#i saw like 2 accounts tweeting about this all of last wednesday | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

1ddotdhq · 4 years

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🎥Mon 7 Dec ‘20🎸

Louis was around on twitter! “Hope everyone is doing good! Excited for the show,” he said, to which fans responded by trending “me too”. Guys, uh. Well let’s just say that when I saw ‘me too’ trending under ‘Louis Tomlinson’, my heart skipped a beat and not in a good “it's louis!” way. That’s just NOT IT. ANYWAYS, Louis declined to share the setlist in advance, as if he ever would but nice try guys! He told fans that one of the main reasons he was doing this was to give fans who had never seen him live the opportunity to do so! I thought it would have been paying the crew, but really there are so many good reasons for Louis to play shows, please keep it up! Obviously he intends to, he's Louis, but even as eager as he is to tour it will have to wait just a tiny bit longer, and in acknowledgement of that a couple of the shows (Glasgow and Berlin) that were moved to this spring were moved again just now, to fall 2021. Maybe they're doing some final shuffling for what they actually expect to be the real dates rather than placeholders for insurance and ticket reasons! And Veeps sent out emails to ticketholders to log in and test out their accounts; I'm glad to see they're actively working on getting prepared for what will be the biggest stream they've yet hosted.

Liam has a whole ass MUSIC VIDEO dropping on Wednesday! He and Dixie have made a (presumably socially distanced) music video for Naughty List AND they will be going live together on YouTube to answer questions. Hopefully this chat will be less awkward than their last one, but if you have any question, they’re going live at 5:45 pm GMT (9:45 PST for people in Dixie’s timezone!). There’s a small preview YouTube of Dixie and Liam dancing (individually) to the song. Today’s alarm DID actually feature Roman and Liam, telling Christmas Cracker jokes (“Why does Santa avoid dirty chimneys? Carbon footprint!”). Liam and Roman will also be dynamic duo-ing all over Roman’s radio show (the Capital Breakfast) tomorrow morning, so we get DOUBLE the morning wake-up content! Niall got his Irish Award from the Trinity College’s law society, and talked about his next moves. “I’m known as the guy with the acoustic [guitar] and you can’t lose that,” he said, “but I’m heavily influenced by rock and roll. All my favorite bands are rock bands...the older I get, the more I feel like I wanna get up on stage at arenas and play rock songs” (okay grandpa) and asked fans what they were about with getting mad at Ryan Tedder for saying... that Niall was the guy with an acoustic guitar. About the award, he said he was “absolutely blown away” when he heard he’d received it, and that he “[loves] being an ambassador for our great country”. About his name trending on twitter (no, no reason) he picked a tweet of random pictures of him labeled “Niall on the timeline” and added “There he is.” Yep. There he is.

For the weekly ‘about-Harry-without-Harry’ segment: the DWD had been COMPLETELY shut down, taped off, and is blocked by police, as of a couple of days ago. However, today Chris Pine was on an American talk show today (“Harry’s a love,” he said!) and he mentioned that he had wrapped up his filming and was in London. Another actress from the film ALSO confirmed that she had wrapped until January, and all the videos coming from the set now are a couple of days old, so it seems like the next time we will be seeing Harry is on the 10th for his Jingle Ball performance (ahhh!!! 3 days!!!). Meanwhile the real Harry liked a Lizzo post about body positivity, excellent stuff.

Today was tumblr’s year in review and We Made It!! It was not universally celebrated, but it was still very funny: Larry Stylinson was the 43rd most popular ship on tumblr (Larries: IT'S NOT A SHIP, MOM!), Harry was the #1 solo artist, Louis entered the chart #3 (Taylor Swift came between them at number 2, and there’s a joke to be made there but I won’t be the one to make it!), Niall was #5, and One Direction as a whole was #5 for ‘group artists’. And, because we all need a bit of twitter madness in our life, twitter stans discovered that a user named ‘CaucasianJames’ (because that username SCREAMS credibility) had ‘attended a zoom wedding’ for ‘Mitch’ and ‘Sarah’. Fans quickly went to check out the REAL Mitch and Sarah’s instagram page and lo and behold, Mitch was wearing a wedding ring in Sarah’s latest picture! Could...did they get married?? Alas, CaucasianJames admitted that he had NO CLUE why his mentions had just exploded, because it was a prank and he’d just picked two random names out of a hat. So that’s that for that, except, well...Mitch *is* wearing a wedding band. Uh, so? Congratulations, lovebirds?? Maybe? And DEFINITELY congrats to James, who sent me on yet ANOTHER twitter goosechase, and we all know how much I ADORE those.

#louis tomlinson #liam payne #niall horan #harry styles #and the rest of the world too!#hahahaha well today was a fun update to write #also just in case anyone was wondering Vogue Magazine DID NOT call Louis gay #it was The Vogue theatre in Indianapolis and he doesnt have any upcoming events there nor has he ever played there in the past #they just wanted everyone to know he was gay #Anyways!#song of the day!#Just Breathe by Pearl Jam #also I finished the book I told everyone about two days ago #Cemetery boys - and it was SO SO SO SO good #i CANNOT RECCOMEND IT ENOUGH

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rachelthompsonauthor · 3 years

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What is social proof? It’s a marketing concept that we are all inadvertently, unknowingly contributing to every time we click on, retweet, like, reply or comment, and share any kind of social media, article, or blog post on the net. Technically, social proof, as defined by Sprout Social is:

The concept that people will follow the actions of the masses. The idea is that since so many other people behave in a certain way, it must be the correct behavior.

Social Proof and Me

As an author, social media is a hugely important part of my author platform, as it is for any writer or blogger. This is how we connect with readers now, even before the pandemic. Virtual, online events are now the norm. Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube Live video discussions are the new book signings. Twitter chats are weekly on any number of topics; I have two of my own, in fact, #SexAbuseChat every Tuesday at 6 pm pst/9 pm est and #BookMarketingChat every Wednesday at 6 pm pst/9 pm est.

All important for visibility, branding, and most importantly, connection.

However…there’s a limit. I reached my limit over the course of this past year. It didn’t come all at once. It came, little by little, reaching a peak this past month or so.

Why? How? Me, the so-called social media expert?

Access. Like many people, I have issues with the incredible level of access Facebook gives people once we friend them without our consent. PMs (private messages) are automatic, now with the ability for people to call, voice, and video message us, with no option to shut these options to OFF unless we unfriend the person (we can, however, mute a specific conversation). Technically, we do give them consent in the legal mumbo jumbo we all agreed to when we joined back in the 2010s.

I am not okay with this. And Facebook doesn’t care. Nobody cares. You’re probably thinking, “Geez, Karen. Shut up, already. Stop your whining, white lady.” I get it. I do. First-world problems.

I counter with: I hear you. It’s also part of my business. A huge part. Here’s why:

As someone who manages over 70+ various social media accounts as part of my BadRedhead Media business, plus my own accounts as well, Facebook requires I have a personal account in order to manage all those other Pages. I do understand why, particularly with all the ridiculousness of the past four years with the abundance of fake accounts, fake news, and such.

As a survivor of sexual abuse and stalking, this is ultra-concerning to me. So, what happened this past month or so? Suffice it to say, one person repeatedly tried calling me. I never pick up Facebook calls, especially if I don’t know you. Another left me a few voice messages saying they were offended by something.

Yet another left me another message in ALL SHOUTY CAPS that she didn’t find what I posted inspirational enough and she expected better from someone who is “supposedly on the side of authors.”

Oh, and there is the one lady who started replying on ALL my posts to the kind people who did comment that she didn’t think I replied often enough or to her satisfaction.

Well. I’ve been criticized before. You should read some of my 1-star reviews. There’s plenty!

But, for whatever reason, this struck a chord. I got up in my feels. I cried. I talked with one of them and we worked it out because we like and respect each other’s work in the mental health space. The others I blocked. It’s darn frustrating to donate hours of my time each week to helping writers solely because I want to, only to be told it’s not enough. Like, seriously? Fuck off.

My blood raged. My heart sank. Understandable, right?

But what really made me angry is that I put myself in that position by being available. I accepted that ‘it is what it is.’ This is what the social media platforms have given us, so that’s what I have to work within.

I’m too available. It’s too easy to leave me shitty messages. This is why people hire people like me – to handle this crap for them! So they don’t have to read these ridiculous criticisms from judgy people who apparently have nothing better to do or are having a bad day.

And I get bad days. It’s a damn pandemic. We’re all struggling. Where’s the damn compassion for one another?

I have a dislike/hate relationship with Facebook anyway, since about ten or so years ago when I discovered that a past love had died by suicide by going to his personal profile and seeing, “RIP dude,” messages there. We had spoken early that day. It still haunts me.

So…what to do? I’m claiming my time. I’m not posting to my personal Facebook profile right now. I’m ignoring it. I am checking my Pages and of course, my client Pages. When I feel like I can face it again, I will cull my ‘friends’ down from *checks real quick* 4385 people to maybe, I don’t know, the few hundred in my groups, many of whom I do know and treasure.

Social Proof and You

If you’re a writer, social proof matters. This is the world we live in. Publishing is not only writing.

You need to be ‘findable,’ not only on Google, but also on each individual social platform, so your readers can learn more about you and hopefully, buy your books. If you go the traditional route, publishers and agents want to know how many followers you have (easily upped by buying fake followers or likes from Fiverr or wherever). I suggest not doing that, because:

1) fake followers don’t buy books

2) it’s usually pretty obvious when you have fake followers because they’re all foreign names, have questionable bios, and no tweets

3) do you really want to start your publishing career with a lie?

They also want to know what you post, how often, and what your branding is. If you’re an indie author, honestly, the same applies. Social proof is about connection, building relationships, and authenticity. I’ve believed that since I started my business and writing career way back in 2011, and I stand by it now. Start slow, grow slow. It’s not a race.

I’m the furthest thing you’ll even find from a conspiracy theorist – I don’t believe in chemtrails, pizza parlor cabals, or that the earth is flat. However, I am a realist. Watch The Social Dilemma sometime. These huge tech companies share our data without our knowledge or consent (Cambridge Analytics, anyone?). Younger generations are so used to this, they don’t really care – ask them.

(My kids think having a chip implanted in their hands with all their data is a fabulous idea. “So much easier than having to talk and repeat everything over and over. Just scan me and be done with it,” says my daughter Anya (21). “Agree,” grunts my son, Lukas (15). Buy stuff, go to the doctor, whatever. Scan and go. Talk with any GenZ kid, you’ll likely get a similar answer. They’ve been tracked since birth everywhere. They don’t know life without a computer, tablet, or phone in their hands.)

Know that whatever we do, it’s all part of each platforms’ AI, and they share data, which is why that darling pair of shoes you just saw on Amazon is now showing up on Google, Facebook, Twitter, and every website you visit going forward. It’s all about the money, and they all get a piece of that affiliate link.

Every bit of every click is recorded, even when you’re watching videos on YouTube, or a subscription service like Netflix, or perusing goods on Amazon. It’s all connected. I’m not shocked or surprised by any of this, are you?

It’s Not Personal

What people say to us and about us is ultimately incredibly revealing about them. We know this, at an intellectual, psychological, and emotional level. Still, when people say mean things, it hurts. We’re human.

Does it matter in the overall scope of our lives? Who can say. It matters at that moment. It can matter when it comes to overall visibility when you’re marketing your book(s) or trying to get that book contract or interview. Only you can say if it matters to you.

Already a longtime fan of THE FOUR AGREEMENTS by Don Miguel Ruiz, I took a moment to reorient myself with this one agreement: Don’t take anything personally. I also stumbled across an excellent short and entertaining TEDTalk by Frederick Imbo. His main message to stop taking things personally is two-fold;

It’s not about me. Look at the other person’s intention and

It IS about me. Give yourself some empathy. Speak up. Ask questions. Pay attention to how you feel and be vulnerable with your needs.

I’m glad I was able to, inadvertently, employ point #2 and work out some issues with one of the people by telling him what he said made me cry. He apologized. I apologized. We talked it through and we’re still friends.

Ultimately, social media is what we contribute to it. What we make it. How much we allow of it into our lives. Social proof is going along with the tide. I’ve been in this space since 2008. Being connected to others is a big part of the work I do to help and support not only other writers, but also other childhood sexual abuse survivors. However, I’ve reached that point. I knew it was coming.

I’m not shutting my doors. I’m just adding a screen. With a strong lock.

***

Read more about Rachel’s experiences in the award-winning book, Broken Pieces.

She goes into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected her life in

Broken Places, available in print everywhere!

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yikesharringrove · 5 years

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the fic you wrote for my last prompt was amazing, ty 😭 can you do 50 + 56 this time please? and if you want to work in dyslexic!steve too that would be awesome! 🥰

You are speaking my fuckin’ language, dyslexic Steve is my ABSOLUTE jam. Honestly, whenever I write Steve, he’s dyslexic, although sometimes it’s not mentioned because it’s not important to Harry’s journey @ jk rowling

Thank you for your request! I’m really glad you liked the other one I wrote! You’re anonymous so I don’t know which one that is but I really enjoyed writing them all! Sorry for my manic energy rn.

Something a little different, it’s modern au! This is probably nothing like what you were thinking so I’m sorry, but I kinda love it ngl.

50: Secret Admirer

56: “I don’t know if I should be flattered or offended.”

Prompt list!

