#chris said FUCK those millennials

[tootalltech]

okay. i feel like theres still Some People who may check the land of stories tag on here the way i occasionally do i know theres some fans of the series here at least. since a while back i wrote out an entire paragraph to briefly explain why im insane about lloyd bailey to my friends who dont know tlos, i figure, WHY NOT POST IT ON HERE where people who also know the series (and therefore this character) might see it <3 its at least a little funny to see how i try to explain things in tlos like the hall of dreams briefly with little to no details. this is also kind of like a brief summation of everything we know about lloyd AND JOHNS childhood which is interesting. see below.

sits down. let me set the scene. lloyd bailey is the younger son in a set of two. his mother is a very powerful fairy (#fairygodmother) who’s kind of like the chancellor of an entire kingdom. lloyd and his older brother john both very much have magic in their blood because of this. lloyd’s father dies when he is very young. he is “not the same” afterwards. he thinks his older brother john, who handles his fathers passing arguably “better”, is the favorite child. john is happy and cheerful and everyone loves him. lloyd sits in his dark room and reads books like the iron mask all day. lloyd’s mother does not know how to get to him. she figures out how to make a potion that can bring books to life, since he likes to read so much. she offers it to him. he turns her down. she goes into this magic little hallway (infinite space) where she can see what people truly desire. lloyd the 11 year olds desire (i don’t know how old he is.) is to take over the world. hm. a bit concerning. his mother takes him out into the forest on a nice walk, chains him to a tree, and drains his magic from him. lloyd is not a fan of his mother for this. he tells her that she never would’ve done this to john. his mother considers her action stopping him before he wreaks havoc on everything. lloyd considers this having his “birthright” stripped from him for “a crime [he] never committed” (direct quote). lloyd despises his mother. he runs away from home not long after. he considers the potion his mother made his. he only comes back home to try and steal it. he fails. he is sentenced to life in prison. his mother gives him a mask to wear so no one knows he’s her son. john moves to the otherworld and starts a family. lloyd rots in prison. lloyd’s son who he doesn’t know about is born. lloyd rots in prison. john dies. lloyd rots in prison. his mother loves john’s children and starts to train one of them in being her successor. this could’ve been lloyd. lloyd rots in prison. he doesn’t escape until his niece and nephew are teenagers and his niece is about ten times more powerful than him. because she has the gift that was ripped out of his hands. lloyd hates the world he lives in and its people and seeks to destroy it as soon as he’s out. i wonder why. in conclusion. im normal about him.

[sapphire-weapon]

Wait, has anybody asked WHY you like Leon so much? Both OG and remake? I know you said that you have nostalgia and good friendships through RE4, but what is it exactly about his character and story that you like so much? How about some tidbits that you don't like?

Personally, he's so... complex for me. I enjoy him. I empathise with him. He can make me laugh occasionally, but I also find him incredibly punchable and there's certainly traits and actions that I absolutely can't stand, lol.

I've talked about this before, but Leon Kennedy is the personification of the millennial experience.

He started his adulthood bright-eyed and naive and really intending to do some good in the world, got fucked over by the government in ways that were far beyond his ability to control much less predict, and has been trapped his entire adult life in a life that he hates and a job that makes him miserable that he has no way of breaking out of because he'd only ever really been able to develop one particular skillset out of the necessity of survival.

Leon's monologue in the bar in Vendetta about the state of his life gives me the exact same feeling as two much older quotes from two completely different video games that have haunted me since the day I heard them.

In Final Fantasy X, Auron says:

"Legendary Guardian? I was just a boy. A boy about your age, actually. I wanted to change the world, too. But I changed nothing. That is my story."

And in AC:Revelations, Desmond says:

"There was a big dream floating out there, and every night, I saw people dreaming it. I don't know how they did it. It takes as much money to smile as it does to pay rent in this place."

The difference with Leon as opposed to Auron and Desmond is: Auron and Desmond give a quick punch to the gut and then move on. I basically lived out this experience alongside Leon in real-time. My life hit major milestones basically in perfect timing with new RE content being released, and we both seemed to go down the same spiraling rabbit hole together.

So, Leon is just very Special to me. I'm able to overlook major flaws with his character writing just because he's Leon; he's one of those characters who's always been there for comfort and catharsis in really dark times when I felt like I had nothing else.

I have openly and vocally hated other characters in other media for the kind of "machismo-as-a-coping-mechanism" thing that OG Leon has been doing on and off since OG RE4. But I forgive Leon for it because he's Leon.

The entire Ada thing is a fucking mess and has been a constant source of consternation for me since day one. But I forgive Leon for it because he's Leon.

His inconsistent character voice and the way that his character motivation and direction seems to meander aimlessly would probably drive me insane with anger if he was anyone other than Leon.

Real talk, if I hadn't grown up with RE and had instead come into contact with the series for the first time as an adult, I would probably fucking hate him. I would probably write him off as a fuckboy and be desperate for Capcom to end his story and get him the fuck off of my screen. I would probably be a Chris girl, 100%.

But that's not how it happened, so now I'm stuck rummaging around in the garbage with this fucking goblin.

That's why I didn't try to defend him when that anon sent that long-winded venting rant the other night. There is no defense for him. I just accept that the way his story was written is mostly terrible.

I could probably mount a good defense for Remake Leon, but OG? No. It's not possible. That anon's observations were correct. But I am a raccoon who has made my home in the garbage pile that is Resident Evil and Leon Kennedy. And if someone is not comfortable living in garbage, they won't find a home here with this series -- and they especially won't find one with him.

[marisferasiop]

we are “your natives” we are human beings who also have as much capacity for thought and free will, etc. as anyone else. the way you talk about us dehumanizes us further, we are not wild animals that need to be tamed. fucking wasicu

I'm going to start off here slightly combative and then try to wrap back up because this is kind of a wild take on what I said.

So.... Do you think non-indigenous have nothing to learn from natives/"those humans that have capacity for free will and thought?" Because that's how this message translates.

And that's not what I said at all. I feel like you saw the words "natives" and "missionaries" in my rb and just absolutely saw red and went on an "ask" spree on anon.

But this is an interesting take on someone literally advising people to learn in a thread of folks talking about learning versus coming across folks out there just being ignorant.

If you wanna be angry at white christian imperialist people through history, it doesn't make any difference to me, a random person on the internet in the post- apocalyptic year-of-our-lord Neil Gaiman 2023.

If you're on the side of telling people not to learn about their indigenous and attempt to be respectful by doing so (I guess out of some space of general rage that "other people" want to learn about those things, or about cultures other than their own, or think that indigenous "owe" us an education) I'd be interested to hear why you think ignorance is better than educating.

You can't squash human curiosity, and a monocultural world is just appalling on so many levels. (Do you think that diversity is useless? That if in the past we had all walled up big borders and never met or learned from one another we would somehow be better? That we have nothing to learn from one another's cultures and history? I think that if we could have done so and avoided atrocities, we would be better, but we didn't avoid those atrocities. We can be angry about them and still learn, and hopefully prevent more from happening)

There's a huge difference between seeing something different and wanting to learn about it versus seeing something different and wanting to assimilate it.

Also, not sure how anyone expects people to learn about problematic history without... studying cultures and history? and trying to change destructive behaviors for current studies so that they aren't repeated?

I can't go back in time and tell settlers to leave indigenous alone. That's like castigating the average white person in Walmart for a potential their ancestors could have been slave owners. Like.... No? I can condemn the actions of Chris Columbus and modern day missionaries and still be an archaeologist, because neither of those prior groups are respectful or trying to learn- they're forcing conversion and wiping out whole cultures and hiding their war crimes for the sake of overtaking some land? That's not the same thing as learning from a culture. And it's not the same thing as casework on a culture.

Maybe you thought I was saying that mission work was good- I'm absolutely saying the opposite, and so was my teacher that I mentioned. I think mission work is the disgusting, epitome of racism, and is inherently xenophobic. I am a deconstructed anti-evangelicism millennial raised by a boomer reverend and unfortunately sent to christian schools (which I shut up and angrily attended so I didn't have to pay out of pocket for my degree).

But way to go for going on anon and leaving an angry message, I guess. I hope you find the reaction you want in other folks' inboxes while spreading vitriol and misunderstanding; maybe a message will stick with someone who is actually just talking outta their ass and you'll get the snappy comeback you want 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm not going to stop learning about cultures, because I enjoy it. Admittedly my area of interest is decidedly outside of the US, but my field work was done here so that's what I commented on, though my mentioned case studies were south American.

I know this is long- winded for your short little angry attempt to spit in my face, but I do tend to ramble. I'm audhd like that.

I hope you understand more fully what I'm saying (if you even come back and read this- maybe you just spa and blocked me) and if not, I'm not sure what else to say. I'm not sorry for telling people to educate themselves and come from a place of understanding and respect instead of ignorance.

I am sorry for saying "your" since I suppose non-colloquially that implies ownership? Though I was referring to various nationalities or even regional natives, such as those whose territories and cultures cross the American/Canadian border, not like- actual ownership? There are so many people on here from all over the world that I didn't want to sound like I imagined only Americans have natives, because some Americans do a great job of pretending that only like, Africa and the US have tribes, because that's what our shitty public education teaches us. So by "your" I meant "in your country".

End of transmission. I need a drink now. Sheesh.

[ilooklikeaburntchickenugget]

Afterglow

A/N: Okay I’ve seen other authors do Taylor Swift song-inspired series where they just use Taylor Swift songs to inspire a story with a character. And I’ve done this kind of before, but ya know, I’m a copy cat (just a little bit). So here’s the first official Taylor Swift series story! (It’s also Miss Taylor’s birthday today so happy birthday to the queen of using incredibly hard words I’ve never heard of! But I still love that millennial woman to death.) Pairing: Chris Evans x F!Reader Word count: 1,101 words Warnings: Swearing, angst, fighting

God, you hated conflict.

But you got yourself twisted up into this incredibly stupid situation. Sure, you two had your fair share of fights, because every healthy couple does. Ya know, those petty little arguments about who was going to take the dog out next, the “this plate is in the wrong place!” fight, or just bantering when one of you watched the newest episode of a shared show without the other.

But this was an all new level. The entire conversation was a grenade, you two escalating it until you threw the first actually hurtful punch of words, and then it all exploded into complete chaos of petty button pressing and meaningless but fiery words of pure fury.

“You’re so unbearable sometimes, I mean, My God, you think you’re so fucking perfect.” “I’m the one who thinks I’m perfect?” He scoffed, running his hand through his hair with an overdramatic eye roll. “Alright Miss. Big-fucking-ego!”

“This is why you’re intolerable!” You shouted, standing in front of him. Despite your significant height difference, you had no hesitation standing up to him and showing any form of dominance within the conversation at this point. “It’s not even funny it just hurts.” “You threw the first insult!” He yelled back, “I mean, what d’you expect me to do? Just stand here and take it?” “I expect you to be mature about it and let me calm down.” You stated, making directly eye contact with those perfect blue eyes that seemed less beautiful by the second.

“Because your anger issues are my fucking problem.” “You know they’re my biggest one!” You fired back, “And here you are mocking me for having these issues that I didn’t even create, and I’m trying to fix, Christopher. And I’m so sorry if you can’t handle my bitchy side, but if you can’t handle the occasional outburst of me then this isn’t gonna work.”

“I’m going for a walk.” He said, walking straight towards the front door, his feet stomping on the ground.

“Fine.” You said, looking the other way. The mental image of him walking out that front door would be engraved in your mind forever.

“Fine.” He fired back and you scoffed at his petty last work tactic.

You sat on your shared couch, staring out the window sitting next to it at the drizzly city night that managed to make your mood even worse. Mother Nature was clearly not on your side right now, and quite frankly, you didn’t blame her. You weren’t even on your own side.

You were silently praying with eyes wide open that he would come back. I mean, almost a year couldn’t haven been thrown out over this. Right? Right? 

You didn’t want to cry or show any weakness especially when you started the entire thing, clearly being at fault. Yet here you were, bottom lip quivering and face scrunching up as tears began to fall and a small sob escaped your lips. You hated yourself now more than ever, because you hurt the singular person who you loved the most, and you wouldn’t have blamed him for never coming back.

As if right on cue, Dodger came over, placing his chin on your knee in sympathy. You had to prevent yourself from looking at him, knowing he was technically Chris’, and he should really be there for him now and not you. The poor guy didn’t understand, he couldn’t, but you felt that even acknowledging the dogs existence would be another betrayal to your lover.

You weren’t sure how to fix this, if there was a way. Sure, apologizing was something, but you knew your fluent English would become a melting mess of putty-like stutters as soon as you opened your mouth out of worry and regret for all you had done. And you also didn’t want to take complete blame, because it wasn’t completely on you. The majority? Sure. But not all of it.

The build up of emotion continued. You were infuriated, primarily at yourself but just a little at Chris, you were heartbroken, you were conflicted, you were anxious, you were confused.

So you grabbed the nearest pillow and just yelled into it as loud as your voice could possibly let you.

And it felt really fucking good.

It didn’t even feel that long, being honest, the whole detox process of just screaming your emotions out, but by the time you looked up and over, there Chris stood in the doorway with his eyes glued to you. You didn’t even react, I mean it was far from the worst he had seen you, but his slightly widened eyes and slightly agape mouth really screamed, “is she okay?”

As soon as your slightly shocked expression met his, a small smile grew on his face. “C’mhere.” He said, shutting the door behind him and opening up his arms which you practically crashed into.

“Fuck, I’m so, so sorry. I’m so stupid I don’t know why I said what I said or why I acted the way I did and I’m sorry I hurt you and you can be mad at me for as long as you want and-” Your mouth was a complete waterfall of everything you thought you had just screamed out. “Stop.” He softly said with a smile, placing a kiss onto your head with your face buried in his now damp sweater. “It’s okay.” He rubbed his hand up and down your back, swaying you side to side, you sock-covered toes on the tip of his shoes with collected drops of water still on them. “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have used your issues against you, especially when you’re working so hard to try and fix them.” He sighed, placing his chin on your head.

“I’m sorry for calling you unbearable,” You responded, “You’re quite the opposite actually.” He chuckled.

“Thanks.” He muttered. “Forgiven?” “Absolutely.” You smiled up at him, the familiar color of blue in his eyes now back. You swore they had never looked more comforting. “Forgiven?” “Yes.” He smiled back down. 

There were a few solid moments of just complete silence, the two of you holding onto each other like your lives depended on it, which maybe they did at this point. But it was more enjoying the peaceful waters after the storm. Despite the fact that there was a nice feeling to the afterglow, you weren’t sure if you ever wanted to feel it again. “Can we never fight again?” You looked up at him. “I kinda hated it.” He lightly laughed.

“I did too,” He smiled, “Let’s never fight again.”

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - You're Kidding Me

So we’ve finally come to the last of season two’s filler episodes. Let’s see if we can knock this one out real quick. 

Summary: The front door of the mysterious seashell estate vanishes, trapping the group. They try to find another way out but find a spinning top whose magic regresses Cassandra and Lance into toddlers and Shorty into a baby.  They’ve only have an hour to find the top and reverse the effects or the changes become permanent. Unfortunately neither of Rapunzel’s or Eugene’s parenting methods keep their now childish friends on task. 

So Why Did No One Stand Watch Last Night?

They were all sleeping right next to the entrance, and after the run in with the mirror monsters, you would think that they would have taken turns standing watch. 

But nope, the front door vanishes when no one was looking cause they don't have any foresight. 

A Low Budget Doesn’t Excuse Filler

Like most of season two, this is yet another episode that adds very little to the overall story. It’s slightly better than the Return of Quaid or Curses, but not by much. I put it on the same level as The Forest of No Return, as I do like the mains’ development, but there’s really no reason why such episodes exist to begin with. 

The meta reason for staying in certain places for three episodes, instead of only one or two, is because of budgetary reasons. The crew have to build new sets and models for every new location or person the cast comes across. This costs money to make, so the higher ups wanted to reuse assets. Which is understandable, but not an excuse for utilizing them poorly.  

If you need to stay in one area or have characters reappear, then you need to give story reasons for that. Ones that tie back to the overall narrative and/or the mains’ character arcs. 

The shell house and Matthews should be more important than what they are as they both have connections to the ultimate big bad of the series.Adria shouldn’t be wasted for a whole episode when she’s the only one driving the plot in season two and has limited appearances. Vardaros and its people shouldn’t be a one and done thing if you’re going to spend so much time setting them up. And there’s still one off episodes, locations, and characters who aren’t brought back and add nothing 

Not only does this make for a weaker story, it also undermines the cost saving measures that you tried to implement to begin with.  

This Isn’t Representation! 

Get it?! 

She’s a top! 

She’s totally gay, but like not really, cause this can also be interpreted as a dominatrix joke, and there’s no other real indication of her orientation outside her like smiling at her best friend/crush/sister sometimes and keeping that rose her creepy ex-boyfriend gave her. 

And don't give me any bullshit excuses about Disney not letting the crew make Cassandra canonly gay/bi. 

The Owl House aired just this year, the same year as Tangled’s final season. Also Globby and Carl from Big Hero Six were both confirmed to be a couple on screen a month after this episode came out. Both shows would have been in development at the same time as Tangled was. Both would have been subject to the same regulations and restrictions while writing their stories. 

It isn’t “Disney” that stopped the storyboard artists from having Cass be a confirmed lesbian, it’s Chris and Ben, the head writers themselves, who failed to write it into the story properly, if at all. 

Chris is the one who made Raps and Cass “sisters”. Chris is the one who wouldn’t tell the crew about his ‘twists’. Chris is the one who had Cass crush on Andrew, even after he tried to kill her. Chris is the one who made Cassandra ‘straight’ and has since used gay baiting to keep her fanbase in his pocket. 

