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stxleslyds · 4 years ago

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ROBIN #5 BUT IT’S JUST ME TALKING ABOUT JASON.

Hey, how are you guys doing? I wasn’t going to review this issue and I won’t because this isn’t really a review, this is just me talking about Jason’s involvement in this story.

I mentioned in a previous reblog (as well as in a old post) that I am not a fan of Joshua Williamson’s way of writing Jason. I think that he, like Lobdell, thinks of Jason in a way that doesn’t really match Jason’s origin (UtRH, Lost Days) or his current stories (RHatO, RHO, and other brief appearances), I think that Williamson is writing this sort of mesh between fanon Jason and a self-indulgent Jason that results in a very... bland and kinda repetitive version of Jason.

I have also talked about my dislike of his writing from a “romance” perspective. I absolutely didn’t like how he wrote the supposed “relationship” that Jason had with Rose in Future State: Red Hood. It honestly left a very nasty taste in my mouth after I read those issues and I just didn’t see their chemistry, to be honest, while I was reading those issues I felt like Williamson was writing an “unrequited love” thing between both of them (Jason being in love and Rose not at all).

That is of course my opinion. I know that many people like this relationship and I respect that but just as a heads up, I am not a fan of Jason being involved in any sort of romantic relationship with anyone. It’s just something that I would rather not see in a Red Hood story and that’s just the way I see it (once again, you are welcome to think otherwise).

Now, after I have said all that (which I believe is necessary because I like to tell you guys my general stances on Jason related stuff), I can begin my “review” of Jason’s appearances in this issue.

Let’s begin!

Rose calling Jason to tell him about Damian.

Yeah, I find this weird. Since when are Jason and Rose talking? Here is where I am lost because I think that I am missing some information.

This Jason right here is supposed to be the Jason that was at the end of Urban Legends #6, right? The last time that I remember Jason interaction with Rose was back in RHatO vol.1 #40, I know that Rose had a “relationship” with Jason in DCeased and in Future State (Red Hood and Gotham) but here is the thing, DCeased is a story that doesn’t belong to this or any continuities so it doesn’t count and Future State is set in the future, and a future that might never happen at that. So, where is this “Jason and Rose being in contact” thing coming from? If anyone knows, please let me know.

Anyway, I just think that Rose contacting Dick would have made more sense but I guess I am missing some context here but hey, I am here to also learn.

The other thing I would like to talk about these panels is Jason not wanting Damian to be involved in a dangerous “death tournament”. Oh, well colour me not surprised at all by that fact, than you so much.

Who would have thought that Jason would have a problem with a child being involved in a dangerous situation (me, that’s who), I guess that this is confirmation of DC not reading their own material because in one book Jason’s helping a kid “kill” the Joker and here Jason is like “WHY DID YOU JOIN A DEATH TOURNAMENT DAMIAN!?” (did ya put your name in the goblet of fire?!?! said Dumbledore calmly). I guess this Omniverse thing that DC has going on is helpful when you want to blame inconsistencies on something other than poor management on DC’s part.

I just think that it’s funny. And also right on the line of OOC and in character for Jason, because I can actually see Jason being worried if a kid is joining that sort of thing, but I also don’t see Jason caring much about what Damian does or doesn’t.

“If I can come home, so can you”

Good lord, I am not having a good time. I hate this. If this is your first time coming across one of my post, Hi! My name is Tati and I absolutely hate the fact that the fanon concept of “Batfamily” is being integrated in actual comics canon.

This is so bad, what the hell is Jason saying? This man knows nothing about Damian’s situation, why would Jason not think that Damian has his own reasons not to go back “home”???

And what the HELL is Jason calling “home”, is he calling Batman or the Batfamily “home”??? Child, are you on crack? Honest question, because Bruce has done nothing for you, he has done awful things to you and he really doesn’t like you.

Let’s be honest for a second, Bruce hates what Jason has become ever since he came back from the dead, Bruce hates the fact that Jason has a different way of seeing things. He only tolerates Jason when he can molde him the way that he wants.

I mean, what the hell is this, why would Jason, after the events of Batman and Robin (2011) #20, RHatO (2016) #25 and even Urban Legends #6, want to go back to Bruce or any of his bullshit? Why? How many times does DC have to prove itself that Jason and Bruce don’t work well together anymore? How long until they realise that Jason doesn’t fit in their Bat-narrative?

I am so tired of this, I swear, when will this end?

Jason and Damian have a chat.

I don’t mean to be repetitive but, what the hell is this?

First of all, here we are again with writers wanting to encapsulate every Robin’s whole being in one word, don’t they get tired of being this basic? Dick is experienced, Tim is smart... how dull do you have to be? I this was your attempt at having Damian waste time then you could have had him say something more creative.

“You are the most emotional”, what does that mean? I mean, i guess it’s true but how is that relevant here, or why would that catch Jason off guard? Is it because fanon Jason is the epitome of “bad boy with a heart of gold” or...?

Also, Jason returning the hug after such a wild conversation has me wondering what the hell is going on, weren’t these two fighting the last time they saw each other? Why didn’t Jason realise that Damian hugging him is off?

Jason is a dumbass.

Well, he isn’t, Jason Nation knows that but he has been written as if he were a dumbass. How did Jason not see that Damian had ulterior motives when he “hugged” him? Jason, my love, you guys fought the last time you saw each other and because the Omniverse is a thing, you also tried to kill Damian...

Why wouldn’t you think that Damian going for a hug was actually a trap? Are you being written as an unintelligent human being again to make another character look good when you are easily defeated? Is that it?

Yeah, that’s it.

I don’t know what else I can say about this panel, like come on, give Jason a little credit, we swear he is smart DC!

Don’t try to play games with Dick, Jason.

Dick was having none of it! What was he thinking? Jason got his ass tasered and now he is like “Dick why would you let Damian play games with you?”. Why do people write Jason this way? Why is he the dumbass/comic relief nowadays? Is this why he was dragged back to the Bat? So he can be the dumb one with snarky remarks?

How boring.

Listen, I think that this issue was good when it came to Dick and Damian’s moments, they are the ones that have more history together, they respect and love each other enormously. Their interaction were really good, very enjoyable. My problem with this issue was obviously Jason’s presence and the part that they let him play. After reading this, I know that I was right when I thought that Jason shouldn’t have been put here. It doesn’t make sense and it does nothing for Jason’s characterization.

So yeah, those are my thoughts on this, as always, you are welcome to think differently!

#jason todd #dick grayson #damian wayne #red hood #nightwing #robin #robin 5 #tuesday spoilers #dc comics

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Batman ’89: What Happened Next in the Burtonverse After Batman Returns

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This Batman article contains spoilers.

Tim Burton’s original vision for Gotham City and the Dark Knight are returning to the forefront of the DC Universe in more ways than one this year. Not only is Michael Keaton back in the cape and cowl for The Flash movie, which is currently filming in the UK for a late 2022 release, but DC is also releasing a sequel comic to Batman ’89 this week. No, this isn’t Batman Returns but a brand new continuation of the Burtonverse from Batman ’89‘s original screenwriter Sam Hamm and artist Joe Quinones that “pulls on a number of threads left dangling” by Burton, all while recreating the singular look and feel of the movies, down to Keaton’s iconic Batsuit and Batmobile as well as all of the cool gadgets and Gothic architecture.

This six-issue miniseries is a big deal — not just for fans of the Burtonverse and Keaton but for the creators themselves. You may already know the story of how “Batman II” eventually became the divisive Batman Returns: after delivering a box office smash, Burton and Hamm were quickly tapped to make a sequel, but the filmmakers disagreed on the direction the next movie should take, leading to the director replacing Hamm with Daniel Waters (Heathers), who churned out something much darker and sans Robin, the Boy Wonder. With the Batman ’89 comic, Hamm gets to finally deliver his own take on what happened next.

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As for Quinones, this comic wouldn’t exist without his designs for the book, which he originally pitched to DC in 2015 with writer Kate Leth. Revealed on his blog in 2016 were designs for Harvey Dent’s transformation into Two-Face, the debut of Batgirl and Marlon Wayans’ Robin (finally!), and even the return of Catwoman — all of which will finally come to pass in the new miniseries, according to DC Comics.

But how are all of these big moments set up in the comic? Batman ’89 #1, out this week, begins to set the stage for an interesting new future for the Burtonverse. Spoilers ahead…

Batman ’89 picks up after both Burton movies, effectively the director’s “Batman III” if such a wonderful thing existed. After the Joker’s death and Penguin’s demise, things in Gotham City are worse than ever, as the Dark Knight’s crusade seems only to lead to more crime. We’re treated to chaos on the streets from the opening panels of the book, which are set on Halloween night, as the remnants of the Joker Gang and Penguin’s Red Triangle Gang loot stores, mug citizens, and attempt to hijack two armored cars full of cash with a cargo helicopter. In fact, it’s after the Caped Crusader thwarts the Joker Gang’s helicopter, sending it crashing into a building, and leaving several citizens dead or critically injured and millions of dollars in damages, that Gotham DA Harvey Dent decides he’s had enough.

Meant to evoke the endless charm and swagger of Billy Dee Williams, who played the character in the first movie but didn’t return for the sequel, Dent is finally given the spotlight he deserved decades ago. In Batman ’89, he’s a man on his own crusade.

After Dent watching the destruction and chaos of the opening panels from the streets after a romantic dinner with GCPD Sergeant Barbara Gordon, whom he’s just proposed to (!), he decides it’s actually the Batman’s reign of terror that needs to be stopped. Dent thinks it’s a vigilante operating outside of the law that has bred even more crime and death in his city. Although Batman swore to protect Gotham in his letter to Dent at the end of the first movie, the violence that’s erupted in his wake has left the city under siege, forcing the National Guard to come in to patrol the streets. A curfew has been put in place, while the soldiers hunt down the Batman.

The first issue raises some big questions about Keaton’s Batman that would have made for captivating big-screen drama. Early on, the comic asks whether the Dark Knight is ultimately doing more harm than good in Gotham, where citizens now dress up as Batman or the Joker and fight each other in the streets. But a grumpy Bruce Wayne (he’s also graying) stubbornly stands by his convictions during a meeting with Dent, who visits Wayne Manor to ask for Bruce’s help in taking down the Batman. Like in the movies, the duality of the character of Bruce Wayne is front and center in the comic, with the billionaire befriending people in power during the day while working against them as Batman at night.