Billy spent three and a half hours reading through every single tweet on the account.

There were so fucking many of them. The earliest one was timestamped from four days ago, so obviously, this person had no life outside of tweeting.

Tweeting about Billy.

He had a few personal favorites. He had retweeted them to his account, figuring may as well play it up, make a joke outta everything.

@ImHardForHargrove: sorry WHOMST gave you the RIGHT to have eyes that fuckin blue im YELLING

@ImHardForHargrove: watchin u play basketball is a religious experience y are ur arms so BIG hhnnnng

And Billy’s absolute favorite, which he pinned right at the top of his account

@ImHardForHargrove: ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass

Billy knew he looked good. Knew he turned heads wherever he went. He did that on purpose. But realizing someone at Hawkins High had set up a thirst account for him, well.

“I don’t know if I should be flattered or offended.” Billy had explained the situation to Robin, letting her go through the account on his phone. “Like, It’s kinda nice, whoever this guy is, he’s got a crush. But also like, It’s kinda creepy. Plus he’s objectifying me,” Billy was talking through his sandwich.

Robin made a face of disgust. “Why do you keep saying ‘he’? All of the girls in this fucking school are practically drooling for you.”

“Hard for Hargrove, Robin. I know you’re like, revolted by the peen and whatever but that does not excuse a lack of basic sexual education and anatomy.” She gagged at him. Honest to God, gagged. He thought she was gonna spew all over the table.

“If I ever hear you call it a peen ever again, it’s on sight Hargrove.” Heather plopped herself down next to Robin, kissing her cheek before zeroing in on Billy’s phone, still in Robin’s hand.

“Have you guys worked out who it could be yet?” Her eyes were wide at Billy.

“Billy says he thinks its a guy even though people with penises aren’t necessarily men.” Robin gave him a pointed look.

“Yeah Robin, I know that, but, I don’t know I just think it’s a guy penis-having person.”

Heather narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you actually think that, or are you just hoping in that goblin little brain of yours that this account is Steve Harrington’s.” Billy could feel the heat spread down his neck.

“Billy, I know Steve is like, the only out guy in this whole fucking town, but you can do way better than him. PLUS, I feel like it makes more sense if the person running this account wasn’t out and had to channel their gay yearning through social media.”

“First of all Robin, you have this vendetta against Steve that I don’t get. He’s a nice guy. He’s kinda dopey, kinda dumb, but he’s like, sweet and shit. Second, I’m not out, so it still could be him because he doesn’t think I would, like, accept his advances or whatever. Hence, gay internet yearning.” The chime of the bell sent them packing their lunches, Billy’s phone vibrated in Robin’s hand. She rolled her eyes when he realized he turned on notifications for the account

“Get a fucking life you loser.” She slapped the phone into his hand. He opened the new tweet with embarrassing zeal.

@ImHardForHargrove: i saw u talking with ur mouth full and it was yucky but i was still 🥺🥺

His head shot up, trying to see who would have been facing him during lunch, but the cafeteria was almost empty.

The rest of the week Billy took deliberate care of every interaction he had with anyone. Observing who was in his surroundings, and making note of everything he did and said. He took extra caution around Steve, wanting to spot any minute detail that could give away who ran the account.

The account started blowing up. People were retweeting like fucking crazy. Everywhere he went, he was being asked if he’s seen it, like he doesn’t regularly retweet the good ones. The search for the owner of the account had spread throughout the whole school. A few girls even tried to claim the account was theirs, but every time that happened the account would tweet out something to discredit whoever made the claim, proving them a liar.

Billy was starting to lose hope it was Harrington. The tweets were coming at all different times, posted whenever the person thought about it, so Billy was losing track of who was near when he said or did something. And the tweets were always about stupid stuff Billy didn’t register doing. On Wednesday night the account said

@ImHardForHargrove: hi when you chew on your pencil and it makes me 🥴 that is all thx for comin to my ted talk

Friday afternoon gave them all:

@ImHardForHargrove: walked past ur classroom and u were asleep ive never wanted to CUDDLE someone so bad in my LIFE

But Saturday, Saturday renewed all hope for Harrington Billy could possibly have. Lauren Kranz was throwing a party. It was the first real rager in a while, so everyone was there, and everyone was sloshed. Everyone but Billy, who’d agreed to be designated driver for Robin and Heather like some kinda idiot.

He was brooding on the back porch when his phone went off. The account was active, and the owner was drunk.

@ImHardForHargrove: I can seeeeee u oyt the windw I wan u 2 FUC ME. RAW DOG.

@ImHardForHargrove: srry ur so beauitiful nd THICCC

@ImHardForHargrove: I wana shoot my shot but idk if u lik bois

@ImHardForHargrove: (ys i am boi)

@ImHardForHargrove: nd i dont wana get my heart broken agin 😥

He was right about it being a guy. He was right about him being too nervous to approach him outright. His brain was screaming stevestevesteve at him. Hawkins was shook when Steve came out as bisexual in his sophomore year. He was the golden boy, a real jock. He was NOT the kind of guy people would assume queer in a small midwestern town.

He was kind of a douchebag, dumping one girl for another, sleeping with her and never calling again. But then he settled down with this guy from the University of Indianapolis for a few months until Steve caught him cheating. Apparently, he had slashed the guy’s tires. Billy was impressed.

The next year came Wheeler, who only stuck around long enough to make sure Steve was nice and whipped before she fucked off on him too. So Steve retreated. Spent more time with middle schoolers than anybody else. Didn’t want to put his heart on the line anymore until he knew it wouldn’t be stomped on. Billy could respect that.

Billy couldn’t risk being out in a town like Hawkins. Word always had a way of getting right back to his dad, and in a tiny hick town with nothing better to do than gossip, it was usually only a matter of hours before Neil heard something he didn’t like.

@ImHardForHargrove: srry 4 bad typing rn. drunk nd dysl exic ren’t a happy combo

Billy’s heart stopped. The drunken idiot was giving himself away. Maybe if he sat here staring at the account long enough, enough would be revealed he could figure it all out like a shitty drunk episode of Blue’s Clues.

He was so focused on Twitter, refreshing his feed, again and again, he didn’t notice a very drunk, and very unsteady Steve Harrington stumbling out the back door towards him. Until he crashed into his back.

“Sorry, Bill!” Billy had Steve by the shoulders trying to keep him upright. “Heyy I have a question for you.” Steve grabbed one of Billy’s hands and veered over to the table and chairs arranged neatly on the small patio. When they were sitting, Steve kept ahold of Billy’s hand.

“Hi.” Steve was smiling like a little kid. Billy was in fucking love.

“hey, Harrington. What was your question.”

“So-oo. I have this friend. A very good friend. Super close. And he has a big ol’ crush on you but he’s too scared to ask you himself because he keeps getting his heart fuckin’ broken so he wanted me to ask. Are you into guys?” It’s a miracle Billy understood any of that, every word blending into the next.

“That depends.” Billy leaned in, running his tongue along his bottom lip. He saw Steve take in a sharp breath, following the movement with his glazed eyes. He knew Steve was talking about himself, he just wanted to rile him up a little. Make him blush first. “This friend you’re talkin’ about. He’s our age? Like you’re not trying to set me up with one a’ your kids, right?” Steve physically recoiled.

“NO, you fuckin’ pedo. I’m NOT trying to set you up with a fuckin’, fuckin’ middle schooler. My friend is, uh eighteen. He’s a senior.” Unless Tommy fuckin’ H. suddenly had a penchant for dick Billy didn’t know about, Steve was 100% talking about himself.

“Well, if he’s as pretty as you are, I’d love to go out with him sometime.” Billy winked. Steve went red.

“Okay, but like, does that mean you’d go out with me? Like I’m as pretty as me, right? Because I was talking about me. Not ‘a friend’ I was talking about me. Steve.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured that out. You know, I was hoping it was you running that Twitter. Any time you’d tweet out something you wanted to do with me, I was always picturin’ doing it with you, Baby.” Billy was practically purring. “Especially all the shit you wanted me to do TO you.” Steve gave something between a whine and a groan and flopped himself onto Billy’s lap, straddling him with very little grace.

“Thank God. ‘Cause you’re so fucking hot I’d let you do anything to me. Anything, Bill.” Billy smiled softly at him.

“Then let me take you home. Let me put you in bed to sleep off all this. And let me take you to breakfast tomorrow. Something nice and greasy for your hangover tummy.” Steve was a puddle in Billy’s lap. “C’mon, Drunky, git your ass up.” Steve just giggled and muttered Drunky Skunky under his breath.

Billy sighed and stood up, hefting Steve up with him.

“Bil-ly,” Steve whined. “You’re so strong, this is so fucking hot. I gotta tweet about this.”

“Tweet it later, Sweet Thing.”

It took Billy for-fucking-ever to find Robin and Heather (they were making out in the basement with the stoners). But Steve chirped and cooed into his ear, so happy Billy could lift him and hold him like it was nothing.

The last tweet from the account was timestamped from Sunday evening.

@ImHardForHargrove: Hi this is Steve. Billy’s my boyfriend now 🥰#ThirstWorks

#I'm gonna reblog this in the morning too #Im v proud of it I want people to SEE IT #harringrove #steve harrington #steve harrington x billy hargrove #billy hargrove x steve harrington #billy hargorve #modern au #modern harringrove #yikes writes #harringrove prompts #Harringrove Prompts list #harringrove prompt fill #prompt fill #prompt fic

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thescholarsruminations · 4 years

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Getting Ready: Our role tonight.

Friends, we have to prepare by 8:00pm

Last night, right-wing extremists escalated their campaign to create chaos in Mpls & Saint Paul.

They used arson as a primary tactic. It was an escalation from their work to encourage looting on Wednesday night.

https://twitter.com/rljourno/status/1266751050452795392?s=21

They are using the widespread (and justifiable) demonstrations of grief about #GeorgeFloyd as a vehicle to advance their political objectives.

They have launched an organized effort to manipulate public perception, deconstruct public infrastructure, and create mistrust and fear.

They will likely return tonight.

What’s going on?

Certain right-wing extremists have a revolutionary orientation. They want to advance their objectives by sparking civil conflict. Their theory is that, if properly polarized (often by race), others will rise up to join them. They see themselves as leading a vanguard effort.

There’s a strain of this kind of thinking that runs through touchstone reactionary documents, like The Turner Diaries, and touchstone terrorist efforts, like the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

The latest update is an internet-irony-infused version (of course) that identifies as the Boogaloo movement. You can read more about them here.

https://www.adl.org/blog/the-boogaloo-extremists-new-slang-term-for-a-coming-civil-war

And here:

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/05/27/the-boogaloo-movement-is-not-what-you-think/

You can read about their work to manipulate demonstrations about #GeorgeFloyd here.

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/pkyb9b/far-right-extremists-are-hoping-to-turn-the-george-floyd-protests-into-a-new-civil-war

Suffice to say, there is growing evidence that some kind of organized effort is afoot in MSP. It appears to have at least three operational forms.

First, they blend into protests, encourage lawlessness, relocate, and repeat. Again and again, those transgressing certain social taboos, like smashing windows, have been white men, masked and sometimes conspicuously geared up.

Remember this one from way back on Wednesday. This guy was acting as an agent provocateur.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/minneapolis-protest-riot-umbrella-man-george-floyd-a9539741.html

It’s a tactic designed to manipulate public perception. By encouraging lawlessness, they can shift the public narrative about the demonstration and produce polarizing (and memorable visuals) like looting.

Second, they attack public infrastructure, both physical and social. Friday night saw the burning of a post office, a first. Previous nights included attacks on banks, pharmacies, grocery stores, etc. It can be easy to miss this if you just see it all as looting.

The story isn’t ‘people want stuff’. The story is: someone is trying to deconstruct the systems that support communities in Minneapolis & Saint Paul.

This attack on infrastructure plays out in a second way, and vividly so on Friday night. They were using geographically widespread acts of arson to force the Minneapolis Fire Department to play Whack-A-Mole.

Friday night’s arsons, particularly those on the Northside, were taking place miles away from demonstrations on the Southside, sometimes focused on beloved institutions.

https://twitter.com/michaelleewrite/status/1266584741274423298?s=21

This tactic is designed to create chaos, weaken the community bonds, and discredit political leaders.

Third, there are active disinformation efforts happening online. If you dig through your recent followers or the replies in journalist’s tweets you can pretty easily find bogus accounts. (i.e. those with 1000s of tweets but fewer than 100 followers, accounts created in May 2020 with no personally identifiable information).

These accounts are posting polarizing content, sometimes right-leaning, sometimes left-leaning, often fear-inducing. This tactic is designed to create mistrust and fear.

Look, this stuff is alarming. I guess I am sounding an alarm here; but let me put this in some context. There may not be many of these folks. This post from late last night was a crew of just five in a car.

https://twitter.com/wedgelive/status/1266666617573789697?s=21

There are likely more than five, but they are not an insurmountable number. Why are they not insurmountable?

Because they only win if we overreact.

They only win if we overreact.

They win by making us afraid and by getting us to do their dirty work.

There are at least five things we can do to counter the right-wing extremists who’ve been using the #GeorgeFloyd demonstrations.

1) Go talk to your neighbors today. Build a contact list. Offer to stay up tonight or offer to split up shifts. You do not need to violate curfew. Sitting on your stoop or your deck in the back will be fine. Just prepare together to keep an eye on things tonight.