Like I am really damn sick and tired of Casspunzel stans defending Chris on twitter, when he’s the very one who sunk thier ship to begin with. I’m also really fed up with certain fans trying to bully others for not accepting their “Cass is a lesbian” headcanons as fact because what the storyboarders say on twitter after the show is over with isn’t gospel and isn’t real rep. 

I don’t care if you ship Cass with Raps or headcanon her as being gay. Ships and headcanons are great and can be a lot of fun. But fuck you if you ever try to shame people for not sharing your ships/headcanons. Not only is it biophobic and acephobic to insist that there’s only ever a binary option when it comes to orientation and shipping, but it also reinforces harmful stereotypes and tropes about people in the queer community. 

Like, yes, I personally may be an introverted angry bitch who’s an LBGTQA member and activist, but that doesn’t mean that every introverted bitchy woman in media is a lesbian. What kind of message does that send people when that’s the only character archetype that’s given representation or is loudly proclaimed as ‘gay’ by the wider audience? Fuck that noise! 

I Know Humor is Subjective but...WHY?

Why did we give the baby a beard? How does that logically work? Did anyone outside of the crew actually find this funny? 

TTS has like this one out of touch dude throwing out jokes that don’t really land with the target audience. Fans have called it ‘boomer humor’ but it’s actually ‘Gen-X’ humor. Not only because Chris and Ben are Gen Xers but because this is the type of crap my older brother would find hilarious. 

Gen Xers are between Boomers and Millennials and so their humor is this weird blend of gross out shock humor, ironic nihilism, and out of date stereotypes that are only mildly better than those of the previous generation before them. They’re the generation who gave us Beavis and Butthead, South Park, and Clerks. 

That’s not a criticism of Gen X as a generation, but rather just an acknowledgment that they’re worlds away from the neo-dada absurdism, more socially conscious, and globalized humor of Gen Z.    

So Why Is the Bad Guy Telling the Heroes How to Foil His Plans? 

Like he not only tells them how to fix their problem and how long they got in order to do so, but he also informs them how it happened in the first place. This goes directly against his plans. Had he simply said nothing and stayed out sight, then Raps and Eugene would have been lost for the full hour and most likely not have saved everyone on time. 

I like to headcanon that Mathews is just “that asshole” that loves to taunt and tease but in a that manner that gives him plausible deniability. He also may just be bored, since he’s a ghost trapped in one place all the time. Yet that still doesn’t change the fact that he shot himself in the foot here. 

Raps and Young Cass’s Relationship Is the Same as Raps and Adult Cass’s, and That Is a Problem. 

Condescending, manipulative, hypocritical, and bossy is the way Rapunzel treats everyone. She doesn’t understand the actual difference between a child and an adult. She only understands who she who she can and can’t boss  around. And those people that she can’t place under her thumb are labeled antagonists by the show. 

Nor does she actually care about what either kid Lance or kid Cass has to say. She’s just being proformative, and young Cass can see through that BS, which why her methods do not work. It’s not because she’s not ‘strict’ enough; it’s because she’s not being honest. 

Meanwhile Child Cassandra is just as combative, rude, bullying, and entitled as Adult Cassandra. In season three she regresses even further and becomes more violent than before.

Unlike Rapunzel, Cassandra wasn’t trapped in a tower for 18 years with zero human contact outside of her abuser. She escaped that fate and was raised in a loving home. That doesn’t mean that there won't be scars, but I still expect her to be more mature than her seven year old self. Just because she’s whining about not being special enough at 24 instead of screaming about the floor being lava doesn’t mean that she’s still not throwing a temper tantrum.  

Like I should not be seeing a replay/foreshadowing of their main conflict here. They aren’t children. They’re dynamic isn’t that of a mother and child. It’s not even a big sister looking out for a little sister type relationship. Its two immature women dragging innocent victims into their bitchy cat fight for dominance over the other.  

If you want me to take their issues seriously then give them real stakes to disagree over, mature behavior that I can root for, and a resolvement that doesn’t reverse any potential development that they could have had.    

Matthews Plan Makes Zero Sense

For starters, half the group being kids isn’t enough of a reason for Rapunzel to stay at the shell house. Even if the effects of the time top became permanent, then Raps and Eugene could just leave and take the kids with them. Either to finish the road trip, or go straight back to Corona. Not that there’s any real reason to get the Dark Kingdom anyways, nor is there a ticking clock stopping Raps from trying again later if she chose to. 

Rapunzel also is not obligated to become anyone’s mother. If she took them back to Corona than Cap would undoubtedly raise Cassandra all over again, and Lance and Shorty could be adopted by someone else. Any of the pub thugs might take them or even perhaps the King and Queen since they missed out on raising their actual daughter. Though for my money I’d get Monty or Xavier to take them in. They seem the most mature and both are shown to be good with kids. 

Then again Rapunzel has been shown twice now to not give a damn about abandoning orphans, so even the ‘dump them at an orphanage’ or ‘leave them alone in the woods to fend for themselves’ isn’t entirely off the table either. I wish I was joking, but I’m not. Sadly, only Eugene’s love for Lance might be the one thing to stop her from doing just so, and even that’s iffy. 

As for the missing door from earlier, if that was all that was stopping them from leaving then the time top shenanigans were fully unnecessary altogether. 

I Actually Like Eugene and Rapunzel’s Conflict Here; I Just Wish It Was In a Better Episode. 

Each of their viewpoints stem from their upbringing. 

Rapunzel is unique in that she was simultaneously emotionally abused and neglected while being physically spoiled. Especially once she found out that she was princess, where she was then handed nearly anything and everything she wanted. She doesn’t recognize that getting your every possible whim come true can be damaging. Nor does she have any comprehension of what living in poverty is like and how this many toys is wasteful to someone like Eugene who had so very little and stole to survive. 

She does however associate limits, boundaries, and orders with abusive behavior because she’s been denied autonomy and respect her whole life. She’s never seen what healthy parenting looks like and how rules can be applied correctly.     

To Rapunzel no orders is ‘freeing’ and ‘validation’ is all that is needed to get a child to listen to you. Which doesn’t work for her because she doesn’t understand that real communication is more than just giving a compliment now and then. 

Meanwhile Eugene lacked any sort of anchor at all. He was left to his own devices at a young age and had no one to rely on for emotional needs and, after leaving the orphanage, no one to provide physical needs either. 

It’s telling that he and Lance latched onto Quaid as the only authority figure in their life, despite Quaid never out right adopting them. He was the only sense of stability that they had who they could trust wouldn’t hurt them, despite being strict with them. 

And now that Eugene has gotten older and is reformed, he can probably understand why Quaid was so harsh on him and Lance. Quaid probably did more to try and help them turn from a life crime than even Rapunzel did. Like meeting Rapunzel was the inciting incident that inspired Eugene to make that leap, but the groundwork was already laid out for him to do so elsewhere. Things like his good communication skills, respect and empathy of others, and understanding of boundaries had to be learned from somewhere, and if not from the Sheriff of Vardaros than who? 

What I’m getting at is that, while Rapunzel rejects her parents methods but then fails to break her learned habits from them anyways, Eugene is the reverse. He’s come to embrace his mentor’s teachings, but he fails to implement them correctly because he’s not Quaid. Being authoritative isn’t his strong suit. It goes against his usual nature as the easy going person that he is and so any attempts to come across as forceful fail as they’re hollow. 

Kids know authenticity and genuineness when they see it. The children reject Rapunzel because she’s not being real with them, yet they also reject Eugene cause he’s not being honest with himself. 

It’s a complex and mature conflict. Neither person is fully right nor wrong, and only by learning from each other and adopting both methods can they achieve their goal. 

TTS can be deep when it wants to be. There’s a good foundation here for mature themes and complex characterization. It’s just the series doesn’t ever commit to it. 

Whatever personal drama going on here about two young adults trying to cope with their past traumas and how that affects their current life and future goals is completely lost in the magical goofy antics and low stakes situation. Even the stuff about Eugene and his relationship with Quaid is reduced to nothing but a one off joke rather than being genuinely explored as a point of development.  

Imagine how much more powerful things would have been if Angry and Red were brought along on the trip. If this argument was over them and whether or not they should adopt the two girls themselves or consider other options. That would be something with real weight. Something with a choice that had actual consequences attached to it. Something that would permanently affect all involved parties. Something that wouldn’t make the two leads look like outright dicks for abandoning two children for a second damn time in a row.    

You Have 70 Feet of Magical, Indestructible Hair! Why Are You Afraid of a Bunch of Dogs!?

You’ve fought off giant monsters, killer robots, and supernatural beings with magical powers. What do you mean you can’t hold off a pack of guard dogs while busting down a stuck door? Why is Eugene the shield for everyone and not the actual unbreakable hair that you use as a shield all the damn time? And Why did we have to rely on Shorty again to be the deus ex machina of the episode? 

At this point the writers should have just made him Demantius instead of the monkey.   

What Happened To This New Dream? Where Did It Go In Season Three?

Most fans who do enjoy season two happen to be big New Dream fans as this is by far and away the best season for them. I’ll admit that the series, up to this point, had me actively liking them together, despite being originally lukewarm to the pairing in the movie. 

Their conflicts were for the the most part mature and real. They learned from one another equally and had open communication when it didn't involve ‘marriage is a trap’ BS. Things, like compromising on differentiating future goals, honesty and communication, and making time for one another and extending effort into a relationship while being true to yourself are all relatable issues. 

Even today's episode featured the topic of having kids and parenting. Which is a discussion you absolutely need to have with your prospective spouse before entering into any long term commitments and signing any legal contracts. For real, I’ve seen marriages fall apart because they didn’t agree on whether or not they wanted children. 

I don’t know what went down between writing season two and season three, but things quickly took a sharp turn away from this dynamic and nosedived into a pit of uncomfortable bullying and gross sexist implications here after. 

Matthews Plan Goes Against Zhan Tiri’s Plan 

Yeah so Matthews is one of Zhan Tiri’s disciples, but he apparently doesn’t know of her goals/plans, cause she needs Rapunzel and company to reach the moonstone, not stay stuck here. 

The meta reason for this that the Zhan Tiri’s story was altered at the last minute and the writers failed to make sure there was any sort of consistency between what they already set up and where they actually wound to actually taking the plot.  

The in universe reason is that Zhan Tiri is an impotent moron, but that’s not what the writers were going for so it’s a fail. 

Conclusion  

I like the New Dream stuff, and Matthews is at least entertaining despite being incompetent. Everything else about the episode is ‘meh’ tho. 

[pebblysand]

[SEPTEMBER ‘21] - THE LIFE/WRITING UPDATE NO ONE ASKED FOR (AND SOME QUICK LINKS)

well, hello hello, welcome, it is september first and hogwarts is back in session, haha! where’s your letter, did you get it? i hope so!

in true gryffindor fashion, i’m a summer person. i like parties, the beach and hot weather, so i’m currently working hard, trying to delay the inevitable return of autumn and the dreaded back-to-school mood by staying in sunny southern france for a few more days. i’ll be back in dublin on saturday where, as per usual, rain has been scheduled to occur upon my return lol.

Anyway, before diving into more life/writing updates, here are some quick links to different blog pages you might not see on mobile :

to read my fics [updated]

to read my original work

fic recs

to read my tumblr rants about stuff

[NOTE: i am currently not accepting prompts. i already have a backlog, folks.]

Castles (chap 9) ETA: optimistic? 19 September. realistic? october.

links extended a/n-s: chapter v ; chapter vi & vii ; chapter viii

[more life/writing updates under the cut]

what i’m reading:

i’m actually quite happy with my book reading this month. i read a friend’s short-ish (27k) story, as well as two full books, and started a third. i wanted my holidays to be a time of catching up with missed reading opportunities, and it definitely was.

first, i read three rooms by jo hamya. i picked this one up because it was recommended by my bookshop, was written by a BAME author, marketed as a ‘millenial’ literary fiction novel which i’m always a sucker for, and the cover looked intriguing. the story is that of an unnamed narrator in her early/mid-twenties, navigating the end of her masters degree and her first job in london. to be honest, as i previously said in another post, i don’t particularly fancy myself as a book critic so i don’t really like to say negative things about the books i read. as an author, i know how hard things can hurt when people are talking about your writing sort-of behind your back and i’m always paranoid that the author might one day see what i’ve written, lol. this being said, what i will say about this book is that while not bad, it wasn’t really a fit for me. the writing is very good, crisp and quick just the way i like it (though if you get irritated by the current trend of not using quotation marks for dialogue, you might get irritated by this), but i just found it hard to relate to the characters. i think you will like this if you like books that are more about their setting and their world rather than plot or character. the author is really good at describing current britain, life in london, the book is brilliant at describing the millennial ‘world’ of social media, politics, etc. but its main character seems to just aimlessly float through her life without any sense of self or purpose, which i personally found very frustrating. the book addresses issues of class, poverty, temp contracts, housing prices, discrimination but it feels very much like a matter-of-fact statement rather than an actual argument to change things. the other characters are mildly more purposeful but very single-purpose and while the novel is interesting but it didn’t really make me feel anything beyond an intense desire to grab the narrator by the shoulders and scream: do something! three stars.

then, i read incendiary by chris cleave. full review here. this book is just unreal and the best fiction i’ve read in close to a year. if i could give ten stars i would.

i’ve now started an american marriage by tayari jones. unless you’ve been living under a rock, this has probably been recommended to you a billion times already, but what can i say, i’m always late lol. i’m only about 100 pages in but seems promising.

in terms of fanfic, i honestly haven’t read much bar this one fantastic spooks au of which i really wish there was more of. i have trolled all of livejournal and dreamwidth to find the rest and came up empty. tragic.

what i’m writing:

funny how the girl on a writing break still managed to put out circ. 9,000 words in a month, lol. granted, pick me choose me love me was written in july, but still.

this being said, i do feel like i took time off and i do feel way better than i did back in july. looking back, i was exhausted and burnt out and felt like i was mostly writing to fulfill people’s expectations, rather than to make me happy. i’m now feeling much more confident with my words. the story that i did write this month was a self-indulgent bit of fun because it was written for a fandom no one cares about, and rather liberating, if i’m honest. i think i needed to write something for me and my audience of three again, and it was great. i genuinely love that story. i do think that if you want to give it a try, it might be one of those that can be read without having watched the show in question because it’s about a side character so a lot of what’s in there is original rather than show-related. if you do want to read it, it’s here: listening to that angel choir.

in terms of upcoming projects, i’m happy to announce that i’m actually excited to get back to castles, which is exactly what i wanted this break to achieve. i’m waiting until i get back to dublin to get back to work but i’m ready to dive back in and honestly can’t wait. as i said above the cut, i would love to put it on the 19th September but i’m not sure that i’ll manage to whip out next chapter this quickly. it’s not unheard of, so we shall see. also, castles is turning a year old on 16 sep, which is absolutely fucking insane. i certainly did not think it would be this massive of a project when i undertook it, lol. the numbers on it both in terms of wordcount and appreciation/hits give me vertigo so i try not to look at them but honestly, i can’t thank you all enough. i know i always say this but i come from very small audiences and fandoms and the amount of love i’ve been getting this past year thanks to all of you has meant the world. thank you.

in terms of one shots, i’ll be mostly focusing on castles this month, so i probably won’t write anything else. this being said, for those of your on tumblr, just be aware that you might see me repost some of the tumblr ficlets that i posted on tumblr these past few months on ao3 soon-ish. i initially decided to keep them on tumblr alone because they were too short but i’ve been having anxiety about tumblr collapsing and these things disappearing into the ether. so, don’t be alarmed, they should be the same, just reposted.

what i’m doing:

honestly, this month has been amazing, especially the past three weeks. i’ve been able to relax, see family & friends, went hiking, had my birthday, hired a boat - it’s been fab. as alluded to before, i’ve also been having fun rewatching spooks, which is definitely a series worth watching, even ten years after it ended. i find it even more fascinating in light of what is going on in afghanistan at the moment, and of course the presence in the show of rupert penry-jones whom i think every straight woman with a pulse fancies, is an added bonus.

anyway, i hope you’re all doing well. see you next month for pumpkin spice lattes (yeah, look, i’m a basic white girl) and the beginning of my seasonal depression.

lots of love,

pebblysand.

[twiddlebirdlet]

Post Digest

I had so many posts yesterday, and I could not possibly answer them all in this lifetime. My apologies for not addressing these, but here they are.

The words belong to the anonymous original writers. They do not reflect my opinions. My posting of them doesn’t imply any endorsement.

· Anonymous said:

Chris really is trash for ruining another relationship maybe him and Jordyn woods can join the home wrecker club

·  Anonymous said:

Mood, give up. People will blame you, the girl, the weather, everything but Chris, who could have easily avoided any assumption by not taking the pics. Pics with kids, pic of dog, hospital visits, videos for sick children all this is good PR and he used in the past. But where is the good on taking pics with dancers? They were not fans. He is not helping to make them being respected or less objectified. He is not bringing any discussion about their work conditions to the table.

·  Anonymous said:

People saying this is nothing how do they explain her boyfriend deleting all of her pix? If it was nothing if she wasn’t with him why is boyfriend reacting that way?

·  Anonymous said:

That girl was so completely lusting after Chris in her pics and posts that I think she absolutely would jump out of her current relationship if Chris so much as blinked her way. She was going to go anywhere he was. I will wait to see what happens but it looks like Chris may have made another poor decision. Why is this man so intelligent in some things but when it comes to women he is just so way off? If he thought SSH was bad, just wait for a young social media millennial. Disaster.

·  Anonymous said:

Bella & her bf are still following each other on Instagram. Maybe he deleted those photos of her as a way of protecting her? Maybe he didn't want to make his Insta private & thought this would be a better way of doing things. In any case, he doesn't seem angry enough at her to unfollow her. But I don't think they broke up before the Chris thing, as he still had their professional couple photos up & they were still posting gushy comments to each other. So it's still weird and suspicious.