The book also plays up Wayne’s friendship with Dent because it will likely be a key factor in Dent’s transformation into Two-Face. While the beloved district attorney is still one of the good guys by the end of the first issue, the ingredients for Dent’s fall from grace are already in place. There’s the trick coin he uses to make his own luck (given its own origin story that beckons back to Harvey’s childhood in the streets of Burnside), his marriage to Barbara Gordon that will likely never come to pass, his anger at Batman and Bruce (who is hesitant to help Harvey), and the way he threatens two Joker thugs with a gun — although he’s only trying to scare them, we see that the district attorney is willing to get his hands dirty, not unlike Christopher Nolan’s own version of the character.

How does Dent’s war on Batman begin? By deposing the Caped Crusader’s greatest ally in Gotham City, Commissioner Jim Gordon (resembling Pat Hingle). Gordon faces a vote of no confidence after the violence on Halloween, while Dent and Detective Bullock try to lure Batman into a trap with the Bat Signal, which has to be repaired every couple of weeks because beat cops keeps smashing it. No, Batman doesn’t have many friends left without Gordon. We do see their friendship flourish after two movies-worth of crime-fighting, though. The comic even addresses Gordon’s connection to Bruce’s origin story, which feels like a nod to what Keaton hoped would be the subject of Batman III if it had happened.

By the end of the issue, Batman is once again a wanted man in his own city, and when he runs afoul of another major character, he finds himself directly in the National Guard’s crosshairs. Yes, the issue sets the stage for the debut of the Burtonverse’s Robin, who ambushes the Dark Knight while protecting another kid who stole diapers and baby food for his little sister.

Here is the most direct connection to Hamm’s script for Batman II and what would have been Marlon Wayans’ portrayal of Robin, as well as the book’s most intriguing reinvention. In Hamm’s screenplay, Dick Grayson is introduced as a young Black orphan surviving in the streets with the help of his martial arts skills. In the comic, Grayson has donned his own disguise — a hooded black cape and a yellow face mask — to help the poorest of Gotham, and there are some interesting elements at play here that I would have liked to see on screen, especially the depiction of Robin as a hero trying to save those that the Batman seems to forget while fighting flamboyant villains and stopping heists in Gotham’s more affluent neighborhoods.

Some readers have long criticized the character as not only an example of “copaganda,” despite all the crooked police officers working in the GCPD, but also of a very wealthy guy beating up and maiming poor people. Robin’s debut as someone fighting for those Batman’s war on crime neglects seems like a way to talk about (or at least acknowledge) some of the deeper systemic issues in Gotham that the Caped Crusader can’t fight with his fists. This examination, coupled with Dent’s own crusade, even as worries that he needs to “hide his real face” to fit in with the elite and affect change for places like Burnside, would have been revolutionary back then and feels more relevant than ever now.

It remains to be seen whether the six-issue miniseries will really lean into this type of commentary, but issue one is a promising start for a modern reinvention of the Burtonverse, even as it packs in the nostalgia and imagines what could have been had Keaton’s Batman been given a trilogy.

The post Batman ’89: What Happened Next in the Burtonverse After Batman Returns appeared first on Den of Geek.

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george-mackay-macfine · 5 years ago

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Dear Diary prt. 6

A/N sorry I’m a idiot, who doesn’t post things properly, here is the second go at the next part of Dear Diary.

Requested:

Word Count: 6,000

September 29th, 2011

Dear Diary,

Sorry I haven’t had the chance to write much over the last few days, Classes have just started and things are crazy, but to quickly update you.

Living with two boys is easier than I thought it would be. They’re both respectful, and I haven’t seen any stray penis’ yet. Which is a good thing I suppose,

Harry is still seeing that girl, Elle. She’s actually really nice… Even if she is over far too much for my liking… Sometimes a girl just wants to come home from class, have a red wine and sit on her settee without having to engage in small talks with her roommate’s booty calls.

Henry and I have gotten to be good friends. We walk to class together nearly every morning. Talking mostly about boys… Mostly George, and how pathetic I am.

Well, mostly it’s me complaining about how pathetic I am, and Henry telling me to shut up.

Speaking of George, after lunch the other day I came home and had a solid cry before pretending my heart hadn’t been ripped out of my chest and trodden all over ONLY to go out into the living room to find George, Dean, Harry, Elle and Henry starting the first Harry Potter movie.

Let me tell you, sitting between a guy who you nearly… well, you remember, and a guy you want to kiss is not a comfortable experience.

It’s going to be a great year, I can tell already.

October 13th, 2011

Dear Diary,

So it’s been fourteen days since I last updated you. That is fourteen days since I had to sit between George and Harry for 159 whole minutes. Shoulders bumping against one and other as either of us shuffled.

Don’t even get me started on how uncomfortable it was to see Harry whisper in Elle’s ear as she hung over her lap when not even a week prior he and I were curled up with one and other about to make out on some random’s bed.

George and I are okay. As far as he know’s we’re just friends. I don’t have a crush on him.

Did you read that?

I do not have a crush on him.

School’s pretty good, going okay. A lot of course work, but what else should I have expected when I decided to study medicine?

Not sure if I really want to keep doing it, but for now. It’s all I’ve got going for me.

The big event that everyone is looking forward to this month is Halloween. That guy who threw the party, you know the one where ‘the incident’ happened is throwing another huge bash.

Harry, Dean, Henry, George, Elle, Jordan and I have decided to go as comic book characters, and right now I’m tossing up between Scarlett Witch, Black Widow, Poison Ivy or Batgirl. Still not sure though.

Do I be a villain or a hero?

October 18th, 2011

Dear Diary,

We finally decided on our costumes, or rather Elle did. She’s studying costuming at Uni and has decided she’ll make both mine and her costumes for the party.

I’ll be Poison Ivy, she’ll be Bat Girl, George is going to be the Joker, Harry is going as Batman, Henry is going as Robin, Dean is going as Superman and Jordan is going as the Riddler.

Not my choice to be Poison Ivy, but I really don’t have it in me to argue with them especially with how insane classes have been.

Talk to you soon.

October 23rd, 2011

Dear Diary,

This costume…. Christ on a bike…

I know the saying goes ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ but I can’t not judge this. Elle is pretty much demanding I have either my boobs or my arse out. She’d rather both, I’d rather none. I’m not sure how exactly to say no without it sounding like ‘No, sorry Elle I have self-respect, even though Halloween is the time you’re not meant to,’ without her taking offence to it.

Speaking of Elle, she’s still being nice enough. She and Harry are still seeing one and other. They’ve toned their PDA down to a minimum, which is good because Dean and I have had to stop each other, and ourselves from throwing a bucket of cold water over them once or twice.

Harry’s started speaking to me again, which is good. We’re almost past that awkward, ‘We nearly made out, but we didn’t, but we would have if we’d had the chance’ stage, which is good.

We’ve got two days until the Halloween party, and that means two days until I need to wear this ridiculous costume.

Save me,

October 26th, 2011

Dear future Y/N,

Congratulations.

You’re a fucking idiot.

The biggest idiot, If all the idiots of the world, moved into a community together, created a nation. You’d be their fucking Queen…

Perhaps in your years of maturing, you’ve become less of an idiot, though with how we behaved last night I’d doubt it.

Let’s recap shall we?

October 25th, 2011

Its Halloween, and I’m sweating like a pig. Absolutely sweating,

I don’t know how else to put it.

The costume Elle had designed and made me fit like a glove. Perhaps too much like a glove. The green bodysuit was embellished with ivy leaves and gold glitter, a garland of flowers wrapped around my waist.

“Y/N? Are you ready?” Elle’s voice called through the door. “Do you need help with a hook or something?”

“No, I’m fine… I just… Can you send… Can you send Henry in? Just need to talk to him for a second.” I called still looking at myself in the mirror. My breath hitched again as I pictured myself walking out into the living room where everyone was waiting.

“You right babe?” Henry smiled as he peeked around the door. I looked away from the mirror, turning my head over my shoulder. “What’s the matter?” He stepped around the door, shutting it behind him.

“How do you know if you’re having an anxiety attack?” I moved my hands up and down, shaking my head. “Because I think I’m having one.”

“What?”

“God, I’m stupid.” I shook my head. “How stupid was I to think I could walk out those doors and pretend this was me? That I would ever be comfortable showing this much skin, I haven’t shown this much skin since I was born.” I leant forward, stomach suddenly turning “Everyone is going to laugh at me.”

“What was that?”

“I can’t do this Henry.” I motioned down to the costume. “I can’t go out there in this, I look horrible.”

“Are you mental?” He grabbed onto my shoulders and put me in front of the mirrors. “You look fantastic Y/N.”

“Are you mental?” I shot back at him. “How am I supposed to walk out there and face everyone? I’ve seen how Elle looks, how all you boys look… How am I supposed to stand next to her, next to any of you.” I whispered trying to keep my voice down.

“Firstly, you look ten times better than she does. Secondly, I don’t think anyone will be looking at any of us with you there.” He ran a hand comfortingly down my arm. “Come ere’.” He pulled me into his chest, arms wrapping around me. “You’re going to walk out of this room, and every set of eyes are going to be on you, no matter their sexual preference.” He pushed me back so he could look down at me. “You look amazing, I promise you Y/N.”

“Henry…”

“Just trust me Y/N.” He smiled. “You ready?”

“I think so,” I nodded my head. “Thanks.”

“We’ll do it together.” He pulled me towards the door. “You really do look fantastic Y/N.”

“You’re just saying that so we can leave.” He cracked a smile and shook his head.

“I bloody am not.”

“Let’s go in there, the parties started.” Jordan’s voice boomed through the door. “What are you guy’s doing in there, fucking?”

“Shut the fuck up Jordan.” I heard Dean yell. “Show some damn respect.”

“I’m ready,” I called back taking a deep breath through my nose watching as Henry pulled open the door. The fluorescent light from the kitchen hurt my eyes as I stepped out. “Sorry, I just needed him for a minute.” I looked over Dean and Jordan. “Nice costume boys.” I smiled at Jordan’s question mark suit and Dean’s fake muscles.

“Fuck me…Y/N,” Jordan shook his head.

“Is it too much?” I looked to Elle who was smiling her head off. “Elle said it was what she wore in the comics?”

“It is.” She piped up, her black cape swaying around her body. “It’s made off multiple illustrations I saw when I was researching.”