2) Get in relationship with your implicit bias. The protestors aren’t scary or violent. Black & brown youth aren’t the problem here. You should keep an eye out for white dudes with backpacks. You are preparing for the white nationalists, not the protestors.

3) Obey the curfew tonight. If you’ve been going to the protests, take a night off. The white nationalists are camouflaging themselves inside the protests. They will be more exposed, more obvious, if the crowds are smaller. The Fire Department will be more nimble if the police, national guard, and our elected officials are less strained. Staying home tonight is a legitimate contribution to the cause. We’re not done overhauling the MPD, but we’ve got to expose the right-wingers first.

4) Prepare to document and de-escalate. If you go to a demonstration today, go with friends and go with a mission. Keep your phone charged and your voice loud. Film people who are doing sketchy stuff. Call them out. Add light, not heat, to the situation. The white nationalists are mostly working at night because they don’t want to get caught. Exposure is what scares them off.

5) Share the things you love about our city. Share them online and with your neighbors. Help clean up today. Donate supplies to families who need them. Shop at a local business. Post all that online. Our own fear and reactivity is our enemy. It’s how they win. They only win if we overreact.

We can do this. With each other, for each other, with an abiding love for this badass city we’ve made and remade a dozen times.

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hellcheer-munson · 5 years

Text

So it’s been a while, huh?

I don’t know how many people are actually still following this blog/are interested in it but...hi again! I already wrote a post sort of explaining where I disappeared to and why (long story short: it was tumblr staff’s fault) but I also want to talk to you guys properly and update you all on what’s been going on since.

I don’t want to abandon this blog but I have another blog that I’m using now -> it’s @alwaysahiccupandastrid. It’s not as Beasts oriented as this one was, I’m afraid, but still feel free to follow it and chat to me! It’s much like this blog was when I used it in that I don’t really post exclusively for one fandom, it’s just a mix of whatever I like!

Anyway, updating! I already told you guys that I graduated university in July, finished my degree...that was stressful! A lot went down at university but it sorted itself out in the end and I survived! Our final assessment was at the end of May, and we performed a show that we created four times, three nights and one matinee. I’m very proud of what we achieved all things considered! But yes...I am no longer a university student!

What else has changed?

I no longer work for the cinema anymore - I quit a few weeks ago after getting a job at a fancy hotel that was supposedly better...I quit the day after my first shift because I had a “me too” experience with another employee...without too much detail, he touched and started kissing me, and I left. I struggled for a couple of weeks trying urgently to get a new job, and I’m now working for Superdrug! My first shift was Wednesday afternoon/evening and I’m excited to start properly! It’s not permanent: I’m also hoping to hear back from Nikon soon about an admin position that’s closer to home and pays extremely well!

I no longer see that therapist who likes Harry Potter - I think I talked a little bit on here about my counsellor who was also a Harry Potter fan and who I liked? Yeah...turns out not so much? I stopped going to her because she a) screamed at me for waiting in the waiting room until my bus was due to arrive down the road and b) she got pissed because I couldn’t do a few certain weeks due to show rehearsals. I’m honestly all the better for it frankly.

More tattoos! - Okay so it’s not a super important thing but it’s a change so...! I think when I was last on his blog I had 3 tattoos - I now have 8! So in addition to the wand, the “worrying means you suffer twice”, and the Deathly Hallows symbol, I now have a tattoo of Leta’s flower from the Lestrange family tree (with her name and the words “beautiful. Separate.”; a tiny tattoo of Harry’s scar/glasses; a Night Fury/Toothless tattoo with the words “heart of a chief” and “soul of a dragon”; the Chief symbol from HTTYD 2; and the words “Night Fury” in Viking runes.

My hair?! - Again, not important but hey! Let’s celebrate! My hair finally grew back and is now blonde! It’s not too long, just about to my shoulders, and my roots are dark blonde whilst the bottom is more bright blonde from dying it in March. It’s silly but hooray!

I met Kevin Guthrie in March! - I met Mr Abernathy himself at Comic Con in London and he was LOVELY. He was such a wonderful man, so cheerful and amazing with the fans. I had some pretty interesting conversations with him about Fantastic Beasts and whether he’ll be in the next one...we shall see! He also told us that Poppy Corby-Tuech (Vinda Rosier) is “all about the cosplay”! And ofc I got some photos with him :)

I’m now 21 - my birthday was obviously in January and I’m old(er) 😂😭 I didn’t do anything too special, just saw CoG with the family and then a few days later went to the WB Studio Tour again (which was amazing because my sister has a friend who works there and was showing us props lots of people won’t ever see!)

Mental Health crap - Obviously I’m not “cured” or anything. I’m still on Sertraline for my depression (haven’t taken the anxiety one for a while but that is a whole other kettle of fish!) and I still have problems but I’m not as low as I have been these past few years on this blog. I’m proud to say that I have been self-harm free since about March or April (it’s hard to remember since the months blur together), and I’m genuinely all the better for it! Part of it is because I didn’t want to damage my tattoos on my arms but it’s also because I’ve managed to resist the urge as well!

^ Having said that, I’m on the waiting list to see a doctor/specialist because my GP said there was a possibility I could have autism/Aspergers/be on the spectrum. It’s a LONG waiting list in the UK so it could be a while until I see a specialist, but there’s that. It’s not a bad thing necessarily since it might be a step closer to making sure I get the exact treatment/help I need.

Fandom junk - I already mentioned in my earlier posts that since late February/early March, I’ve gotten REALLY into How To Train Your Dragon. It’s now my main fandom, in fact, which is sad because the last film has come out and there’s just a half an hour Christmas special left to be released this winter 😭 but HTTYD has had such an impact on my life and my mental state, like it has genuinely made me so much happier and (in my opinion) a better person. I still love Fantastic Beasts and Harry Potter (I even went to King’s Cross at the beginning of the month for Back to Hogwarts Day!) but it’s not my main fandom right now; I had to take a breather from Beasts and the Beasts fandom because it’s really not a great place to be at times. But I’m still into it and I’m waiting for the third film to come out in 2021!

Other random/rather unimportant stuff:

My bed is now overrun with Build a Bear dragons (and the odd baby Niffler)

My sister turned 18 and I’m so...old? I feel so old now omg

I’ve been trying to help the environment by taking little steps like going out litter picking (both on my own and with my dad) whenever I can, and I’ve been using the Ecosia search app as much as possible (for every 45 searches, they’ll plant a new tree!)

I went to Disneyland Paris again in June and it was a lot of fun, I met Peter/Wendy/Alice/Mad Hatter again, there was a false alarm because some twat left their bag at the meet and greet so they had to get the sniffer dog and everything, and I also met Donald Duck, Stitch, Tiana/Naveen AND Rapunzel (Rapunzel is my sister’s absolute favourite, so I’m happy she got to meet her!)

This may be super lame but I got so happy because I got noticed on Twitter several times by Jay Baruchel (the guy who plays Hiccup in How To Train Your Dragon - he’s so awesome and loves the character btw), his fiancée who’s a model keeps liking some of my posts on Instagram, and Cressida Cowell, who wrote the original How To Train Your Dragon books (which are vastly different to the movies but omg they’re so amazing?!), liked a tweet I sent her about my Toothless tattoo and she loved it?! I’m having a good year celebrity/famous people wise for some reason?! 😂❤️

I dont know if my blog was still in use when this happened but I’ll mention it anyway... I SAW EZRA AGAIN IN DECEMBER!! I went to watch Sons of an Illustrious Father play in London and it was GLORIOUS. Ezra Miller is GLORIOUS.

(I won’t post pictures of all the stuff here but... soon maybe?)

So that’s all I can think of...it’s been so long since I used this blog and I felt bad just abandoning it, so here we are.

I don’t know how much I’ll still use this blog, but as I said, I definitely don’t want to just abandon it. At the moment, I’m logged into this account on my iPod and onto my account on my phone, and I think I’ll keep it that way. I don’t know how much posting I’ll do here but I’ll still be around, and I’ll try to see if I can keep this blog alive alongside my current one, if people want me to!

I hope you guys are doing well, and I’m glad to have this blog back. Even if you follow my new blog and have been for the last few months, it’s still awesome to be talking to guys again on this account!

If you guys want to chat or say anything, feel free! Like I said, if people still want me to be active on here then just let me know and I’ll do my best! ☺️

#personal #long post #im on mobile so sorry i couldnt do a read more 😣#fandom

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glassc0ffin · 5 years

Text

Feedback

hee hoo i wrote a tma fic in the form of frankies statement to the institute

words: 2245

warnings: none, except for phil collins and thrown staples

pairing: oc (frankie james)/jonathan sims

[[MORE]]

FRANKIE JAMES:

-That a tape recorder? It's so cute! We've been trying to get one for the station, just so we can say we have one - y'know, to impress the hipsters - but they're well out of my budget. How did you get one?

ARCHIVIST:

I - Uh, it was here when I got the job, it was my predecessor's.

JAMES:

Wow, well, I'm jealous. [GIGGLES] A little tempted for thievery…

ARCHIVIST:

...Right. Would you like to begin your statement?

JAMES:

Oh, yeah, of course.

ARCHIVIST:

Alright. Statement of Frank James, radio DJ at -

JAMES:

Frankie.

ARCHIVIST:

[PAUSE] Frankie James, radio DJ at Tranzishon Rock, London, regarding…?

JAMES:

Uh, a series of...obscene phone calls from an unknown person.

ARCHIVIST:

Recorded direct from subject by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of The Magnus Institute, 21st of September, 2019. Statement begins.

JAMES:

Ah, so, okay. [SIGHS]

ARCHIVIST:

...Are you alright?

JAMES:

Yeah, I just… [SIGHS] I have a hard time...getting words out. I'm not...articulate.

ARCHIVIST:

Would I be able to help?

JAMES:

How would you? It's in my head.

ARCHIVIST:

[SIGHS] You'd be surprised. [PAUSES] When did it start? The phone calls.

JAMES:

On my show. I have a radio show at Tranzishon, late nights, 7 till 10, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Towards the end of the show, from 9 till 10, we do a requests hour. Listeners call, or text, or tweet, or send a carrier pigeon, to ask us to play songs. The last one is only if they're fancy.

ARCHIVIST:

[SNORTS]

JAMES:

[PAUSES]

ARCHIVIST:

[PAUSES] Sorry. You were saying?

JAMES:

[LAUGHS FAINTLY, A LITTLE BREATHLESS] Ah, yeah, erm… [AMUSED] I can't quite remember where I was…

ARCHIVIST:

The requests hour?

JAMES:

Yes! Okay, so, er, I was announcing the requests hour, reading out our phone number and the twitter account, and as soon as I had finished reading the phone number, we got a call. I- We've got a small team of techies - well, two - that handle incoming calls, texts, tweets, whatever. One, Paul, looked up from the switchboard at me and put me through to the listener, and I did my usual spiel. Y'know: [RADIO VOICE] You're listening to Frankie at Tranzishon rock, dear listener, what's your request?

[NORMAL VOICE] And they didn't say anything. There was dead air for a couple of seconds, then as I began to say 'Anybody there?' my headphones are blown out by the sudden high volume. The person on the other end must have been right up on the mic, because there was an immense amount of feedback and white noise. I'm sort of thankful for that, 'cause it nearly covered up what they had to say.

[PAUSES] [DEEP BREATH] I... don't want to repeat what they said. Suffice to say, the techies had some lightning speed reaction time when they cut off the line. There was more dead air as I tried to recover from the shock, I think I made a joke about them wanting the number for Babestation instead.

ARCHIVIST:

[LAUGHS]

JAMES:

[PAUSES] [LAUGHS, WEAKLY] Yeah… Ah, so, w-we banned that number so they wouldn't call again, and I ended the show with Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) by The Offspring. Because I cope with bad experiences by burying them with humour.

[UNDER HIS BREATH] Give it to me, baby. [EVEN QUIETER] Uh huh, uh huh.

[COUGHS]

Uh. Anyway. I went home, had my day off, and went back into work the next night and tried to forget about what happened. And for the most part, I did. The first 2 hours passed without incident, and then when I announced the requests hour, I joked about the caller the other day. My techies looked at each other nervously as I laughed. I gave them a questioning look, but said nothing. I'd ask them after the show. I read the number and twitter and waited for the requests to roll in. Again, we had another phone call straight away. I said my spiel, and my heart was in my throat as I waited for the caller to speak. I looked at my techies. Sheena, my other tech, shrugged at me. I sighed, about to give them a signal to cut them off and answer someone else when the feedback returned, louder and more harsh this time. I threw my headphones onto the desk in front of me, but I still heard the words spilling out of them.

[SWALLOWS] Y'know that scene in Silence of the Lambs? Where Lecter asks Clarice to repeat what that other inmate had said to her? Y'know - [SOUTHERN AMERICAN ACCENT] 'He said, I can smell your cunt.'

ARCHIVIST:

Good lord.

JAMES:

Yeah. It was a bit like that. There was a lot more...squelching with mine, though. Ugh. The techs cut the call, as I knew they would. I was more than a little pissed off. I started playing a song someone had tweeted and turned off my mic, turning to my techies. I asked them, why didn't you ban them like you said you would last time? Sheena said she did, that she guessed they were using a payphone or something to harass us. Paul tentatively asked if we should inform the police, and I told him to F off. We've had no help from coppers in the past when we had Nazis and TERFs flooding our lines calling us all sorts of shit, why would they help now? Cops avoid gays like the plague unless its for propaganda. So, Paul backed down.

