#in a different state than the one i live in

[harrysonlylover]

WAKE UP.

I’m not sure how I can put this into words or make you understand the current events. I’ve always been one to hide my private information for my own safety like everyone else on here, but that has to change today.

Most of you might hear this first from me, because western media is a bitch. I think we all know how “!srael” is a terr@rist state, and if you disagree in any shape or form, I’d like to congratulate you for being brainwashed by western propaganda.

You see, fighting for the freedom of Palestine is not a trend, it is a movement that needs action. What you may not know is that as a terr@rist state, “!srael” not only targets Palestine but many other countries as well.

Since october 9, Southern Lebanon has been targeted by “!srael” bombing villages under the excuse of targeting “m!l!tias”. To sum it up, over the past 2 months, we experienced breakage of sound barriers, heavy bombing and civilian deaths.

They exploded pagers that injured THOUSANDS, only to bomb a heavily populated area in the capital killing over 60 civilians including children and women, and they’re still under the rubbles.

Today, they attacked the South very heavily and are “asking” (more like forcing) the residents of the south and north to evacuate and their soldiers are calling it “mission Gaza 2”.

My world has always been different from many of you on here. I never thought that I’d reach a day where I’d wonder if I will wake up the next day or not. I have rage inside me enough to burn a nation and yet, I silently cry. My friends are displaced, the village where I spent my childhood in is being bombed. There are over 180 deaths and almost a thousand injury just from today’s bombing. This isn’t an escalation, this is war.

We are not savages, we’re educated and we shine abroad as great scientists, poets, scholars.

Even as you read this, you will never understand how this feels like, to wonder if you will live, and see your homeland get destroyed, and I hope from the bottom of my heart that you never will.

The USA is silent, UN is silent, Europe is silent. Stop believing elections, stop believing politicians. Everything is bigger than you could ever imagine.

Stop, please stop being desensitised to what is happening. You are not better than us. The only thing that sets a barrier between us is that your leaders have the upper hand and we have the resources and interests they want.

SHARE and speak up about Lebanon. Don’t let your kids sit and wonder years from now why no one stopped this because you are living it and the headlines of the newest pop song or celebrity gossip is not more important than sharing and showing everyone “!srael’s” terr@rism.

This may move you, or may not. But history repeats itself.

[nerd-at-sea5]

are u pro palestine... we have the same interests but i dnt want to follow u if ur weird

honestly this blog is for silly little thoughts about lesbians and such and the occasional personal story or opinion but it’s about time i got one of these. so buckle up long post ahead and it’s not gonna be a cut and paste yes/no answer bc yeah. just read the thing

first of all: im jewish. raised jewish and will forever be jewish. i'm proud of it. i'm not super religious and don't really believe in god but that doesn't mean i'm any less jewish.

second: i believe in a 2 state solution. i don't like terrorists. i think hamas needs to be held accountable for the murders and horrors they've committed, because frankly i think they're a bunch of monsters and terrible people. i don't agree with a lot of the stuff that netanyahu does either because that stuff is also not ok. but overall: fuck hamas.

that being said, i believe that israel has the right to exist. i believe that the jews deserve a homeland where we can be safe. i believe that a 2 state solution is the safest and smartest option. but i will also say that as the correct and historically accurate definition of zionism is to believe in the movement and protection of the jewish state - i am a zionist and i am not going to shy away from what i believe in.

i am aware that people will not like this about me, and i am aware they will try to tell me things about myself that are not true. so i am going to set the record straight and go back to posting about my silly little tv shows.

israel has a right to exist and to defend itsself

hamas are terrorists and should not be in power

i am in favor of a 2 state solution

the people of gaza don't deserve to live in horrible conditions because of the terrorists in power

jews and israeli's don't deserve the hate and abuse that they're experiencing because of people who don't know how to fact check

the hostages should be home. this is non-negotiable, they should be home.

and again - im aware that this isn't the yes/no answer you want, but i can't give that to you because its much more complicated than that.

lastly, if you want to unfollow me for any of these things please go ahead, i don't care. i implore you to fact check yourself before sending hate and threats to people online or in real life (or assaulting/hurting people, seriously just don’t do that.)

if you pick and choose who to engage with online due to political opinions that's up to you, but a difference in opinions isnt 'weird' its just human.

[mossyeyeballs]

TW: mentions of pretty much everything terrible. 🍇, trafficking, all of the above.

CLASS OF 09 RANT, FLIP SIDE SPOILERS

Ok not my usual post (I’ve posted twice ik but shush) but what the freak was the flip side??….. I was a huge fan of class of 09 + the re up but this game was so.. what’s the word….. dog shit? Even if we ignore half of the game being about the creators weird foot fetish, the sl@ve ending was so unnecessary. I feel like the only thing in that route that was worth writing was the issue in retail work and that wasn’t even the star focus, let alone side focus. The main plot of that route was the counselor having some weird illegal 🌽 warehouse, jecka finding it, and then him blackmailing her into human 🚙 🚙 ing?

The only ending I thought was necessary IF THAT was when Jecka found Nicole after the sue a side ending from re up. I thought it did a decent job at talking about sue a side victims, and how nobody really cares about them until it’s too late, And even then they only care for a week or so and then move on.

But the Jeffery dying one was the most out of place in my opinion (unfortunately it beats the foot ending.) For starters, Nicole was really out of character imo, like yeah she’s talked about wishing Jeffery was dead before, but her actually killing him just out of boredom is so odd. Her entire character is “I don’t put effort into anything unless it benefits me.” Killing Jeffrey was not only ALOT of effort, but she gained absolutely nothing. On top of that, saying it’s different than doing. Like how she talked about wishing her mom was dead, but then when she had a heart attack, she panicked. Plus, she PLANNED on making Jecka take some of the blame on his death, which she stated in past games she wouldn’t do. She literally never put Jecka in harms way, let alone jail if it didn’t also benefit them both. But this didn’t, she just did it to do it.