“Y/N,” I turned to George whose eyes were on my chest… “You look.” He cleared his throat shrugging off his velvet purple dress coat. “You might need this.” He stumbled over his words. “Cold out,” I stepped forward and took the jacket. “Do you need help.” He moved behind me and helped me slip the jacket on. “You look…” He started again, words cutting off.

“Let’s go, shall we? MacKay is officially lost for words.” I turned to Harry, his eyes were on my face. I couldn’t help myself but give him what I’m sure was a pathetic half-smile as George finished helping me with his jacket.

“You all look great.” I looked over the group. Elle looked gorgeous in her Bat Girl outfit standing beside Harry with his black batman costume. “I’m sure you guys will get all the girls tonight.” I smiled at Dean and Jordan in their Superman and Riddler outfits.

“What about me?” George whispered in my ear, I turned around and looked at him. Even in his own version of Heath Ledger’s Joker costume, he looked unbelievably hot.

“We got two cars this time,” Harry called again. “C’mon Elle,” I turned in time to see him pulling Elle towards the door as he spoke, nearly running down the hallway.

“Guess he can’t wait to get a drink.” Henry chuckled holding the door open for the rest of us as we filed out.

“Never seen him run so bloody fast,” Dean added. “Not even on the field,” He chuckled.

“We should hurry. The cabs are probably waiting.” I smiled at Henry linking our arms together. “Ride with me?” I looked up at him, waiting for his answer.

“I’ll ride with you Y/N,” Henry and I both turned to look at Jordan as he levelled up beside us. “You look hot tonight Y/N.”

“Don’t even try it, Jordan.” Dean’s hand grabbed onto his shoulder pulling him backwards. “For that comment, you’re with Harry and Elle.”

“Don’t do that to me, I don’t want to be with the PDA King and Queen.”

“Shouldn’t have been a prick then.” He chuckled throwing an arm around his shoulder. “Enjoy the kiss, kiss, kissing.” He chuckled pulling the shorter guy in closer.

“C’mon let’s go party,” I called sarcastically to the group as I pulled Henry even faster down the hallway, to what I’m sure was a night of pure misery and horrible mistakes.

Stale piss and old tennis shoes.

From the minute we walked in the door’s it’s all I could smell, and no matter how much this place was scrubbed from top to bottom, I was sure the scent was never going to leave. No matter how much bleach was poured on the floor, scrubbed over the surfaces it would forever smell like stale piss and sweaty tennis shoes.

At least to me, Maybe it doesn’t to other people. Maybe to others, it’s still a place of joy, and happiness no matter the smell, but to me, it was the same mundane, piss scented house I’d almost kissed Harry in. I know people come here to find love at the bottom of a whiskey filled glass, hoping for a night of meaningless passionless, lust-driven sex. Maybe sometimes they find it, maybe they don’t, but for me, this was not the place I wanted to spend my evening.

The living room had been stripped of all its furniture, people stood on the empty floor and danced their way to the current pop hits. Couples smashed up against the wall hooking up with each other as shitty Christmas lights created a ‘mood’ I could only describe as a third class strip club you saw in those b-grade movies.

“Come on Y/N, at least pretend to have fun.” Henry pulled at my hand, “This could be your promise land, any of these boys could be yours for the night.” He motioned around us as guys in costumes looked girls up and down as if they were some sort of meat on display at a butcher. “Maybe more, if you’re lucky.” He winked at me.

“I feel naked. This is not a promised land, where I can meet new and interesting people, hold intelligent conversations with people. All it is a place for twenty-something-year-olds to come in the chance of getting a quick lay.” I bit back stomping my hell on the toes of some passerby who decided to grab my ass. “I’m going to get a drink,” I yelled over the loud obnoxious music. “I need to be wasted to be here.”

“I’ll come,” George called over the music, grabbing onto my elbow as he began to lead me away.

“As long as it ends up with me drinking alcohol that’s fine with me,” I called to him, watching as a girl shamelessly looked George up and down as we passed by her. “You looking for a girl tonight?”

“Are you offering?” He smirked over his shoulder.

“Not me, the mouse back by the stairwell would be interested though, if you’re looking for someone I’m sure of it.” He stopped looking behind me to where the girl dressed as a mouse was pouting.

“Not for me,”

“No?”

“No,” He grabbed onto my hand and gave it a quick squeeze. “I’m with you all night.”

“I’ve heard that before,” I muttered pushing past George and into the kitchen. I stopped midway through and examined the safest, less intrusive way to get to the counter where all the drinks were set up.

“You playing the games tonight?” George called into my ear, his breath hitting my lower neck as his hands fell onto my waist.

“What are the games?”

“Usual ones I think.” He tapped his hand against my hip and used his strength to drive me forward towards where two guys were handing out bottles of drink. “Cider?”

“Please.”

“MacKay.” The guy smiled and clapped their hands together. “How ya doing man?” I began to fiddle with my costume, pulling at some of the garlands of ivy. “You two want a drink?”

“Cider.” George nodded. “This is Y/N.” George pulled me forward, under his arm. “Y/N, this is Dylan, and Kane they’re in a class with Harry and me.” He pulled me in tighter, like a proud mother showing off their golden child. “Y/N and I are from the same town.”

“Nice to meet you both.” I smiled awkwardly reaching out to take one of the offered bottles from Kane.

“Nice costume Y/N, big fan of Ivy.” Kane smiled, his face hidden behind half of a Jason mask, “You might just have the best costume in the bag.”

“Oh no, I don’t want that.” I shook my head. “Like, at all.”

“Really?” He raised his mask off his face, pushing it up to his head. “Most girls are looking to win.”

“Not this one,” I grimaced. “Literally the last thing I want.”

“Y/N, there you are.” Dean walked by and grabbed my shoulder pulling me to him “Need to borrow her for a second.” He looked at George. “Roommate stuff.”

“What’s wrong?” I grabbed his hand pulling him to a stop. “You okay?”

“You gotta come with me.” He shook his head trying to walk again. I waved at George, Kane and Jason as I let Dean pull me away.

“Where are we going, Dean?”

“You gotta see this.” He shook his head, pulling me towards the stairs. “Knew I didn’t like her for a reason.”

“Like who?”

“Elle,” He shouted stopping us at the bottom. He pointed upwards towards where people climbed up and down. “See the couple making out? Halfway up the stairs.” I squinted, trying to find who he was talking about. “Costume look familiar?” My eyes caught it, Elle’s batgirl costume, wrapped around someone who definitely wasn’t batman… Someone who definitely wasn’t Harry.

“No fucking way,”

“What are you two staring at?”

“No one,” I shouted. “I mean, nothing.” I grabbed onto Harry and pulled him into me, his back to the stairwell.

“Y/N, what are you doing?”

“I just need a hug.” I held Harry’s head to my chest, watching as Elle continues to make out with the stranger. “How you doing?” I asked pulling him tighter.

“Mefh hefd if in four fits.”

“Huh?”

“Mefh hefd if in four fits.”

“What?”

“He said, My head, is in your tits,” Dean cleared his throat. “I’m pretty sure.”

“Oh.” I pushed him away, head moving out of my cleavage. “Sorry.” I dropped my arms and held them behind my back.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, you know parties, aren’t really my thing.”

“Right.” He nodded his head, biting his lips. “You seen Elle?”

“No, not me… Dean, have you seen them?”

“Them?”

“Not them, her,” I shouted, correcting.

“You okay?” He raised his eyebrow.

“Peachy… Dean.”

“No, haven’t… Sorry mate.”

“Why don’t we swipe a bottle of vodka and go have a smoke,” I suggested looking up the stairs anxiously.

“You don’t smoke…” George popped up over my shoulder shaking a bottle of vodka.

“No better time to start.” I smiled at George picking the vodka out of his hand. “Oh look at that, I’m double parked.” I brought the bottle of Cider to my lips downing the contents quickly.

“You sure you’re okay?” I nodded as Harry looked into my eyes. Don’t crack Y/N, do not crack.

“Roof?” George suggested taking the vodka back from me.

“Yeah, maybe we’ll see Elle on the way.” Harry piped up.

“Last I saw her, she was at the bar talking to one of the girls from her class, Laura I think.” Dean rattled on as I peaked up the staircase to see Elle’s disappearing figure bounce up the top step.

“Maybe I should look for her.”

“No come on, let’s have a drink together… C’mon Harry you’ve been ignoring me for ages, surely I deserve some quality roommate time.” I pouted pulling on his cape.

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Just enjoying the party,” I grabbed his hand and dragged him towards the staircase if this were any other time I would have been caught up with how it feels holding onto Harry’s hand, but this was another time, and I was trying to stop him from being hurt. “Up we go.”

Sweat. Smoke. Alcohol. Body Odour.

That’s all that I could smell wherever I went, wherever I turned. Around me bodies moved pushing themselves up against any surface they could, grabbing onto other people as their bodies gyrated against another person. Even as we made our way up the stairs towards the roof. I could see the door it was so close.

“There she is.” Harry’s resistance pulled me to a sudden stop. “Elle,” He waved his arms above his head. “Roof.” He called to her pointing upwards. “Five minutes,” I watched as she nodded her head, smiling sweetly.

Smiling as if the bitch hadn’t just had her tongue down some other guys throat.

“What’s going on?” George whispered in my ear, hand resting on my hip.

“Elle and some guy,” I was cut off by Harry who drew back to me. “She coming?”

“Yeah,” He nodded his head, a ridiculous smile coming to his lips.

“Great,” I gifted my teeth grabbing the bottle of George, twisting the cap off. “Let’s go then.”

“Y/N, don’t drink all of it, you know what happens.” George chided as I pushed myself faster up the stairs, the bottle still to my lips as the liquid burnt my throat a little dribbled down my chin and down my chest.

“What happens?” Dean asked George as I stepped out onto the roof. I looked around to him as the three of them stepped out behind me. George smiled at me, heartwarming… No, Y/N that’s just the vodka talking.

“She tries to burn down settees.” George chuckled.

“Only floral ones who belong to mothers.” I corrected passing the bottle to Harry. “George, do you have any smokes?”

“Going all out tonight Y/N.” He raised an eyebrow, pulling his packet from the top pocket of his dress shirt, passing it to me.

“Call it self destruction,” I began to sway from side to side, feeling the vodka take over my body as my hips began to move to the loud Nelly song that played downstairs.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you dance Y/N.” Dean laughed as he drank from his beer bottle, taking the bottle of vodka Harry offered him as he lent against the side of the house.