·  Anonymous said:

What is up with Chris and taken women

·  Anonymous said:

So I guess Chris really is a home wrecker

·  Anonymous said:

I just want to say thank you for all the information you're providing about this whole Chris situation. I'd rather have the full (or as full as we can get it) story with all the pieces together so I can make up my own mind what to think, vs bits and pieces and people misreporting information that they heard third hand, etc. So your summary post with receipts was very much appreciated by me.

·  Anonymous said:

To me the whole intern thing just seemed like she was trying to be linked to him judging by the times the ig pics went up. I guess everyone has their own opinions I know people who have basically said it was nothing and refused to talk about it but if it was someone else they would be all over it. It seems with him people pick and choose what issues of his they want to discuss. All of just seemed iffy especially know knowing that her bf deleted her pics. Hope you're have a lovely day.

·  Anonymous said:

I’m worried about the people worried about your health. They’re so invested in this celebrity that they are policing your blog. He’s a successful, famous actor. He has a whole team of people to handle this. And, none of those people are contacting you...

·  Anonymous said:

I don't get anons coming in here and complaining that you answering asks about the saturday night events is somehow blowing this thing up and causing drama. This anon should go to twitter where there are accounts that tag CE, JS, enty and provoking more and more ridiculous accusations, including Chris roofying Bella's drink etc. Twiddle at least sticks to things we can prove so if you wanna complain, go there and set these people straight. They make real damage not anonymous tumblr

·  Anonymous said:

The boyfriend could just be fed up with her throwing herself at ce and then getting comments forcing him to go private. That would be enuf for a 20 yr old in a long distance relationship. Doesn’t mean she is shaking up with ce. He’s too paranoid to do that

·  Anonymous said:

From what I've seen on Twitter, there's a little bit of talk about the burlesque aspect of it (mostly "Ugh, you're all such prudes, get over it!") but no one seems to be picking up on the intern part of it except for like 3 people. I'm torn. I kind of want to see him get shit for this, because he was very stupid and irresponsible, but OTOH I'd hate to see what kind of PR crap his people will pull up to distract everyone. A PRomance with Brie Larson, perhaps.

·  Anonymous said:

Just a funny coincidence but it appears her (ex) bf and Chris share the same birthday lol. But either way not looking good. We can only speculate but it looks like her ex bf/bf didn't like her behavior towards him or something really did go down. 🦊

·  Anonymous said:

I think everyone needs to accept their portion of responsibility in this situation. The people that harassed or contacted the interns, the girl and the performers need to respect boundaries. I understand you posts Anons, but you also decide which and how many. Yesterday you provided a platform and it had consequences, people felt emboldened and crossed lines. I think everyone can learn from this experience and correct their future behavior.

·  Anonymous said:

So you keep saying your not sure if mark was there when multiple people keep saying he was.YOU keep saying that the pics were taking at the same or about the same time but theres no proof that they were. YOU keep putting out info that isnt accurate or just coincidental. that girl bf realise his gf is a thirsty ass and she got what she got but it doesnt mean anything happen between her and chris. NOTHING HAPPEN WITH THE INTERN STOP SPREADING SHIT!!

·  Anonymous said:

I think the bf just wanted people to stop harassing him about her so he did that instead of privatize. Seemingly less like a breakup.

·  Anonymous said:

It’s possible and probable her boyfriend deleted any pictures of her/them because he was tired of being harassed and getting bombarded with comments. He still follows her. He could have just muted the comment section, but maybe he was hoping by doing that it would help this all die down, and for people to lose interest. Which is laughable, because this particular fandom has a hard time letting go. Either way, I don’t necessarily think this is the beginning of a new relationship for Chris.

·  Anonymous said:

Sending you love! I truly enjoy your blog and your commentary. What you wrote about your struggles with OCD resonates with me (I had anxiety issues as a teenager. Mild in comparison to some, but they dominated my life). I will try not to clutter your inbox from now on, but, please know you are appreciated and I love the discussions we have here.

·  Anonymous said:

I think that putting the blame on this or other blog is a total waste of time. You know what would have avoided all this? Not taking those pics. How hard would be for him to STOP doing something that is doing no good to him? As you said, nothing positive comes out of this. He is not attending the ask of a cute kid. He is not visiting a hospital. He is helping a club to promote their name, something totally uncessary for an actor who reached his fame.

·  Anonymous said:

The intern thing didn't make the rounds in the internt, but the meeting with Dan Creshaw did. Chris is being criticized for that and for the twitter interaction.

·  Anonymous said:

Oy, its looking like she really did risk it all. Dumb childish mentality, what did anybody honestly expect from this situation? That poor boyfriend.

·  Anonymous said:

I don't think it's a proof that something happened between her and Chris but for sure her bf (probably now ex) didn't aprove her behaviour and probably he thinks that some limits were crossed. I have to admit that I would not like to have a bf acting like that around a famous woman or any other woman and leaving traces in SM which is worse. I really, really hope that Chris is smart enough to stay away from that or another kind of fame will get attached to him besides the "f*ck boy" image.

·  Anonymous said:

WHOA! Deleting all her pics? Does that mean Chris successfully ruined another relationship??? Whuut!?

·  Anonymous said:

You are very kind and your head is definitely on straight. You’re less of an “opinion” blog and almost more of a news blog anyways. Don’t listen to the haters. You aren’t being overly invested, cruel, silly, or anything else. I’ve always found you to be fair.

·  Anonymous said:

I looked at mark’s following list and he followed one other intern (a girl) who was also in the city but didn’t post from the box!

·  Anonymous said:

Tbh, good for her bf-her behavior (the comments) were completely inappropriate IF in a relationship, long distance or not. Unbelievably disrespectful to him. Hope her thirstiness was worth losing a relationship and (maybe) an internship. I am several years older, but there is no way I would have behaved that way during my college internship. Morality clauses apply to personal time as well.

·  Anonymous said:

Omg he deleted every pic with her. So now we know for sure that something happened that night lol

·  Anonymous said:

And now apparently twitter thinks harpy was there with Chris and they're back together. Oh for fuck's sake!

·  Anonymous said:

It's funny because many Chris instagram fan accounts just share the pic of him and the black singer/stripper but skip posting the other with the women group with clothes close to the nothing that they find I guess too trash for share with their followers in saying Chris with a fan in NYC without details.

·  Anonymous said:

In the name of everybody sorry for the large number of asks we sent you and the tiredness we,people agree or not agree, have caused you. We don't think when we send you an ask that you will receive many, everybody, after seeing one and your answer, wanting share their opinion about what an anon or you said even if it's for exprime our agreement. It's a circle without end. I hope you had a good night. Let's forget that,this girl is history now,the fire is extinguished now. Kiss

·  Anonymous said:

I've been seeing this gifset on my dashboard lately from Chris' interview captioned "I'm smarter than I look". No idea if the quote is real because I've never seen this particular interview but I think given the turn of events of the past few days it's appropriate to say "no, Chris, you aren't" LOL

·  Anonymous said:

Ok, I can't believe I'm saying this, but this whole messy situation really turns me off. I've always known Chris isn't a saint, that he's NOT Steve Rogers irl, going to clubs like The Box is not a new thing for him, but he should've known better. I want to believe he's not that dumb, but he's THAT dumb. This is really upsetting and I'm so disappointed. After all those good days working on a serious project in DC, does he really not care about his image being sleazy like that? Damn it, Chris.

·  Anonymous said:

So Chris alone went to greet the dancers? From what Manuel submitted, that’s what it seems like. She wasn’t there with him and his friends exactly, but somehow found out where they were and met up with them? I’m so over talking about this. Idk how you’ve done this all day Twiddle. My bedtime prayer is dedicated to you tonight.

·  Anonymous said:

Thank you Twiddle for taking your time to answer here and on DM. I know you also do it so that you will be best informed to answer any questions here, we appreciate that some took the time to gather more information for the rest of us. It seems like at the end of these gossip we all end up confirming our first guest. I feel we shouldn't give this girl more room. My conclusion for the day is either he never thought that girl was that thirsty or he's really just dumb. I'm going with cute but dumb

·  Anonymous said:

It's not a great look for him to be pictured at places like that, particularly when he's employed by a family-friendly company like Disney. He's been obsessed with protecting his image ever since he got the role of Cap. Btw, I am not surprised he goes to places like that but you'd think he'd be smart enough not to get his picture taken.

·  Anonymous said:

Have people forgotten that one of these thirsty hanger-on types (just like this intern seems to be) is someone who sent a video of Chris to tmz? I mean, he wasn't doing anything bad-just partying it up after a super bowl and he looked like a drunk frat boy. But even that got a dodger pic response. My point is that he should be smarter about people around him, especially when he's drunk.

·  Anonymous said:

Denying pics comes with its own risks. You don’t want to piss people off because that can have its own dangers. This has happened with other celebs. There have been several occasions where his pics have been in return for free bottle service or other perks. I am not saying that is the case here though. Not trying to argue with you mod, just saying it’s not black and white. A lot of mistakes were made here and the worst part is how avoidable it was. But most seem to hinge on Bella’s actions. 🐩

·  Anonymous said:

Mark follows a few of the interns from DC, 2 of whom (Bella & another woman) posted from NYC Saturday night & this evening. Also a few of Mark's friends are NYC as well. It's not far fetched that going to The Box was his idea. Also Mark would've needed to make a reservation to ensure they got in.

·  Anonymous said:

I think you hit the nail. What Chris gets from taking those pics? For sure he is being polite and the people involved get happy but taking how society works and how many people think and what they can do with that information, he got nothing good on posing for those pics. And saying that is just pointing out and realising how society works. People are hypocrite and mysoginist.

·  Anonymous said:

I feel you on the eating away at your Sunday. It’s not my blog and even *I* can’t believe how much time I’m devoted to this, much less the swamp you must be dealing with. Really appreciate your views and your time. I feel so silly that I’ve gotten so caught up in it but it’s like a car accident you can’t turn away from. Get some rest and lots of love. 🐩

·  Anonymous said:

People been posting Info but clearly no one believes it. That tree anon mention it.

·  Anonymous said:

People who are saying Mark was there and that she was there with a group of friends are just assuming as much as anyone else who says Chris and the girl were there with each other. The only thing we know for sure is that they were both on the same place, at the same night, around the same time, after meeting the day before. We can't deny that.

·  Anonymous said:

I’d like to say this girl blew her chances but this is the same guy who gave MK & JS multiple chances despite their fame whoring ways. Whatever it is it won’t last long but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re seen together again. Too bad. His political project was exciting. Now it’s tainted because he’s proven what a lot of people thought of him to be true.  

·  Anonymous said:

You need to let it go now. This is a non story. It’s looking more like two separate trips were in the works and it was a “oh hey us too maybe we’ll see you we were thinking of checking out this club” now apparently you think because he’s ancient and she’s an impressionable child and burlesque shows are akin to live porn he should have shut it down. But those of us in the common sense world see this for what it was. Which is a giant nothing. So tip to TMZ. Guarantee they will think the same.

·  Anonymous said:

For gods sake. Read and post my second ask to you. Stop all this madness. Yes they know each other. That is it. They were at same club and of course hung out a little. So what They met at first dc meet I think. He was nice to her She was nice back. Nothing wrong with people meeting and being cool. Even if famous

·  Anonymous said:

Maybe I should rewrite this but Your acting as they were they in DC together. They MET and photographed but wasnt there together as Your wording puts it. Like I said you dont know of they were backstage together. Pics can be upload at any time of the night . Your just jumping to conclusions like everyone else.

·  Anonymous said:

The way some of you talk about women is so damn depressing ugh this fandom is on one today.

·  Anonymous said:

Liked what the PR/crisis anon mentioned, that it's wrong to think Chris was uninvolved in JS and MK's stunts when he dated them. It's naive to think he is that helpless and easily controlled.

·  Anonymous said:

What i really don't understand is how chris could have been so so dumb and didn't think of the consequences. Also his pr underestimated the whole situation. The girl was blatantly seeking attention and a story to tell, and any person with a brain would have got the danger of the all situation. I know that he loves partying but he was so superficial i can't even put into words. In my opinion the project has been hurt by this and everything happened today showed that.

·  Anonymous said:

2/2) as if he wanted to do that. I doubt he asked, but was asked to do it. 3) The girl jumped on the chance to go backstage after the invitation and took the pic. 4) People put the pieces together because the girl was thirsty the day before and liked the attention she got from her friends but now there is a chance she ruined the trip a little as people ran to protect their privacy.

·  Anonymous said:

I think if Chris wants to be taken seriously in what ever he decides to do. He needs to grow up and act his age and stop drinking as much and hang around different people that includes his friends from Boston. I feel most of his friends are just there for the ride including Tara. If he does ever get married she will have to trust him to no end.

·  Anonymous said:

"it's not at all weird for people here on a blog that is predominantly about Chris to talk more about chris' antics than about anyone else's. It doesn't mean they're more worried or think what he's done is worse, it's just that this blog is a place to talk about him more than anyone else. Nice try though." Nice try what? If you read the full ask, as Chris's fan, I'm more concerned that's he's doing publicity pics with treasonous Nazis than hanging at a burlesque show w/ an intern. But you do you

·  Anonymous said:

Hi! Sorry for this question but I just don´t understand what is going on here with Chris and this intern? I try to scroll down your page but I still don´t understand what has happened.

·  Anonymous said:

Some who don't have problem that Bella flies to NY and post the picture at the same place where was Chris was the first to be offend that Jenny posts pic when she was at the same place that Chris whereas she was dating him. Be careful anons I'm not a pro Janey but people were rude with her when it was normal(even if she trolled), she was spending time with his boyfriend but when another women did the same, without dating him, they think it's okay. Why?

·  Anonymous said:

I'm genuinely curious about what kind of impression he was trying to make on her? like you wanna hook up with this chick & you're letting her know that you like to gawk at other half naked chicks in your free time? Unfortunately this will never blow up, if his PR team can bury homewrecker scandal then they can bury anything.

·  Anonymous said:

He seems to unconsciously be attracted to attention-seeking women who view him as a prize. I wonder if it’s a defense mechanism to prevent him from entering a serious relationship? Also, seriously, why wouldn’t you just make it clear to her that she shouldn’t post their escapades on social media from the start? Has he learned nothing from the Jobby debacle????

·  Anonymous said:

Okay, from her comments and that pose, that's a girl that has no problem pushing someone out the way to get noticed. Like the pic, the side she was on was trying to get four people in, compared to the 3 on the other, so they had to turn sideways. I can see her making sure she was the one next to him. She didn't have to put her hand on his shoulder or stomach. She was trying for his attention. Did she get it? Don't know. Don't really care, but that's a college-age Janey. Just want that fame.

·  Anonymous said:

Now that there are pics of them together and seeing the way she's posing with her hands on his chest and shoulder (it is very reminiscent of SSH, isn't it? Which would hurt if I was js lol) taken with the comments from her and her friends, all I can say is YIKES. And also, SMH. I am not a prude and I actually like burlesque and have been to The Box and fully expected him to hook up with somebody in DC ~on the low~ but even I can say this is not a good look for him. This boy will never learn.

·  Anonymous said:

I’d like to think that he’d cut all ties to Bella now the he’s created a PR nightmare for himself, yet again. But considering for almost 3 years he was involved with a woman who was married when they originally met & got involved, I don’t think he will care. At least Jenny was almost the same age as him. He’s looking like an upgraded version of Dane Cook. For anyone who doesn’t know, Dane Cook’s girlfriend is 19, they started dating when she was 18, but were “friends” before that 🙄🤢

·  Anonymous said:

The more I see from this girl the more I think she’s just a thirsty very immature little girl. And has no idea what she could potentially cost Chris. But he’s not innocent as she found out where he was going somehow.. And then posted it everywhere. Him or his team should have warned them to be cautious. And once they arrived not continued to entertain them and allow them backstage. An adult would have said nice to see you I’m going over here goodbye. Just another dumb d*#k brain decision.

·  Anonymous said:

Oh, man... the boyfriend. I didn't even think about him. Can you imagine if the situation was reverse and her bf was acting that way towards a famous woman? I can imagine myself on that situation and I wouldn't like it. Even if she was just joking, which i don't think she was just doing that, it would be disrespectfull. I hope he is not hurt.

·  Anonymous said:

Tks for the clarifycation for don't hate the player. So the girl had no shame to run after a man who has close the double of her age just because he is famous. Not sure she is again with her boyfriend but if she is, he would be very happy. It's clear,even if Chris makes bad choices in women, he wouldn't do nothing with her, discretion level he couldn't count on her. 5min with him and she shared and tried already trash things.

·  Anonymous said:

And Chris, wearing that Red Sox cap in NYC will bring you a lot of unwanted attention ;)

·  Anonymous said:

He was probably advised to stay away from twitter or he decided to do that.

·  Anonymous said:

"He doesn’t deserve to be placed on a pedestal. " Literally no personal should be put on a pedestal. NO ONE. Mothers, fathers, friends, siblings, celebrities, every single person does stupid shit or has 'problematic' opinions. If you place anybody (family, friends, celebrities) on a pedestal, you're only looking to get disappointed.

·  Anonymous said:

Lets be real-Chris is charming, he is a schmoozer. He was working the crowd in DC. If you are nice to someone, than you get your interview. This time he snagged a desperate fan girl & hung out with her. Not the type of guy I would ever want to be involved with. I could not be w/ a guy that wanted to go to those types of clubs. I think SSH didn't like it either. If this is the life he wants to live he will either have to find a person ok with it, change or be single. 10 steps back for me.

·  Anonymous said:

I think she is just a fan with a crush and people are reading into this way too much. I don’t think that’s her hand on his shoulder and the pose is also something we’ve seen in comic con pics. Her “way good friend lol” to means she is joking because he isn’t. The “don’t hate the player hate the game” is again joking and means don’t be mad at her because she got to meet him and her friend didn’t. Was there flirting ? Maybe but we know he does with everyone and she might thought it was just her.  