While we’re talking about Nicole being out of character, I feel it valid to mention her and Jeckas dad. For obvious (and gross) reasons, I won’t be detailing this, but her doing that to Jecka wasn’t fully out of character, but still odd. Like I mentioned earlier, Nicole never really did anything to spite Nicole, so I find it odd that she did in this game. You could blame it on “oh she’s a sociopath she doesn’t care.” But I don’t think that’s inherently true. Yeah, I guess it’s canon she’s a sociopath, but in that case they do a bad job at consistency. She’s shown in both games 1 and 2 caring about people she’s close with, whether it’s Jecka, her mom, or even Emily in one segment. So I find it completely random that she did this to Jecka over something as small as not sharing how she got into foot work. Jeckas done much worse stuff to Nicole, and Nicole just didn’t care because they were friends, or didn’t feel the need to put effort into doing something if she did care. So yeah, Nicole basically screwing Jeckas dad over something so little felt out of character.

One of the few things that bothered me the least, but I feel the need to mention was the foot work stuff. Not because it was out of character, i fear I’ve seen worse stuff mentioned in that game. But I guess the way it was portrayed as less of a story plot and more of the creator trying to live out his fantasies. He himself has stated Jeffrey is basically a self insert, so the whole being sexually obsessed with Jecka and her feet felt REALLY weird. Compared to Nicole’s my space favor thing, this just felt dirty. For comparison. Both Jecka and Nicole took up sex work to keep a home life or lackthereof, they both got money from strangers to do sexual things, and they both hated doing it. But why did Jeckas feel so much more personal and gross? Because the actual sex work was shown. In graphic detail. And all of Jeffrey’s (the creators) personal thoughts were stated with no backlash. Jeffery literally asked Jecka if she would 🍒feed him, and he was excused. When Nicole was asked the same hing from the same guy, he was insulted, yelled at, even told to leave.

So, creepy creator who’s obsessed with his barely legal characters, Jecka being sold to 🚙 🚙ing agaisnt her will, Jeffrey being murdered for no reason other than a giggle or two from his haters, Jecka accidentally killing Ari cause she was drunk driving, feet fan service, and fan service in general aside, the game is left only with the regular drug and alcohol abusage we always see. which in the game that was advertised as a new experience felt really stale and honestly left me bored. The ONE SINGULAR time during this game that I giggled was when the hat man appeared in the Ari route.

If you’ve fully ignored everything I said in this, maybe didn’t care, or didn’t even read it. Id just like to mention for everyone that the creator of this game said that anybody who disliked him, his games, his writing, or his humor were kid diddlers. In full seriousness. So yeah, no shock this game was bad, but I guess I shouldn’t have expected better from someone who thinks his haters are all child likers. All this being said, I enjoyed class of 09, and the re up. I’m hoping the anime episode that comes out soon with be a decent save. all of THAT being said, I don’t support this creator. I don’t support his actions, I think he’s a shitty person who’s made some shitty jokes, but made some not so shitty games that I decently enjoyed. I also haven’t bought them, so none of my money has gone towards him or his projects. I in NO WAY support him. Thanks for reading.

Feel free to comment down some of your own opinions if you feel so inclined, I’m interested in what everyone else thought of this game :))

[bithablu]

I'm having a difficult time with certain people I know IRL who say that both political parties are the same and it's not worth voting. The Palestinian genocide is usually their main talking point about how both parties suck and how they can't vote for anyone who wouldn't demand an immediate cease fire.

Ok. Cool. Name me one president who didn't have to deal with some kind of genocide. Now show me the one that dealt with it perfectly. No flaws. Quickly. Oh? None? Because politicians are deeply flawed people navigating an overly complicated system of checks and balances that are in place to prevent fascism and dictatorships? Huh.

Palestinians need humanitarian aid, support, political allies, and political pressure on Israel. Which candidate do you think would be more likely to provide ANY of that? The guy who moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, tacitly insinuating that Jerusalem was Israel's capital? Or the chick who called for a cease fire and has a history of supporting humanitarian aid programs?

Is she perfect? Fuck no. Is she good enough? Not on this topic. But which one of them is more like to adjust their policies?

Speaking of adjusting policies, have you heard the story of how Walz went from being beloved by the NRA to get constant F ratings from them? His daughter talked to him about how he was the only person she knew who had the power to prevent school shootings. So she talked and he listened. He prioritized life over lobbyists. Action instead of just thoughts and prayers.

Can you see JD Vance doing that? I can't. He's too busy insulting legal immigrants and letting women bleed out from miscarriages because doctors have to wait 'until the mother's life is in danger' to perform D&Cs. You know, that procedure to 'clean out' a woman after a miscarriage. It's technically an abortion and some doctors would rather wait until a woman is in septic shock than risk a jail sentence for obeying their Hippocratic oath. But Vance adjusting his stance on abortion laws to save lives is less important than making a stand against... I dunno, anti-evangelical behavior 🤷🏼‍♀️

Look, I know it's disheartening. It's fucking heart wrenching just to hear about what's happening in Gaza. But throwing your vote away does no one any good. If you want to make a difference, being indifferent with your vote is not the way to go.

Have you tried talking to your local/state politicians? Have you joined any organizations? Donated? What have you done?

For those of you who say that I'm afraid of the bad orange man, you know what- yeah. I'm afraid of what he could do. My daughter is already going to grow up with less rights than I had. Gods help her if she'd move to a different state; in some of the more restrictive states a woman has more bodily autonomy as a corpse than she does if she's pregnant.