“Dance with me?” I called out to him.

“Don’t dance.” He laughed shaking his head. “Unless I’m planning on sleeping with the girl.”

“No matter what I do, All I think about is you.” I began singing swaying my hips, playing with the ends of George’s jacket. “I haven’t heard this song in years.” I laughed at myself grabbing onto the jacket and pulling it off my shoulders. “Even when I’m with my boo all I think about is you.” I threw the jacket towards Dean and smiled over at Harry who’d taken the bottle back off Dean. “Sing it with me, Harry.”

“I’d rather enjoy the show.” He smiled looking me up and down as my hips continued to move.

“Spoilsport.” I pouted swaying my hips regardless. “George?”

“I don’t really dance, or sing.”

“I can teach you.” He beamed at me as he walked towards me before grabbing my hand pulling me to him.

“Didn’t know you liked Nelly?”

“I don’t usually.” I shrugged and started to sway side to side, “But I’m pretty much half-naked, so I may as well make more of a spectacle of myself than usual.“

“You look the best out of anyone here,” George whispered in my ear before grabbing my hands and started to pull them above my head and make me move more freely.

“Shake it, baby.” Dean catcalled to George and me.

“There you guy’s are.” George and I pulled apart looking over to Elle who burst out onto the roof, a guy, the guy she was making out with trailing behind her. “This is my friend Oliver.” Oliver was dressed as Al Capone, the complete opposite to sweet, sweet Harry.

“You right mate.” Harry reached out and shook his hand.

“Fucker,” I whispered, hands falling to George’s chest.

“What was that?” George chuckled.

“Huh,” I looked away from Oliver and up to George. “Oh, nothing. I’ll tell you later.”

“Or you could tell me now.” He whispered back.

“You two alright? Whispering like mothers over there.” Oliver laughed as he walked towards us he extended his hand out towards George. “Oliver,”

“George.” George grabbed his hand and shot up and down in quick succession before turning his head to me.

“I’m Y/N.”

“Nice to meet you Y/N.”

“I wish I could say the same.”

“Excuse me?” Olivers face shrivelled in confusion.

“Y/N.” George chastised me.

“I think what she meant was, it’s more than nice to meet you…” Dean pushed off the wall and walked over to us. “She’s always looking to make friends.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Isn’t that right, Y/N.” I pushed my lips together, holding my tongue between my teeth before nodding.

“Lovely to meet you even.” I managed to mutter out after an awkward beat passed between us. “You know what, I heard the games are starting soon, and dancing.” I looked across to George. “Should we dance? We should dance.” I nodded my head. “Dean?”

“Yeah, we should dance.”

“Thought you said you didn’t dance,” Harry called out to Dean.

“Gotta find a girl somehow, mate.”

“They’re having a competition actually,” Oliver started. “You get a number, whoever gets the same number as you, is your partner, and whoever is best wins like 200 quid or something like that.”

“Great, shall we.” Dean looked over at Elle and Harry. “You two love birds coming?”

“You want too?”

“Yeah,” Elle smiled wrapping a hand around Harry’s waist.

“You three go down, just need to talk to these two for a minute.” George blocked Dean and I. “Won’t be a tick.”

“No worries, make it quick yeah? Don’t want to miss the games.” Called Oliver as he opened the door for Harry and Elle. As soon as it shut George spun to us.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Don’t worry mate, just leave it.”

“Y/N?”

“Don’t tell him Y/N, it’ll only make it worse.”

“Make what worse?”

“Y/N.” Dean spurned. “We can tell him another time.” I nodded my head.

“Another time, George.”

“Are you serious?” George’s jaw was pretty much hanging open. “Y/N, you can trust me.”

“I know, I know, but trust me when I saw this is for the greater good.” I grabbed onto his hand. “I promise, tomorrow we will tell you everything.” George was quiet for a second, I could tell he was deliberating between continuing the argument or succumbing to finding out the next day.

“Fine.” He cleared his throat, throwing the burnt-out cigarette on the ground. “Let’s go find a drink, then play this game.”

“Or we could just chug the rest of the vodka between us and then go find them?” Dean suggested.

And that is exactly how we ended up squished into the living room while a slightly overweight Darth Vader read out the rules of the dance competition.

“The name of the game is ‘Sex on the dance floor’ with that name in mind you and your partner must be touching at all times, but you are not permitted to have sex. You and your partner stop touching, you’re out.” He stopped reading and pointed around the room. “Anyone dressed in a Clone costume.” A guy in a white suit waved. “Is a judge, you get tapped, you leave. Simple.”

“So he says,” Dean whispered in between mine and George’s head. “He’s clearly never tried to dirty dance with a stiff before.”

“A stiff what?” I hissed back, eyes keeping on Vader.

“Y/N.” Dean chuckled. “You’re too cute.”

“When you all walked in, you were given a slip of paper, open them up.” Dean, George and I opened our papers. “Find your partner, we start in five.”

“Number fourteen.” I read aloud. Peaking over to Deans. “Number thirty-two… How many people are in this completion.”

“A lot.” He looked at George’s. “Number fifteen.” So close.

“There you guy’s are.” I looked up from my paper to see Harry, Oliver and Elle pushing their way through the crowd.

“What numbers did you get?” Elle held the crisp white paper in front of her. “Oliver and I got number six.”

“Fourteen.”

“Fifteen.”

“Thirty-two.” George, Dean and I chorused. “Any match up?” He grabbed Harry’s. “Twenty-eight… Damn… Imagine if you have to grind and bump with a guy, who wasn’t me.”

“It’d break my heart,” Harry chuckled pulling Dean into a headlock.

“Sorry.” A guy pushed his torso into our group. “Did someone here say they had Fourteen?” I nodded my head. “My girlfriend is fourteen,”

“Oh. That’s cool.”

“Y/N, babe.” George laughed. “I think he wants to swap,”

“Oh, yeah. Shit of course.” I gave him the slip and took the one he held out in return. “Twenty-one.”

“How are we going to find these numbers?”

“NUMBER TWENTY-EIGHT.” Dean’s voiced boomed. “LOOKING FOR NUMBER TWENTY-EIGHT.”

And so it went, Dean played the matchmaker right until it was just George and I left.

“Still no one.”

“Sorry Y/N, at least you can be with George.” I saw a devilish smirk as he turned and dragged the blonde bombshell he was with away from us.

“What do you say?” George held out his hand as the music began. “Partner?”

“Sure, but first I need a drink, all the numbers ruined my buzz.” He shook his head, grabbing my hand and pulling me back to him.

“Shut up and dance.” George had my breath hitching with the way that he pressed against me. His hands came to a rest on my hips, fingertips ticking my lower back. I ran my hands over his chest, feeling his six-pack as they tensed under his tight shirt.

Turn around Y/N, don’t let him see what he’s doing to you.

I spun around, pressing my back to his front, smiling when his hands wrapped themselves tighter around me. With more alcohol than blood running through my veins, the things that came to mind were anything but G rated, even for a virgin.

“Didn’t know you could move like this Y/N,” George whispered in my ear. I ignored it and continued to swap my hips, George and I’s conjoined hand hanging over my shoulder.

“Neither did I.” It was true, I’d never danced like this before. The next song blurred into the last and we didn’t stop, George kept his arms wrapped firmly around my waist. My eyes closed as I leaned my head onto his shoulder. My free hand holding onto his forearm as we swayed together in time to the beat. George’s hands left my waist and ran up my ribs, pushing my hair off my neck, before running back down my ribs once more resting back on my hips. I felt his breath on my neck, heavy and warm. It made goosebumps rise in its wake, then when I felt his lips my legs shook a little.

“George, what are you doing?” I felt his tongue touching the skin on my neck. I pulled away turning to him. He chuckled, looking surprised.

“What?” My hands run up his chest again, touching his cheek. “Y/N,” He whispered, just loud enough to be heard over the music. He leaned in, my eyes closed automatically. I felt his hot breath on my lips and then felt his lips brush gently over mine.

“We can’t,” I whispered just as our lips were about to touch again. His forehead rested on mine. Eyes opening to meet mine. “I want to.”

“Then why not?”

“We’re friends, remember George.” His hand ran up to the back of my neck, holding onto it. “Let’s just be friends.”

“Friends kiss all the time, Y/N.” I spun around so my back was pressed to his front, “It’s just a kiss,”

“Is that all they are to you?” George spun me back around, his hands pulling my waist closer to him.

“What else should they be?” Don’t do this Y/N. It’s not worth it.

“You’re right,” I whispered, lips running along his jaw. “It’s just a kiss, nothing else.”

“Nothing else,” George nodded. “Just a kiss,” He leant his forehead against mine, “Cure my curiosity Y/N,”

I could do this, just a kiss. One perfect kiss with George…

Without thinking I lent forward and pressed my lips to his. They were soft, but hard from the pressure he used to countermine. I opened my lips to bite onto his bottom lip. George groaned and pulled my body closer, keeping us swaying to the music. One of his hands moved down and wrapped around my waist the other wound into my hair. I pulled away, my mind running on a high from him, from the kiss. George’s lips moved from my lips to my cheeks kissing everywhere they touched before they reached my neck, leaving a trail of kisses down my neck moving the trail of ivy vines from my costume aside, before coming back to my lips. If someone told me that one of the best first kisses I would ever have would be with George MacKay, a boy every girl in my home town wanted, I would have laughed in their face, but here I was on some dark, grimy dance floor, dressed in a costume I thought I’d never wear, with his hips pushing into mine, kissing him like it was my dying wish. My hands were pushing up George’s shirt, allowing me access to the skin underneath as I pulled his lips back to mine. He licked and nibbled on my bottom lip, begging for me to open my lips, when I didn’t he pulled away and kissed over to my ear.

“Ivy, Joker… You’re out.” Overweight Darth Vader screamed from the podium. George didn’t pull away, his hands pushing my hips towards the nearby wall, stepping us backwards until my back pushed into it, his lips going back to mine.

“Sorry we lost the contest,” I whispered, George, pulled away, his hands lingering on my chin,

“Fuck the contest.”

#george mackay #george mackay x reader #GeorgeMackay #George MacKay fanfic #George MacKay Imagine #Harry Styles #Harry Styles x Reader #HarryStyles #Harry Styles Imagine #Harry Styles Fanfic

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mattpitman · 5 years ago

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Premiere.