Before the song ended, I quickly mentioned that maybe we shouldn't take calls anymore, just texts and tweets. I didn't want it to come to that, not really. I ended the show again with a song from a small local band, earning me a shoutout on their twitter. That felt good, at least.

I went home, picking up a 6-pack of Stella on the way. I wanted to make sure I slept that night. As I sat on the tube, a good 20 minute journey to my flat, my phone began to ring. At that moment, it didn't strike me that it shouldn't have been able to get any reception underground, yet there it was, ringing in my hand. I was more annoyed at it interrupting my music, but I answered anyway. It was the same fucking caller. I couldn't hit the 'disconnect' button fast enough. But I still heard what he said. [LAUGHS SHAKILY] At least the guy has some imagination. Never the same thing twice. [VOICE BREAKS, STUTTERING] I looked around the tube to see if anyone would be witnessing my quickly approaching panic attack, and finding no-one in the compartment with me, I broke down. The next 15 minutes passed with a blur, and then I reached my station, tears stopping as fast as they had came.

I stepped off the tube and started walking in the direction towards my flat, and my phone started ringing again. My breath caught in my chest as I froze on the pavement, phone vibrating away in my pocket. I picked it up, screen lit up and facing toward the ground. Slowly, I turned it up, half shutting my eyes, as if the person on the other end wouldn't be able to see me if I couldn't see the phone. [SIGHS] Stupid. It was my mum's phone number. I answered, talked with her for a little bit - she lives a ways away, I don't get to see her a lot - and said goodnight when I got to my flat. I got blackout and passed out on my couch when I got in. Yeah, I know I'm a lightweight. When I woke up at 12pm, my TV was still on, replaying the DVD menu for Black Christmas - the 1974 version. I guess in my Stella-crazed state I was desperate to watch it again.

The entire day, I left my phone switched off. My boss won't be too pleased with me, especially after 2 shows of mine had very explicit profanity, thanks to our mystery caller, but I didn't care.

[PAUSES]

Listen, I-I know, alright? I know it sounds stupid, I know I probably sound like a pearl-clutching housewife, how scandalous that I'm terrified of a few dirty phonecalls, but...you didn't hear them. You wouldn't want to hear them. Paul, Sheena, and I certainly didn't. At least they only heard them at the station…

Thankfully, on the Friday, we had decided not to do requests hour. Yeah, a few listeners would be upset, but the more loyal listeners would understand when one person ruins it for everyone else. We just settled for the last hour of the show to be requests from Paul and Sheena. Strangely enlightening, but I don't wish to hear any more Phil Collins than is necessary. And with Paul, he seems to think 10 songs is necessary. It isn't.

ARCHIVIST:

[OFFENDED] What's wrong with Phil Collins?

JAMES:

Apart from the fact that we're a punk rock station?

ARCHIVIST:

Fair enough. You were saying?

JAMES:

Okay, so, ah… I was on my way home again, and had all but forgotten the mystery caller. We'd figured it had just been some weirdo that got bored of us cutting him off. But as I was walking from the tube station from my flat, I heard that ear-splitting feedback again. Doubling over in pain, I reached up to pull my headphones off, only to find that I had left them at the radio station. I pressed my fists to my ears, crumpling to the ground as the whine of someone being too close to a microphone pierced my eardrums. I felt something cold trickle out of my ear. I didn't have to check my hand to guess that it was blood. I hyperventilated as I lay on the ground. Something was shouting, screaming at me, screeching slurs and threats of what it wanted to do to me, what it will do to me. I remember vomiting, and then blacking out as the overlapping cacophony reached a fever pitch.

I woke up not too far from where I had passed out, £10 and a phone lighter. It was probably some homeless guy who took them, and honestly, I'm not too bothered. I'm more angry no-one took me to a doctor or something. I think, the last thing I saw before I passed out was someone standing in the distance. Staring. Yeah, it could have been some rando, but the image stuck with me.

They were silhouetted against the bright signs of the takeaways on the street behind them, hands stretching too far down, a little too tall. I might have been delusional or in the throes of oxygen deprivation or something, but I swear I saw it smile as I lost consciousness.

I haven't been back to my flat. I've been staying with Sheena for the past couple of days. She's alright, but I can tell she wants me out. She doesn't want what's happening to me to happen to her.

ARCHIVIST:

Statement ends. ...Are you alright?

JAMES:

[SNIFFS] Er, I - Uh, I should be, in a bit. Thanks for, uh...I don't know. Listening?

ARCHIVIST:

It's my job.

JAMES:

Is that it then? What happens now?

ARCHIVIST:

We'll get in contact with you if we find anything out.

JAMES:

Oh! Then, you'll probably need this then. [SCRIBBLING]

ARCHIVIST:

[SHOCKED NOISE] Wh- What are you doing?

JAMES:

Giving you my phone number, what's it look like?

ARCHIVIST:

Well, I'm sure you can give it to me on paper, not my hand! And didn't you say your phone was stolen?

JAMES:

[SCRIBBLING STOPS] Oh. Yeah. Well, if I ever get it back, then. You know where to call.

ARCHIVIST:

R-Right. Goodbye, Mr. James.

JAMES:

Frankie.

ARCHIVIST:

...Goodbye, Frankie.

[CLICK]

ARCHIVIST:

Mr. James -- Frankie's behaviour was certainly... strange during our conversation. He kept looking at me, pausing and then quickly looking away again, having to restart his sentence whenever he did so. Maybe he realised that he had virtually no evidence to back up his testimony. The only witnesses we have are this Sheena and Paul, and they can only back up the instances of the phone calls happening at the radio station, not anywhere else. Conveniently, Frankie does not appear to record his mobile phone calls, so we have no evidence the phone call on the tube happened. Assuming it even could happen.

Furthermore, his constant stuttering only made me think he was making the whole thing up. Maybe he just wants a story for his show. He --

TIM:

Knock, knock. Was that Frankie James?

ARCHIVIST:

Yes, i-it was -- Tim, saying 'Knock, knock' is not a good substitute for knocking.

TIM:

Did I hear you saying that he was making it up because he was stuttering?

ARCHIVIST:

Well, yes. It's a common tell for lying.

TIM:

It's a common tell for a huge goddamn crush.

ARCHIVIST:

What?

TIM:

Oh, come on. You didn't notice?

ARCHIVIST:

No, n-no, I didn't.

TIM:

Jon, he was the colour of a tomato. He wrote his phone number on your hand! Look, he even drew a heart, for god's sake.

ARCHIVIST:

[MUTTERING] Hmm, yes, I suppose it does look like a heart… No, don't be ridiculous, Tim.

TIM:

[IN A SING-SONG VOICE] Jon has got a boyfriend, Jon has got a boyfriend!

ARCHIVIST:

Are you twelve?! Get out! [SOMETHING CLATTERS ON THE GROUND]

TIM:

Ow! Stop throwing staples at me!

[CRASHING SOUND]

[CLICK]

#fics #my writing #frankie #📖#owo i love him..

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cherryfocus · 5 years

Text

((This has been sitting in my drafts since Saturday morning! Sorry everybody who has been waiting for their asks to be answered, I’ve had a busy few days with than sometimes just forgetting to come onto the blog.))

So I’m sure a lot of you already know what has happened last night. Tom was ‘sighted’ twice in Los Angeles on Thursday and Friday.

In the meantime this has already been proven to be false sightings, since Tom is at the 2019 British Grand Prix today (Saturday July 14th).

Pictures are from @tomhollandnet here on Tumblr.

*******************************************************************************************

Firstly I want to say that me and some of my friends on this blog followed it up and didn’t believe it since it couldn’t have made sense with his Instagram Activity of this week.

This is his entire activity of the week starting Monday when he was spotted in Wimbledon (some of these times might be rounded off, because I only saw them in the feed an hour or more after they happened) + (this is all London time as well):

Monday - follow at 07.18; three likes at 07.25; like at 11.47; like at 23.44

Tuesday - three likes at 02.45 (Harrison was up still as well at 03.01); like at 10.05; like at 14.12; like at 16.56; like at 18.07; post at 18.07; story at 18.07; like at 19.52

Wednesday - story at 12.58; post at 13.07; like and comment at 16.28; like at 16.35; like at 17.17; like at 22.24

Thursday - post at 10.05; like at 10.13; like and follow at 10.18; like at 10.26; story at 10.52; story at 17.17; post at 17.45; like at 18.09

Friday - like at 16.12; like at 18.34; like at 19.15; like at 21.59

So as you can see, there is no time that Tom could have flown out to Los Angeles anywhere this week. Especially when you know that London Heathrow never have flights to Los Angeles after 7pm.

*******************************************************************************************

- Sighting 1: This person claimed she saw Tom in Burbank in a restaurant with a girl around Tom’s age that isn’t Zendaya on Thursday.

Although this person on Twitter seems pretty convinced it was Tom if you look at her comments.

Thanks to the sleuthing of one of my followers she found this tweet:

And if you remember your dates, on the 10th of January this year Tom was in Hawaii for the Sony Open! It sounds like there might be some Tom Holland lookalike running around Burbank. So let this be a lesson to not always believe what you read on the internet!

*******************************************************************************************

- Sighting 2: Now this one is a very special case. @melofel1293 on Twitter said he saw Tom Holland at his work on Friday.The account was privated before (it seemed) about anyone could take a look at it. On desktop it was impossible to find this account, until me and my followers went on our phone app.

We were already apprehensive of this sighting because of Tom’s activity online and the fact that this account claimed Tom gave him a death stare. If you know Tom, that is really out of his character.

We were first under the impression (because we couldn’t find the account) it didn’t even really exist and it might have been a photoshopped tweet. Since I could find a private account from one of my followers on desktop after the first try. But so eventually, like I said, we found it on the Twitter App.

Where the biggest shock came. I messaged this guy before! Back in April. He never responded to this message I sent him.

So I decide to try again.

As you can see. After 18 hours, there is still no answer from this guy. While a Tomdaya blog got answer after answer within minutes. I asked a follower of mine to send him a message as well. She still hasn’t gotten a reply either.

With very good reason, I think this is a fake account who is just adding heat to the fire to keep it from going out.

*******************************************************************************************

If you have any opinions on this or more information, please do share! My inbox is open to each and every one! µ

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tvserieshub · 6 years

Text

History Channel’s original show SIX came out swinging last year, delivering fantastic action and emotional content hand in hand. SIX grabbed audiences in the first episode and delivered through the entire first season. With season 2 premiering Monday, May 28th we wanted to take this opportunity to remind you why you should be watching this military-themed show.

10. Olivia Munn

Olivia Munn is joining SIX as a shady CIA Operative…need I say more? Ok, maybe just a bit more. Munn is great in everything she does and from what I’ve seen this is no exception. The addition of Munn throws an already ticking time clock of a team into near meltdown. Going into season 2 look for her to be both help and foil to our team.

photo credit @SIXonHistory

9. Troop Support

Even in real life, the cast of SIX has taken their military connection seriously. The actors participated in a Tough Mudder Run as a team to fundraise for the charity Student Veterans of America in 2016 and 2017. They also recently participated in the Flag and Flower challenge created by Preston Sharp. The challenge asks people to visit the grave’s of veterans, leaving flags and flowers to honor them, in particular NOT on holidays. Even as I write this, some of the cast are preparing to participate in The Murph (a physical challenge meant to honor LT. Michael Murphy, a SEAL who was killed in combat). Whether it’s in interviews, or on social media, you’ll find this cast expressing a constant respect for the warriors they portray.

Flags and Flowers event @SIXonHistory

@BarrySloane

@Jaylen_Moore

8. Locations

SIX uses it’s time wisely. It’s no cookie-cutter action show with all the fights taking place in dingy lighting, creeping through underground tunnels. Instead, you’ll see this team on land, in the air, on the water. You’ll see them at home (some of the hardest hitting scenes), trekking through the forest and busting down doors. I love never knowing where the team is going to end up next, there isn’t any sense of repetitiveness.

7. Complex Villains

Forget blah, zero backstory villains. SIX allows it’s bad guys to be every bit as interesting and dynamic as it’s heroes. Tell me, how many other military shows can say that? Dominic Adams spent last season playing Michael Nasry, the American-born terrorist who’s out for revenge. Although we loved to hate Michael and the tortures he planned for Rip (Walter Goggins), you never impatiently wished him off the screen. In fact, I’m happy to say that Adams is back for season 2, although we’ll find Michael in a very different set of circumstances this time around. SIX is also introducing “The Prince” (Nikolai Nikolaeff) as the big bad of the season. Nikolai spent months preparing himself for the role, diving deep in background so that he could best honor the role. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

6. Diversity

When the U.S. military is 40% PoC it’s completely unrealistic to have a military show with no (or a single token) non-white person on the team. Unfortunately, for some networks that continues to be the trend. SIX threw that nonsense out the window, showing a true picture of what a SEAL team would be. We have an African American member, Hispanic member and, my personal favorite, an Afghani American. Yes, that’s right. The first Muslim SEAL portrayed on American television. If that alone isn’t cause for celebration I don’t know what is. And yes, if you’re keeping track – that’s 50% PoC. Thank you SIX.

photo credit @SIXonHistory

5. The Action

The cast of SIX brings it full force physically. Training with former Navy Seals helped the actors hone their physicality and bring realism to their fight scenes. SIX doesn’t have the big budget of network shows and instead relies on the details instead of huge explosions. Although, no fear, you do get your fair share of those as well. The precise shots and killer hand-to-hand combat are impressive in every episode. Whether it’s taking down terrorists or rescuing school girls, you’ll believe every minute. I’d highly recommend checking out the Instagram accounts of the actors, there are lots of BTS videos detailing the grueling preparation they went through to get ready for these roles.