Harris/Walz isn't the best choice but they are the better choice. Pro-union, pro-children, pro-education, pro-choice, pro-GBLTQ+, pro-environment.

If you're waiting for the perfect candidate, you're going to be waiting for a while.

[scentedpeachlandcreator]

subconscious mind, divine power, awareness, you |

!Note: this post is not mine, credit to vanilla on amino! (The original post is here)

hello and welcome to my post! it's another "vanilla explain's" where i will talk about "you". what is there? what do you do? what is your job? how many important parts are there?

note: divine power = common term in the multiverse,describes something like "the universe" here.

     |Г table of content.       

                   i. intro.

                  ii. what are we.

                  iii. what's your job.

                       - part's of you.

                       - job's.

                       - shifting.

                  iv. "everyone shifts constantly".

                  v. outro.

                           i. intro.

our topic today is, surprise surprise, awareness.

what is that? what does it mean, and for what is it responsible? all things that i will talk explain in this deep detail post about what we actually are.

it's something pretty important in the multiverse and can definitely and overall in your general life.

what is there beside you? different part's with different jobs, taks, and abilities.

please make sure to read everything and to ask whatever you want to know!

ii. what are we:

from my post "comfort version's" an explanation what part of "you" you are:

"what are we? and no, we are not humans, we are not even human-like. in fact, we are nothing. we are, what is called, an "awareness". you are part of a huge construct that builds up the whole "you". that what you always are, were, and will be. you can not change it, you are the awareness and will continue to be it for the rest of your existence. but that's nothing bad! what does it actually mean to be an awareness? as an awareness you just live a bit, have fun, do whatever you want, that's your whole purpose. how do you do it? you, the awareness, are

aware of things. you are currently aware of the physical plane, you see it, hear it, smell it, test it, and feel it.

you are always aware, even in the void. the void is, as you can read here, your tiny awareness home.

so long story short: you are an awareness that is aware of things, nothing more, nothing less."

⁣⠀⁣⠀ ⁣so we, every single one of us, is an awareness. you read this right now, you are aware of it, that means you are the awareness. you are connected with the other parts of "you". the subconscious mind and the divine power (here often called "universe"). these are basically the two main part's (awareness + subcons) and the supporter (divine power) of "you".

it is like that in every single reality in the whole multiverse because it does not happen on the 3d, the physical plane. your subconscious mind and the divine power are living on the 4d, the reality. you, the awareness, are the only one that is supposed to be

able to live on the 3d. of course you can be in a reality where your subconscious mind is also a person, but the 4d is still it's home. like yours is the void state as an awareness.

iii. what's your job:

but what are you supposed to do? what are your responsibilities? what does your subconscious mind or the divine power? before we answer that question, we take a better look at the other part's of "you".

part's of you:

the subconscious mind: definitely the part with the most misconceptions! who of you heard the term "reprogramming"? everyone? delete it, now. the subconscious mind is the smartest and most powerful part of you with the most things to do, and it masters everything of it. all the time. it is so much smarter than you will ever be, it is pure perfection, not improvable. there is nothing to "reprogram". many here think of the subconscious mind like a useless baby, something you have to "train" or to "impress"and believe me, it laugh's itself to death- it knows more about everything. it knows you better than you do, your desires, your reality, that's also a part of it's job's. it is so powerful, constantly navigating your reality, it genuinely loves you and that will never ever change. you could hate it with your whole heart, be disgusted, angry, frustrated. and your subconscious mind would understand you, everything of it. it would still love you, take care of you, and your reality. there is no case where this could ever be different. but why is "reprogramming" so popular? easy answer, humans are human and need something to blame. no matter if it's nearly logical, the more believe in it the better.

it is already for a long, long time a thing so here we are to finally stop this nonesense.

divine power: the divine power, here often called "universe", is your subconscious mind bestie (second bestie after you of course), and also lives on the 4d. we all know by now that the divine power/universe is also not this weird thing that "decides" when you shift or not. for now you can think of it like a cheerleader. your own, personal

one job's:

subconscious mind: a lot. let's start with the basics.

it always knows everything, all your desires, all your wishes, likes and dislikes, interests, it's just the smart part of you. then you, the awareness, exist, and that means you feel, think, assume and all of them go to the 4d. there sit's your subconscious mind day and night and sorts every single feeling, thought, assumption you ever had, into the categories "is good" (everything that serves your desires, that you like and enjoy) and "bullshit" (every doubts, limited belief, negative thing, everything you don't want).

only the good ones get used in your reality. if you f.e. think that you want a dog, this thought will go to the 4d, your subconscious mind see's it, thinks "we like dogs", and then adds a dog to your reality. the rest, the "bullshit" category, get's instantly kicked out. like immediately. no limited belief, no doubts, no unwanted thought, feeling, or assumption get's even near your reality. they have no power, they are worthless, unnatural, useless. your subconscious mind knows that, remember, it knows more than you do so of course also what you do not want. don't worry about "every thought manifests", that is simply not true.

your subconscious mind does everything for your reality, that means to take care of the things that enter it.

besides that your subconscious mind's job is to shift you. it does it every moment. it does it your whole existence, no matter what. it edits your reality constantly, it changes, corrects it, all that shifts you.

and i mean that besides the things you do (blink, breath,moving, thinking, feeling, assuming) that causes you to shift. when i say "you rush through the multiverse" you can take it very, very literal.

divine power: it's your cheerleader, your lucky charm. while your subconscious mind is hard working at everything, all the time, the dive power is like a puppy walking around searching whatever you want. like "uhh, we liked donuts, and, a yes! the chair was pretty, HEY, DO WE NEED ANYTHING ELSE??" while attracting positive things. as you can see, very wholesome. that's all it does. its pure existence brings you positivity, nothing else is needed. it is also really, really powerful without even noticing. it keeps the constant harmony in your reality, and literally brings you luck on accident.