Well, the countdown is now on to the first day of what is being called the “new normal” in education. Personally, I am not a fan of the use of “normal” in this case. What we used to have was “normal”. I want better than what we used to have...

A new reality for education. Meh. It’s getting there.

The point is, this is the premiere of the new educational landscape post-isolation. I say premiere because I miss new movies. What a first world problem to have. But I do. So I have been forced to look through my catalog of old movies. Some classics, some personal favourites and some randoms thrown in for fun.

The premiere of “new school” is much like what I imagine the premiere of a movie to be like for an actor or a director. You spend hours and hours trying to put something together that ticks all of the boxes, something that the community will get behind and support but ultimately, it could go either way.

Will the premiere of “#school2020″ be a rousing success or a resounding flop?

The best way to look forward is in this case, is to look back at the astonishing remote learning period and the rapid adaptation of a whole system to maintain continuous learning.

What better way to do that than with the help of the movies?

Apollo 13 🚀

In March we were stranded in an unfamiliar “space”, desperately contemplating “where to from here”. We looked at what we had on hand, what we had managed to pack from our offices and desks and started designing. Like the team at NASA we had to find a way to fit a “square peg in a round hole”. A way to keep the life in our learning programs. Many of us had a familiarity with the technology, the applications and the platforms, but never had we expected to completely rely on them. We had success early, but then faced a new challenge.

Groundhog Day ⏰

Like Phil Connors before us, we found ourselves in our own Punxsutawney, a repetitious environment characterised early on by hours of video conferencing, emails and quizzes. Every day we put in long hours to ensure we had differentiated our lessons, but each morning felt like waking up to the same tune on the alarm clock. As the weeks ticked over we found small successes in communicating with our students and like Phil, we learned the value of the little things. We come out of this remote learning period treasuring what we had before COVID-19, but understanding that there is greater work to be done. We came to appreciate the technology when it worked, but when it didn’t, well that was a different story.

Jurassic Park 🦖

When you have just managed to accept everyone into a lesson from the waiting room and then the internet drops out you start to feel a little agitated. It only happened a few times, but every one of them felt a bit like Dennis turning the power off and the letting the monsters out of the cage. When the video stream got a little bit laggy in the middle of a question and answer session, I felt a bit like the “blood sucking lawyer” sitting on the toilet about to be an entree. It was unpredictable at times, but we teachers adapt. “Life finds a way” and so do we, I wasn’t joking about the students being monsters though.

The Parent Trap 📱

I had the pleasure of contacting home quite often during this period. Quite a few students took a little while to warm up to the realities of learning remotely. It seemed like everything they had ever wanted; wake up late, watch TV at lunch, no more trains to catch. Unfortunately for some, the reality of being at home, surrounded by their creature comforts and their teachers confined to a box, was a little too tempting. Netflix seemed more valuable than studying the intricacies of Australia’s healthcare system. Like Hallie and Annie, they tried to pull a fast one on their parents using the tried and tested “I haven’t got any work to do” (at 11am? Nice try!) When the teacher came calling the truth came out and ultimately it brought teachers, parents and students a little bit closer albeit digitally.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back 🌌

What a great movie... moving on...

The Dark Knight 🦇

Small gains locally didn’t stop the “jokers” claiming that quote/unquote “homeschooling” had to stop and young people had to return to school immediately. The educational discourse has been a little bit chaotic and like good old Bruce, we teachers find ourselves in a battle we can’t really win. There is inequity across this great nation of ours and many students need to return to school. Is it safe is a big question I can’t answer, but I was hopeful this whole ordeal would increase the overall respect for educators in general. I am no Batman, but it does feel like we are being chased back into the classroom. This, despite our actions over the past few months proving that things can be different. We found a way to maintain order despite the whirlwind of chaos. Speaking of...

The Wizard of Oz 🤖

We now find ourselves in an educational world of opportunity. There isn’t necessarily a Wizard to seek out (or a giant head) and grant our wishes but we can still work to create a brain (creative & critical thinking), a heart (empathy) and courage (resilience). It’s time for us to band together and head off down our yellow brick road to the brighter future beyond the chaos. Sure, there might be a wicked witch or two, hopefully no flying monkeys, but if anything, school staff have proved that they can band together and work through anything. Like the random group found across the road, educators have collaborated without anything more to connect them than a Twitter account, that’s incredibly impressive. Let’s carry some water just in case.

Back to the Future 🚙

We can’t afford to treat this future recklessly like Marty did with his. We need to realise our past mistakes, identify what has worked recently and attempt to create real change for our students future. There is no Delorean for our students. They need our help now. We can’t afford to be looking at our remote learning programs like Marty looking at his photo, watching the gains we have made fade away. We need to take drastic steps (maybe not as drastic as his) to ensure we are preparing our students for their future. There is no going back and there is no almanac. We need to do this together.

This is it.

It is almost time to premiere. There is a mixture of nerves and anticipation. The big question: what will the future hold for education?

Time to decide.

Are you one of the directors of this new future? Or are you in the audience?

Action!

Here’s a few things that have inspired me this past week as an educator and a leader:

President Obama’s Message to the Class of 2020

(https://youtu.be/H8Ego3_43lQ)

“With so much uncertainty, with everything suddenly up for grabs, this is your generations world to shape”. A powerful message for young people everywhere from a truly inspirational leader.

Staff 2030: Future-Ready Teaching

(https://lnkd.in/gYSQYC2)

Essential reading for educators who want to be the directors of this new future.

Image by Sabine Lange from Pixabay

#theexistingreality #education #relfection #films #remotelearning

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duhragonball · 6 years ago

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2000 Followers Spectacular

youtube

I couldn’t find anything that really fit the theme of this post. I tried searching for “Dragon Ball Z 2000″, and came across the AB Groupe opening theme. The above is some sort of music video of a remix of the theme, as performed by Ariane. I’m just gonna go ahead and pull a J.K. Rowling and say that this is the National Anthem on Planet Bigreen. They poop in toilets on Planet Bigreen, by the way. I just want to make that clear, in case future generations are curious, an I’m not around to approve the edits on Luffamore.com.

So yeah, I feel a bit self-centered when I do these, but it’s also the only way I can keep track of when I reached these sorts of milestones. I reached 2000 on January 30, 2019, actually, but I wanted to give it a few days and make sure I had a healthy buffer in case a bunch of people unfollowed. Anyway, I looked up to see when I hit 1,000 followers, and it was January 30, 2016, exactly three years ago. Three years before that, this blog was about a month old, so that’s nice and symmetrical. I just assumed my popularity had slowed down over the past few years, but I guess it’s been pretty steady.

Maybe 2000 isn’t anything to crow about, but I thought 1000 was a big number to have, so 2000 is like... two of those. I just want to say I appreciate it a lot. It’s a big deal to me to just sort of horse around on this thing and talk about anime and crap like that, and to know that people are interested in it. I’ve been making a lot of gifs lately, and that’s not really my forte, but some of them have gotten a lot of notes, and that’s pretty cool. I’ve drawn some stuff in the past year, and that’s gotten some positive feedback, which is a really big deal because I’m not much of an artist at all. I’ve done a few Dragon Ball fanfics and those have gotten a lot of nice responses, so that’s really great. I don’t want to overstate it, but I think this blog has helped me gain confidence with my creative endeavors, and that’s important. I don’t know what I’ll try next, but it’s nice to know that at least someone will probably be interested in my one-man show “Bigreen: They Poop In Toilets Like Everyone Else”.

I feel like I need to give some sort of update on stuff I’ll be posting to the blog in the near future, but... I feel like either it’s stuff everyone’s already aware of or stuff that even I don’t know I’m gonna do yet. I mean, in January 2016 I had no idea I was gonna watch JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and that was pretty much all I didn in 2017. For all I know I’m gonna turn into this huge Hamtaro fan in 2021. Just Hamtaro everywhere until you get sick of it.

Well, okay, this is what I know I’ve got going on:

The Dragon Ball Liveblog is rolling on. I’m kind of amazed I got through 101 episodes (and two movies) in only 34 days. My plan is to finish the Piccolo Sagas and Mystical Adventure in February, and then move on to Dragon Ball Z. I might slow down a little in March, since by then I’ll have reached a point where I can safely cover one or two episodes per day and still finish by the end of the year. Before, I wasn’t sure I could make that work, but now that I’m down to 343 episodes, I think I can make this work.

I need to update Luffa sometime soon. I took December off from writing, and then some IRL stuff went down and I couldn’t find time to post what I had written in November. Now it’s February, and I think I’ve had long enough of a break from writing.

Which reminds me, I still gotta get that Bardock fanfic finished. I held off on it because I wanted to see if that Broly movie had any insights for me, but I saw it two weeks ago, so I’m out of excuses now.

I’d also like to write something else, but I haven’t decided that that should be yet.

I enjoyed that re-liveblog of Vento Aureo I did back in August, and it occurred to me that maybe liveblogging another JoJo part might be a worthwhile experience. I only saw the anime versions of Parts 1-4, so it might be cool to just go through the manga version and see how that reads. That might be a ways down the road, though. Check with me in 2020, before I get into my Hamtaro phase.

That reminds me, I’m technically still covering JoJolion, although it’s a pretty slow process since I’m waiting for a few chapters to build up. I might not be a bad idea to just do a post or three recapping the plot so far, just to make sure I’m up to speed.

I really want to draw Seras Victoria. I mean, I’d like to draw other stuff, but one day I was thinking about stuff to draw, and I thought that needs to be in my bucket list. That’s a character where I find myself disatisfied with a lot of the fanart out there, because it tends to veer into this sexy anime girl genre, and that’s now how I see the character. I just want to get my own version down on paper. Also, I thought it might be a good exercise if I tried to imitate shading from a screencap of Hellsing. There was a picture of Batman I wanted to try that with, but Seras first, because I’ve never drawn her before.

More Xenoverse content. I think I stopped playing Xenoverse 2 over a year ago. It wasn’t anything wrong with the game, I just didn’t have time for it, and then one thing led to another and I never got back into it. I miss that game, and there was a lot of cool updates to it that I still haven’t checked out, and it was fun posting screencaps from my sessions. There’s a lot of new suckers for Luffa to beat the crap out of, and I probably need to play as some of the other OCs I have on the game. Get Big League Chew off the bench.

That’s about all I know. Well, I’m gonna be busy, so I better wrap this up. Thanks again, and hopefully I’ll see you at 3,000.