·  Anonymous said:

I don't know how publicits work. Do they keep track of the mentions of their clients in SM? I wonder if Chris' publicist is already checking the situation. TIME FOR A DODGER PIC IF YOU ARE READING HERE!!!!!

·  Anonymous said:

I find it hard to believe Chris would use this venture to go fishing for a college aged hookup or girlfriend. He mentions age and sneaking into bars in that video, so he also knew her (Bella’s) approximate age. I have no doubt he gets plenty of action and isn’t a saint, but this truly seems like she is playing up something that doesn’t exist. I question her more than him here, again, because he knows this is an important project with “real life” important people, not hollywood actors.

·  Anonymous said:

Chris seems so immature. I know we want to put the blame on Janey and MK and all the other girlfriends but honestly am I the only that thinks maybe it’s HIM who’s the problematic one? Idk I’m young so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about lol

·  Anonymous said:

All this shot is crazy. I’m know Chris is no saint but come on! At least let her be in her late twenties or early thirties! That’s nasty because she’s two years younger than me!

·  Anonymous said:

I’m not down for slut shaming in any regard. If anything happened, Chris was most definitely down for it. I just think it was dumb on her part, because she posted about it. Any potential employers could see this as a red flag. They don’t want to deal with the fallout of an employee causing a potential PR scandal, especially in the political world. Like if she did this once, she’ll prob do it again. I don’t think she’s gunning to be Mrs. Evans, but she def wanted to party and maybe hook up.

·  Anonymous said:

There was another video of him sending a message to a different person on a different day. I don't think the fact she ask him to do that means anything

·  Anonymous said:

For someone who seemed smart enough to get near a HW star, she sure was pretty naive and had no clue on how this fandom work LOL

·  Anonymous said:

But what damage could be done ? It’s not like he did something bad. There is no need to excuse his behavior because nothing illegal was done it’s not like he was caught with a 17 year old in a “massage parlour”. You guys also need to stop with this “he is almost 40” like he was supposed to stop having fun and living his life at 35. If you don’t like it fine don’t live YOUR life that way but don’t be mad at him for refusing to just settle and die because he is “almost 40” .

·  Anonymous said:

Not be agree with the places Chris frequents doesn't mean we think he is Cap. I have enought to hear this explication, like we are too much stupid to make the difference between the actor and the role he plays. With the conversation we have here, the majority of anons aren't teenagers i guess. A lot of people don't feel comfortable with the sex industry(porno,stripclub or the one night stand). It would be my brother,my neighbour,my cousin,it's a vice we don't understand not naivety about Chris.

·  Anonymous said:

I don't have much to say about this situation but I wouldn't be surprised if it does turn out to be something sleazy. I mean, this is a guy who had an affair with his married co-star and just a few weeks after she actually left her husband for him, he was going to strip clubs & she was tweeting about how that upset her. So he's not always a stand up guy. Mostly I find it funny that even when the girl is a young intern not in HW, she's STILL an attention seeking type. His picker is so broken.

·  Anonymous said:

Well, Chris definitely has a type.

·  Anonymous said:

I don't think that people are being judgemental but more worried about the consequences that this could create. Internet can make things scalate too quickly and even change the facts. But let's be honest. Chris is white, male, straight, rich. He will be ok. But he has to stop taking pics in those places. Remember when he was dating JS and he went to a certain place in Canada? No pics, people left it behind. That's the right thing to do. No pics, so it's as if it didn't happen.

·  Anonymous said:

Burlesque clubs in NYC are often listed in magazines as “things to do” in the city. They are seen as touristy activities. I can see a young girl being excited to go & asking for a hookup to get vip treatment. The place is not what you guys are making it out to be.

·  Anonymous said:

Oh please. How should he have celebrated international women’s day ffs. This is starting to get ridiculous. Women. Including 20 year old ones are allowed to go to burlesque clubs. Get out of here with that comment. And if you’re going to invoke a feminist day maybe consider the fact that she went of her own volition? I mean this insinuation that he took a naive child to a strip club. It’s starting to get a bit unhinged up in here.

·  Anonymous said:

Are we forgetting he got involved with a whole ass married woman? Lmao, this whole situation is not much of a stretch as people are making. I wish he’d grow up like all of you. He talks the talk of wanting to be a husband and father. He paints himself as a family man. Which yes, he is family oriented. But then he does things like this, which are unfortunately also on brand given his past. Megan, his publicists names I believe, better be getting paid time and half putting out these fires lol.

·  Anonymous said:

Right but this is like barely a scandal. We’re just focused on it and there are some social media comments. So for all those saying he should be seen doing serious things umm he is? For the casual fan his serious image is 100% in tact. And my guess is will stay that way. This will blow over in 48 hours tops. It’s not getting any traction other than gossip corners of the internet. Being seen seriously doesn’t mean living like a monk ffs. He didn’t do anything wrong, y’all just dramatic and judgy.

·  Anonymous said:

I think we can all agree no matter what the reality might be, the optics aren’t great. If him &his friend are trying to get this new project off the ground in DC, and hes being photographed in a burlesque club in NYC in the same vicinity as DC interns, the DAY AFTER giving interviews, the optics are awful. Politicians would be quick to distance themselves from their project and with those hes already met, potentially wouldn’t give him their time again, especially if their interns are involved.

·  Anonymous said:

fans saying he should live his life however he wants-nobody is saying he shouldn't. But people shouldn't be naive enough to think that optics don't matter. They matter a lot.

·  Anonymous said:

If the other interns were there they were smart not to post about it. Like that other anon said I imagine the people in D.C. will not be happy about this I’m sure there are social media rules about how to behave.

·  Anonymous said:

Mark's been to The Box before, he's posted stories from his trips there.

·  Anonymous said:

Some are ok to see a 38 years old man having habits in strip,nightclub and before Playboy party. Good. Some women don't like men like it!Chris or not Chris! I find it perverse,it's all. Frat boys aren't my type of men and great my man isn't like it. And i don't see Chris change when he will be married. There will always be a Mark or an Adam for ask him to go. Scott seems to enjoy trashy club but Zack too so they go as a couple. Maybe am i too prude 😒

·  Anonymous said:

This truly blew up fast. Not a Pats fan, but a few years ago, Edelman hooked up w/ a girl he met out partying & she posted a pic of them in bed the next morning on Snapchat. I’m not saying that Chris hooked up with her, we will never know & honestly it’s no one’s business. But both situations definitely seemed opportunistic, but at least with this one people are holding Chris accountable too. The other girl got slut shamed majorly. Like girls, you don’t have to post everything on social media.

·  Anonymous said:

Even if there were more interns there, even if Mark was there with Chris... if they went with the interns it's still not a good look. They are both near their 40's. It's a no to rang out with 20's, principally in that kind of enviroment that revolves around sex. This could be used to damage his image, his career, this could be used to damage their initiative about the political site. It just take one article or one tweet from a Trump supporter with many followers for that.

·  Anonymous said:

She may or may not have been the only intern with him. She may or may not have ended up with him last night. This time it’s slipped on social media. Imagine all the other times it hasn’t! Disappointed if he’s on the same Leo, Cary Fukunaga and Jake train but are we surprised? Women around his age think differently, and clearly he’s not settling down this minute. Wonder what else would leak. I’ll be here with my tea and popcorn.

·  Anonymous said:

This doesn’t look good, but at the same time I feel bad for this girl and her BF, fellow interns, friends, etc. Suddenly a rabid fan base is combing through their every move trying to play detective. I get the curiosity, I’m curious too, but I know how people overreact. And while most are fine, already people are crossing the line and commenting. Not a kick on you, just kinda crazy the lengths that some go to. I’m so glad I grew up without social media for most of my life.

·  Anonymous said:

don cheadle once saying on a talk show that the cast of the avengers(including chris of course) all went to a burlesque bar in london. ALL of them. it's not a crime...or is it??? and as for that bella chick going wit him?? who the hell wouldn't go if we were invited? good for her.

·  Anonymous said:

I feel that a conveniently timed Dodger video (or photo) is imminent. Or will we go really old school with a video for a sick child? Some sort of distraction from the current (I agree ,totally inappropriate) drama. Thing is that sort of tactic will only work for so long, less and less people will forget each time. While there's no problem visiting a burlesque club,hell I've been myself, it's the company you take to the club that should be more carefully considered. Not a smart move.

·  Anonymous said:

Of course he has pr. But people don’t understand how pr works. He doesn’t clear every private dumb decision with them and ask for professional pr advice. He lives his life (and makes dumb mistakes clearly!) but typically a professional pr team isn’t involved unless it affects him professionally, like blows up into a scandal affecting his image and work. They don’t babysit his private life. We’re all fired up about it on our corner of the internet but we’re not really at a true scandal.

·  Anonymous said:

People were rightfully dragging Cavill for dating a 19 year old.Chris went to a strip/ burlesque club with a young girl (since one woman posted about them on the birthday video we know they were there together) and there are people still thinking this is ok? (Not saying you do mood) He is stupid many times: one for doing it, one for thinking that is ok, one for leaving traces of it.Oh, wait.The girl is the one who left the traces. That remember me of someone else who used to leave proofs behind.

·  Anonymous said:

Ok. I remember when him an Janey broke up, and a few weeks later he was in Houston for the Super Bowl. Him and his friends met some girls at a party, and he invited some of them back to the house with them. Some videos were uploaded. I don’t think this is that different. He went away for a trip, met a girl, and invited her along for the ride. More than likely this is nothing, and this girl is just being opportunistic. He really needs to pick ladies who can use discretion in the future.

·  Anonymous said:

I think this is just an example of how celebrity image works. If you aren’t part of Chris fandom or gossip you have no clue. Just a basic google news search for him right now shows his DC rounds and Captain Marvel tweet. And that’s the image he wants to have (and I think genuinely does to a point). But isolated Instagram pics that don’t fit easily into a narrative are never going to get traction. Sure they’ll always be there because internet, but give it another week and it’ll barely be a blip.

·  Anonymous said:

Chris is this guy who invite strangers during party/games night in his house or girls who his friends and him met to à bar for partying in friend's house(the tmz video after the end of round 1),it's seem to be how he is but he is the guy, in doing that who trust in everybody and after there are these kind of pic/video not flattering in not flattering place. I see some say he is single so he's enjoy it but he did it when he was with JS, her tweet where she was upset to his bf going to stripclub.

·  Anonymous said:

This would not be blowing up if this bella girl had seemed to be in the company of the same friends at the box as she went to NYC with but that is not the case. Mark might have been with them too but why would this rocky lanes person only follow bella's IG and not Mark's too?

·  Anonymous said:

All of this stuff is already on twitter and instagram tagging Chris, Megan and even Josh for some reason...

·  Anonymous said:

Maybe i missed something, but what’s wrong with Chris taking pics in that club or wherever he was & why couldnt the girl(s) put the pic on her ig

·  Anonymous said:

I haven't heard the video but the "my way good friend" comment seems like a joke. Like "this is my very famous friend who I just met and we're already close" And I think that if he denied those girls of taking a picture he'll be criticize, and considering what they work in and those outfits, seems to me like he ows them that little courtesy 🙄 cause

·  Anonymous said:

My phone was acting weirs so I don't know if my last ask got through: this bella girl is in NYC with friends from DC and a guy named doug, who works in DC, and has also met Chris is with her. If you go through their IG stories they spent the day together but she is the only one of them to post from the box something.

·  Anonymous said:

High end club or not, I checked the pic bellanovemberr posted with the women in her stories and their room seems cheap and have holes in the ceiling. It doesn't matter how expensive those places are, I always at least side eye how they treat women. Their employees deserve better and more respect.

·  Anonymous said:

C'mon! It is one of the most exclusive night clubs in NY. I read the reviews of The Box on the web and there’s nothing wrong with attending such a place. It is not absolutamnete a local “hard”. as he quotes a review I found: “It’s definitely not a local hard if any of you are asking, it’s fun, crazy and weird … it totally reflects New York.”

And, maybe, it was the birthday video girl who invited Chris to go there.

·  Anonymous said:

Do you think it’d be weird if Chris hooked up with a 20 year old...I mean look at Leo Dicaprio and his girlfriend

·  Anonymous said:

Some people have serious problems with celebrities (here: Chris), pedestals, and managing their own fantasies and expectations. They build them up up up, and inevitably get SERIOUSLY broken hearted, hurt, and bitter, when the celeb in question obviously fails to live up to them. I mean, how can they? They're human, and almost never actually aware of these expectations. And I wish I could say that these fans are young and inexperienced, but a lot of them are adults, so...

·  Anonymous said:

"Her IG is also followed by Mark Kassen, who is also in New York." Mark followed her the same day she posted that video.

·  Anonymous said:

I'm not naive to think single/married man and other famous actors don't go to those places but how many of them have pics taken there? None. I checked the club and it's a sort of freak show club too and celebs are part of the customers. A Vanity Fair article mentioned some names. But no pics. So it doesn't stick with them. It can be said that it's hipocritical go there and refuse pics but it would be the best decision for his image. Let's bet he will post a pic of Dogder?

·  Anonymous said:

Recently I came across this Don Cheadle interview on Seth Meyers, where he talked about him,Evans,RDJ,Hemsworth & Renner going to Burlesque club in London & nobody recognising them on street so I guess they all are into this kind of entertainment but only this guy is dumb enough to take pics

·      Anonymous said:

That girl’s comment about SSH made me laugh! Hope he had fun at that burlesque bar! Establishments like those are sooo nice.

                                                                                                                                 ·      Anonymous said:                                                 

The fact his boyfriend(ex now) deleted all the pics of her means himself discovered how is she is: at the same time she was dating him she doesn't have qualms to touch too much a man who has the double of his age, play like she said and pursue him in NY in a burlesque show, that imply naked women and alcohol when he was in far away of her. She didn't do all the things without have something in mind. She lost her boyfriend for have the attention of Chris for few hours. Well play girl.      

·     Anonymous said: 

I don’t think that one who makes a happy birthday video like this to a girl for her twenties, surprising her age so young, then he decides to have fun with a girl of the same age or little more.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

A few months ago a friend wrote me an email with the subject line, “What is Sean McElwee.”

This is the kind of question that occurs to a person who spends a lot of time on Twitter. In 2018, McElwee’s tweets seemed to abound in liberal cyberspace. He was best known for his jeremiads about abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement — for much of the past year, McElwee’s handle read as “we’re going to abolish ICE.” The online racket attracted attention. MSNBC host Chris Hayes interviewed him, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand showed up to the weekly happy hour he throws, and he was named to the Politico 50 along with the likes of Mick Mulvaney, Alan Dershowitz and one Donald J. Trump. Quite a lot for a 26-year-old whose main gig is at a fledgling think tank he co-founded, Data For Progress.

But still, what is he? McElwee calls himself a “jackass of all trades” but admits that trying to explain his value to those not enmeshed in the online world of politics — potential donors to his think tank, say — is difficult.

Sean McElwee is one of many young activists articulating a far-left vision of the Democratic Party.

Hayley Bartels for FiveThirtyEight

“I’m like Radiohead for donors — you can’t really explain why I’m good but everyone knows that I’m good at it,” McElwee shouted over the din of bar talk at one of his happy hours on a recent evening in New York City. “The thing I try to say is, ‘Look, I don’t know what to tell you, I wrote a report on the Green New Deal three months before the Green New Deal was a thing. I tweeted about abolish ICE before abolish ICE was a thing. I fucking raised $850,000 for down-ballot candidates from small dollar contributions.’ I’m not sitting around telling you how the fuck I do it, I don’t have time to do that.” (McElwee, it should be noted, says “fuck” an awful lot.)

McElwee is one of a cadre of young left activists whose voices have grown louder in the years following Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump. Many came of political age in the decade following the financial crash of 2008, and many are disillusioned by a Democratic Party they think has been ideologically hollowed out. They’ve organized outside the traditional party apparatus — the Democratic Socialists of America, the Justice Democrats — and worked to get representation in Congress, pushing figures like newly minted congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley. Now they find themselves holding greater purchase than ever before in the formal Washington political process.

For a few years now, Democratic voters have shown they’re primed for a leftward shift, and this rising group of activists and politicians wants to push them even further. At the heart of the young left’s project is a discomfort with the free market capitalist system under which we live. It’s a system deeply ingrained in many Americans’ identities, though increasingly less so: 2016 was the first year since Gallup started tracking the question that it found Democrats had a more positive view of socialism than they did of capitalism.

This new group of activists wants to capitalize on that shift. And they’re doing it by tweeting incessantly and acting impertinently toward their fellow Democrats. Unlike bright young political things of years gone by, their purpose is to confound the party’s leadership, not earn their praise.

To this end, McElwee calls himself an “Overton Window Mover.” It’s a high-minded allusion to how activists can influence the national conversation to make fringey ideas seem less radical. He and the others have already opened the Democrats’ window, and the winds of change that blow through it might be more F5 tornado than gentle summer breeze.

McElwee’s weekly happy hour is a water cooler for young progressives in New York City.

Hayley Bartels for FiveThirtyEight

My stop at McElwee’s weekly happy hour for left- wing activists and writers came just before Christmas. Twinkly lights brightened the bar’s dinge, and I grabbed a beer that was astonishingly cheap for New York City — one attendee told me that the “accessible” price of the drinks was in keeping with the progressive ethos of the group. Because he’s worried that right wing trolls might crash the weekly gathering, McElwee asked me not to reveal the happy hour’s location, but plenty of the city’s left-leaning activists and journalists know about it. “A pretty high percentage of people got invited to the happy hour via Twitter DM,” Eric Levitz of New York Magazine told me.