it is very adorable and loves to work with you and your subconscious mind!

awareness: so, what is your job? what are your tasks?

what is your purpose? nothing. not really nothing-nothing

but you don't have a "hardworking, constant" task like your subconscious mind for example. your job is to exist. that is all. no matter if on the physical plane or not, your existence is your whole purpose. besides that you just have to enjoy life, the physical world, explore, do whatever makes you happy. your subconscious mind and the divine power do not work for thin air. they work for YOU. they work for the awareness. they wanna make sure you are happy, safe, and healthy. if that's not the case, let them change it. you don't have any other tasks, any other jobs, you don't have to move a single finger. remember how often i say "your birthright is happiness, you don't have to earn it because you always deserve it, it is your purpose in life". that is exactly what i mean. if you wanna do stuff, experience things, do it. but happiness is your only number one priority in the multiverse. nothing else.

your job is to exist, that's all you ever have to do.

shifting:

you probably heard the sentence "shifting is not your job" from me A LOT. i think everyone understood the basic point now, shifting is a law, it's the reason the multiverse exists bla bla bla. but now imagine this is not the case, okay? you don't shift for some reason, it doesn't exist as ultimate right now. shifting is still not YOUR job. you do nothing at all, it doesn't matter if you attempt or not. even when you do, there is nothing YOU, the awareness, change. you lay down, do a method, this all does not shift you. you do not shift yourself. but what happens is, that your subconscious mind runs up and down on the 4d, screaming "WE ARE IN OUR DR, WORK FASTER 3D!".

even then, when YOU do the "work", when YOU attemp, when YOU spent your time with "shifting yourself", you do nothing at all, it is just your subconscious mind. if you say "i want to shift" or attemp for 3 hours, there is no difference. the same thing happens. you, the awareness, are not supposed to do anything. what's your job? right, existing.

now we also know that the need "to do something", is extremely human, it is normal, you can't help it. so attempt as often as you want, your subconscious mind will love to receive such clear, obvious commands.

but what you also see in this community, are people that get their mental health ruined because of the "failures". it is not bad to do nothing, it is not lazy, it is not "not caring enough", it is your job. don't make yourself responsible for something you have no control over.

imagine you shift on command, immediately, the same thing happens. YOU say "i want to shift", your subconscious mind hears it and gives a command to the 3d, the 3d changes. you still don't do it yourself.

and when the 3d doesn't change right away, like it's often the case here, don't make yourself responsible for it nor your subconscious mind. you two did everything you had to do, your job is done. no need to worry. so if you want to attemp, do it. but if it hurts you, it's nothing bad to stop.

even if you "give up", you'll still shift. in fact, you also do your job then. you just exist, that's all. just because you don't hyperfocus on shifting, it won't change ever. you will shift no matter how much or less you do, it is completely unimportant.

iv. "everyone shifts constantly"

in this part i talk about "shifting constantly", a thing we already saw in kaiotic's post here where they started to talk about the topic so you're probably familiar with it! we agreed it would be fitting to explain the detailed "how" behind it here

⁣⠀⁣⠀ ⁣⠀⁣⠀we shift constantly. everyone of us. and no, i am not talking about "shifting is a law", you probably can't hear it anymore. we shift, you shift, i shift, your mom. you saw infinite versions of your mom, but are they different? did you have a whole other mom than yesterday? did you ever know her?

i use my little bathtub example again:

every single being in the multiverse has their own bathtub. it is always the exact same. you have one, i do, your mom also. in every bathtub are infinite bubbles. bathtub = 3d multiverse, bubbles = 3d realities. we can be in the EXACT identical bubble, 100%, but you are in YOUR bathtub and i am in MY.

and we constantly shift in our little bubbles, still always in the same. and a rule that always applies

"3d's can not effect each other". that means, you don't know what my 3d is like and i don't know yours.

we will never know. you can't know if i have a pokemon, you don't know if i look exactly like princess diana, you can not know. so we live in the same bubble, with two different 3d's. you shift all the time, i shift all the time. yes, we constantly change but that doesn't mean that we are randomly not in the identical bubbles anymore. the "you" in

my 3d changes all the time, but i still interact with YOU. just because you think i have blue hair, i don't have automatically blue hair in MY 3d. they can not effect each other. so you continue to interact with your mom, even if she changes constantly in your 3d. you do the same in hers.

this is very important to understand. it is nothing scary, it is nothing weird. you always interact with the same person. it is exactly the same with you, you shift all the time too but does that mean you are randomly a different person? just because our 3d's change separate from one another, it doesn't effect us directly. you still read this post here, don't you?

and i wrote it. like i did it with my other 50 ones. we are both very real, very equal and valid. so please don't overthink this, most of you come to very

out-of-context outcomes, so don't complicate it even more please, do it for yourself you won't be happy with spiraling. just remember, you are real, i am, your friends, and they won't magically change.

v. outro:

i hope i could introduce you to some things you didn't know about before! what you are, the part's of you,

your job's. always keep in mind that the things you want will come, there is no other possible outcome, no matter what. whatever happiness means to you, you'll receive it. always.

Note from me: i wanted to share this post cause i just found it useful, and this lovely vanilla have many incredible post on amino, she literally have so much experience in shifting.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

4 Great Motives for Writing by George Orwell

George Orwell:

From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books. Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living. They are:

(i) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful business men – in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they abandon individual ambition – in many cases, indeed, they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all – and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.

(ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations.

(iii) Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.