4. Characters

You can tell from episode one that these characters have been fully fleshed out, loved and thought about. Whether you’re watching Bear mourning his daughter, Buddha struggling with a changing family dynamic or Caulder being forced into parental responsibility, each of these men has some serious backstory. One of my favorites from last season was Fishbait, portrayed by Jaylen Moore. Even without the screen time to explore his family life, Fishbait never felt 1 dimensional and Moore was able to grab some of the spotlight. I’m happy to say we’ll be getting more Fishbait this time around! Bill and David Broyles as the writers/creators clearly love their show and it shines through. They’ve lovingly crafted complex 3D people that you will be captivated by.

Jaylen Moore @sixonhistory

Eric Laden @sixonhistory

Juan Pablo Raba @SIXonHistory

3. The Families

This military drama spends a significant amount of time on the effect that this job has on the home life of our SEAL team. These men go through hell and back on a constant basis and that takes a serious toll. SIX addresses this with respect and honesty. Seeing the inner turmoil of the team and the families around them connects you to the show in a way you might not feel if the focus was all on the action side. I’m partial to a good shoot ’em up show, but SIX is an action show I can recommend to everyone. The issues of home life for these warriors are addressed with a frank simplicity that’s stunning.

Brianne Davis as Lena Graves, and Nadine Velazquez as Jackie Ortiz, bring a warmth and personal touch to the show. As a Navy wife, I couldn’t ever watch dramatized shows like Army Wives. It felt nothing like my own experience since it was essentially Desperate Housewives on a base. SIX, however, shows the good and bad of being a military family in a way that I could immediately connect with.

2. The Cast in General

There are some serious heavy hitters here. Juan Pablo Raba plays Ricky “Buddha” Ortiz. Buddha is one of the most compelling characters to me personally because of the strain he feels between his work and home life. Raba brings his experience and acting chops to show that push/pull of warrior/husband powerfully. Walter Goggins is good in everything he does and SIX is a compelling argument for him as one of the best actors out there. Jaylen Moore has been in a lot – but hasn’t had a lead role in a hit tv series. I predict great things coming out of SIX for him, we didn’t have a chance to see a whole lot of background for Fishbait last year, but that will be changing in season 2.

Brianne Davis adds a level of heart and connection to this show that just blew my mind. She was one of the first cast members I wanted to interview because I felt that honest connection from the start. Kyle Schmidt is charming, funny and still manages to break your heart. Edwin Hodge brings a gravity and intelligence to his role and I look forward to seeing where that takes him in this much darker season 2. There isn’t a miscast actor in the bunch, and to honest, I could have written a paragraph for each one and why we love them. From interviews we’ve done we’ve learned that several of the characters were created AFTER meeting the actors who would play them. Juan Pablo Raba and Jaylen Moore in particular. The writers saw potential and they know exactly how to make their stars shine.

1. Barry Sloane

I’ve been a fan of Sloane’s for years, but in SIX he’s a totally different actor. From the bad boy romantic on Revenge to the deputy on Longmire, Sloane has always been good on screen. But in this? In this he’s great. As Joe “Bear” Graves, Sloane brings a power and complexity that shows what a truly phenomenal actor he’s become. Bear is ripped apart, suffering PTSD and struggling to balance home and work. He’s following the path of his mentor Rip (Walter Goggins) in all the worst ways, something the audience hopes and prays he can pull away from. He’s a leader on and off screen, the rest of the cast referencing him in every interview we did. To be honest, I’m really amazed Sloane hasn’t been nominated for an Emmy for his work in this series. Here’s hoping it happens in the future

Interviews

I’ve been fortunate enough to interview several of the hard-working actors from SIX. Check out what they have to say about the upcoming season:

Barry Sloane Interview

Joshua Gage Interview

Brianne Davis Interview

Eric Ladin Interview

Jaylen Moore Interview

Nikolai Nikolaeff Interview

Juan Pablo Raba Interview

We have more interviews coming, check back soon!!

Get Watching!

All told, SIX is a standout series worth your time. If you haven’t seen Season 1, get binging! Season 2 premieres Monday, May 28th at 10/9c and then moves to its regular time on Wednesday, May 30th at 10/9c. This season promises to be darker, more emotional and explore new sides of our team. It’s going to be great!

I’ll be live tweeting from @tvserieshub all season, check back after the episode for my reviews. Hit me up anytime @nolenag03 to chat about SIX

10 Reasons You Should be Watching #SIXonHistory +Cast Interviews @BarrySloane @EricLadin @TheBrianneDavis @JuanPabloRaba @Jaylen_Moore @EdwinHodge @NNikolaeff @iamKyleSchmid History Channel's original show SIX came out swinging last year, delivering fantastic action and emotional content hand in hand.

#10 Reasons #Barry Sloane #Brianne Davis #edwin hodge #Eric Ladin #History Channel #Interviews #Jaylen Moore #Joshua Gage #Juan Pablo Raba #military #military drama #Must See TV #season 2 #SIX #TV Series #tvseries

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sinrau · 4 years

Link

Published: 08:54 EDT, 27 May 2020 | Updated: 09:15 EDT, 27 May 2020

Donald Trump demanded Wednesday that social media platforms ‘clean up your act’ as he warned his administration will begin to regulate and even shutter such websites after Twitter, for the first time ever, fact-checked his tweets.

He lamented in the Twitter thread that conservatives are being silenced and disproportionately regulated on social media websites like Twitter and Facebook as Twitter issued ‘misleading’ warning labels on two of his tweets about mail-in voting this week.

‘Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen,’ the president posted to his Twitter Wednesday morning. ‘We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that happen again.’

The warning was issued after Trump reacted with fury to having two of his tweets labelled as misleading, with links to news articles suggesting they were false attached.

But in contrast, on the same day Twitter’s Jack Dorsey refused to take down the president’s tweets where he touted a conspiracy theory that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough was involved in the death of a staffer when he was a Republican U.S. congressman from Florida.

Trump re-asserted his flagged tweets’ theme on Wednesday morning: “Just like we can’t let large scale Mail-In Ballots take root in our Country.”

Trump views that mail-in ballots will increase the chances of voter fraud – and benefit Democrats in 2020.

‘It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots,’ Trump insisted. ‘Whoever cheated the most would win. Likewise, Social Media. Clean up your act, NOW!!!!’

The tweeted warning came the morning after the president accused Twitter of interfering in the 2020 Presidential election after the social media site began fact-checking his tweets.

Donald Trump warned Wednesday morning that his administration will begin regulating and shutting down social media sites, claiming tech giants try to ‘totally silence conservative voices’

The claim came after Twitter, one of his favorite mediums for communicating with the American people, labeled two of his tweets about mail-in ballots as ‘misleading’

The president has often attacked social media giants and the people who run them – even as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has refused to give into pressures to take some of Trump’s tweets down. Pictured: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (left) and Dorsey (right)

Earlier in the day on Tuesday, the president suggested on Twitter that California’s mail-in balloting initiative would lead to substantial voter fraud in the November general election.

‘There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed,’ Trump wrote Tuesday morning.

He then insinuated that non-citizens would be able to obtain ballots.

‘The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one,’ he continued in the Twitter rant. ‘That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote.’

Trump ended the two-tweet tirade by saying, ‘This will be a Rigged Election.’

‘No way!’ said Trump, who votes in Florida absentee.

The president used a mail-in ballot to vote in the Florida primary last month – a move his administration has defended since he cannot show up for in-person voting while living in Washington, D.C.

By Tuesday afternoon, Twitter had flagged the tweets with a blue exclamation mark prompting users to ‘get the facts about mail-in ballots.’

Another page on the social media site called Trump’s tweets ‘unsubstantiated,’ according to fact-checkers from CNN, Washington Post and other news outlets.

‘These tweets contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots,’ a statement from Twitter read.

President Donald Trump tweeted his accusations on Tuesday night that the social media site was interfering in the 2020 presidential election by fact-checking his tweets

The president also accused the company of ‘stifling free speech’ in a fiery rant on Tuesday

It came after the President’s claims were ‘fact-checked’. Users who clicked on the blue exclamation marks were sent to a page that explained why the claim was unsubstantiated, including that there was ‘no evidence’ that vote-by-mail was linked to voter fraud

Twitter labeled two linked Trump’s tweets as ‘misleading’ Tuesday, their first ever action against the president on the platform.

They added a link to a series of articles from outlets including CNN and the Washington Post – but put their own summary at the top of the page with Twitter’s bullet-point version of why they labeled the tweet misleading.

But the company left a series of unanswered questions about the process of fact-checking including:

Why were these tweets selected?

Who in Twitter decided they were ‘misleading’?

Are all of Trump’s tweets checked for being misleading?

How can the ballot claims be labeled misleading while a conspiracy theory that Joe Scarborough murdered a women who died of natural causes while he was hundreds of miles away does not?

Is there a complaints process or did Twitter make the decision to label the tweets itself?

If it did it itself, who actually decided?

How does someone who has been labeled misleading appeal?

Twitter claims simply to offer a platform to its users, and not to be a ‘publisher’ like a traditional newspaper or broadcaster. But they summary of its factcheck is an editorial product – so who wrote the claims at the top of the fact-checking page and how can they be held accountable?

Are people subject to labeling for being ‘misleading’ given advance notice to allow them to delete their tweets?

Will Trump’s tweets about being factchecked also be factchecked?

Following the move from Twitter, Trump used the social media site he is attacking to decry its decision to label his tweets ‘misleading’ and accused them of ‘stifling free speech.’

He threatened the tech giant, stating he wouldn’t allow it to continue.

‘@Twitter is now interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election. They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington Post,’ Trump wrote Tuesday night.

‘Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!’ he asserted.

Trump’s 2020 campaign was quick to slam the move.

‘We always knew that Silicon Valley would pull out all the stops to obstruct and interfere with President Trump getting his message through to voters. Partnering with the biased fake news media ‘fact checkers’ is only a smoke screen Twitter is using to try to lend their obvious political tactics some false credibility. There are many reasons the Trump campaign pulled all our advertising from Twitter months ago, and their clear political bias is one of them,’ campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement.

The move to fact-check Trump on Tuesday came the same day Twitter refused to delete tweets written by the president where he suggested ‘Morning Joe’ host Joe Scarborough was involved in the death of one of his congressional aides who worked for him in 2001.

The widower of the woman who died, Lori Klausutis, sent a letter to Jack Dorsey begging for Trump’s tweets about this conspiracy theory to be deleted.

As Timothy Klausutis recounts in the letter, Lori had an undiagnosed heart condition and fell and hit her head on her desk at work, where her body was found the next morning.

While Twitter wouldn’t budge on deleting Trump’s tweets, the site had promised to be more proactive about labeling factually inaccurate content.

‘Psycho Joe Scarborough is rattled, not only by his bad ratings but all of the things and facts that are coming out on the internet about opening a Cold Case. He knows what is happening!’ Trump tweeted Wednesday morning.

Trump reupped his continued assertion that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough was involved with the death of his congressional intern in 2001 – when he was a U.S. congressman for Florida

For weeks Trump has said that states, not wanting to expose the voting public to COVID-19, shouldn’t be implementing full-scale mail-in balloting plans.

The president has drawn a distinction between absentee ballots, which he said can be used for special purposes, and governors sending every American voter a ballot to send back in.

‘I have to do an absentee because I’m voting in Florida and I happen to be president and I live in that beautiful house over there that’s painted white,’ he said in the Rose Garden Tuesday.

Trump’s tweets came after the Republican National Committee and two other GOP groups filed a lawsuit Sunday against California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had signed an executive order to use mail-in ballots for the November election.

‘In California the governor, I hear, is sending millions of ballots all over the state. Millions, to anybody. People that aren’t citizens, illegals, anybody that walks in California is going to get a ballot,’ Trump said at the White House Tuesday.

‘We are not going to destroy this county by allowing things like that to happen. We’re not destroying our country,’ he added.

Republicans long have been suspicious that making voting easier would elect more Democrats. Young people, for instance, tend to tilt more Democratic, but are also less likely to vote in-person.

California was the first state in the country to commit to sending mail-in ballots to all registered voters for the November election, a move responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

President Trump continued to tweet about Lori Klausutis’ death on Tuesday, again suggesting that Joe Scarborough may have been behind her death

‘Democrats continue to use this pandemic as a ploy to implement their partisan election agenda, and Governor Newsom’s executive order is the latest direct assault on the integrity of our elections,’ Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement.

The RNC said that voting by mail creates an opportunity for fraud.

Republicans, including Trump, have also claimed that mail-in voting is susceptible to rigging.

‘No state that conducts all-mail elections automatically mails ballots to inactive voters because it invites fraud, coercion, theft, and otherwise illegitimate voting,’ it added.

The lawsuit asks for Newsom’s order to be barred as unlawful and was filed by the RNC, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the California Republican Party.