McElwee’s attendees — over a dozen — were scattered in pockets around the bar, some seated at a corner table, others hanging out closer to the kegs. Apparently the New Republic and The Nation both had parties that evening, McElwee told me later, so the turnout was pretty decent, all things considered. The conversation spun from rifts in the leadership of the Women’s March to the war in Yemen to how one woman at the bar had to take the day off after Ocasio-Cortez was elected because she had been overcome with emotion. (Many refer to Ocasio-Cortez simply as “AOC,” putting the 29-year-old freshman congresswoman alongside LBJ and FDR in the ranks of the politically monogrammed.)

“These are really left people, not party hacks,” Rachel Stein, an activist who works on local New York City issues, told me. The young left is a loose confederation of like-minded activists organized in like-minded groups rather than a monolithic movement with explicit goals. Organizers work for both established and emerging left-wing groups, but all share an ethos of pushing mainstream Democratic politics in a more explicitly progressive direction. Women’s marches, environmental protests at Standing Rock, and anti-racism demonstrations might draw a similar set of figures from this young left world.

Since the 2016 election, the left’s political and cultural influence has ballooned. Membership in the Democratic Socialists of America grew exponentially during the first years of the Trump administration, thanks in part to the invaluable PR that was the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. At the same time, the “dirtbag-left” comedy and politics of Chapo Traphouse, a popular podcast, helped shape a certain shared sensibility among a socialist millennial set. (An excerpt from the Chapo hosts’ new book reads, “Capitalism, and the politics it spawns, is not working for anyone under 30 who is not a sociopath.”)

Many young left activists think the time has never been more right, the culture never more ready, to move left-wing politics into the mainstream. “This moment has radicalized liberals and electoralized radicals,” Maurice Mitchell, the 38-year-old new director of the Working Families Party, a New York-based progressive-left organization with close ties to the labor movement, told me.

A few days before the happy hour, I’d hopped a bus to mid-Brooklyn to meet with Waleed Shahid, communications director of the Justice Democrats, a group of Bernie Sanders campaign alumni recruiting progressive candidates to Congress. (New York City’s five boroughs are home to a number of the young leftists.) Shahid is even-keeled, if intense, and a card-carrying member (literally) of the Democratic Socialists of America. “My joke is that unlike Barack Obama, I am a Muslim socialist,” he said. He graduated from college in 2013 and worked for the Sanders campaign in 2016, followed by stints with Ocasio-Cortez and Cynthia Nixon.

Protest movements like Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter and the Climate March have spent years trying to push Democrats — and the U.S. at large — further to the left.

EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images, Joshua LOTT/AFP/Getty Images, Citizens of the Planet/Education Images/UIG via Getty Images

“I come from this loose network of basically millennials who were a part of all the different social movements that erupted under Obama,” Shahid told me. It was a group that had voted for the Democratic president but found themselves disappointed by many of his policies. “The people I learned organizing from were people from Occupy Wall Street, the Dreamer movement, People’s Climate March, 350.org, Black Lives Matter — that whole world which was all 22-32 [years old], mostly.”

That so many young Democratic agitators have come to their politics through movements tied to America’s racial strife has distinctly flavored their approach to the country’s economic system. “I recognized that the best way to respond to the white nationalist populism was to develop a multiracial left populism,” Mitchell told me as we sat in his Brooklyn office. In a rich turn of irony, the progressive party is housed in JPMorgan Chase’s Brooklyn outpost, the bank’s name emblazoned above the threshold. While the lobby was festooned with Liberace-inspired reindeer decorations for Christmas, Mitchell’s office was stacked to the ceiling with file boxes, one of which was labeled “crap.”

Maurice Mitchell, is the leader of the Working Families Party, a progressive organization founded by a coalition of left-leaning voices.

REUTERS / Jonathan Bachman

Mitchell, 38, is the first person of color to head the Working Families Party. “The aging Jewish radical can take you only so far,” outgoing director Dan Cantor told The New York Times when Mitchell’s appointment was announced in April 2018. Mitchell spent years as a community organizer on Long Island and most recently worked at Blackbird, a communications firm he co-founded that is closely allied with the Movement for Black Lives. By Mitchell’s telling, he’s spent most of his career at the outskirts of Democratic politics, sometimes in opposition to its elected officials, living “somewhere in that place apart.”

Trump’s election, though, had made the Democratic mainstream more receptive to ideas once thought to be liberal pipe dreams. “We’re in a moment of political realignment and it’s disorienting,” Mitchell said. “People are looking for solutions, and people instinctively understand — even people working in centrist think tanks — that the solutions of the past will not take us out of this moment of realignment and will not take us into the future.”

What’s difficult, Mitchell said, is that while the culture is primed for a shift, the details still have to be ironed out.

“It starts off by recognizing that this economy is insufficient for all of our needs, for all of our people having dignity — and then we have to transition, we have to figure out how to transition while we still live under neoliberal capitalism,” he said. “That’s the work that we’re doing.”

Alexandra Rojas is the executive director of Justice Democrats, a group of Bernie Sanders campaign alumni working to recruit more diverse working class candidates to run for Congress.

REUTERS / Jonathan Bachman

Alexandra Rojas, Justice Democrats’ 23-year-old executive director, was 13 years old when the financial crisis of 2008 hit. She recalls nothing of Washington’s deliberations over bank bailouts, only difficult conversations with her parents about scaling back. McElwee’s memories of the historic moment are similarly fuzzy. “I thought it was weird there was an organization called ‘Bear Stearns,’” he said. That childhood naivete was shed over the next decade, and the events of those years left an indelible impression; Rojas, McElwee and so many of their activist agemates were shaped by an early exposure to the potential dangers of the free market.

Much of the Democratic Party’s present identity crisis has its roots in the worldwide crash of financial markets late in George W. Bush’s presidency and at the beginning of Barack Obama’s term of office. Complicated financial products crumpled the U.S. housing market, and widespread unemployment, foreclosures and homelessness followed. While banks and investment firms failed, none of their heads were jailed for wrongdoing.

At the time, Democrats were divided over how to deal with the crisis. Elizabeth Warren — then a Harvard professor — made her first full step into Washington politics as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Warren devotes a large portion of her 2014 book, “A Fighting Chance,” to her memories of the crisis — namely, that the government was far too credulous of the banks’ requests. “Now Treasury was giving $20 billion in additional TARP bailout funds to Citibank, plus a $306 billion taxpayer guarantee.”

There was a fundamental divide in how Democrats approached solving the crisis. Dodd-Frank, the legislation that would eventually pass in response to the crash, took an incremental approach to industry reform. But there was a faction that favored broader, more systemic structural reforms of the system. The more incrementalist reform won out under Obama, thanks in no small part, some thought, to lobbying by the heads of investment banks.

“Elizabeth Warren shouldn’t be the outer bound; we should have some people who are much more radical,” Krugman said.

“The financial industry has so much clout and so much influence, not just because of the money but because they’re smart people, they’re persuasive, they have great tailors,” Paul Krugman, the 2008 Nobel laureate in economics told me over coffee on a recent afternoon in Manhattan while wearing a tidy, if not tailored, outfit featuring a scarf and zip-up sweater. “I had a little bit of experience trying to persuade Obama and associates of taking a harder line on the bailouts,” he said. But Krugman didn’t prevail. “Jamie Dimon [chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase] cuts a really impressive figure, even though in fact he’s dead wrong about many of the crucial issues.”

Krugman called the emerging clutch of young activists’ skepticism about capitalism useful, and a necessary counterbalance to the lobbying and financial strength of Wall Street. Though in some aspects, he said, the far-left movement hasn’t reached intellectual maturity. “The truth is there aren’t a lot of technically adept people from that [far-left] position, which is not because there couldn’t be, but because they haven’t been a factor — it’s all new.” He continued, name checking his fellow Nobel laureate, “If you’re having meetings in which Joe Stiglitz and I are the farthest left voices, that’s a limiting spectrum and it would be helpful if there were people beyond.”

In part, that’s because before the financial crisis, American policy makers, including Democrats, didn’t do much about income inequality or widespread financial system reform. Mike Konczal, an economic fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a left-leaning think tank, characterized past Democratic attitudes toward financial reform as mostly centered on workers increasing their skills and education. Democrats in the Bill Clinton era were still near-uniformly bullish on capitalism. “The system more or less worked fine, it was just a matter of getting people access to the system,” he said. “There wasn’t a big problem with the economy itself, it was just that some people were excluded from it.”

Many of the young leftists were emboldened by Sen. Bernie Sanders’s Democratic primary campaign in 2016.

Win McNamee / Getty Images

In the last decade, the far left has found the problems too great to ignore. The Occupy Wall Street movement kicked things off a few years after the financial crisis but was plagued by a perception that its demands to end income inequality were too vague and the organization too decentralized. But in recent years, progressive politics have found more precise policies and voices in figures like Warren and Sanders. Rojas, the director of Justice Democrats, dropped out of community college in 2015 to work for the Sanders campaign. “I’ve had to experience what it’s like to have four or five jobs, each at $7.50, to make rent. I saw my dad suffer during the financial crisis,” she said. “I’m someone who comes from a family that really loves work and is hard working but has also experienced a capitalist system that’s run amok.”

The rising far-left Democratic activists are necessary counterpoints, Krugman told me, pushing new ideas to the masses. “Banking is on the one hand a deeply technical issue, but on the other hand it’s too important to be left solely to the technocrats,” he said. “Elizabeth Warren shouldn’t be the outer bound; we should have some people who are much more radical.”

The Democrats’ freshmen class in the House is filled with young progressives like Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. //

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / AFP / Getty Images, Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call, Stephen Maturen / Getty Images, Cheriss May / NurPhoto via Getty Images

With its incessant tweets and Instagrams, the young left has in essence begun a long session of political exposure therapy with the Democratic mainstream, popularizing ideas that many people have never heard of before or ones that would have been laughed down at first mention not so long ago.

It hasn’t gone over well with some factions of the party. In an exit interview following her November 2018 loss, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill said she wished Ocasio-Cortez well, but called her “a bright and shiny new object who came out of nowhere.” She advised her to “stick to issues we can actually accomplish something on,” saying, “the rhetoric is cheap. Getting results is a lot harder.” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has been more measured, but in the wake of Ocasio-Cortez’s primary upset, she tamped down suggestions that the surprise election was indicative of a radical shift in the party. “Nobody’s district is representative of somebody else’s district,” Pelosi said. “It should not be viewed as something that stands for everything else.”

That hasn’t stopped Ocasio-Cortez from using her ever-growing national platform to push for new candidates like herself all over the country. In November she announced that she would support Justice Democrats’ effort to primary Democratic members in the 2020 election, a move that’s seen as highly unusual, if not uncollegial. Maneuvers like that haven’t universally endeared her, even to sympathetic members of the party. In the weeks following the November election, one anonymous staffer from the Progressive Caucus told the Atlantic, “She’s so focused on truly Instagramming every single thing that, aside from the obvious suspects in her friendship circle, she’s not taking the time to capitalize on building relationships with members as much as she should.” (Recently, Ocasio-Cortez helped lead a Twitter class for members of the Democratic caucus.) In a recent Politico piece, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver said, “I’m sure Ms. Cortez means well, but there’s almost an outstanding rule: Don’t attack your own people, we just don’t need sniping in our Democratic caucus.” Corbin Trent, Ocasio-Cortez’s spokesman, told FiveThirtyEight that the freshman would stay the rhetorical course and continue to support efforts to primary Democrats. “Most of her time is spent sniping Republicans and white supremacists — very little time is spent in intraparty conflict. It’s a mountain out of a molehill.”

“Politics is a swamp of confirmation bias,” Mitchell said.

Perhaps the policy activists care most about promoting in the next year is the Green New Deal. It’s a plan that’s been pushed by a group of high-profile new Democratic legislators, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ocasio-Cortez, who proposed creating a new congressional committee to develop a detailed plan. As of now, the policy specifics are vague, but the plan’s broad goals are to fund a “massive investment in the drawdown in greenhouse gases,” explore renewable energy sources, and train Americans in new, more sustainable jobs. Recently, Elizabeth Warren endorsed the idea of a Green New Deal, which Ocasio-Cortez was quick to point out on Twitter. (Cory Booker and Sanders have also voiced support.)

Krugman is also bullish on the young left’s centerpiece policy. “If the Green New Deal means that we’re going to try to rely on public investment in technologies and renewables and things that will make it easier for people to use less fossil fuel, that’s a pretty good start,” he said.

The policy that has him more worried is single-payer health care, a centerpiece of Sanders’s campaign that many likely 2020 candidates have already come out to support. “That’s a huge amount of money — you can’t just do that by running up the deficit. You’d have to be collecting a bunch of new taxes, which is a reason for concern,” he said.

Krugman has been thinking about other ways to fiddle with the market system, though.

“I’ve been trying to do a little exercise with myself. I think with the fall of communism, we’d say central planning, government control of production doesn’t really work. But actually that’s not totally true,” he said. “What I try to put together is what could plausibly actually not be capitalist, actually not be markets — maybe 20-25 percent of the economy.” Things like health care, education, and utilities are all in the mix.

“We’re all going to fucking die of climate change,” McElwee said. “We have to accelerate, accelerate, accelerate.”

McElwee and I had dinner at a midtown Chinese restaurant on the same day that Ocasio-Cortez had tweeted one of his Data For Progress visualizations showing the rise in the number of tweets mentioning the “Green New Deal” since the summer of 2017. “Never underestimate the power of public imagination,” she wrote. It had been retweeted nearly 3,000 times and garnered 17,000 likes. Was the virality of the tweet and the promotion of a once-obscure policy idea some kind of success in and of itself, I asked.

“What is success? It’s power, it’s having a vision of the world that’s different from the status quo and enacting that vision,” McElwee said in between bites of scallion pancakes. At well over 6 feet tall with a uniform of puffy jackets and baseball hats, McElwee gives the impression of an overgrown teenage boy, fervent but with flashes of seeming self-awareness for his big talk. “And if three years from now Data for Progress has not enacted its vision, has not exercised itself upon the world and its ideas on the world, then we will have failed and we should stop doing this.”

Wasn’t that self-imposed timeline a little quick for broad political change to happen, I asked.

“We’re all going to fucking die of climate change,” McElwee shot back. “We have to accelerate, accelerate, accelerate.”

A trademark of the young left movement is its urgency of mission. This, coupled with a deep disdain for establishment politics, has made the dissemination of their gospel of change — particularly online — sharp-elbowed and disdainful of naysayers. “You don’t win over these people, you crush them,” McElwee told me of Republicans the first time we met. “I don’t make friends with Republican operatives. I don’t try to reach across the aisle. I think they’re bad people and I don’t want to be associated with them and you’ll never find a picture of me shaking hands with David Frum or something,” he said, referring to George W. Bush’s former speechwriter who is now a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Now that some of the left’s candidates have found themselves in office, agitation from inside the party is a tactic that will be put to greater use. After her election, Ocasio-Cortez attended a sit-in at Pelosi’s office over climate change. Tlaib unsuccessfully asked the Democratic leader to put her on the powerful House Appropriations Committee — an assignment that typically goes to seasoned members. (Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez have both been placed on the Financial Services Committee.) And on the first day of the 2019 House session, Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Ro Khanna of California said they would vote against Democrats’ rules for the new Congress because they included a measure that necessitated any spending be offset by spending cuts or revenue increases. For progressive politicians pushing massive government-funded programs like Medicare for all and the Green New Deal, the rules are not seen as bureaucratic minutiae, but as sabotage.

When I asked Shahid if the new left movement was going to be the Democrats’ version of the House Freedom Caucus, his answer was unequivocal: “Yes, it is.”

He had another historical example in mind, too: Thaddeus Stevens and the Radical Republicans, a group of abolitionists who stridently pushed for Lincoln’s Republican Party to abolish slavery. “Politics is still the art of compromise, you still have to pass legislation,” Shahid said. “But the idea is on whose terms is the compromise?” Every transformative president, he said, had found himself pushed into radical new policies by movements. (Ocasio-Cortez said something similar in a 60 Minutes interview that aired a few weeks after Shahid and I talked.) Abraham Lincoln had the abolitionists at his throat, Franklin Roosevelt had labor unions pushing for the New Deal, and Lyndon Johnson had civil rights leaders prodding him toward reforms of racist laws.

“Maybe we can make Joe Biden into a Lincoln,” he said.

So whom do young leftists want as their 2020 candidate? And what role will their movement have throughout the campaign?

“I want the left to really think seriously about the fact that the core of our strategy right now is if we endorse the right person, they will owe us,” McElwee told me. The left, he said, should take a page out of big businesses’ book and not care what candidate is ultimately chosen. “Knowing what the fuck you’re talking about, having the right contacts with the right staffers who you need to call to make sure the right amendment is passed at the right time — we’re much worse at that. We don’t actually have that capacity built up.” For an idealist, McElwee has a tendency toward Machiavellian realism.

McElwee said he could live with a Biden or a Beto O’Rourke as the Democrats’ presidential nominee, which is heresy in some progressive circles. Shahid voiced a more common progressive view of O’Rourke, comparing him to Emmanuel Macron, the young centrist president of France. “He says beautiful things, but what does he believe in?”

Mitchell, for one, was put off by the rumblings of support for O’Rourke coming from Obama World. “It’s outrageous. What O’Rourke did was pretty amazing, but he lost by more than 200,000, and Stacey [Abrams] and Andrew [Gillum] lost by a hair. So how is his loss a signal that he’s a rising star and Stacey and Andrew’s losses are definitive losses — they need to regroup and figure things out? Somebody needs to explain that to me.”

A recent poll of Democrats in Iowa, a largely white state that holds the nation’s first primaries, put Biden, Sanders and O’Rourke in the lead. Mitchell thinks that figures of the Democratic establishment are too eager to cede the party to centrist figures who appeal to a particular slice of the electorate.