(iv) Political purpose – using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

It can be seen how these various impulses must war against one another, and how they must fluctuate from person to person and from time to time. By nature – taking your ‘nature’ to be the state you have attained when you are first adult – I am a person in whom the first three motives would outweigh the fourth. In a peaceful age I might have written ornate or merely descriptive books, and might have remained almost unaware of my political loyalties.

Looking back through the last page or two, I see that I have made it appear as though my motives in writing were wholly public-spirited. I don’t want to leave that as the final impression. All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist or understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.

Published in Gangrel, No. 4, Summer 1946

More: George Orwell

[lazycats-stuff]

Can you please do some dick grayson x male reader smut🤔

Oh I can do smut. But can't promise that it would be good. 😁

Summary: Dick is back from a long mission.

Warnings: SMUT, there is plot in this, but SMUT, also aftercare

(Y/N) was waiting for Dick to come back home. (Y/N) knew that Dick was going away for a while. It was a mission, but the contents were confidential according to Dick. (Y/N) was worried beyond belief for his boyfriend, but Dick assured him that he would be back after a few weeks. It was a hard goodbye for (Y/N). There would be no communications between them during this time and (Y/N) would left in a constant state of worry.

And that's how those weeks went by. (Y/N) had to go on, move along with life. It wasn't easy when you are worrying about your boyfriend 24/7. And there was no one to talk to about this. How can you tell someone that your boyfriend is Nightwing and on a mission God knows where?

Simply.

You don't.

His dad, Bruce Wayne was gone on the same mission too, so (Y/N) hoped that he would keep his boyfriend safe. Which was stupid to say and think, of course. Bruce would always watch out for his children. No matter how old they are. Even if they are living with their partners. And Bruce might pop up from time to time.

(Y/N) never minded it. Bruce was always nice to him. Almost like a second dad. If (Y/N) needed advice about Dick, Bruce was the one to go to. But now, he was alone in his worry for his boyfriend. (Y/N) tried to occupy himself with different activities. He went to the gym more often, started reading more and even decided to do some yoga. He was simply bored and wanted to take his mind off of the things.

And after a few weeks, Dick called. (Y/N) was relieved that Dick was even alive. Dick told him that he was fine and that he would be back by the evening. (Y/N) asked if he wanted him to make something to eat or order something. Dick said that he was going to eat him tonight.

(Y/N) spat his water out when he heard that, blushing profusely.

And when Dick came back a few hours after the call.

And that's how they were in this position, kissing hungrily, hands roaming all over each other, trying to find their way to the bedroom. Dick has had enough and picked (Y/N) up into his arms, making (Y/N) wrap himself around him, still kissing him hungrily.

" God, I missed you, " (Y/N) mumbled into the kiss, making Dick chuckle.

" I missed you too. "

Dick scrambled to open the bedroom door and then slam it with his foot once he entered. He threw (Y/N) on the bed, making him bounce. Dick wasted no time and leaned over (Y/N), kissing him like a madman. (Y/N) wasted no time in responding back, put his hand on the back of Dick's neck, pulling him closer.

Dick moved back to take his own shirt off and (Y/N) scrambled to take his own shirt off. Now this was more like it. (Y/N) missed running his hands over over Dick's muscular body. He loved it more than anything and missed it more than anything.

" God, I missed your hands all over me, " Dick mumbled into the kiss, before reaching down to take (Y/N)'s sweatpants on. (Y/N) lifted his hips, making the process a tad easier. (Y/N) tugged at Dick's pants, who helped in the process of taking them off. Now (Y/N) was happy. But there was one thing that was annoying him however.

Dick's boxers.

And Dick thought the same and the two scrambled to take their underwear off. (Y/N)'s hands moved to remove Dick's boxers first and Dick has helped. Now this...

This is it.

(Y/N)'s hands moved down to Dick's ass, squeezing at the flesh. Dick chuckled as he bit and nipped (Y/N)'s neck, wanting to mark him up. It's been far too long.

Once (Y/N)'s boxers were off, Dick reached for lube.

" Normally, I would make sure there was foreplay, but I can't hold back anymore. " Dick reached for lube at the bedside table and lubed his fingers up. He gently eased his pointer finger inside of (Y/N), making (Y/N) sigh happily in return. (Y/N) has missed this a lot. Dick's fingers have always managed to find his prostate, making him moan and throw his head back from pleasure.

Dick smirked at that and putting another finger into (Y/N)'s ass. He made to stretch his hole, pressing against (Y/N)'s prostate with more pressure, trying to make him cum first and once he's relaxed, he'll finally be able to fuck him. (Y/N) tensed up and moaned loudly as he came, back arching off of the bed.

Dick smiled at this. There it was. Those sounds coming out of (Y/N)'s mouth were heaven to him. He missed them, can you blame him?

" Now that you are relaxed. " Dick lubed up his cock, pressing the head of his cock against (Y/N)'s hole. " We can finally get to fucking. "

And with that, Dick pushed in, in one thrust, making (Y/N) gasp and cling onto Dick. He wrapped his legs around Dick's waist, bringing him closer. Arms were wrapped around Dick's shoulders, face buried into his shoulder.

Dick started off slowly, trying to savor this feeling, feeling that he has missed so much during the long mission and the one he tried to emulate with his hand, but it was never good enough.

(Y/N) sighs and moans were like music to his ears. Slowly Dick picked up the speed, making (Y/N) wrap himself around him and throw his head back. Dick caged (Y/N)'s head between his arms.

" I-I'm close, " (Y/N) stuttered and Dick smiled. His right hand moved down to (Y/N)'s dick, since his fingers were still wet from lube. Not to mention, (Y/N) was steadily leaking precum, so it would do the job.