Numerous studies have found little evidence of voter fraud connected to voting by mail. Democrats say it is necessary to counter health risks from the coronavirus by helping to prevent crowds at polling places.

Last Wednesday, Trump denounced plans to expand voting by mail in Michigan and Nevada, two key swing states.

He briefly threatened to withhold federal funding for the two states but dropped the warning after an avalanche of criticism from Democrats.

Since winning the 2016 election via the Electoral College, but losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, the president has alleged that ‘millions’ of people voted illegally in California and that’s how Clinton had such an edge.

There was no evidence of wide-scale voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election.

Timothy Klausutis, the husband of the late Lori Klausutis, has asked Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to delete President Trump’s tweets about his wife

Lori Klausutis was a Congressional aide for Rep. Joe Scarborough and died after hitting her head at the office in 2001 at the age of 28

Lori Klausutis had an undiagnosed heart condition, but Trump has tried to push a conspiracy theory that she was murdered by the now ‘Morning Joe’ host

Twitter refuses to take down President Trump’s tweet that accuse ‘Morning Joe’s’ Joe Scarborough of murder.

CNN reported that the company wouldn’t be pulling down the president’s tweets about the death of Scarborough’s late staffer, Lori Klausutis, even after her husband Timothy Klausutis wrote a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey asking they be removed.

‘Please delete those tweets,’ Timothy Klausutis pleaded. ‘My wife deserves better.’

A spokesperson for Twitter said the company won’t be pulling down the president’s tweets on Lori Klausutis’ death, which Trump continued to write Tuesday morning.

‘We are deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they are drawing, are causing the family,’ the spokesperson said. ‘We’ve been working to expand existing product features and policies so we can more effectively address things like this going forward, and we hope to have those changes in place shortly.’

Timothy Klausutis (pictured), the husband of the late Lori Klausutis, has asked Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey to remove President Trump’s tweet that allege she was murdered by her boss Joe Scarborough, the host of MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’

President Trump continued to tweet about Lori Klausutis’ death on Tuesday, again suggesting that Joe Scarborough may have been behind her death

These three tweets, two from President Trump and one from Donald Trump Jr., are referenced in a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey penned by Timothy Klausutis, the widower of Joe Scarborough’s staffer who died in his Florida Congressional office in 2001

Joe Scarborough (right), with his wife and co-host Mika Brzezinski (left), served in Congress as a Republican, but has become a vocal critic of President Trump and his former political party

The New York Times obtained a copy of Timothy Klausutis’ letter.

As Timothy Klausutis recounts in the letter, Lori Klausutis had an undiagnosed heart condition and fell and hit her head on her desk at work, where her body was found the next morning.

Lori Klausutis died at age 28 in 2001. She had an undiagnosed heart condition and fell and hit her head at work

Lori Klausutis was 28-years-old when she died in 2001, and was a staffer in the Florida office of Rep. Joe Scarborough, who resigned from Congress later that year.

President Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have repeated a conspiracy theory that Scarborough, now the host of MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe,’ was responsible for her death.

He was in Washington at the time.

Scarborough, while a Republican in Congress, has become extremely critical of the Trump administration.

In a May 12 tweet, the president wrote, ‘When will they open a Cold Case on the Psycho Joe Scarborough matter in Florida. Did he get away with murder? Some people think so,’ Trump tweeted.

‘Why did he leave Congress so quietly and quickly? Isn’t it obvious? What’s happening now? A total nut job!’ the president added.

In a May 4 tweet Trump wrote, ”Concast’ should open up a long overdue Florida Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough,’ he said, referring to NBC’s parent company, Comcast.

‘I know him and Crazy Mika well used them beautifully in the last Election, dumped them nicely, and will state on the record thathe is ‘nuts.’ Besides, bad ratings!’ the presidenet continued, referencing Scarborough’s co-host and wife Mika Brzezinski.

When MSNBC’s public relations tweeted that presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden was going to come on ‘Morning Joe’ to talk about the sexual assault allegations made against him by former Congressional staffer Tara Reade, Donald Trump Jr. chimed in, ‘What show is Joe going to go on to discuss Lori Klausutis?’

These are the specific tweets Timothy Klausutis asked Dorsey to delete from the platform.

‘I have mourned my wife every day since her passing. I have tried to honor her memory and our marriage. As her husband, I feel that one of my marital obligations is to protect her memory as I would have protected her in life,’ he wrote in the letter.

‘There has been a constant barrage of falsehoods, half-truths, innuendo and conspiracy theories since the day she died. I realize that may sound like an exaggeration, unfortunately it is the verifiable truth. Because of this, I have struggled to move forward with my life,’ he continued.

He talked about how he didn’t want Lori’s niece and two nephews, who never met their aunt before she died, to meet her this way.

On Saturday, President Trump also tweeted about Lori Klausutis’ death, suggesting it should be investigated

Donald Trump Jr. complained abut Kara Swisher’s opinion piece for The New York Times, in which she agreed with Timothy Klausutis that President Trump’s tweet on his late wife’s death should be removed from Twitter

‘I’m a research engineer and not a lawyer, but reviewed all of Twitter’s rules and terms of service. The President’s tweet that suggests that Lori was murdered without evidence (and contrary to the official autopsy) – is a violation of Twitter’s community rules and terms of service,’ he argued. ‘An ordinary user like me would be banished from the platform for such a tweet but I am only asking that these tweets be removed.’

‘I’m asking you to intervene in this instance because the President of the United States has taken something that does not belong him — the memory of my dead wife and perverted it for perceived political gain,’ Timothy Klausutis wrote.

Brzezinski said last week that she also planned to have a conversation with Dorsey over the president’s tweets.

‘Donald, you’re a sick person, you’re a sick person,’ she said on ‘Morning Joe,’ before turning her attention to Twitter. ‘Twitter, you shouldn’t be allowing this, and you should be taking these tweets down and you should be ashamed of yourself, you will be hearing from me on this.’

Twitter lets Trump’s tweets fly by arguing that he is a public figure and what he writes is news.

As of Tuesday morning, Trump’s tweets remained on the website – and he continued to tweet about Lori Klausutis’ death.

‘The opening of a Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough was not a Donald Trump original thought, this has been going on for years, long before I joined the chorus,’ the president wrote Tueday morning. ‘In 2016 when Joe & his wacky future ex-wife, Mika, would endlessly interview me, I would always be thinking about whether or not Joe could have done such a horrible thing? Maybe or maybe not, but I find Joe to be a total Nut Job, and I knew him well, far better than most.’

‘So many unanswered & obvious questions, but I won’t bring them up now! Law enforcement eventually will?’ the president added.

Donald Trump Jr. tweeted to complain that the New York Times was calling for the president to be censored.

‘The NY Times is calling for Twitter to censor the Pesident of the United States. If they can push for that who won’t they try to censor next?’ Trump Jr. wrote, misspelling president. ‘If they can push for that who won’t they try to censor next?’

‘Given silicon valley’s leftist tendencies you all better watch out, they are coming for all of you,’ he added.

Kara Swisher, the reporter who penned the column that first referenced Klausutis’ letter, had argued that the company needed to step in and play a bigger, truth-telling role.

‘The company tends to be hands-off when a Trump controversy erupts, relying on a tenet that he is a public figure and also that it cannot sort out what is truth and a lie and is therefore better off letting its community argue it out,’ she wrote. ‘While that might work when it comes to some issues, it has broken down here.’

Swisher said banning Trump from Twitter, like some have suggested, would be ‘too drastic,’ and labeling the content misinformation wouldn’t stop the spread of the lie.

‘I am supportive of the suggestion Mr. Klausutis makes in his letter to simply remove the offending tweets,’ she wrote.

Mr.Dorsey:

Nearly 19 years ago, my wife, who had an undiagnosed heart condition, fell and hit her head on her desk at work. She was found dead the next morning. Her name is Lori Kaye Klausutis and she was 28 years old when she died. Her passing is the single most painful thing that I have ever had to deal with in my 52 years and continues to haunt her parents and sister.

I have mourned my wife every day since her passing. I have tried to honor her memory and our marriage. As her husband, I feel that one of my marital obligations is to protect her memory as I would have protected her in life. There has been a constant barrage of falsehoods, half-truths, innuendo and conspiracy theories since the day she died. I realize that may sound like an exaggeration, unfortunately it is the verifiable truth. Because of this, I have struggled to move forward with my life.

The frequency, intensity, ugliness, and promulgation of these horrifying lies ever increases on the internet. These conspiracy theorists, including most recently the President of the United States, continue to spread their bile and misinformation on your platform disparaging the memory of my wife and our marriage. President Trump on Tuesday tweeted to his nearly 80 million followers alluding to the repeatedly debunked falsehood that my wife was murdered by her boss, former U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough. The son of the president followed and more directly attacked my wife by tweeting to his followers as the means of spreading this vicious lie. I’m sure you are aware of this situation because media aroundthe world have covered it, but just in case, here it is:

‘When willthey open a Cold Case on the Psycho Joe Scarborough matter in Florida. Did he get away with murder? Some people think so. Why did he leave Congress so quietly and quickly ? Isn’t it obvious? What’s happening now? A total nut job!’ – President Trump

”Concast’ should open up a long overdue Florida Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough. I know him and Crazy Mika well used them beautifully in the last Election, dumped them nicely, and will state on the record that he is ‘nuts’.Besides, bad ratings!’ – President Trump

‘What show is Joe going to go on to discuss Lori Klausutis?’ – Donald Trump Jr.

My request is simple: Please delete these tweets.

I’m a research engineer and not a lawyer, but reviewed all of Twitter’s rules and terms of service. The President’s tweet that suggests that Lori was murdered without evidence (and contrary to the official autopsy) – is a violation of Twitter’s community rules and terms of service. An ordinary user like me would be banished from the platform for such a tweet but I am only asking that these tweets be removed.

I am now angry as well as frustrated and grieved. I understand that Twitter’s policies about content are designed to maintain the appearance that your hands are clean you provide the platform and the rest is up to users. However, in certain past cases, Twitter has removed content and accounts that are inconsistent with your terms of service.

I’m asking you to intervene in this instance because the President of the United States has taken something that does not belong him — the memory of my dead wife and perverted it for perceived political gain. I would also ask that you consider Lori’s niece and two nephews who will eventually come across this filth in the future. They have never met their Aunt and it pains me to think they would ever have to ‘learn’ about her this way.

My wife deserves better.

Thank you for your consideration.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Timothy J. Klausutis, Ph.D

Trump threatens to ‘regulate’ social media after Twitter fact-checked #web #website #copied #to read# #highlight #link #news #read

#IFTTT #WordPress

0 notes

diarrheaworldstarhiphop · 7 years

Photo

Both Blacktivist accounts, each of which used the handle Blacktivists, regularly shared content intended to stoke outrage. "Black people should wake up as soon as possible," one post on the Twitter account read. "Black families are divided and destroyed by mass incarceration and death of black men," another read. The accounts also posted videos of police violence against African Americans.

The Blacktivist accounts provide further evidence that Russian-linked social media accounts saw racial tensions as something to be exploited in order to achieve the broader Russian goal of dividing Americans and creating chaos in U.S. politics during a campaign in which race repeatedly became an issue.

The Facebook account had 360,000 likes, more than the verified Black Lives Matter account on Facebook, which currently has just over 301,000.

The page also publicized at least seven rallies and demonstrations around the country in 2016. The events ranged from the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party to a march in Baltimore commemorating the death of Freddie Gray. In several cases, it appears that the events were real, and were organized by other groups, but that the Blacktivist account was working to increase turnout.

"We are fed up with police violence, racism, intolerance and injustice that passed down from generation to generation. We are fed up with government ignorance and the system failing black people," the page's description of the march for Freddie Gray read.

That same Freddie Gray event was covered by RT, a television network funded by the Russian government.

CNN reported Wednesday that at least one of the Facebook ads bought by Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign referenced Black Lives Matter and was specifically targeted to reach audiences in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, two cities that had gained widespread attention for the large and violent protests over police shootings of black men.

The Twitter account, @Blacktivists, provided several clues that in hindsight indicate it was not what it purported to be. In several tweets, it employed awkward phrasing that a native English speaker would be unlikely to use. It also consistently posted using an apostrophe facing the wrong way, i.e. "it`s" instead of "it's."

The Blacktivist Facebook account was among the 470 Russian-linked accounts identified by the social media network and disclosed to Congress earlier this month, the sources said. The matching Twitter account was among the roughly 200 accounts Twitter identified with links to those found by Facebook.

Facebook shared its findings about the accounts with Twitter, enabling Twitter to identify 22 matching accounts and an additional 179 accounts that linked back to those accounts, the sources said. This matching process went beyond public-facing similarities and included private information that could link the accounts.

All of the ads handed over by Facebook were linked to the Internet Research Agency, a shadowy company that U.S. military intelligence has described as "a state-funded organization that blogs and tweets on behalf of the Kremlin." A senior Kremlin spokesman said last week that Russia did not buy ads on Facebook to influence the election.

As with the Russian-backed Facebook accounts, the Russian-backed Twitter accounts sought to amplify political discord by highlighting hot-button political issues like race and immigration.

Some of the Twitter accounts also promoted anti-Hillary Clinton stories, a source with knowledge of the matter told CNN. The U.S. intelligence community believes one reason Russia meddled in the election was to damage Clinton's chances of winning.