“Basically what they’re saying is the Democrats need a white man that can talk to other white men and not scare this imagined centrist voter away with too much radical talk about totally restructuring our economy,” Mitchell said. “Politics is a swamp of confirmation bias.”

Regardless of who the party nominee turns out to be, it seems inarguable that the young left’s ideas will filter their way into the race. Shahid told me he thought that one strategy is for his ideological cohort to staff presidential campaigns. Justice Democrats, however, will focus on the next batch of congressional campaigns. “The biggest achievement we’ve gotten outside Ocasio was building a pipeline for candidate recruitment that actually reaches working class people,” Rojas said.

McElwee said his plans are mostly to stick to the issues. Right around the new year, his Twitter name changed to read “we’re going to pass AVR” — automatic voter registration — and a new website popped up promoting a new project to pass AVR in New York state. The Daily News had a piece on it, and McElwee’s feed was a litany of retweets of progressives cooing over the initiative. McElwee had told me that if he ever stopped seeing what the next new thing was, he’d get out of politics, lose 40 pounds, and try to sell his method as the next big fad diet. As he downed the last of his sake and finished my soup dumplings, it seemed clear he wasn’t in that headspace just yet.

“I’ll clearly support whoever the nominee is,” McElwee told me. “I think all of these people can be moved. They’re pieces on a chess board that’s so much larger than them. And I want to be helping move those chess pieces.”

[darthkieduss]

Here's a pack of low-grade morons who oughta be locked into portable toilets and set on fire

If I may quote George Carlin ^

*People who eat pizza with silverware.

*People who identify as "<insert race> first."

*People who think Star Wars and Star Trek are the exact same fucking thing.

*People who think Star Trek is better than Star Wars.

*People who voted for Donald Trump

*People who don’t like Bernie Sanders

*People with two first names.

*People who wear their pants low. I don’t wanna see your underwear or your ass. PULL YOUR PANTS UP.

*People who identify as feminists in the first world.

*People who look at Jennifer Aniston, weed and vaginas and still say “There is no God.”

*People who think Christians are still as batshit crazy as we were 900 years ago. We’ve changed a lot since then. Name one Christian-majority where chopping off the hands of thieves, whipping alcoholics and stoning adulterers is law. Name one. I’ll wait.

*People who say Islam is a “religion of peace” and had nothing to do with 9/11.

*People who walk their children on leashes. Either pick those fuckers up or hold their hands, don’t treat em like animals.

*People who still believe those right-wing conspiracy theories like Obama’s birth certificate, Hillary’s “pizzagate”, Jade Helm and every-fucking-thing that comes out of Fat Donnie’s mouth.

*People who never make their children play outside. I played outside with my sister and the playstation/xbox. IT’S CALLED MODERATION.

*People who think weed is a gateway drug. Fuck you, it’s medicine.

*People who think bullying is just what boys do.

*People who think living black people should get reparations for an evil institution no one alive today   ever experienced.

*People who jack off in public without having the decency to finish. If you’re gonna do something, see it to completion.

*People who still spew that “trickle-down economics” bullshit. FUUUUUCK YOU.

*People who say “Every child is special”. No, sometimes your child is a fucking dipshit.

*People who use horoscopes as an excuse for their shitty behavior. “Sorry I’m a Scorpio.” No, Karen, you’re just a bitch.

*Women who want a “daddy”. Bitch you got one. It’s the one that knocked up your mother.

*People who think being anti-immigrant and being racist is the same damn thing.

*People who like being choked. Imagine Darth Vader choking Admiral Motti and Motti got a boner. (they actually made a video about it). You sick fucks.

*People who think only women can have opinions about abortions. That child is half of me, so I have a say in this as well. If “no uterus, no opinion” then when it comes to men’s issues or “manspreading”, I say “No balls, no opinion”.

*People who called the cops on me just because I fucked a chick in her car in the back of their neighborhood back in 2017. Fuck you, mind your own business.

*That dumbass feminist who thinks that men can “gain” something from being falsely accused of rape. Are you fucking kidding me? No man on earth, myself included, has been falsely accused of rape and thought “Dude, look on the bright side!”

*People who claim “Everything is exist. Everything is racist. Everything is homophobic and you have to point it all out.” Burn in hell, Sarkeesian.

*People who wear sunglasses INDOORS and/or AT NIGHT

*People who made a big production when they spit.

*People who hear a man got murdered by a woman and the first thing they think is “Well what did he do?” instead of “What the fuck is wrong with her?”

*Anyone who laughs at a story of a man getting his dick cut off (looks at Sharon Osbourne)

*Feminists who say all penis-in-vagina sex is rape NMW.

*People who hate on a Christian for offering “thoughts and prayers” like they did on Chris Pratt. Ex-fucking-cuse us for giving positive vibes.

*People who use bumper stickers that say “We are the proud parents of ----” SHUT THE FUCK UP.

*Men who don’t marry the women they knock up.

*Women who automatically assumes a man accused of rape is guilty.

*People who wear socks with sandals.

*Entitled rich fucks who think they can get away with shitty behavior just because they or their dad is rich like Conrad fuckface Hilton.

*Anyone who watches Fox News (looks at my own father)

*Fox News

*People who criticize Obama or Hillary for something but don’t say jack shit when Trump or his daughter does it. Fucking partisan hypocrites

*Anti-vaxers. Vaccinate your fucking crotch-goblins.

*People who believe in “safe spaces”.

*People who hate on McDonalds. They sell burgers and fries, they never said they were a farmer’s market.

*People who conflate making the rich actually paying their fucking taxes like every-fucking-body else to communism.

*Flat-Earthers. Why don’t you say Earth is a donut? Oh for fuck’s sake, they did...

*People who spy on their spouse/girl/boyfriends’ cellphones. If you can’t trust your partner, why the fuck are you with them?

*People who zigzag along traffic in their sports cars.

*People who’s cars are way too fucking noisy. We get it, you got a little dick.

*People who call their girlfriend “My partner in crime”. We get it, she’s underage.

*Cops who think they should be beyond reproach just because they have a badge. You get respect as a cop, NOT IMMUNITY.

*Same thing with military veterans. Respect, not immunity from reproach.

*Trannies who say if I don’t sleep with them, I’m transphobic. Fuck you. Wait, that came out wrong... Or did it?

*Anyone who claims if you support Bernie over [insert female candidate], you’re a sexist. What about the women who support Bernie? Are they sexist?

*Gloria Steinem, mostly for claiming that Female Bernie Supporters are only in it to meet men. So lesbians who support are doing it for men? FUCK YOU

*People who shit on Nickeback. Yeah that’s right, I like Nickelback.

*People who believe Southerners are automatically racist and incestuous. Kiss my non-racist, can’t-stand-my-little-sister ass.

*Dumbass conservatives who think that having an AR-15 is gonna give them an edge over the police/military of the country that possesses not only the most powerful military on earth, but NUCLEAR WEAPONS. You shoot a couple of them with an AR-15, they shoot you with a grenade launcher. You are dead. Your revolution lasted 30 minutes.

*Parents who try to be friends with their kids.

*People who show me pictures of their kids. I don’t wanna see your stupid, waterhead kids.

*These idiots who think every country that isn’t America is somehow worse off. American doesn’t mean better, asshole. France is kicking out ass with healthcare.

*Every Baby Boomer on earth.

*Boomers who think us Millennials should respect them just because they’re old enough to have their balls touch the floor. You treat us like shit, destroy the economy and you want respect from us?

*People who wanna just “stay outta it”. (looks at my mother).

*People who say “Vote Blue No Matter Who”. I know if Bernie won you people wouldn’t be saying that.

*People who drive slow in the fast lane.

*People who pace in front of other people.

*Anyone named Tucker.

*Anyone who believes literally every fucking thing the government tells them.

*yet I also say fuck conspiracy theorists.

[maryofone]

Thank You

If I were to treat this blog like a book, I’d have to add some acknowledgements.

This blog is far from a book, but at the very least it’s an achievement in self-discipline, the likes of which I’ve never exhibited before, and I definitely couldn’t have made it to the finish line without the help of a few people. Unbeknownst to them, perhaps.

Thank you to Christopher, my dream agent, for lighting such a fire under my ass that I decided to do this in the first place.

Thank you Tom, for making this blog technically possible. More than that you made it look fucking good and feel fucking good, which is the essence of your talent as a developer, I would say. You’re also a dear friend who’s said multiple things about my writing that have nearly made me cry. So thanks for that too.

Speaking of things that look fucking good, thank you Jumper for that daisy shot I love so much, and for bringing my words to life with those quotes. I’m also grateful for you giving me that subtle nudge off the diving board into social media again.  I’ll always have love for those who teach me to think less and do more.

Okay whoa I haven’t even mentioned a woman yet. How about my mother? Mom, my sweet, consistently supportive Mom. You’ve liked, retweeted, commented, responded to more posts than anyone else by a long shot. You are ever the Proud Mama and I’ve felt it every day writing this blog. Your words about my words have been a pretty powerful fuel.

On the topic of parental support – Pops, I can’t thank you enough for how much interest you’ve taken, not only in the posts themselves but in my professional goals as a writer. Having someone other than myself thinking strategically about how I can achieve my biggest dream in life is pretty swell, I must say.

Thank you Sozan, for the intense, borderline-overwhelming support you give me in all aspects of my life, particularly with this blog. I’ve written before about how you make me want to be a strong woman but you make me want to be a strong writer too. And you also make me feel like I am those things. Honestly you’re too good to me.

Thank you Ian, for being an unlikely mentor. So much more than a coworker, client, and friend, you’ve given me some of the most valuable, life-changing advice anyone’s ever given me. You also inspire me to be the kind of person who gets shit done, so in honour of getting this shit done, I owe you some thanks for sure.

Thank you Karen, Krista, Steph, Ashley, Alissa, Cath, Shilo (probably missing some) for being such fucking amazing women and saying such encouraging things about the blog. Thinking of you all reading it was what made this project fucking FUN. 

Thank you to all of the women in my family. You’re all fucking amazing and you make me want to REPRESENT.

Thank you siblings, for being the only two people I’m ever really trying to look cool for. Part of me hopes I never feel like I’ve reached that goal, because it’s been a pretty damn good motivator over the years!

Thank you Kev, Alcides, Chris, Stuart – you are a precious pack of weirdos that I hope to know until I die. Your love alone makes me want to do great shit with my life, just so we can all cheers to it on our next vacation.

And last but not fucking least… Char. Charlotte. Charlatté. Buddeeeeeee. I could say lots of things about why I’m grateful for you but I really just want to focus on one thing. You’ve read every single one of my posts, without fail. Every single day Tumblr tells me you liked my last post. And honestly, you have no idea what that has meant to me. Every day since October 15th, 2017. DUDE. I love you. There were so many days when I just thought, what the fuck am I even doing this for? I knew I had to keep doing it, but in those moments of doubt, I would remind myself that I knew you were going to read it. And that was enough for me to keep pushing. As long as I knew that at least you, my brilliant, beautiful, fucking warrior woman buddy babe was going to read it. then that was enough to make me want to write it. You may very well have kept me from giving up. So fucking THANKS dude. You support me in lots of ways but THAT was the shit. Thank you.

And to anyone else who’s followed me on this year-long journey of entitled millennial self-discovery, I really do want to say thank you. I have such a long way to go as a writer and I’m sure this daily dose of MARY’S FEELINGS got occasionally tedious, but if you hung on, and you’re reading this now, fucking thank you. I promise the next one will be even better.

[roserecaps]

Week Two: Dodging Drama

Let the game begin! 

We got ourselves a group date... 

Chris Harrison: “Guys, Becca is taking this shit really serious. She is not messing around!” Becca: “Welcome to the date, can you all change in front of me?” 

Bringing Jordan on this date is a recipe for disaster and great TV. 

Becca: “Are you a model?” Jordan: “Were you dumped on national TV?”

Jordan just said the word pantyhose, Becca needs to pull him aside and let him know this isn’t going to work out before he slowly slaughters her family. 

Rachel and Brian throws the guys a “curve ball” by making them go through an obstacle course in their tuxes. Nothing says I’m ready to marry you like dunking your balls in ice water. 

Lincoln is officially your season villain. 

Lincoln: “Kissing Becca is like flying to the moon on the wings of a pegasus while dancing with a unicorn on a pot of gold” - Watching it was like flying to Kansas City on a Spirit flight next to a vegan, crossfitter.” 

The guy is sitting on the couch talking to a picture in a Ikea frame. CONNOR CHUCKED THAT SHIT and apparently shattered Lincoln’s heart. We are 2.5 hours into this season and we got high school drama. 

Lincoln: “Connor broke my picture” Becca: “Oh, ok”  Lincoln: “I’m scared, yell at the scary man.”

Jean Blanc: “You have a great smile, but also love your ass lips.” - annnd for that you get a rose. 

Link is sobbing over this Walgreens photo, this storyline is not gonna die. Slip the memory into your spank bank and move on. 

One-On-One: Blake

BAHHHH GAWD it’s Lil Jon!!!! 

I can’t even pretend to make fun of this date, this is fucking sick, but we get it. Arie is a douche, how many more times do we have to bring it up. 

Bec is going home run derby on this shit, she has a hell of a swing. Piss test? 

Blake: “I had a very similar situation to you. I fell hard a fast for a girl, told her I loved her in two months. One day she was taking a dumb and saw a text where her friend asked if she had dumped my ass yet.” “You get it, right” Becca: “Yeah, same situation essentially.” 

Blake, you don’t strike me as a dude that told a girl you loved too fast... *two minutes later* “I think this is the start of our love story”

Group Date #2

These middle schoolers are absolutely big timing the shit out of these bros. 

Little Girl: “You are slow, you are shit, you are trash”  Little Boy: “Crank this thing to 100, catch my balls you bitch!”

God damn, these kids are ruthless. 

Leo, those locks, feathered and lethal. Takes one off the ass to lose for the pink flamingos. Becca better make sure everyone gets a trophy though, we don’t need anyone’s parents calling ABC. Sensitive millennials. 

Garrett: “I feel like you are the girl version of me.” - If Becca isn’t wet after that, IDK what it will take. 

Colton needs to let Bec know that he was poking one of her friends “Let’s hoping we can get past this.” - Wait... it was a weekend?! Big relationship guy. “Timing wasn’t right, it was a Senor Frogs in cancun, I just didn’t see it going anywhere.” 

Becca: “I’m scared this isn’t working out” - Ok, it’s day two. Season is looking hopeful. 

Cocktail Party

Touchdown dances, creepy poems, and more picture smashing. Becca feels like she can turn this season around. 

America: 

Jordan: “I want to show Becca that there is more to me than just clothes. *strips naked* I need her to know she can handle being next to this sexual icon!” - Putting the cock in the cocktail party. “I am not always 007, my hair is always amazing and I’m crazy.” 

This dude is has so many layers. If you slammed Jordan into Jason you 10000% have Joey from 10 Things I Hate About You. 

David: “Are you more than a model?” Jordan: “Are you more than a human?” - True battle of wits. 

Jordan: “If I took an IQ test you would a score a little higher than a model.” “It’s called inguinity!”

Becca seems to have some intense self esteem issues. She has dropped the axe on anyone who has any connection to her life. WHAT ARE YOU HIDING!!!??

Does it make anyone else laugh that when she calls dudes up that haven’t seen more than 2 seconds of tv time to come get their rose that they think they are making progress? Looking at you Mike and John (I think). 

Jordan: “I can’t believe David got a rose. I’m an alpha” - You are wearing a pink velvet blanket. I did learn that there are only 100 male models in America though... Tough industry to break into. Dreams are crushed, looks like I have to pursue my second passion of rare cancer research. 

Alex, are you crying? Wasn’t even positive you were on the season. 

[slickbackdani]

My Thoughts on Never-Trumpers

For those wondering how our election got to be as fucked up as it is, all the blame lies squarely at the feet of the “never Trump” movement who claimed that their only goal was to get Trump out of office no matter what, and the only way to do that was to convince Democrats to nominate a corporate centrist candidate whose only strategy is to bend over backwards to appease the GOP.

So, here’s my question to all of you saying “anyone but Trump” and “vote blue no matter who:” where were these calls for unity when Bernie Sanders was the front runner? For a party supposedly on the left, these “never-Trumpers” have fought tooth and nail to prevent an actual leftist from winning the nomination.

Want some examples? Chuck Todd AND Chris Matthews explicitly compared Bernie Sanders to Adolf Hitler — Todd by calling Bernie’s supporters “brown shirts” and Matthews by comparing Bernie’s victory in Nevada to Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Two problems with this comparison: Bernie’s platform is one of pacifism, civil liberties, and equal rights for everyone; i.e. the exact opposite of Nazi Germany. Second, BERNIE IS A JEW WHO LOST FAMILY MEMBERS TO THE HOLOCAUST!

Chris Matthews also admitted that he doesn’t know what socialism is, but agreed with the Republican assertion that it’s evil far-left communism that will lead to public executions of the wealthy elite. Unfortunately, these people seem to be stuck in the 1950s, when pretty much everyone who didn’t blindly agree with capitalism or the conservative status quo was labeled a “communist” by default. In reality, not only are communism and socialism NOT THE SAME THING, but Bernie’s record shows he is a strong supporter of individual liberties and has always been firmly against authoritarianism of any kind.

Then we had the civility police getting on Bernie’s case for being “angry” and “divisive” and “exclusionary.” I went to a Bernie rally, and I sure as fuck didn’t feel excluded or divided. On the contrary, I listened to what he actually said and heard his message of bringing together people from all walks of life — regardless of ethnicity, skin color, gender identity, sexual orientation, economic class, or religion — and uniting to make the United States a safer and more prosperous place for everyone.

Sure he raises his voice when he speaks, but so what? He yells because he cares. He yells because he’s passionate about his politics. He yells because he wants people to hear his message.