#/#//#///#////#/////#follower count tag #should probably go back and use that tag on the others #i have like 5000+ posts on this thing so it's gotten pretty unmanageable #like to give a shoutout to ariane for the stealth luffa cosplay #not quite fanfic accurate but i hadn't even gotten into dbz when she filmed that video so i can't complain #actually ariane's outfit might be stealth dio cosplay #boy that'd be something

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douxreviews · 6 years ago

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Batman The Animated Series - ‘Two-Face’ Review

"At last we meet, face to face... to face."

Two-Face has one of comic's most tragic origin stories and it has inspired some of the very best Batman stories over the years such as Jeph Leob and Tim Sale's The Long Halloween, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, and this two-parter.

'Two-Face' is Batman: The Animated Series at its absolute best. Brilliantly written, exceptionally directed, and stunningly animated, it's the series' first true masterpiece. This is one of those episode you force a friend who has never seen it before to watch so they can see why you never shut the fuck up about it.

I already rambled on in a previous review about how BTAS always made the effort to make us understand its villains, now I'm going to talk about how it also made us feel sorry for a lot of them. In Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's The Killing Joke, the Joker theorises that all it takes to drive someone insane is one really bad day. The makers of BTAS obviously subscribe to that theory since that is how so many of the Batman's villains come to be. Most of Gotham's worst criminals start out as perfectly ordinary people who are living perfectly ordinary lives when something horrible happens to them (or someone they care about) that sends them on a one way trip into madness. And there is no more perfect example of this than Gotham's own District Attorney, Harvey Dent.

This story wouldn't have worked as well as it did if Harvey was just some random city official we'd never met before. We might not have seen that much of him before this episode, but we saw enough to know that he was one of the good guys and, more importantly, Bruce Wayne's best friend. Very probably his only friend. The friendship between these two is at the very heart of the story. Yeah, Two-Face might spend most of the story pining for his fiancee, Grace, but that doesn't carry nearly as much dramatic weight as the pain Bruce feels for letting his friend down.

If Batman is Gotham's Dark Knight, then Dent is its shining white knight. He's the hero people can look up to and believe in. He doesn't have to resort to costume theatrics to bring down crooks like mob boss Rupert Throne. His weapon is the law, but it's currently shooting blanks. Judges in Thorne's pocket are undoing all of Dent's good work. Frustrated with working within a corrupt system, and struggling with the strain of running for reelection, Dent is starting to unravel, exposing his own deep dark secret.

You see, Harvey has spent his whole life trying to be a good person. He worked so hard at it that he suppressed all his negative impulses. This has had the unfortunate side effect of creating his very own monster from the Id: the aggressive, violent, short tempered, gravelly voiced, coin flipping Big Bad Harv. Harvey's been able to keep his alter-ego under control before, but he's coming out more and more, and often very publicly. Fishing for dirt on Gotham's hero, Thorne's minions stumble onto Harvey's secret and the mob boss tries to use it to get the D.A. in his pocket. Big mistake. Big Bad Harv takes over and attacks Thorne and his men. Batman tries to intervene and save Dent, but just ends up bungling the rescue. One explosion later and Harvey Dent is no more, replaced by Two-Face, one of Gotham's most notorious criminals.

I'm going to stop now and take a moment to talk about how exceptional Two-Face's character design is. As is so often the case with this show, the elegance is in the simplicity. Timm and his team never made the mistake of over complicating how the villains looked. Partly because it would've made them more difficult to animate. Of course, just because it looks simple doesn't mean it doesn't have a deeper meaning. Two-Face's black and white suit is a possible references to the Taijitu, the symbol in Chinese philosophy which represents the dualist (yin and yang) aspect of Taiji (supreme ultimate). Yeah, this is that kind of kids' show.

But Two-Face is more than just a triumph of character design. He is easily one of the show's most complex and fascinating villains. It would've been so easy for the writers to just make Two-Face Big Bad Harv unleashed. But that would be obvious and not all interesting. Instead, Two-Face is a sort of melding of the two sides of Harvey's personality. He has all of Big Bad Harv's rage and violence, but it's tempered (occasionally) by Harvey's sense of order, which has been twisted so that everything is determined by the flip of a coin. It is testament to how well Two-Face is written that his obsession with duality never becomes a cheap gimmick, but is a symptom of his mental illness. Because that is ultimately what Harvey Dent/Two-Face is. He's a mentally ill man who placed his job before his own well-being and didn't get the help he desperately needed until it was too late.

Fortunately for Dent, he's up against a Batman who is more than sympathetic to the mentally ill, one who understands that, for all their crimes, his villains are probably the ones who need Batman's help the most. The other day I saw a post on Tumblr (yes, it's still a thing) where people talked about how well this series tackled the subject of mental health and how this Batman is portrayed as a more empathetic character who understands that many of his adversaries are sick people who just need help. Or as one person so brilliantly put it "The story of one fucked up, traumatised little boy, doing his best to help other fucked up traumatised people."

I Know That Voice

Rupert Thorne was voiced by John Vernon (National Lampoon's Animal House, Dirty Harry, The Outlaw Josey Wales).

Comic Book Connections

Two-Face/Harvey Dent was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane and first appeared in Detective Comics #66 (Aug, 1942). The character was originally named Harvey "Apollo" Kent, but this was changed to avoid confusion with Clark Kent. Rupert Thorne was created by Steve Englehart and Walter Simonson, the character first appeared in Detective Comics #469. In the comics he was a corrupt politicians rather than a mobster.

Notes and Quotes

--It's rather fitting that the series' first two-parter (production-wise at least) is about Two-Face.

--Despite having such a important role here, Grace is never seen or mentioned again after this story.

--First appearance of the Bat-cycles and can I just say I love their design.

--The final scene of Part I is terrific, one of the series' best moments, and looks simply stunning in HD, but there are some notable animation errors. For example, when Harvey is first shown in the hospital, his chin, neck, and hair are all undamaged. Also, his left hand is normal at the end of the episode, but is damaged by the start of Part II, although it is possible he later did that himself so that his left hand matched his face.

--In the scene where the psychiatrist is trying to bring out "Big Bad Harv" when the lightning strikes, Harvey's face briefly flashes as Two-Face.

Candace: "My, this guy is crazy." Rupert Thorne: "Yeah, crazy like a fox. That little tantrum probably bought him another 10,000 votes."

Thorne: "So what do you say, Harvey? Do we have a deal?" Harvey: "There's just one problem." Thorne: "What's that?" Harvey: "You're talking to the wrong Harvey."

Two-Face: "Don't bother to adjust the picture. For the next five minutes, I'm in control." --Harvey is obviously a fan of The Outer Limits.

Thorne: "All men have something to hide. The brighter the picture, the darker the negative."

Alfred: "Remember, sir. Harvey Dent is no longer the great man we once knew." Batman: "I have to believe that somewhere under that monster is my old friend." Alfred: "That may make him even more dangerous."

Four out of four monsters from the Id.

Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011

#Batman #Batman The Animated Series #BTAS #Bruce Wayne #Harvey Dent #Two-Face #Batman TAS #Batman The Animated Series Review #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews

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crescent-coral-base · 2 years ago

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I posted 4,185 times in 2022

That's 2,702 more posts than 2021!

63 posts created (2%)

4,122 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@prydonianrenegade

@flange5

@saywhat-politics

@oldshowbiz

@stra-tek

I tagged 102 of my posts in 2022

#snw spoilers - 3 posts

#strange new worlds spoiler - 3 posts

#strange new worlds - 2 posts

#batman '66 - 2 posts

#pepto bismoll - 1 post

#it's hard to control and prevent disease when partisan right wing judges declare all your available means fundamentally illegal and state of - 1 post

#i'm doing the old jingle - 1 post

#before the 800 number - 1 post

#and i've never lived in the chicagoland area - 1 post

#dammit dennis!!! - 1 post

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#it's hard to control and prevent disease when partisan right wing judges declare all your available means fundamentally illegal and state of

My Top Posts in 2022:

A Virginia Beach circuit court has dismissed the obscenity case a right wing Republican legislator had filed against Maia Kobabe's comic memoir GENDER QUEER, and has ruled that the section of the Virginia State Code which provided the basis of the lawsuit is unconstitutional.

4 notes - Posted August 30, 2022

35 years later and nothing much has changed

Those in charge are living large, the rest are all deranged

'Cause IIIIIII still hate you

Can't wait to eVISceRAAAATE you

Cause I still hate all of you.

The temperatures are rising

The sea level as well . . .

"I STILL Hate You"

-- favorite song of Aging Punk on Bus in 2024, ST PICARD 2x04

4 notes - Posted March 24, 2022

Following up on that Rise of the Third Reich and Fall of the Weimar Republic post:

For the U.S, the election of 2016 was THE inflection point setting us on the road to homegrown fascism. Democratic victories in 2020 was just the first step in correcting the course of the Ship of State. Unfortunately, Trump had four years to corrupt and hollow out our institutions in a way that cannot be fixed within a mere two years. 2022 is the breaking point. It's vitally important that Democrats hold the House and expand their majority in the Senate. If Republicans gain control of the House and Senate, it is effectively GAME OVER for the United States as a free, non-fascist nation. The frightening repressive laws targeting LGBTQ+ people, women, and racial minorities that Republicans have instituted in the states they control are a test bed for what they will force through at the Federal level should they gain control of the legislative branch.

With theocratic fascist Republicans in control of both the Legislative and Judicial Branches of government, the Executive Branch is effectively castrated.

To avert disaster, we MUST win on Election Day.

We MUST turn out in numbers too great for our votes to be effectively suppressed, and we MUST vote for Democratic candidates, no matter who they are.

5 notes - Posted November 3, 2022

And Gabe Vasquez has defeated the odious Trumper Yvette Harrell in New Mexico CD-2, my former congressional district before redistricting.

5 notes - Posted November 9, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

In the New America the Christian Dominionist Republicans envision, women and children are property, to be used, abused, controlled and raped in whatever manner patriarchal society sees fit, and those who seek to protect them will be outlawed, persecuted, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of their sick, dehumanizing, draconian laws.

So, yeah, keep withholding your votes from the Democrats to "send a message" because they're "not inspiring you" enough. Keep punishing and tearing down the only party at least fucking trying to preserve the values you fucking claim to hold dear.