(Y/N)'s moans reached a new height and Dick saw that he was close. After a few moments, (Y/N) came hard, painting his stomach with his cum. Dick stilled as (Y/N) squeezed him, panting harshly. He came with another thrust, collapsing onto (Y/N), who sighed happily.

" I need to clean you up, " Dick murmured into (Y/N)'s ear.

" Yeah, that would be nice. "

Dick kissed his cheek and slowly pulled out. (Y/N) huffed at the now emptiness. Dick kissed his lips before going to the bathroom to get a damp rag.

(Y/N) closed his eyes as he listened to the sounds in the bathroom. He felt the dip in the bed and the damp rag wiping his stomach clean from the cum. It was nice and cooling.

" I love you Dick. "

" I love you too (Y/N). More than you'll ever know. "

[moon-my-beloved]

Wicked Game: a little snippet of the next chapter :3

“I don’t think I can do this.” You mutter nervously, clenching your sweaty palms against the fabric of your gloves for the millionth time that day as you sit in the passenger seat of Laswell’s car. You two had arrived earlier than expected and were now parked outside the house that belonged to the four men Kate had been speaking of these last couple of days. You barely caught any of it though, too busy trying to figure out why you even agreed to do this in the first place.

You had managed to grasp little bits of information from the conversation, at least important ones that Laswell could provide to you. John being the oldest of friends she had met in London at a soccer game. A quirk on her lip forming as she recounts how their first conversation, more like a debate, started their friendship. They worked together, in an organization of some sort called ‘Task Force 1-4-1’ taking down bad guys as Laswell simply put it. That’s where the other three come in: Simon, Johnny, and Kyle. She had explained that they all have worked together on various missions she could not disclose but made it clear that these were people she trusted with her life.

“They’re family.” Crow's feet deepened as her eyes crinkled with the smile she wore while talking about them. You knew Laswell would never lie to you but at that moment you felt the warmth in her words with how much compassion and inclination she had for her team.

She had spared any detail of their personal lives, stating that there would be no point in meeting them if she just told you everything that she knew about these men. You’re here to get to know each other, she had said, not knowing that it was probably the last thing you wanted these four guys to accomplish.

It was really meaningless. You would just end up being a small blip in their minds once this whole ordeal is over.

“Getting cold feet on me?” An amused expression written all over her face at your troubling state. Turning off the engine and unbuckling herself, she turns her body to face you as she crosses her arms over her chest “Nervous?”

Letting out an exasperated sigh, you lean your elbow against the small space between the window and you, rubbing your fingers over your eyes before breaking the silence. “You know I’m not good at whatever this is,” Hand waving desperately in the air and eyes flickering towards the house and hers just to be met with a stoic face as she listens to you ramble about how you just want to go back home like you’re a spoiled child having a tantrum in the middle of a candy store. You might as well be at this point. Pressing your lips together in an attempt to stop yourself from saying too much, you sit up and look at yourself in the front view mirror. “I just don’t know what to do, Kate.”

‘You don’t want to disappoint her.’

A small chuckle can be heard from the woman along with a warm palm against your shoulder breaking you out of your thoughts as you lift your head just enough to meet Kate’s sympathetic yet serious gaze.

“You won’t mess it up if that’s what you’re worried about. I know this can be.. different for you but I promise, things will go great.” A soft smile on her lips as she gives your cheek a small pat before pulling away. “Just let me do the talking and we’ll go off from there, okay? Baby steps.” She reassures you, grabbing the small bags of gifts from the backseat for you to take. “Here, you’ll be my little delivery person for today.” She says as she hops off the car and closes the door behind her.

“Shit- wait!” You give yourself a quick once-over, barely managing to catch up to Kate as you try your very best to avoid any of the small gifts from falling off your arms. “Rude.” You say when you meet Kate at the front door.

“We don’t want to keep the boys waiting with how eager they’ve been to meet my ‘mystery’ friend.” The corner of her lip twitching up into a smirk as she points at the door. “You ready?”

“Just knock.” You say. A bit harsher than you wanted it to come out as you look the other way to find anything to distract yourself from your own misery.

Rolling her eyes, Kate lifts up her hand and lands three solid knocks against the wood of the door, shoving her own hands into the warmth of her puffer jacket. You think you hear Laswell complain about how cold it is before a booming voice can be heard coming from the other side of the door followed by heavy footsteps inching closer.

You tense up, feeling like your heart is about to beat itself out of your rib cage if that’s even possible with how anxious you are.

‘Fuck. Maybe you can make a run for it.’

As if Laswell could sense what you were thinking, she grabs the hem of your coat to hold you in place before the door swings open.

[hyperlexichypatia]

What some of y'all call "recovery" and "healing" is just... growing up.

The theme I keep coming back to, the theme I keep writing about over and over, is the inextricability of ableism (specifically neurobigotry) and ageism.

The pathologizing of youth. The infantilizing of disabled adults. The structuring and micromanaging of childhood leading to ever more opportunities for "deviancy" to be classified as "disordered." The "neurological" push to raise the age of majority. The constant framing of disabled parents and caregivers as "unfit" or "bad influences" on children. And on and on.

Ageism and neurobigotry are such an interconnected tangle loop mobius strip that people are using the "healing"/"recovery" framework for basic human maturation.

When you were little, you uncritically accepted the worldview of your parents and other adults in your life, but now that you're older and "recovered," you see it differently?

That's called growing up. You grew up.

When you had less information and experience informing your worldview, you saw things one way, and now that you've "healed," you see things differently?

That's called learning. You learned new information and changed your perspective accordingly.

