing up.” Eddie kicks him halfheartedly, to which Richie pleads in his Southern Belle voice “Please forgive me, Eddie, light of my life, oh please, I’ll die if you’re mad at me, just die!” He collapses  in a fit of giggles.

Eddie stares at him, dumbfounded. “You know I broke my arm when I was thirteen, right? You were there?”

“Oh, was that when the demon clown attacked us?” Richie’s eyebrows knit together, and Eddie resists both the urge to roll his eyes and the urge to grin like an idiot. “Huh, I must have forgotten.”

Eddie laughs a little. “Okay, my medication. Let’s see if you know what to do.”

“Oh, I don’t think I could go two years living with you without all of that rubbing off on me,” Richie says sweetly.

“I’m nothing if not influential.”

“No, I was thinking more like a pubic rash. I mean, we’ve done plenty of rubbing—”

“Holy fucking shit, beep beep, Trashmouth.”

“Alright, I’m just saying—”

“I wasn’t kidding when I said your voice was giving me a headache, and I’m much too poor and sickly to get a pill myself, so come on, pass them over.”

Richie shuffles through the pile clumsily, making Eddie cringe. “A ha!” he cries, pulling out a little bottle. Eddie notes the color of the cap, the shape of the letters familiar in his head. Richie picks up the glass of water he’d brought with the toiletry bag and holds it out to Eddie along with the pill. “Come on, eat up. As much as I’d love to do the whole here comes the airplane spiel, you seem to think you still have a dignity to be hurt, and I’d never deprive you of that fantasy—”

“That’s aspirin, you dumbass,” Eddie says, putting a hand in front of his mouth to stop Richie doing just that. “You’re not supposed to take it with a cold.”

“But it’s aspirin. It’s for headaches, that’s how aspirin works. You take it, your headache goes away. Right?”

“Yeah, but it’s not good for colds. Something to do with, like, your sinuses, or something. Give me the panadol, that’ll help.”

“Why are we here? To suffer? When did they make medicine complicated?”

“Why isn’t Ben in here? Ben would shut up when I tell him to.”

“Aw, you would never tell me to shut up, Eddie baby.”

“Shut up. Just, shut up. There.”

Richie pouts. “For that, I’m doing the airplane schtick.”

“Oh, my god,” Eddie groans.

“Open up!” Richie sings, pinching the pill between his thumb and index finger. “Come on, open the airport, here we come! Vrrrrrrrrrrr…”

“I will not, give me that—”

“ Vrrrr... c’mon,, or the little passengers won’t be able to get off in your little mouth!”

“Richie, what the fuck, only you could make this game disgusting.”

“Aw, you love it, Eds,” Richie says, and he pounces on Eddie, tickling his sides. Eddie bursts out laughing, kicking at him, and suddenly they’re kids again, wrestling in a hammock, taking any excuse to touch each other.

Eddie coughs, and the moment stops, his head throbbing from the movement. “Fuck,” he breathes, coughing again, voice raspy. Richie’s up in a second, grabbing the glass of water and placing it in Eddie’s hands.

“Here. Breathe slow, hyperventilating will make it worse, I think.”

“I know how a fucking cold works, Rich—” he says, but another cough rises up.

Richie holds his hand until the coughing fit passes, and then Eddie lies back.

“God, I hate this,” Eddie mumbles, careful not to raise his voice for fear that another coughing fit starts. “I can’t believe I’m stuck in here.”

“Hey, it’ll be great,” Richie says softly, laying next to Eddie and laying his head on his shoulder. “Who wants to be out there skiing when you could be lying bedridden and, fuck, and, uh, bedraggled, with me?”

“I think you think I like you more than I actually do.”

“Aw, I know you love me,” Richie says, and Eddie doesn’t have to look to tell that he’s grinning.

“Sure, keep telling yourself that, man.”

“Oh, I will,” Richie says, and leans over, pressing his lips to Eddie’s.

“I’m sick, dimwit. Deathly.”

“You know I’d risk death for you, Eddie Spaghetti.” Eddie rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning, too, and he leans in and kisses Richie again.

“Fine, I guess I love you,” Eddie concedes.

Richie raises his eyebrows. “That’s two Kaspbraks I’ve heard that from, now.”

“How are you an adult?”

“Get it? Because your mom—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie says, cutting him off. And Richie beams, all scruffy elbows and messy edges and Eddie can’t believe that there could ever be a universe where they hadn’t found each other.

A/N: there's a decent chance that the whole aspirin bit is bullshit,,, i did about five minutes of research on this and some websites said do NOT take aspirin and some said nothing so imma just put it in oops