Blacktivist posted a video on Facebook in August of this year with the caption, "Watch another savage video of police brutality. We live under a system of racism and police are directly letting us know how they feel and where we stand."

The video was from a July incident in San Diego in which a police dog was seen biting an African-American man in handcuffs.

CNN has not confirmed when the Blacktivist Facebook account was established. The corresponding Twitter account was set up in April 2016, according to cached page records.

"Black community welcomes you! We want to bring peace in life of our brothers and sisters!" the "About" section of the Facebook page read.

One of the Russian-bought Facebook ads that the social media network is handing over to Congress backed Green Party candidate Jill Stein. "Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein," the ad read. "The only way to take our country back is to stop voting for the corporations and banks that own us. #GrowaSpineVoteJillStein." The Stein ad was first reported by Politico.

A segment of that wording appeared verbatim on the @Blacktivists Twitter account on November 2, 2016. "Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it's not a wasted vote," the account tweeted.

Both accounts appear to have been active as recently as last month.

-- CNN's Marshall Cohen contributed reporting.

>fanning flames of ethnic tension and highlighting racially motivated police brutality on a 24 hour basis during an election is only bad when the russians do it

-t. CNN

MEDIA E D I A

#lmao #cnn

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megacircuit9universe · 5 years

Text

Covid19

FRI FEB 28 2020

I was really surprised to see that the stock market took a huge shit this week. Just after hitting another all time high, last Wednesday, the 19th, it began to drop last Thursday, and then all five days this week, Nasdaq, S&P, all of them across the board just kept dropping lower and lower every day, with the only thing stopping it being the closing bell of trading today.

It’s been the worst week of decline since October of 2008, with the banking collapse, after the housing bust was already in full swing... but this time, it was due to a sudden panic about Covid19, the coronavirus that emerged in China back in December.

There had been some global concern about Covid19 through January, when it was still contained mostly to China, but through February, cases have been showing up in other concentrated spots all around the globe, leading to a low level panic that finally affected the stock market.

Trump, of course, didn’t bother to address it at all until he saw his precious stock market was falling, and... it was actually his announcement about putting his VP Pence in charge of the virus that really caused the markets to break loose and go into free fall... because in the press conference, it was so painfully obvious to everybody, that Trump has no clue how to deal with a pandemic, and neither does Pence.

And it’s not just stocks, but other market warning signs are flashing, and... as mentioned above, people are talking about 2008, and everybody’s getting into their crash positions for another big recession suddenly.

Well... many are getting into crash positions. Other pundits are assuring us that everything will rally back to normal next week, like the market’s been doing over and over again for the entire Trump administration.

Of course, my model here, holds that the economy since the early twenty-teens has been a self-driving one, kept on the road by AI bots who have gone to great lengths to fend off the panics that should otherwise have tanked it by now, being caused by a rogue US President and his incendiary tweets... not to mention insane policies like jacking up tariffs on China last year.

And they’re so good at what they do, that I’ve maintained for this entire blog so far, even through Trump’s Impeachment hearings... that a market crash, and/or recession was off the table... no matter how fortuitous one might be in getting Trump removed from office.

So I’ve been truly surprised this week to see this happening.

And now I have to speculate as to why it’s happening.

Are the bots behind this?

The short answer is no. Their prime directive is, to the best of their ability, to keep the economy on track no matter what. Same as a self driving car, which only wants to keep driving, avoid accidents, obey the rules of the road, and get from point A to point B as quickly, but safely as possible.

But just like with a self driving car, there are some factors outside their control. One of these factors is Presidential tariffs... an arbitrary tax thrown in by one man on the outside, at his whim.

I’ve spent many an entry speculating about how the bots must have not only identified Trump as, essentially a virus attacking the system... but went so far as to form a coalition with smarter, more robust AI bots out there on the deep web, to hold Trump to account... by finding and leaking damning evidence to the House, who has the power to impeach him.

And that kind of worked... because Trump forgot about his tariffs. He wasn’t removed, but the economically destructive behavior he’d been engaging in, was put on indefinite pause... which was good enough to keep things rolling and buy time to find a more effective solution.

As for elections... two entries ago, I talked about how this bot coalition is not interested in tampering with elections. They’ll step in to prevent tampering if they can, like by crippling the Shadow app in Iowa, which was designed to subvert democracy... but this is a coalition of humanitarian bots, and economy bots, so... they all want to play by the rules, while also avoiding big upsets to society... like an assassination or something.

But when something like Covid19 appears on the landscape... well, it’s even further outside their control than rogue tariffs.

Real viruses... the biological kind, are an extremely ancient form of life, operating under the complex rules of natural selection, on a very root level. They’re unpredictable, and can be quite ruthless to higher life forms when they hit on a novel strategy for which existing biological immune systems are not prepared.

That said, biological immune systems are also insanely advanced, and do a very good job of neutralizing viruses... especially when they are helped along by human doctors who can study the DNA of the viruses and produce vaccines to teach immune systems how to fight them before they attack.

This is how we’ve managed to nearly wipe out polio, small pox, and dozens of other deadly viruses... and how we defend the world’s population every year against the latest strains of influenza*.

That said, I’m not convinced that Covid19 is the deadly pandemic threat that everybody’s terrified it could be at the moment.

Because it began in China... an authoritarian nation, we don’t have any reliable information about this virus at all. We can’t trust their numbers, either of infected or of deaths... we can’t trust their information about it’s transmission methods, contagiousness, incubation period, symptoms, or it’s origin... not just because we can’t trust them to tell the world the truth... but because we can’t even trust them to properly assess this kind of data.

Autocracies are notorious for brain drain, and clueless bureaucrats running big agencies they don’t understand, so... their data is useless.

Meanwhile, as far as news on the ground in China, all we have is a random sampling of smart phone footage, mixed with state reports, and first hand accounts from people supposedly spying from within China on behalf of the free world... but we have no idea what the true context is for any of this material... or what the agenda is of people who’ve fed this back to us over social media.

Long story short here, I do believe at the moment, that the panic is overblown, and that it’s being overblown by several layers of trolls around the world, who just want to create global panic for the lols.

People in the free world have been studying Covid19 in their own countries, as it’s spread to them, and are sharing that information but... we’re talking about three weeks worth of study on small sample sizes. There just hasn’t been enough time to fully understand how dangerous this virus really is.

Earlier this week, the big panic was essentially triggered by comparing global death toll numbers, to global estimates for how many have been infected... and that’s resulted in the estimated fatality for Covid19 at 2%... compared to 0.1% for Influenza.

If accurate, that would be a Spanish Flu magnitude pandemic... highly contagious, and extremely deadly.

But... if the infection numbers turn out to be far higher than we realize... it brings both the contagiousness factor, and the fatality percentage waaay down.

And just here at the end of the week, this is what it’s starting to look like.

We’re starting to understand that Covid19 is probably a lot more like the common cold, than the common flu... and that the vast number of victims simply mistake it for a mild cold, and get over it quickly.

This, based on the way it’s beginning to pop up with people who are very far removed from any possible contact with known vectors.

Does it still get serious and cause pneumonia in some victims, taking some of their lives, yes... but this may turn out to be a very small percentage of all infected... more like the 0.1% who die from the common flu.

If so, standard precautions are enough to keep the threat at bay, globally until a vaccine can be produced next year.

Maybe I’m wrong here, but, this is my best guess based on the knowledge we have at the moment... minus the disinformation and trolling.

Based on that... I’d predict that the markets go back to normal in the coming two weeks, as the deadly pandemic fails to materialize. We shall see.

In other news, the South Carolina Primary is tomorrow.

Most polling suggests that Joe Biden will take first place, by a comfortable margin over Bernie Sanders, who will follow a distant second. Some outlier polls had Sanders within only one or two points of Biden, earlier in the week, but the conventional wisdom tonight, is that Biden will enjoy a big win in SC.

I still think Bernie can pull off an upset and win SC.

This is based on the fact that Bernie has so far, consistently over performed his polling... while Biden has consistently under performed his own polling.

You can poll well, but will those supporters actually go out and vote on election day? That’s the name of the game.

Biden’s supporters tend to be over represented in the polls, because they are the kind of people the pollsters know how to query... but they aren’t necessarily motivated enough to actually follow through.

With Bernie, it’s the opposite... his followers are under represented by contemporary polling techniques, but are also highly motivated to get out and vote for their candidate... thanks to his extraordinary ground game.

We’ll see tomorrow.

One thing is for certain... after doing so poorly in the first three states, and losing so much ground to Bloomberg in the polling for Super Tuesday states... Biden needs an unmitigated blow out in SC to stay relevant.

And even an unmitigated blow out might not be enough to save his campaign, as there are only two full days between the SC and Super Tuesday, for him to try and leverage the big win enough to influence voters.

On the other hand, all Bernie needs to do is come in a close second... close that gap to single digits... and he’s looking formidable.

Like I said, I think Bernie can overtake Biden tomorrow, at least by a few points... and if he does... he will crush Super Tuesday.

Exciting times.

But I’m going to bed.

*It should be noted here that unlike bacteria... which can be treated with antibiotics, viruses can only be neutralized by the immune system itself... once it knows how to identify the threat.

That’s why some viruses, like HPV, which causes common warts, can be so stubborn and near impossible to eradicate... because they’re good at avoiding immune system detection... but also don’t kill, or even seriously harm their hosts. To kill a wart virus... the only real treatment is salicylic acid applied directly to the spot, nearly constantly, for extremely long periods... months if not years.

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soccerdrawings · 5 years

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How To Get People To Like Live Soccer | Live Soccer

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biofunmy · 5 years

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Here’s What Giuliani’s Associate Lev Parnas Was Sharing On WhatsApp As He Investigated The Ukraine Conspiracy Theory

tech

New evidence shows exactly how influenced by the right-wing online echo chamber Giuliani and his associates were — turns out the answer is: a lot.

Ryan Broderick BuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on January 16, 2020, at 11:24 a.m. ET

Stephanie Keith / Getty Images

Lev Parnas arrives with his wife, Svetlana Parnas, at federal court in New York, Dec. 2, 2019.

House Democrats released dozens of pages of new documents related to the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump on Tuesday night, including texts between Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer working for the president, and one of his associates, Lev Parnas, who in spring and summer 2019 was helping him dig up dirt on former vice president Joe Biden. These texts provide a glimpse of what these men were consuming online and how that impacted their investigation.

WhatsApp messages from Parnas to Giuliani and Republican congressional candidate Robert F. Hyde are included in the evidence. These messages suggest that someone working with Hyde was physically surveilling then–US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch — whom Trump removed in May 2019. Ukraine’s Interior Ministry announced a criminal probe Thursday into alleged illegal surveillance of Yovanovitch following the release of Parnas and Hyde’s messages.

On Wednesday night, Parnas told Rachel Maddow that he never took Hyde seriously about the surveillance of Yovanovitch and claimed Hyde was always drunk when he saw him. But as they discussed Yovanovitch’s whereabouts, it was Parnas who was regularly sending Hyde material gleaned from hyperpartisan news sites and right-wing influencers.

Parnas’s text messages are the clearest indication yet of what Giuliani and his team were paying attention to online during a critical moment that would eventually lead to Trump’s impeachment. Many of the details make little sense without the context of a sprawling and nonsensical pro-Trump conspiracy theory built by anonymous message boards, Facebook Groups, rabid Twitter gangs, radicalized YouTube channels, and Fox News segments — all of which was shared among the men.

With this new evidence, we’re now closer than ever to knowing exactly how influenced by this digital morass they were — turns out the answer is: a lot.

In March 2019, Parnas was working with Yuriy Lutsenko, the former prosecutor general of Ukraine, to investigate Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma. On March 21, Parnas entered an encrypted WhatsApp chat with Hyde, a Republican currently running for Congress in Connecticut.

Facebook posts from Hyde’s campaign are heavily promoted by two anonymously run pro-Trump networks of pages previously identified as coordinating with each other to share right-wing memes and stories, some of which are false or misleading. When asked about his relationship to the network of pages, Hyde told BuzzFeed News in November 2019 that he does not run them.

“These are bad people, I’m out to expose their actions. Attack me all you want, get the facts first,” Hyde tweeted last night. “The media is against me because they’re either complicit or have a hand in it, I welcome an investigation. I’ll provide my email password and hand my phone over, bring it on.”

After the two men entered the encrypted chat, Parnas texted Hyde five links in quick succession. The first was a tweet from Fox News host Laura Ingraham, which linked to an article by right-wing publisher the Washington Examiner titled “Mark Meadows: US Ambassadors Conspired With DOJ to Take Down Trump.”

Ingraham’s tweet was retweeted close to 2,000 times, but the Examiner article went viral elsewhere as well. It ended up on two different r/The_Donald posts and several big pro-Trump Facebook Groups. The article centered on an interview Sean Hannity did with North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, who claimed an upcoming release of documents would prove that US ambassadors conspired with the FBI and the Justice Department to harm President Trump. (No such documents were subsequently revealed.)

The next link Parnas sent was an article from the Hill featuring an interview between Lutsenko and then–Hill columnist John Solomon, whose stories about Ukraine have set the agenda for much of the conservative news coverage leading up to Trump’s impeachment. As with the Examiner article, the Hill piece was shared heavily inside Facebook Groups like Team Trump 2020 and Texas for Donald Trump 2020 as well as the r/The_Donald subreddit.