Look, learning and change and growth and maturation are (or should be) lifelong processes with no endpoint, and one of the cultural factors making people so weird about "maturity" and age of majority issues is the assumption that a "Real Adult" is in their fixed final form. So people think "If I've changed and grown in the past 5 years, that means that 5-years-ago Me was Still A Child and should not have been allowed to make major life-altering decisions," and also think that once they reach An Endpoint, they can or should stop changing. And that's a problem.

But. But. Changes in one's relationship to oneself and one's family of origin are especially common during times of major transition. That's not pathological. That's not even abnormal. If you see the world differently than you did before a major life transition, that does not mean that you went from a diseased state to a nondiseased state ("recovery"), or from an injured state to an uninjured state ("healing"). Time passed. You got older. Everyone else got older. You changed. Other people changed. Your family changed. The social context in which you live changed. The pathology paradigm has no place in this phenomenon.

People are out here saying that "People should heal themselves before they have their own children," and then when asked, what they mean by "heal themselves" is "learn how to effectively communicate with children." That. That is a skill. Learning a skill is not "healing." Lack of a particular skill set is not a disorder you have to "recover" from. You just have to learn the skill.

But that's also why when we say "You don't have to recover from your disabilities, recovery isn't a moral obligation," people say things like "You want to use your disability as an excuse not to change and grow."

My good bitch, what does change and growth have to do with recovery?

And this isn't even a new observation, because people have talked about how parents of developmentally disabled children will credit "therapy" and "recovery" for their children's natural developmental trajectory (if your child gained a skill after a year of intensive therapy, that doesn't mean "the therapy worked," that means they got older and developed the maturation to acquire that skill). A lot of the rhetoric around early childhood education does the same thing (the reason your 6 year old can hold a pencil now and he couldn't last year is because his bones got stronger and his fine motor skills improved, not because his high-quality preschool made him ready to compete).

But this. This is adults doing it to themselves! And it's so very original-sin-coded. You are born Unhealthy, but through continual effort and right practice, you can Recover and Heal.

No! You just grew up!

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #47 – City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky

This book was recommended to me by a few different people, and in any case I am generally a pretty big Tchaikovsky fan. So of course I’m only getting around to reading it now, however many months later. Having put it off so long for no good reason at all, I can say that the book is in fact very good. Not Tchaikovsky’s best work (that’s still Children of Time in a walk), but a good read and one that left me curious (if not exactly excited) about checking out the sequel.

The story takes place in Illmar, the eponymous City of Last Chances – scarred and oppressed, tyrannized by cursed dukes and conquering imperialists, built upon a dangerous and unreliable route to other worlds and forever attracting the sort of people with no better options available to them. While the book has any number of characters, it’s really the city itself that is the star of the story – a story of how the theft of an imperial magistrate’s ward before he makes an experimental voyage through the gateway in the woods leads to a whole series of byzantine intrigues and bloody misadventures, culminating in an abortive revolution against the Pallseen who occupy and rule them. Which in one sense is an absolutely massive spoiler and in another just feels like stating an inevitability that was obvious from the first chapter.

The book was apparently quite heavily marketed as harking back to the whole New Weird trend of a decade or two ago – marketing that is lived up to wholly and entirely. The whole book absolutely drips with Mieville and Vandermeer. The oblique worldbuilding, the mundane day-to-day life built around the opportunities and inconveniences of some intrusion of the sublime, the awkward intersection of ancient magic and industrial bureaucracy, and so on, and so forth. The Reproach in particular feels very Area X (or very Roadside Picnic, as you prefer), but in general the city feels like absolutely nothing so much as Bas-Lag with the weirdness dial turned down from an 11 to a 5 or 6.

It’s a real triumph of the book, I think, that the world genuinely feels vast and strange even beyond the points where it matters to the story - that all the little asides and the ways something affects a certain character feel like just small parts of something far grander and more uncanny than anyone can hope to understand. Maybe I’m just painfully tired of rpg-system worldbuilding, but it’s an effect I dearly love.

Much like Bas-Lag, Ilmar is very clearly a magical fantasy city going through a magical fantasy 19th century industrial revolution (instead of steam engines its demonic slave labor contracted and imported from the Kings Below). The meat of the book is playing into the whole tradition of the idealistic, virtuous but tragic liberal revolution – 1848 in Berlin or Vienna, the June Days and Commune in Paris, Warsaw a dozen different times, Les Mis. You know the type. Students singing patriotic old songs, workers rising up against class oppression, ‘revolutionaries’ who are mostly cowardly nobles pining after lost privileges and criminal syndicate putting on airs being caught flat-footed by events. You can probably tell the basic story in your sleep. But for such a venerable genre, this book's honestly probably the best rendition of ‘fantasy 1848’ I can recall. Something which won it my instant affection.

The other thing the book just overwhelming shares with the Mieville’s Bas-Lag books is a very keen sense of the necessity of revolution combined with an extreme cynicism towards anyone who might actually carry it out. The university students are sincere believers, and also naive sheep the narrative views with condescension (at best). The professional revolutionaries are all power-grabbing hypocrites who have wrapped themselves in the flag. The workers syndicates have a real sense of solidarity among themselves, and also none at all to the demon slaves that are used and broken powering the mills and factories. And so on. The overall thrust of the book is a tragedy not in the sense of railing against the inevitable, but in the sense that triumph and revolution were absolutely possible – indeed plausible – but for the flaws and frailities of the revolutionaries who might have accomplished it.