People who get on Bernie’s case for being “angry” or “shouty” or whatever are committing the classic fallacy of prioritizing style over substance. Just because you don’t like the style that doesn’t mean you can reject the actual message out of hand— but even if we’re talking about style alone, Bernie’s still better. We Millennials just don’t go for the folksy good-ol-boy schtick the boomer media fawns all over; it’s boring to us. Someone who’s passionate and outspoken gets us excited and energized about politics. You were raised on cowboy movies. We were raised in superhero movies.

One of the stupidest examples of the media pearl-clutching over Bernie was their horror to discover that he actually dared to commend Fidel Castro for improving literacy rates in Cuba; one of the hosts of The View compared it to complimenting Hitler for being “a good orator.” Two problems with that comparison: one, Castro wasn’t even CLOSE to being the monster that Hitler was: two, again, calling Hitler a good orator is a comment on his STYLE, while Bernie’s remarks were based on the SUBSTANCE of Castro’s policies. Also, at no point did Bernie ever defend or justify the human rights abuses of Castro’s regime; all he did was point out the objective fact that they did one thing right. As one Internet commenter put it, “All authoritarianism is bad, obviously, but not all dictatorships are unadulterated evil.” Of course, that’s not getting into the countless dictatorships the US government has ACTUALLY supported over the last several decades, or the fact that one of Obama’s most lauded accomplishments was improving relations with Cuba. A guest caller actually brought up that latter point to the hosts of The View, and they responded by getting angry and telling the caller to shut up.

Some of Bernie’s critics didn’t even try to hide their pro-corporate bias. One MSNBC anchor said the fact that Bernie speaks to the lower economic classes automatically makes him a demagogue. THIS JUST IN: MSNBC DOESN’T CARE ABOUT POOR PEOPLE!

The husband of one of John Hickenlooper’s wrote an opinion piece calling Bernie “the Trump of the left,” his main evidence being Bernie’s promise to hold billionaires and corporations accountable for their greed and corruption, a promise which the author compared to Trump’s encouragement of hate crimes against immigrants and people of color. Just in case you needed a reminder that billionaires are spoiled children who cry “discrimination” whenever their pampered lifestyles are threatened even slightly.

Another MSNBC anchor actually took it a step further, saying the Bernie is WORSE than Trump, and that he would gladly vote to have Trump re-elected just to prevent Bernie from winning. I guess to a straight white man with millions of dollars in the bank, the threat of an authoritarian white supremacist regime pales in comparison to the absolute horror of giving poor people free health insurance and a living wage.

I’ve seen so many members of the so-called “woke” left on Twitter coming out against Bernie in the primary. He’s the one who’s responsible for bringing to the mainstream the policies they claim to support (like a Green New Deal and Medicare for All,) but when it came time to vote for him, they demonized him and shouted him down out of petty revenge for his failure to pledge his eternal fealty to Saint Hillary, and they instead fell in line behind a credibly accused sexual predator who’s too senile to form a coherent sentence and whose record shows him siding with the right wing on every major issue.

All of this is because of the “never-Trump” Republicans like David Frum, Max Boot, Bret Stephens, Bill Kristol, and Meghan McCain. Democrats were so desperate to believe that Trump’s presidency wasn’t normal that we took these staunch conservatives at their word when they claimed to be on our side. They managed to infiltrate our party and drag it further to the right by claiming to be part of some grand “resistance movement,” when in reality, they all want the same things Trump wants. They’re just more polite about asking for it.

[alexilulu]

10 Games I Played in 2017, Roughly Ranked

This is wildly long lol so have fun, idiots

#10: DESTINY 2

This is sort of awkward. Destiny 1 was a game I enjoyed with small reservations; it was obvious how hampered they were by their own backend in creating new content and design spaces to explore, prior to The Taken King. Even then, it had shining moments of joy for me. I adored the goofy dead ghost hunting like halo 2/3 skullfinding, using every trick at your dispoaal to find another morsel of insane, well-crafted tidbits of lore for this world that the game itself rarely even touched on, let alone explored. Destiny 2 was supposed to be the "we listened and we're fixing it" for that game, and a needed jump to a new backend that would free them to create the things they dreamed of.

The grimoire was removed wholesale, those bits of lore still true presumably but inaccessible in the game again. Instead of finding ghosts, you examine objects in the world, getting a 2-sentence Nolan North quip that usually is more funny than it is educational about this sprawling world they created. And it doesn't save that anywhere. We actually moved backwards in term of the lore's accessibility to the player, somehow. The game itself is still Destiny, helmet popping and aiming down sights and kicking balls around the tower, and it's storyline was ambitious in a way the original was not, actually making you feel at least a little weak for about 10 minutes before you're back to killing Fallen and then doing donuts on your Sparrow on top of their corpse. The game treats itself as both too serious and totally unserious in the same breath, a monologue of serious consequences punctuated by Cayde cradling a chicken and petting it gently. It's good, but it remains to see if it'll reach the same comfortable spot Destiny 1 got to by the end of it's lifespan.

9: NIOH Here's where I admit that some of these games I've played, in that I played it for a few hours and haven't had time to return to it. I have it on good faith that Nioh is an incredible game, and from the bits I've touched I know that to be at least probably true. I've heard it described more as a Diablo-esque loot-game pretending to be a Dark Souls ball-busting difficulty monster than vice versa. It's something I'm hoping to come back to, and if I'd been able to spend more time with, I likely would have put much further up the list.

8: Dishonored: Death of the Outsider Another game I fuckin' haven't had time to complete, Death of the Outsider is the thing I and several friends have wanted for years; Billie Lurk fucking shit up. And her powerset rules. I'm only like 2 missions in, but I'm looking forward to finishing the rest sometime before Christmas, hopefully. Dishonored 2 was definitely a game I was thrilled to play, and I know this will be more of the same.

7: Resident Evil 7 What could be better than the creeping horror of a deranged family out in the Louisiana Bayou? Resident Evil 7 was honestly so unbelievably effective at learning from the last 5+ years of immersive horror games while still, at it's heart, being a goofy Resident Evil game under that. That style clashes at times; The moment when you go outside to the courtyard of the mansion and find a double-keycard locked door when the most advanced thing in the whole house before now has been the goofy projector-doors that hearken back to the ancient history of the series. I think it sticks it's landing well, with a good lategame twist and plenty of goofy superscience in between. I've been meaning to go back to it for the Chris Redfield DLC, but I don't know if I actually want to, to be honest. That game was a fun ride, and they did their best to add the usual replay stuff like a NG+ gun and such, but I think I'm okay leaving it where I left it, on good terms.

6: Tacoma I bought the hoodie that came with a LUNAR TRANSFER STATION TACOMA patch Fullbright sold long before that game had it's transformation following feedback from beta testers, and I never stopped looking forward to it coming out. Gone Home was like a...I won't say formative, because it isn't true, but it was definitive for me. A story about two girls falling in love together doesn't come around that often, and the attention to the setting and feel of being in this old, deeply lived in house. Tacoma shows that same love of character and place in spades, giving you an even more intimate look at the world the crew of the Tacoma lived in together. I honestly lost it when I noticed during a scene that next door, their cat was asleep on the shelf above the laundry machine. Just the smallest details and love shown for everyone involved broke my heart and put it back together in a different shape. A vision of a world utterly fucked by corporatist greed such that they are essentially their own extragovernmental entities, and people live on anyway, just being people. It's so sad, but still sort of hopeful? Even if the world is garbage, people will keep on living as best as they can. It's very millennial of myself to find solace in that idea, honestly, but that's this game for you, one crafted based on the excesses of the last decade spiraling out of control.

5: Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood In any other year, this game would be #1. You're gonna hear me say that a few more times here before we're done. Final Fantasy 14 has been a constant in my life for the last 3 years, delivering again and again the sort of joy that only comes from a game lovingly made by people dedicated to their own love of the genre, the setting and their playerbase. That's the only way I can describe it, lovingly crafted. Naoki Yoshida loves this game, and so does his team, and every inch of that game radiates this. The storyline itself is a little meandering, jumping from a failed revolution to formenting a successful one, to returning triumphant with new armies and allies at your back. Everyone in that game is, again, a joy to be around. It has a somewhat similar roadtrip feel to Heavensward, but never treads the same ground in the same way. It's more like...taking your friend abroad to another country, while Heavensward was a road trip across a state that stops and starts in fits and spurts. I don't know if this expansion will hold my attention in the same way that Heavensward did, or that A Realm Reborn did. I don't know if I have that part of myself that's willing to ride with an MMO across the lifetime of it's expansion this time. I want to support this game, and the people who make it, and my friends who do still ride with it. But this might be my last expansion.

4: Tales of Berseria If this came out any other year, it might be my game of the year. You'll hear that 2 more times before we're done. I've never been a Tales person. I know people who are, and I understand the mystique, but I never Understood it until repeated praise (and some very cute lesbian ship art) forced my hand into buying it. I don't know if I'm gonna be ok when I finish it. The game is very baldly about doing bad things. The protagonist is a demon on a blatantly self-destructive revenge quest against the self-appointed savior of the world, aided by a demon swordsman who wants to kill his brother, a witch with existentially depressed ennui, a boy who barely knows who he is, a pirate cursed to bring ruin to those around him, and a pure maiden with a tragic backstory trying to do good in the world who has fallen in with them through a series of missteps so comic they're mostly just sad. Together, this totally uncohesive group of misfits abandoned by the world, rejecting it and destroying everything that stands in their way. It crushes my heart on the regular. This is definitely a 60+ hour JRPG because I just got to hour 20 and there's absolutely still so much left to go. They've introed villain after villain, placing the shotgun on the mantelpiece for Velvet to mangle herself with just to kill them in the blast. This game breaks my heart. The world it's in is awful, every party member has been utterly ruined by some facet of it that happened to conflict with a totally normal thing they wanted. They're the devil's rejects. And I love every single one of them.

3: Butterfly Soup Remember all the praise I gave Gone Home back there? This game is like that for me this year. You can just make a game about some queer girls playing baseball and being in love, and I'll love it with all my heart. It's not hard for me to peg why I love it; Akarsha is like a fucking mirror pointed directly at my face with a moustache painted on it, Diya's anxiety and gay panic is so deeply relatable that I very nearly cried the first time she said the word Lesbian to herself and immediately tried to convince herself she's not gay. Brianna Lei's depiction of young, messy, goofy girls living with all the problems that happen to kids their age; insane parents, abuse, self-discovery, a lot of bad jokes and getting all too real at a moment's notice. I honestly cannot wait to see what else she can bring to the table.

1 (TIE): NieR: Automata If this game came out any other year, it would be #1 without effort. The original NieR did something at just the right time, with just the right amount of feeling. A rejection of the trend of father figures rescuing their child and getting the good ending, NieR was a quest to protect a girl to the detriment of everyone around the protagonist, including the girl herself. The final ending of that game ends with you erasing yourself from the world so that you never existed, to save someone who deserves to live and would have if not for you. NieR's destructive quest to protect his daughter literally destroys the world around him, disrupting millennia of careful planning and manipulation by people far smarter than him. All because they took his daughter. Damn the world, he wanted what was his. NieR: Automata follows another 10,000 years after that, in the same world, scarred by a war that broke out centuries ago. The game frequently lies to both you the player and you the protagonist, but the protagonist already knows better, and simply doesn't let on. The game focuses, instead, on the ways that something built by humans craves to become like its long-gone masters. Androids are built to be physically ideal, sexy and at times loving to one another, because that's what humans did. It's unclear if they chose this for themselves or if humans did it to them (and obviously Yoko Taro chose for them to be like this, human choice or no), but it's how they live. The machines they fight do the same, playing a phone game across millennia of what humanity was, trying to fill the holes in their life with gender binaries, sexual intercourse, children and family and love. What separates them from us? Are we any different? Do we deserve to be different? Do they? I don't know how to talk about this game coherently. There's so much there. People recently have been talking about it again, as lists like these come up, and so many bad takes are floating around that it crushes my heart. 2B's sexy, so the game is horny. It's bad because you have to replay it 5 times (no, wrong, bad). It's bad because 9S is a softboy and 2B could have been a lesbian with any of the women throwing themselves at her (come on, dude, at least try). I'm not gonna try to rebut any of these, because the game itself doesn't need my defense. It stands on its own. It's the best game I've played in the last 5 years, in all likelihood. It's definitely my favorite of the last decade.

1 (TIE): Persona 5 If this game came out on any other year, it would be #1 with a bullet. This game had an insanely tortured development cycle. Pushed back again, then again, then again. Remember that February 2012 graphic that used to go around, and likely will right around Valentine's Day? Characters were revamped, removed, redesigned 5 times in the case of Haru (who started out as a boy, somehow). But it's exactly the game I needed in 2017. I was a transplant in Texas in 2004, going into high school in a new state where we knew no-one and nobody. I was quiet, spending most of my time outside class reading the 6th Dark Tower novel, Song of Susannah, a 2 inch thich hardcover beast. Because it's high school, rumors started about whatever they thought I was because I was quiet and wore a hoodie to school regardless of the weather, hiding guns or knives or what have you. Akira's experience touched me, in ways I never thought I would be a decade after graduating. Shit, everyone touched me in some way. Yusuke's quiet acceptance of the abuse and labels applied to him by his teacher and his fellow students. Futaba's isolation in the wake of her mother's death hit me in the heart; I dropped out of college when my own mother had a spinal cord fusion in her lumbar spine that ruined her life, left her with 10% her previous mobility. I mourned for years. Haru's quiet demeanor and the immediate, effusive joy she displayed whenever she could be with her friends, no matter the context. Ryuji's bristling rage at authority that ridicules him. Even the side cast struck me in ways Persona 4 and 3 never did. Kawakami's tiredness with the world, her exploitation she brushes off as a fact of life. Takemi's cool acceptance of being forced from the job of her dreams into treating bruises and being blackballed by the world she worked to survive in. Sojiro's struggles with cruel family that would destroy the daughter he loves as his own. Persona 5 is a game about the ways that society is designed to strike down the odd man out, casting them aside as worthless or ridiculous. The simple girl run into a cult, the daughter of a model forced into a role she never asked for, the typecast and the downtrodden, who deserve so much better than the world they've been given. This is a deeply flawed game. Within hours of Ryuji standing side by side with Ann to defend her from the casual sexism of Kamoshida or any other number of aggressions, he becomes a slavering hound doing the same thing to his best friend. The writing, when it's not inconsistent, simply isn't there; Haru's final and rather grand entrance peters off into maybe a dozen lines she has in the main story following her introduction. 6+ years in development can do some bad stuff to a game. But I love it, despite all of that. I can see what this game could have been, with a less tortured development, with a director who didn't ask the character design to make all of the female confidants "cuter". With a more focused vision, a clearer goal, and a better route there. All of that said, I still love my satanic crime ring. And I probably always will.

[odinsblog]

Ugh. This weekend I got into such a heated argument with my great aunt, and I always feel sO bad for arguing with my elders

It was about Bill fucking Cosby

She thinks "those women are lying" and that "no woman goes to a man's room alone if she doesn't want something"

Like.......that's so patently wrong it left me momentarily speechless. Completely stunned. But it’s me, so you know that didn’t last very long

My family doesn’t like arguing, but when we dO mix it up, we tend to get knee deep. We went back and forth 

me: ALL 60 women are lying? All of them???

her: Maybe

me: BUT HE ADMITTED TO DRUGGING THEM 

her: if a woman goes into a man's room alone then she should expect...

me: WHAT ABOUT ME? Do you think women should be afraid of being alone with mE? Because I'm telling you, it happens ALL the time and somehow I manage not to drug and rape them

her: do you think people don’t lie on black men? ask Emmett Till’s momma what she thinks about that. if you were in Bill Cosby's spot I would defend you just as hard, because I know you wouldn't ever do anything bad like that

And that moment was when it really clicked for me. For a lot of older black women, defending black men is in their DNA. It's just what they dO. They *always* defend us. Always. And LOL half of us soo don’t deserve that kind of loyalty

Please don't get me wrong. I am not excusing Cosby, but it's almost impossible to overstate the level of (unreciprocated) "Ride or Die" in most black women. Sometimes I think that kind of diehard support—even when it's undeserved—is the only reason our race made it through the Middle Passage, slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the War on Drugs, and right up to today, through the so-called “post-racial” era where sO many unarmed black men are being gunned down & executed by the police

Black women STAY riding for black men. Weekends, vacations, holidays, 24/7/365. And iMho way too many times we are noooot worthy

Yeah yeah yeah, I know: inherent in my aunt’s mindset is a lot of internalized misogyny, respectability politics, patriarchy, etc. but we’ve been having this argument ever since the news broke, and more than it frustrates me that I can't get through to her, it just makes me sad

Now my cousin, who's a girl and about 10yrs younger than me, now SHE understood and completely agreed with me....but she simply wasn't gonna argue with auntie. Smart girl. Smarter than me, apparently (LOL nobody ever got rich off of arguing with black women to their face)

Sorry if it’s showing, but I was raised up with my mom, sisters and a lot of women Pentecostal preachers for my formative years, soo...