Parnas also shared a tweet from Hannity. The tweet is no longer available, but, according to an archived version of it, the host was promoting Solomon’s interview with Lutsenko.

A minute later, Parnas sent two more Hill articles: another write-up of a Solomon interview with Lutsenko, and an article by Solomon about a “Ukrainian plot” to help Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.

Hyde didn’t reply.

The next day, March 22, 2019, Parnas continued to send links to Hyde. First, a Washington Examiner article titled “White House Personnel Official Described Trump GOP Nomination As ‘End of the World’,” which included Slack messages from Courtney Mullen, a staffer at a conservative voter outreach organization inviting her colleagues to an “end of the world” happy hour following Trump’s presidential victory.

Then Parnas sent Hyde a tweet from Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who is now a far-right radio show host.

“What was Joe Biden doing in Ukraine during the month his son Hunter was named to a key board position in an influential Ukrainian company[?]” Bongino tweeted.

Hyde then responded to Parnas for the first time since their encrypted chat started the day before. “Fuck that bitch,” he texted, seemingly in reference to Mullen.

The two men spent the next day texting each other, and Hyde claimed he was closely monitoring Yovanovitch’s movements in Kyiv. In response, Parnas shared a story about her from the right-wing news site Daily Wire titled “Calls Grow to Remove Obama’s U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.”

At one point Hyde seemed confused by the volume of links that Parnas sent. Hyde sent back the link about the anti-Trump happy hour and wrote, “what should I do with this?”

On March 27, 2019, Parnas sent by far the most obscure piece of media in the exchange, a YouTube video titled “Trumps takedown of FBI (Winning montage!).” The YouTube channel it comes from has only nine subscribers. By the time Parnas texted it, it was already a year old, having all but died in obscurity. As of this week, it’s only been watched around 4,000 times.

But the video did receive a bit of activity from Trump supporters the week it was dropped into Parnas’s WhatsApp, though. That week, it was featured on r/The_Donald in a post titled “SOON,” was promoted heavily by QAnon-affiliated Twitter accounts, and was tweeted several times by one account called “Deplorable Nurse Ratchett luvs Q.”

The majority of links Parnas sent Hyde that March were all being heavily shared within radicalized communities like Reddit and by conspiratorial pro-Trump influencers on Twitter. If Parnas wasn’t directly visiting r/The_Donald, the WhatsApp chat logs released on Tuesday night make it clear that he was drawing his misinformation from the same well. It also gives us a better understanding of how Parnas used pro-Trump internet ephemera to reinforce what Hyde was doing in Ukraine — even if the investigation was based on internet conspiracy theories.

According to the Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs committees, Parnas “continues to provide material responsive to the subpoena on a rolling basis.”

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dansnaturepictures · 7 years

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My 10 Wildlife/Photography highlights blogs of 2017: The introduction

It’s that time of year again where I post my annual thread of blogs for my 10 2017 Wildlife/Photography highlights, the beginning of my activities to mark the end of the year and all that’s gone on with my hobby within it. All blogs will be done on this Tumblr account (unless there are technical faults in which case it’ll become a Twitlonger for my Twitter account Dans_Pictures with a selection of the pictures intended to be attached to the blogs tweeted)

They’ll be posted from the middle of November until the start of December, I will post one today, one next Monday, one every week day in the week beginning the 27th November and one on the 4th, 5th and 6th December. They will be posted at 7:00pm GMT. This leads up to the reveals of my 3 photos of the year and the top 5 for each category as the year draws to a close. As I said it’ll be the last time I do photos of the year with my quality gap thinning all the time in my pictures and other reasons. The photo of the year reveal nights will take place on Twitter, with Tumblr there as a backup uploading system should things go wrong as normal, and they’ll be photosets with recaps of them this year showing the top 10 from each category (with my 6th-10th ranked in the same post as the top 5 unlike previous years) and a blog with the story behind the pictures I pick as my photos of the year in the week after the Twitter reveal as usual. This year however I have also merged the two Photo of the Year Tumblr posts, so the Tumblr photosets with my top 10 from each category will have a mass of text underneath the captions which is the story behind my photo of the year for each category. I think this makes more sense as it saves me mass posting about it and over the last couple of years I’ve done the stories behind posts I do seem to mention the runners up and third places and even below as part of the story so why not have them in the same post. This draws it all to a close nicely with it being my last ever as well. There is a chance I may not be able to follow the original plans for the nights I tweet these photos and I may have to just do them via the Tumblr posts and I’ll bring them forward but I will let you know separately if this is the case. So intentionally I will reveal my Landscape & Sky Photo of the Year and top 5 on Thursday 7th December, my Wildlife Photo of the Year and top 6 (because my favourite mammal picture of the year finished 6th) on Friday 8th December and my Minority Subjects Photo of the Year and top 5 on Monday 11th December. The Tumblr posts will go out on the evenings of the 18th, 19th and 20th December a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

2017 was another incredible wildlife and photography year for me, which saw me see another incredible amount of birds with some amazing ones included and 2017 has my highest ever bird year list total now, have a great butterfly season seeing the second highest amount of butterflies I ever have in a year, take my best ever set of landscape pictures, achieve a dream of getting a closeup Kingfisher photograph, see another of my wildlife photos win a photography competition, see Chris Packham and the Hawk Conservancy Trust team put on a wonderful display on an evening, return to my beloved Pembrokeshire, attend my 10th consecutive Bird Fair, do our 10th Richmond Park visit with Bushy Park too and return to Brownsea Island as well. These specific highlights and many more are woven into 10 distinct themes if you like which make up these posts.

Please note that this blog has been written in the spring when I had spare moments on a bank holiday and the highlights blogs themselves will have been written and crafted at different times of year, like when I had spare moments on my Pembrokeshire holiday! So things like year list totals may be out of date soon after the time of posting. As always each of the highlights are different, some relate to a season, others are a remembrance of a trip I went on and some have experiences from throughout the year. I’m choosing pictures to go in these blogs based on what I think suits it best, so these are not guaranteed to be pictures that have finished highly in my photo of the year contest, the two things are separate and the pictures chosen in these blogs are not competitively and extensively judged by me. As always when I promise things in advance and over an extended period of time, this plan is an intention and you never know when problems may occur to stop me being able to follow a part of the plan so just be aware of that. I hope you enjoy my celebrations until the end of the year and I wish you all a wonderful festive period and happy new year attached in this photoset are my 2 Christmas edits from my pictures as well as my New Year edit.

There’s just one last thing I’d like to mention before we get going, there has been another change in employment circumstances as I have got a full time office job pending references etc. It was the best situation for everyone to give up my part-time job, I finish that tomorrow, so until a start date is confirmed for my new job I will likely be going out seeing things and taking pictures in the week again. This applies to the highlights posts as some of them will go out on days I have pictures to upload and blog posts of the trips. Taking the view of Twitter and Tumblr together I’ve not yet decided in this event if I’m going to sandwich the highlights blog which will likely go out after I’ve tweeted the day’s pictures between the pictures being tweeted and day’s blog post by timing it to go out after the highlights blog. As I said recently I do this when I’m likely to be reacting to natural history television in an evening, however the highlights blog is obviously my own content (my pictures and experiences) so I may just let it be at the head of profile that evening.

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flytoniall-blog · 7 years

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Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop - Wednesday Morning

Read parts 1, 2 & 3

“Isn’t in obvious?” Gemma groaned and banged her head against the espresso machine melodramatically, spurring a laugh from her co-worker, Mason.

“Must not be to him,” he muttered, placing a hand on her shoulder, “He’d be daft not to want to take you out.” Gemma rolled her eyes. “What? I heard you put out on the first date!” he chuckled and dodged her evil glare by going to take a customer’s order.

Gemma claimed to be a single, independent woman who didn’t need a man. However, that does not mean she didn’t want a man--specifically a man with a golden laugh and glowing eyes. Niall Horan might be the nicest lad she’s met in West London Coffee Co. and also the most clueless. She flirts with him every day in the most obvious way. Why else would she call him Scottish Neil? That melodious accent could not be from anyone without a native Irish tongue. She should know. Her father lives in Dublin, and she spent every summer there during childhood.

She sighed and looked at the clock before changing her glance to the door. It was 8:30AM, and she knew he had to be somewhere by 9:00AM every weekday morning. He had missed his morning fix a few times, but after their talk last night, she thought maybe he’d come.

“So the pop-star’s really going to save our open mic-night?” her boss, Emily, interrupted her thoughts. She was a tall redhead with a very blunt and to-the-point personality.

“Yes,” Gemma responded nervously. Emily always made her nervous. Perhaps it was the way her eyes lowered to meet hers in an almost annoyed fashion. “He seemed excited about it.”

“Well, that’s great.” This may be the first time Emily told her she was doing something well. Usually their conversations consisted of her listing all the things she was doing wrong. “Just make sure it’s a controllable audience,” she added before walking to the office in the back.

Gemma hadn’t thought about how many people could potentially show up to see solo Niall on hiatus. Slow Hands and This Town were killing the charts, and his fans were very dedicated. She considered asking Niall next time she spoke to him about having it a secret show like the one Harry described on her favorite show, Late Late Show with James Corden. Before she could plan that, however, Niall needed to show up. She checked the clock again. It didn’t look like he was.

Hours of making coffee, serving muffins, and placing orders later, the bell chimed once more at 10:44AM. Gemma had stopped glancing up many customers ago. She did not expect to see him there, and Niall did not expect Mason to give two thumbs-up and a wink upon entering.

“Hi,” she spoke quietly.

“Good morning, Emma.”

She rolled her eyes. “Nice to see you, Neil.” Mason fake gagged in the corner at their awful flirting. Could they be anymore juvenile, he internally inquired.

“Can you take a break to talk about Saturday.”

“Technically, it’s work-related. Lets head out to the patio seating, where it’s quiet.” He followed her before they sat down in iron chairs across from each other. “Thank you so much again,” Gemma reminded.

“Anything to keep my favorite coffee shop alive,” Niall told her, “This place is packed in the morning. Why is it going out-of business?”

“Well, not many people are here during the day and evening. My boss is thinking about cutting hours and laying people off if we can’t get regular business.”

Niall considered this for a moment. Before pulling out his phone and taking a picture of the West London Coffee Co.’s sign. “I’m going to tweet this when I leave. I bet more people will show up; this place is pretty hidden.”

Gemma smiled. “You don’t have to do that--”

“--I want to. Don’t want you to be without a job.”

She laughed. “Well I’ll probably quit soon. I love the coffee, but I graduate uni next semester. Time to get a proper office job,” she sighed.

Niall looked at her the way Gemma always wanted someone to when she spoke. Every bit of his attention was on her. She felt important in his eyes. He scrunched his eyebrows. “Is that what you want?”

Gemma had been planning to become an accountant, like her mother, uncles and aunts. That whole side of the family was full of white-collar professionals. She was brainwashed into thinking that a career in the arts wasn’t practical. So she majored in accounting, and she was decent enough at solving financial problems and entering numbers into excel and data bases. The pay would be great, and it’d be predictable hours for the rest of her life. The only issue was that she hated it. She hated how when she closed her eyes she saw excel cells, and she hated how empty she felt after studying her business textbooks.

“No one’s every asked me that before,” Gemma confessed.

“Not even your Mum?” This caused Gemma to blabber on for ten minutes about how her whole family was full of accountants and finance agents, how much she hated it, and that she didn’t know what else to. After she was finished, Niall asked, “Well what does your dad do?”

“Owns a music/record shop in Dublin.”

Niall looked taken back. Gemma had name-dropped Dublin on purpose in hopes of gaining connection. She figured he had been there before. He grinned widely when they conversed about the name and location.

“I used to go there on the weekends when I was a teenager,” he rambled, “I loved looking through the record stacks for hours. Would barely buy anything, but it was all a good fun. Are you Irish? Cause you sound British?”

“Sort-of. My parents are divorced. He moved back to Dublin when I was eight.”

“Mine too.” Her arms were crossed on the table separating the two. Niall reached over and placed his large, calloused hand gently on her forearm. “It sucks.” She didn’t flinch. Gemma was trying not to hyperventilate that her longtime crush, Niall, was touching her. Does this count as making a move?

The rest of her break was spent speaking about her summers in Ireland, their favorite movies, and anything in between. They planned that he would play about an hour, charge ten euros for tickets which would be donated to the coffee shop, and announce the show a little before. He assured Gemma his management could handle the possibility of too many people showing up and planning the announcement. “It’s going to be a lot of fun,” he mused.

“I’m excited to see you live. I saw you a couple years ago here in London.”

“Really? I didn’t think you were a fan.”

“Who isn’t,” she chuckled. He blushed.

Niall didn’t want to leave, but he was already receiving text messages from his assistant that he needed to start heading to a photo shoot. He loved speaking to Gemma. After their conversation, he felt like he really knew her, and she hoped that she knew him: the Niall that likes indie coffee shops and playing golf, not the Niall that has millions of twitter followers and multiple hit-singles.

“Thanks for coming,” Gemma said and stood up. She didn’t know the proper greeting to give. Was she supposed to hug him? Or shake his hand? Luckily, Niall answered that for her.

He wrapped his arms around her for a couple seconds longer than necessary. Ducked his head down and placed it into her strawberry scented hair and squeezed. He almost kissed her cheek, but stopped himself. Gemma was not his girlfriend.

At least not yet anyway.

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