Or better still, just give up the pretense and come out in public support for the twisted sick Republican fucks since parts of you in your secret dark fantasies find the world of submissive women and children who know their place and have no recourse to a societal defence that such "good Christian men" envision appealing. Right, douchebros?

19 notes - Posted July 14, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #I'm such a ray of sunshine.

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cochranesahin36-blog · 6 years ago

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Dan Jones On Ways to Be actually A Prosperous King.

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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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Dwayne Johnson Teases Black Adam v Superman Fight

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Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam movie is finally becoming a reality. Having recently wrapped principal photography, the antihero driven movie about an ancient champion with the power of Shazam is due to open on July 29, 2022. It’s a movie that will fill out considerable chunks of DCEU history, from some ancient history hinted at in the first Shazam! movie to the fictional DC nation of Khandaq, to the introduction of the big screen version of the Justice Society of America.

But it’s important to remember that Johnson has been associated with the character of Black Adam for as long as the DCEU has been a thing. Despite having been officially announced in the role years ago, he has yet to make an appearance on screen. And despite his ties to Shazam history, he was deliberately left out of that character’s film other than a passing mention.

While the character began in the comics as a villain, he eventually evolved into an antihero, one who has associated with the Justice Society, the Justice League, and others. While many heroes in the DC Universe don’t agree with his methods, it has been quite some time since Adam has been a truly malevolent force. And it’s this antihero version of the character that Johnson will be exploring.

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But Johnson has long had a vision for how Black Adam should fit in the DCEU. The tagline for Black Adam has been promising (or threatening) that “the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe is about to change.” And what better way to measure that than against the most powerful hero in the DCEU, right?

Speaking to Total Film, Johnson expressed his hope that Black Adam will square off with Superman in a future film. After expressing his own reservations and concerns about how the DCEU got out of the gate, he talked about the possibility of a Superman and Black Adam fight.

“Let’s make sure we respect tradition and mythology, but let’s not be handcuffed creatively,” Johnson said. “We can do anything if we keep the audience first. So to me, there’s a battle that’s going to go down one day, between Black Adam and Superman.”

Of course, the status of Superman on the big screen has been in constant flux. Henry Cavill hasn’t played the role since Justice League in 2017, and while he remains open to a return, it seems like Warner Bros. has other plans for the character, including one written by Ta-Nehisi Coates that may include a new, Black Superman, and a Michael B. Jordan produced project in development at HBO Max that would focus on an alternate universe version of the Man of Steel: Val-Zod. Johnson acknowledged those challenges, however.

“I don’t know who that Superman is going to be, and I don’t know who’s going to play him,” Johnson said. “That’s OK. I don’t need to know right now. But I’m confident in knowing that [laughs]. And that’s based out of what fans want. We worked backwards from there.”

While Johnson is hedging his bets about which Superman his Black Adam might fight, it’s good to remember that Johnson and Cavill had a mysterious summit over drinks back in 2016, where Johnson hinted that “we’re excited for what the future brings.”

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In 2016, Cavill was fresh off Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Zack Snyder’s troubled Justice League was going into production. At the time, the future for the DCEU seemed assured. While we may never know what was discussed here, it’s fair to speculate that a Superman and Black Adam fight may have been one of them.

Most fans have assumed that after Black Adam in 2022 and Shazam: Fury of the Gods in 2023, the next logical step for the Shazam corner of the DCEU would be a Shazam and Black Adam fight. But there’s precedent for Superman getting added to that mix.

For one thing, it’s already been established that Billy Batson’s Shazam has contacted Superman as a way to surprise his foster brother Freddie (as seen at the end of Shazam!). And in a terrific, underrated comics story, Superman/Shazam: First Thunder, Superman serves as a bit of a mentor to Billy Batson during the early days of his superhero career. There’s also a cool DC animated movie called Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam, which could also provide a blueprint for how this fight may go down.

While it looks like Black Adam will focus on Adam’s journey from ancient champion, to corrupted villain, to anti-hero in the modern day, perhaps his redemption story won’t quite be completed in that film. Maybe it will take an encounter with Superman and/or Shazam in order to fully bring him around. Hopefully, whatever route this theoretical fight takes, it won’t involve an “evil” or somehow “corrupted” Superman, an incredibly tired trope that needs to be retired at the earliest possible opportunity.

Black Adam opens on July 29, 2022. Shazam: Fury of the Gods opens on June 2, 2023. The full schedule of upcoming DC superhero movies can be found here.

How would you like to see a Superman and Black Adam fight play out? Let us know in the comments!

The post Dwayne Johnson Teases Black Adam v Superman Fight appeared first on Den of Geek.

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xtruss · 4 years ago

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Who Scams The Scammers? Meet The Scambaiters

Police struggle to catch online fraudsters, often operating from overseas, but now a new breed of amateurs are taking matters into their own hands

— Amelia Tait | Sunday, 03 October 2021 | Guardian USA

‘My computer’s giving me the worst vibes,’ began Rosie in Kim Kardashian’s voice. Illustration: Pete Reynolds/The Observer

Three to four days a week, for one or two hours at a time, Rosie Okumura, 35, telephones thieves and messes with their minds. For the past two years, the LA-based voice actor has run a sort of reverse call centre, deliberately ringing the people most of us hang up on – scammers who pose as tax agencies or tech-support companies or inform you that you’ve recently been in a car accident you somehow don’t recall. When Okumura gets a scammer on the line, she will pretend to be an old lady, or a six-year-old girl, or do an uncanny impression of Apple’s virtual assistant Siri. Once, she successfully fooled a fake customer service representative into believing that she was Britney Spears. “I waste their time,” she explains, “and now they’re not stealing from someone’s grandma.”

Okumura is a “scambaiter” – a type of vigilante who disrupts, exposes or even scams the world’s scammers. While scambaiting has a troubled 20-year online history, with early forum users employing extreme, often racist, humiliation tactics, a new breed of scambaiters are taking over TikTok and YouTube. Okumura has more than 1.5 million followers across both video platforms, where she likes to keep things “funny and light”.

“I waste their time and now they’re not stealing from someone’s grandma.” — Rosie Okumura

In April, the then junior health minister Lord Bethell tweeted about a “massive sudden increase” in spam calls, while a month earlier the consumer group Which? found that phone and text fraud was up 83% during the pandemic. In May, Ofcom warned that scammers are increasingly able to “spoof” legitimate telephone numbers, meaning they can make it look as though they really are calling from your bank. In this environment, scambaiters seem like superheroes – but is the story that simple? What motivates people like Okumura? How helpful is their vigilantism? And has a scambaiter ever made a scammer have a change of heart?

Batman became Batman to avenge the death of his parents; Okumura became a scambaiter after her mum was scammed out of $500. In her 60s and living alone, her mother saw a strange pop-up on her computer one day in 2019. It was emblazoned with the Windows logo and said she had a virus; there was also a number to call to get the virus removed. “And so she called and they told her, ‘You’ve got this virus, why don’t we connect to your computer and have a look.” Okumura’s mother granted the scammer remote access to her computer, meaning they could see all of her files. She paid them $500 to “remove the virus” and they also stole personal details, including her social security number.

Thankfully, the bank was able to stop the money leaving her mother’s account, but Okumura wanted more than just a refund. She asked her mum to give her the number she’d called and called it herself, spending an hour and 45 minutes wasting the scammer’s time. “My computer’s giving me the worst vibes,” she began in Kim Kardashian’s voice. “Are you in front of your computer right now?” asked the scammer. “Yeah, well it’s in front of me, is that… that’s like the same thing?” Okumura put the video on YouTube and since then has made over 200 more videos, through which she earns regular advertising revenue (she also takes sponsorships directly from companies).

“A lot of it is entertainment – it’s funny, it’s fun to do, it makes people happy,” she says when asked why she scambaits. “But I also get a few emails a day saying, ‘Oh, thank you so much, if it weren’t for that video, I would’ve lost $1,500.’” Okumura isn’t naive – she knows she can’t stop people scamming, but she hopes to stop people falling for scams. “I think just educating people and preventing it from happening in the first place is easier than trying to get all the scammers put in jail.”

She has a point – in October 2020, the UK’s national fraud hotline, run by City of London Police-affiliated Action Fraud, was labelled “not fit for purpose” after a report by Birmingham City University. An earlier undercover investigation by the Times found that as few as one in 50 fraud reports leads to a suspect being caught, with Action Fraud frequently abandoning cases. Throughout the pandemic, there has been a proliferation of text-based scams asking people to pay delivery fees for nonexistent parcels – one victim lost £80,000 after filling in their details to pay for the “delivery”. (To report a spam text, forward it to 7726.)

Hook, line and sinker: the scambaiters. Illustration: Pete Reynolds

Asked whether vigilante scambaiters help or hinder the fight against fraud, an Action Fraud spokesperson skirted the issue. “It is important people who are approached by fraudsters use the correct reporting channels to assist police and other law enforcement agencies with gathering vital intelligence,” they said via email. “Word of mouth can be very helpful in terms of protecting people from fraud, so we would always encourage you to tell your friends and family about any scams you know to be circulating.”

Indeed, some scambaiters do report scammers to the police as part of their operation. Jim Browning is the alias of a Northern Irish YouTuber with nearly 3.5 million subscribers who has been posting scambaiting videos for the past seven years. Browning regularly gets access to scammers’ computers and has even managed to hack into the CCTV footage of call centres in order to identify individuals. He then passes this information to the “relevant authorities” including the police, money-processing firms and internet service providers.

“I wouldn’t call myself a vigilante, but I do enough to say, ‘This is who is running the scam,’ and I pass it on to the right authorities.” He adds that there have only been two instances where he’s seen a scammer get arrested. Earlier this year, he worked with BBC’s Panorama to investigate an Indian call centre – as a result, the centre was raided by local police and the owner was taken into custody.

Browning says becoming a YouTuber was “accidental”. He originally started uploading his footage so he could send links to the authorities as evidence, but then viewers came flooding in. “Unfortunately, YouTube tends to attract a younger audience and the people I’d really love to see looking at videos would be older folks,” he says. As only 10% of Browning’s audience are over 60, he collaborates with the American Association of Retired People to raise awareness of scams in its official magazine. “I deliberately work with them so I can get the message a little bit further afield.”