Anyway, imagine my fucking surprise when two minutes later I got into it with my cousin, about Chris Brown. She said, "Well Rihanna isn't exactly perfect. She bears **some** responsibility for what happened too"

I was ready to fucking SCREAM

You'll never hear me shitting on my generation or millennials (at 33 I feel like I’m officially too old to continue calling myself a millennial) or younger people, except for this: in what I believe is a genuine desire to be fair to everyone, I've noticed a "blame both sides equally" mentally in a lot of younger people? And I do not fucking approve !!! Don't be afraid to assign responsibility (blame) where it's due. Just be honest and the rest will sort itself out

So I impatiently listened to everything my cousin had to say on Rihanna, and when she was finished I pulled out my phone and asked her to read this post. And she said, OMG I didn't know it was *that* bad (in fairness to her, my cousin was around 15 or 16 when it happened. in fairness to me though, google and the fucking internet)

Look, I'm not tryna make it seem like I'm: Odin, woke male feminist™ because trust me, I'm not. My fiancee will be the very first one to tell errbody that I fuck up a shit ton. Constantly. I still catch myself “mansplaining” things, and I'm still learning about this whole womanism (aka intersectional feminism) thing.....but.....if push ever comes to shove, I’m telling you right here, and right now: if you’re ever in doubt, BELIEVE WOMEN. And especially believe BLACK women when they're trying to set you straight on the intersection of sexism and racism. No, they aren’t monolithic, and yes, sometimes individual black women might get it twisted (sellouts like Omorosa, or neoliberals like Joy Reid), but basically yeah....believe women and you’ll be right a lot more often than you’re wrong 

Anyway, those were just two convos I had that I shouldn't have had to. My great aunt is in her late 70s, so I don't have a lot of hope that I'm ever gonna change her mind. But my cousin? She's a different story, so I'm not gonna go "shit is fucked up and everything is bad"....because despite being black in America, amazingly I'm still an optimist at heart

SN: anyone who talks shit about my aunt or my cousin gets blocked instantly

[breanne-says-boo]

The Vampire Chronicles Facebook Interview **Recap**(5/4/17)

The Television Show

Production

As many know now, they will be working with Paramount Television and Anonymous Content

They want to stay fully engaged with fans in the production process

No set broadcaster, all options open (Netflix, Hulu, etc.) (Chris joked about it being on Facebook)

Next announcement will be when that network is decided

No timeline for production. They have no idea how long it will take. Script-writing is next. Chris is the one who will be script-writing, Anne will review

Chris: “She finished writing season 1 when she wrote the books!”

Pilot is done. Next are more episodes. They are starting the process and having several meetings with Paramount and Anonymous Content

Anne SWEARS the series will be 100% loyal to the books. (They named GoT as an example of doing this though soooooo)

Anne said compromises are inevitable but artistic control comes from good will and respect; you make it work by picking people you admire and trust. They worked with Paramount and Anonymous Content since they all agreed on a common vision and the end result of the series

No idea about locations of sets and whatnot

Don’t know if they will keep with the 80’s period of the books, however Anne wants to do Lestat’s pre-vampire period period-accurate

Neil Jordan may end up helping out on the project

Casting

Still taking suggestions from fans and looking fancasts up on imdb

Anne: “Lestat is always shaking his fists to those who would break him down…Scrappish impish…lovable hero” Chris: “--and he’s hot!! :D He’s gonna be hot. #LestatIsHot”

Chris and Anne might want to cameo in the series (joked about making a game out of it)

Some characters may change where “ethnicity is flexible”

Anne and Chris agree that POC being casted are important and will be considered in casting. The Millennial vamps (older gang) will most likely be largely POC.

Anne says she has taken notice of black fans showing their admiration of Aaliyah playing Akasha.

Anne gave a story about meeting an Akasha cosplayer who mentioned that she and her friends feel left out of high fantasy for being black and how Anne was moved by this.

Anne: “Akasha isn’t written as black or a person of color…she’s middle eastern” Me: ??? (Those aren’t...mutually exclusive???) Anne: “--but she could be a person of color.”

Marius was played by a black man in the musical and Anne thought he did a great job. Marius can be any ethnicity so long as he’s half Roman. She’d prefer to have Marius as blue eyes and blonde haired like Lestat but it’s “not imperative for him”.

Anne: “Louis at least has to be beautiful”

Armand has to look as described as well.

Anne wanted Cher to play Gabrielle.

Anne and Chris to be inclusive, but will always focus more on how fine the actor is. Talent is needed to get the role, not just looks.

Armand will be casted as someone who looks 17, but will be technically older. Not sure about age for Lestat and Louis (Anne is thinking early 30s)

Physical and emotional aging will be put into consideration (she gave Marius as an example as him looking like he’s in his 40s but being mentally older)

Plot and Episodes

They will tell the story chronologically in Lestat’s eyes so wolves-paris-so on. Basically, how knowledge unfolds for Lestat is how it will unfold for audience THIS MAY CHANGE depending on when they talk to producers, however this is not what they want in terms of how the events should happen.

Don’t want to cheat on Lestat’s life and skip out any details of it (go figure)

Stay faithful to the books and to Lestat’s story

Chris warns for us to be mindful of news that doesn’t come from official page

Lestat and Gabbi’s journey to be expanded

Origin stories of Marius and other older vampires will be shown and expanded on (done through the flashback stories Marius gives)

Blood and Gold will be involved but they won’t DO the story (so using that material for possible spin offs)

A lot about the Talamasca and especially David. Jesse too, but mostly David

(Anne: He’s close friends with Lestat in TOTBT Me: Is that what you call it? lmao)

TVL could be 2-3 seasons. IWTV may be one. Depends

Anne and Chris want to know what goes wrong in the translation from book to media in other series so they can avoid it

They’re keeping eroticism the same as in the books.

Lestat turning Gabrielle will be a big scene, as they feel this is when the series starts to truly bring the vampire world into view and Lestat really starts becoming a vampire. This scene is significant in asking the audience what they would do in that instance. Lestat turning will also be significant.

Characters and Character Relations

SOMEONE FUCKING MENTIONED LOUSTAT AS THE LOUIS / LESTAT SHIP NAME AND THEY BOTH LOST IT (which one of you was it? Hm?)

There will be a lot about Louis and Lestat’s relationship in the series (and Lestat and Nicki)

Anne says she understands how important queer relationships are and how they have driven the series

*On expanding on other characters* Chris: ...human characters like Jesse or Daniel Mollo- Anne: OR LESTAT WHEN HE’S HUMAN Me: :/

Anne doesn’t feel a need to make new characters.

More info on Théâtre des Vampires and the characters in that part will expanded as well

Chris and Anne openly acknowledge Lestat as bisexual and this will be depicted clearly within the show

On the topic of Armand, what that character means to Anne will shine, so he will gain a more sympathetic role outside of just the IWTV perspective. Both his dark side and his more childish, light-side will be shown

Jim Morrison of The Doors was Anne’s inspiration for Lestat’s singing voice and for the band (I forget but I think this was the song Anne named as being a good example. Though, I’m partial to their sexy song “5 to 1″). She describes Lestat’s voice as somewhere between a “barratone and tenor...Melodic”. (Something about Jon Bon Jovi also a little bit)

Mayfair Witches

Rights of Mayfair Witches not available to them (?) and thus, the crossover books are not a part of the VC TV series and, thus no show for them right now

Maybe Mayfair TV series in future. Anne doesn’t want them to play second fiddle to the vampires

Anne and Chris

They talked about the recent April Fool’s Joke. Anne apologized to Justin Beiber?? Why?? I don’t know (they weren’t behind the joke article)

Chris likes Riverdale (ew)

Chris worked with Anne on Ramses the Damned.

Someone in the VC Discord Server brought up the question of if Chris could/would carry out the VC books after Anne. Based off this interview, I think it’s very likely depending on how well the VC TV series goes. He seemed a little apprehensive about it, but he’s worked with his mother on writing and is familiar enough with her characters to care about them. I think it’s possible

Chris went to the VC balls in New Orleans as a kid

Chris’ A Density of Souls may get a chance to be a film. Chris is in discussion with someone about it (?? that’s what I got from the interview anyways)

*After Anne leaves to get Chris a Coke* Chris *to the camera*: She won’t let me out of the house. She won’t let me leave!! Me: Same

The Facebook Page and Other Information

Anne, yet again, made a little speech about how nerds mean a lot to Hollywood nowadays

“Readers know things about the novels that are valuable”

They have a record of fan comments that Anne reads every so often

They mentioned some of the fights going on in the FB thread

(Chris: There are some people with...strong casting choices. Anne: I got into fights with people lmao)

Anne prefers if you message her over the page rather than through emails

They cannot do much about given resumes and asking about jobs related to production. There will be a time for that later

Anne is in contract for two more VC novels. It sounded like her next novel is also included in the TV series’ contract, but I could have misinterpreted. 

Anne asks about any regrets or things she would change from the books as she goes into the series. More fleshing out but that’s about it

Disappointing the fans is their biggest concern and worry

[sarcasticace]

ChoicesHero, an informal review

So, let’s talk about Hero. In my last post I hadn’t finished the chapter cause I had gotten bored, but I will be writing this review as I play and finish it so you’ll get my thoughts right as I have them.

Let’s begin. Warning, long post is long.

The beginning, the part I have the most problems with. For all stories, no even the first chapter, but the very first couple of scenes are supposed to hook you into the story. Hero does not accomplish this. After making our characters, players are thrown into the future. Cool, but... not really. Or at least, it could’ve been, but wasn’t. We are placed in this destroyed fictional city. I get that making up your own city gives you creative freedom, that’s fine and I encourage it, but in this case, the beginning fails to make me care. If that had used a real city, in this case, I would have had real world relevance and a connection. Is it the Gotham to my Batman? Did the major call me up on my little red phone and I flew a couple hundred miles to save the city? Who knows, the story doesn’t tell you. Then you meet the villain of the series... I think. The villain is never actually shown, you see and you don’t know exactly what he... she... it has done. I mean... they know you... somehow, but you don’t know whether they destroyed the city themselves to try and find you or if they’re an alien who crashed landed or was a regular human who exploded when they got superpowers. You are lead to assume the first, but again... nothing is clear. 

There is a really generic ‘stop right there villain’ or something along those lines, but... again... the villain's face is never shown. I guess that was done intentionally to keep the big bad a secret to make his reveal shocking, but considering you don’t know who they are or what they’ve done or even how relevant they are to you it backfires. Then they deliver the most cliche line ever and I...like... just fuck off. “You don’t understand who you are. You keep running from yourself. You haven’t even begun to comprehend the power within you.” Then just like that, the beginning of Hero ends. You have no idea what the stakes are, what evil is waiting for you, or are convinced to make a connection. It only raised more questions, but not in the way where I want them answered like a good suspenseful story should (*cough* ES *cough*)… it is more like leaving exam questions blank or answering a question like “What is your birthday?” with “I have a birthday.”

Anyways, after that we flashback to the present… because that’s original… surprise (not really) you’re an ordinary human with no super powers. Really cliche, but I don’t hold that against them. It’s not a bad cliche, per say, like the constant female romantic rivals in RoE+TFM. I just... assumed Hero would’ve been about our MC already being a superhero who recruits other heroes to beat the big bad, but that’s not a negative against Hero or PB just a thought. Let’s get back on topic. Our MC is late to work! They have an ordinary job with an ordinary (low?) pay. Basically, this is a ‘regular guy/girl becomes special’ type of story cause... not like there aren’t hundreds of stories like that in the world. But, again, cliches aren’t bad, per say, if you write them right. So we get dressed for work and, honestly, I like the simple blue outfit, guys. Why are you dragging it? So we go off to work and are late getting on the train. Oh, so this is that type of story. You’ll see what I mean in a moment. We meet Poppy and she’s cute, but she reminds me a lot of Payton from HSS. They talk for a short time about how the big company MC works for is going to introduce their big new invention and it is so obvious that this is what’s going to give superpowers. Then, instead of introducing Poppy some more to allow players to actually become attached to her, they introduce Greyson Prescott... and he’s the Chris/Mark of the series. The main white LI of the series, the one you're supposed to fall in love with despite there being other (*cough* better *cough*) options. Now, they introduce Greyson, except he's not even introduced, he’s just talked about by Poppy who’s trying to set us up with him... despite him being our boss. That’s gross PB, stop shipping us with our boss/professor. This isn’t even good writing. You don’t just... stick readers right in the middle of character’s lives and have them play catch up. You need to show why these people are interested in one another or why they’re best friends, not just tell you by reminding players of history that they don’t know about. After we’re done talking with Poppy, we actually get introduced to Grayson and he’s... nice. That’s it. Our first impression of the guy that’s forced on us is that... he’s nice. That’s boring, PB. Nice is not a personality trait. He’s also really plain looking. Default white guy model #23. Also, we have high school history so our MC already knows him well, but we the players don’t because… sure, the first chapter of a new book series why bother introduce a character and form a relationship when you can lay down some pre-established history players have to piece together and just accept that the two are really good friends. Not like you haven’t done that before…. oh wait, yes you did. Mark Collins. This is the problem I had with Mark. Just... an entire life’s worth of history we're just supposed to accept and only really told through premium choices. That’s lazy. I mean, it is okay to intro some characters your MC already knows, but stories are character driven. If you take out introducing characters and the point of getting to know them you remove half the interest of even becoming attached to the main cast.

So, Grayson’s intro is cut short when Marasshole comes in to give us shit. It is so obvious she’s the designated rude character that gives the MC a hard time. Like... even more than that invention is going to give us superpowers. And when I say she’s rude, I mean she’s really rude. Borderline “Why haven’t I reported you, you shouldn’t be talking to employees that way” rude. And she’s rude because... she’s old? She hates millennials for some reason cause... she’s old. Throughout our interactions with her, she keeps painting the picture that our MC is a terrible employee/have no future/incompetent. Not only is this a weak way to get players to care about the main character, it also plays into what I was talking about before with Greyson. What type of history does our MC have with Marasshole? Why is she talking to us like this? No idea, he reasoning is RoE!Mallory levels of confusing. So, yeah, instead of getting on with introducing the main cast or the plot or getting superpowers we spend an admittingly short yet boring scene helping Marasshole replace a shellfish catering dish cause... one of the guests is allergic to seafood. I don’t understand why we’re doing this. I thought we were Greyson’s assistant, not even just that, but I’m the executive assistant. Doesn’t that mean I’m at the tippity top of assistants? Shouldn’t Marasshole be taking orders from me? I having trouble processing this scene because this lady just comes in giving us a hard time, but the story never establishes who she is or establish her rank in comparison to me before playing out this dumb scene.

So, finally, that scene ends and go off to the lab to meet Dax. He’s not there, but the invention is hidden under a tarp. We get the option to peek or wait for Dax and fuck yeah I’m going to peek, this book has been boring so far and I’m ready for superpowers. There’s shaking when you near it, but before you can see what the thing is, Dax appears and stops you because... of course, he did. They could’ve pulled a Spiderman origin and had us get zapped where we slowly become a superhero, but no. Dax... is cool, but he reminds me of Nishan from HSS and Whitlock. Mostly Nishan. Dax notes that the shaking is abnormal but as we walk away the shaking goes away, but instead of checking it out Dax says it is ready for the presentation. He even said all systems go like... fuck man, no need to run tests. Not like this thing could explode or anything. Random ass occurrence, no need to worry. Then... randomly, MC mentions Poppy is going to the gala and Dax gets all flustered because PoppyxDax is the secondary couple and they have a preestablished relationship. Like a ‘will they, won’t they’ type of thing. More history us the players have to catch up on cool. Next, we meet Santiago Lupo, chief of security, who… tells us about a string of robberies. Probably going to be our first big gig as a hero. Can’t wait to actually do something. Santiago seems cool tho, I like him. Okay, NOW we get to meet and formally be introduced to Grayson as a character. Better late than never, but...he’s a generic nice guy. Very reasonable, very approachable, very boring. 

Now we’re preparing for the Gala and Poppy just said swankiest… strike one. She pushes me to wear something nice so I don’t have to be single. Strike two. Oh boy, yeah, yeah  Grayson is defiantly the front runner LI. Is he the only LI choice? If yes, that’s boring. If not, if this is going to be a #LH thing, you really shouldn’t have opened with Greyson. Poppy mentions all the hard times in college they shared because... why intro characters and let us get attached when you can establish history the player just have to accept. So, now we decide what to wear at the event. Either an appropriate dress to the fancy gala or wear the work clothes you wore earlier today despite the fact that everyone will be dressing up. Really, PB? You couldn’t have just designed a basic dress? Am I going to get shade for.... oh, yup, yeah. The answer is yes. 

We make it to the gala. “What is this, gang up on MC day?” Apparently. Poppy and Dax have a preestablished relationship that will probably cost diamonds to actually ship them together, but like AbbiexTyler will probably end up together by book 2 and I have no control over it so like Tyler and Abbie I don’t care. So then we meet Meiko Katsaros. Her name is green so I guess she’s important, but after a little scene in which she’s mad with her son, Kenji, she goes away... without us even talking to her. Was that suppose to be significant? Jump to meeting Silas Prescott, Greyson’s daddy, and he’s… not white? Or at least really tan. There is a significant difference in skin tone between daddy and his baby boy. Is Greyson suppose to be mixed or adopted? Also... Silas has great hair and such a better name. Honestly, they should’ve just swapped features. Give Greyson the name Silas, darker skin tone, and the hair. Anyways, Silas gives his son “the look” and yeah he’s definitely evil or shady. He calls his son a loser and Greyson walks off, clearly upset. See... this would’ve bee a good chance to get to know Greyson. But no. This is a premium option. Instead of exploring the character so we give a damn, you make it premium. Sorry, I’m not paying for cut content. What is this? #LH?

Okay, big announcement time. We finally get to see what this damn invention is that will apparently change the world. Finally going to get superpowers in some freak accident. Maybe Silas will get some two and it’ll be some sort of reverse mirror thing. Why you, not me. I get the good superpowers while Silas is deformed. For some reason the word ‘watch’ is green. What... did PB know I was going to get bored and was reminding me to pay attention? The invention is some sort of clean energy generator using some exotic mystery crystal, oh so this is a magical destiny sort of thing. Before he can demonstrate it some military-esque mercenary guys dressed in black break through the ceiling and FINALLY something exciting happens, BUT THEN THE CHAPTER ENDS!!! Things actually get exciting, but PB’s like ‘nah, this is where we’ll end the first chapter”. We don’t even get superpowers.