Still, that doesn’t mean Browning isn’t an entertainer. In his most popular upload, with 40m views, he calmly calls scammers by their real names. “You’ve gone very quiet for some strange reason,” Browning says in the middle of a call, “Are you going to report this to Archit?” The spooked scammer hangs up. One comment on the video – with more than 1,800 likes – describes getting “literal chills”.

But while YouTube’s biggest and most boisterous stars earn millions, Browning regularly finds his videos demonetised by the platform – YouTube’s guidelines are broad, with one clause reading “content that may upset, disgust or shock viewers may not be suitable for advertising”. As such, Browning still also has a full-time job.

YouTube isn’t alone in expressing reservations about scambaiting. Jack Whittaker is a PhD candidate in criminology at the University of Surrey who recently wrote a paper on scambaiting. He explains that many scambaiters are looking for community, others are disgruntled at police inaction, while some are simply bored. He is troubled by the “humiliation tactics” employed by some scambaiters, as well as the underlying “eye for an eye” mentality.

“I’m someone who quite firmly believes that we should live in a system where there’s a rule of law,” Whittaker says. For scambaiting to have credibility, he believes baiters must move past unethical and illegal actions, such as hacking into a scammer’s computer and deleting all their files (one YouTube video entitled “Scammer Rages When I Delete His Files!” has more than 14m views). Whittaker is also troubled by racism in the community, as an overcrowded job market has led to a rise in scam call centres in India. Browning says he has to remove racist comments under his videos.

“I think scambaiters have all the right skills to do some real good in the world. However, they’re directionless,” Whittaker says. “I think there has to be some soul- searching in terms of how we can better utilise volunteers within the policing system as a whole.”

At least one former scambaiter agrees with Whittaker. Edward is an American software engineer who engaged in an infamous bait on the world’s largest scambaiting forum in the early 2000s. Together with some online friends, Edward managed to convince a scammer named Omar that he had been offered a lucrative job. Omar paid for a 600-mile flight to Lagos only to end up stranded.

“He was calling us because he had no money. He had no idea how to get back home. He was crying,” Edward explains. “And I mean, I don’t know if I believe him or not, but that was the one where I was like, ‘Ah, maybe I’m taking things a little too far.’” Edward stopped scambaiting after that – he’d taken it up when stationed in a remote location while in the military. He describes spending four or five hours a day scambaiting: it was a “part-time job” that gave him “a sense of community and friendship”.

“I mean, there’s a reason I asked to remain anonymous, right?” Edward says when asked about his actions now. “I’m kind of embarrassed for myself. There’s a moment where it’s like, ‘Oh, was I being the bad guy?’” Now, Edward doesn’t approve of vigilantism and says the onus is on tech platforms to root out scams.

Yet while the public continue to feel powerless in the face of increasingly sophisticated scams (this summer, Browning himself fell for an email scam which resulted in his YouTube channel being temporarily deleted), But scambaiting likely isn’t going anywhere. Cassandra Raposo, 23, from Ontario began scambaiting during the first lockdown in 2020. Since then, one of her TikTok videos has been viewed 1.5m times. She has told scammers her name is Nancy Drew, given them the address of a police station when asked for her personal details, and repeatedly played dumb to frustrate them.

“I believe the police and tech companies need to do more to prevent and stop these scams, but I understand it’s difficult,” says Raposo, who argues that the authorities and scambaiters should work together. She hopes her videos will encourage young people to talk to their grandparents about the tactics scammers employ and, like Browning, has received grateful emails from potential victims who’ve avoided scams thanks to her content. “My videos are making a small but important difference out there,” she says. “As long as they call me, I’ll keep answering.”

For Okumura, education and prevention remain key, but she’s also had a hand in helping a scammer change heart. “I’ve become friends with a student in school. He stopped scamming and explained why he got into it. The country he lives in doesn’t have a lot of jobs, that’s the norm out there.” The scammer told Okumura he was under the impression that, “Americans are all rich and stupid and selfish,” and that stealing from them ultimately didn’t impact their lives. (Browning is more sceptical – while remotely accessing scammers’ computers, he’s seen many of them browsing for the latest iPhone online.)

“At the end of the day, some people are just desperate,” Okumura says. “Some of them really are jerks and don’t care… and that’s why I keep things funny and light. The worst thing I’ve done is waste their time.”

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kingofthenorth49 · 4 years ago

Text

Potholes on the information superhighway, and other things to miss

So as I sit hear listening to the sound of the wave gently caressing the soft sandy soiled walls of the eroding bank in front of our COVID driven overly expensive waterfront view, I’m staring at two words blinking at me from the screen of my laptop that are causing me to smile, that deep internally satisfying smile we only get when something so perfect touches our souls.

No internet.

Now that may send shivers down the spine of even the most hardened 15-year old gamer as they sit in front of their Xbox One for the 100th time as it does a 12 gig regular update, but not me, it brings a sense of inner peace. See I’m a gen X’er, born during Canada’s centennial and raised on skinned knees, streetlight hide and seek, and the best music generation of all times, if you discount the renaissance. Love me some Mozart.

But why would the lack of access to the internet of things, an absence of bit transfer, make me so happy?

Because we have become enslaved by technology, and we are indebted to a few technocrats who now control almost every aspect of our lives. Don’t believe me? Leave your phone at home for a day. Let me know how that works out for you.

Think about how easy it is to unperson someone now. They unpersoned the President of the United States in under a day, so think about how easy it would be to make you disappear from society. If you’ve ever read Orwell’s 1984 you’d understand how immensely easy Winston Smith’s job would be in 2021, how quickly you could scrub the very existence of a person from society should a bad actor, say like a government bureaucrat who didn’t like a post you made on twitter criticizing their political candidate. They can shut off your access to your bank account with a keystroke, no cash for you and speaking of cash, once our current paper/plastic currency goes away that control gets even tighter as you won’t make a single transaction without the government knowing about it, and eventually approving it.

Approving it you say? The government can’t tell me what I can and cannot buy! Really? C’mon Prole, you have a short memory. It was only a few weeks ago Walmart had to caution tape off clothing aisles in their stores across Canada so the unwashed masses couldn’t buy new clothes because they aren’t essential goods.

Well I’m glad to hear that, that mandate will fit well into my retirement plans, but I digress....

China has had a social credit system for some time; it’s a way the ruling class keeps the Proles in line. You write blogs like this that criticize the government; they turn off your access to things like travel. Miss too many days at work this month? No access to smokes or liquor for 60 days. Click. Unpaid parking tickets? Forget about booking that cruise Winston.

Do you think I’m making this up like some dude in 1948 writing about Ministries of Truth? Do you think this isn’t coming? It’s coming at us like a drug infused Charlie Sheen at dollar night at Baby Dolls.

Think vaccine passports. Seems innocuous (pun intended) enough doesn’t it. I mean countries have always required vaccinations to travel into them right? But here’s what you aren’t thinking about. If I wanted to travel to Mozambique I’d need a malaria vaccination, maybe a few others, but it’d be my choice to get vaccinated to do the travel. If I didn’t want to be vaccinated, I’d just not travel to Africa in the first place. No biggie.

But they are pushing to vaccinate the world population all at once, all for a bad flu (yes, I know people died, but people die every single day from the same family of viruses, some years more than others) and at the same time some countries are trying to mandate vaccination passports, like Canada for example. I bet most of you didn’t know that the Government of the right dishonourable sock puppet, the crime Minister of Canada, the son of Fidel himself has issues a request for proposal to tech companies to develop and operate a biometric identification system to imprint Canadian subjects’ identities to vaccination status.

That’s right, if you live in Canada soon you will be required to give up your biometric information to the government in exchange for a few beans, that is as long as you follow the mandated vaccination schedule and eat all your veggies. Think my tinfoil hat is on too tight? I’d challenge you to sit down and do some research on some of the bills Trudopes minions are tabling right now. They literally aren’t hiding their agenda any longer they’ve become that bold.

Combine that with the mass buying of single family homes buy large equity funds like Blackrock. There’s no conspiracy theory, both CBC and the National Post have reported on this, and it’s not new, large corporations have for a long time controlled the majority of the residential rental market but now they’ve changed strategy and have started buying homes in suburbia.

Why?

Control.

By 2030 you will own nothing and you’ll be happy. This is the agenda of the progressives, to even the playing field for everyone, equality is the end goal to ensure everyone is equal. Except them. Someone has to live in the farmhouse and drink the milk, you know, for brains and stuff.

Within the next decade those who stare at goats will control every aspect of our lives through the use of technology. Gone will be the days of individual freedoms and opportunity. It’s not a far stretch from where we already are if you think about it, we can easily be cancelled nowadays for simply sending the wrong 128 character combination across the IoT. Remember Jim? Oh yeah, he was a pot stirrer right up until the time he posted that tweet about JT’s wife liking chocolate better than vanilla then POOF he was gone. Whatever happened to him?

Holy squirrel’s batman, it’s hard to focus this morning. Sorry.

We give children iPhones and then can’t understand why they become introverted and troll their friends on social media by the time they are 12 or spend their nights locked in their bedrooms talking to strangers or conducting cam shows for magic tokens they can trade for new possessions.

This pandemic just helped that little model move up the greatest hits chart just a wee bit faster now didn’t it. I heard the word “Cave syndrome” for the first time yesterday, a connotation that some people will have a hard time re-integrating into society once things “open up”, and by “open up” I mean our tormentors allowing us by virtue of some untold regulation to resume our lives in a new normal.

A new normal of more control.

The allegory of the cave is a good one (double points right there folks!). Yes, I was going all Socrates/Plato on that one. Most people do not grasp the enormity of the reality of where we are going, nor do I think they even care because they have been facing the blank wall for way too long and have developed Stockholm syndrome as a result. If you don’t know that the water temperature is increasing, and you are enjoying what you think is a hot tub fiesta, well then all of this will be lost on you anyway so you might as well embrace the bubbles. Technology is a double edged sword that we’ve swallowed whole, damn the torpedoes. We have become so dependent I fear there’s no escape what’s next.

But not here.

Blink. Blink. No Internet.

I’m going to ensure there’s always a Barchetta stored here, you know, for the future, it just likely won’t be red. Red cars always attract attention.

For now I’ll enjoy the sound of the surf, the wind through the trees, and the feel of the cover of a good book in my hands as society races to obliterate itself at an alarming rate, one I’ll never understand. And I know one thing, i’ll use my phone to access the ‘net when needed, then shut it off when not. That’s freedom folks, that’s what I was promised, and that’s what I’m living.

Namaste.

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