Not to say that it's misanthropic – the book is very humane towards the vast majority of its POVs. Of which there are enough for ‘vast majority’ to be a meaningful term. It was something like 130 pages in before any character got a second chapter through their eyes, a feat I had previously only seen in Malazan – and that’s not including the chorus chapters which just give a half-doze vignettes from across the city. But yes, most characters (even the ones who are really just viscerally repulsive) are shown through their own eyes as someone who is at least understandable, if not particularly sympathetic. The sheer size of the cast in a 500 page book mean that no one character or set gets that many chapters from their perspective (you could easily have written as long a book about roughly the same events with half or less of the cast), but some of the dynamics that are very lightly touched on are just incredibly compelling. Its enough to make you wish this was a series that would ever get any fanfiction written about it, really.

Given the way the book is so deeply concerned with oppression and violence on the basis of culture, class, and nation – imperial occupiers, native population, refugees and immigrants used and scapegoated by both – it is kind of fascinating that this is a world where misogyny and (possibly? Not very explored, the only example of a queer relationship we see is hardly going to be concerned by normative society) homophobia just flatly don’t exist. Which would be less interesting if it was unusual, really – the same could be said about very nearly every recent sci fi or fantasy book on the same lines I can recall. Interesting because it is very much not the case in Melville’s stuff – the cultural impact of Ancillary Justice continues to echo down the years, I guess. So yes the imperial police inspector will extort sex out of a brothel owner in exchange for not stringing up the entire workforce for peripheral involvement with the resistance, but also this is entirely gender-neutral. Something very modern about how oppression is imagined relative to the ‘90s or ‘00s (or just a different genre of self-consciously feminist novel a few book shelves to the left).

But yeah, great book, I am compelled. No idea where the sequel would be going, but will probably hunt it down sooner rather than later.

[signanothername]

May I ask if you think mtt would change their names at all if they left Nightmare? Whether they want to start over, whether the names were from Nightmare and they want nothing to do with him, or solely because after that they could realize they aren't the same, any reason.

For me personally, I always love to think MTT are homesick 24/7, and so for Horror and Murder specifically, they never even signed up to be called anything other than “Sans” cause to them, that’s who they are, and that’s the name they associate with their homes

They had those nicknames forced upon them to “avoid confusion”, but to them that’s just an excuse to strip them of the only thing that is still truly theirs (and that’s true to an extent), they were always “Sans” and now even that is being taken away from them

And cause Murder is in this state of “seeing how much you changed yet still are the same regardless” (the horrifying version™) it’s even more painful to him to be called anything other than his og name

Horror tolerates it, but would definitely perfer to be called “Sans”, he doesn’t appreciate being stripped of the name that associates him with his family and home

Killer is a complicated case, cause not only do I believe he got the name “Killer” before even meeting Nightmare, but depending on the stage he has different reactions to it, with guilt ridden Stage 1 seeing it as the name he deserves after everything he’s done all while holding so much distaste for it, stage 2 not caring about his name and simply treating it with a “that makes sense” attitude and stage 3 having mixed feelings about it, and stage 4 not truly being fully there to comprehend the name other than seeing it as it is, a name and that’s it

With that being said, Murder and Horror would immediately switch back to their og names, making it a point that no one is allowed to call them anything other than “Sans”, too confusing?? Tough luck, everyone gotta deal with it, it’s not their problem, with Murder being aggressive about it, while Horror is more passive aggressive

I like to think Murder and Horror developed a twisted form of friendship between them tho, and so when it comes to each other, it’s a sort of “special pass privileges” sorta thing, so Murder allows Horror to call him “Murder” or “Dust” (Dust being a nickname given to Murder by Horror in the first place) and Horror allows Murder to call him “Horror”

It’s not that big of a deal tho cause both of them will find the first train home and take it, going their separate ways

When it comes to Killer, assuming he now lives with Color, wouldn’t ask Color to call him anything other than “Killer” cause as I mentioned before, one half of Killer thinks it’s the name he deserves, and the other half not having the capacity to care or is undecisive

I like to believe that stage 1 would absolutely love to be called “Sans” again, it’s some sorta far away wish for him, a guilty pleasure, he just doesn’t see himself as worthy of it, and I think as time goes on, Killer would realize how much he truly changed, that no matter how much he resembles “Sans” in looks or how some of his Sans-like attitude is still intact in stage 1, Killer changed too much to truly see “Sans” as a fitting name for himself

So i feel like he’ll keep “Killer” as his name, but i also love to think Color would call him different nicknames too that isn’t negatively associated with him, Color never says it outright, but he sometimes does that as a way to show Killer that he isn’t just his name’s sake, Killer understands that, and appreciates it

[chevelleneech]

I can’t believe taekookers are saying that Jk lied about AYS being his favourite trips. Why would he lie about that? He could have just not said anything😭

Tbf, they believe everything is a lie. They don’t believe their friendship went through a rough patch or that Tae left JK at the ski resort. Or that Jimin and Tae are friends. Or that bare minimum, JK and Jimin are just friends.

Tkkrs live in a permanent state of phantasmagoria. They don’t know up from down or left from right, and everything they think or claim is a result of them seeing a morphed version of reality. Even if it’s something that could fit their favor, they aren’t satisfied. It’s all “Go Big or Go Home” with them, so they distort everything.

For example, if AYS was scripted… why would what he said matter? Shouldn’t that, by their logic, further prove it’s a fake show? Especially since they believe he was being honest about saying Jeju was better with Tae tagging along? It’s constant contradictory. Either JK went off script and said what he truly wanted about Tae being there, or he was on script the entire time. They won’t ever settle on one or the other though, because they can’t. It requires far too much thought to figure out a clean enough timelines to dictate what was fake and what wasn’t, because during Jeju, JK was having fun with Jimin, as was Tae.

They’re not going to dig that deep to plead their case, because they don’t have to. Tkkrs who don’t watch official content won’t know the difference anyway, and that’s majority of the fandom, lol. Not necessarily Tkkrs to the core, but fans who enjoy clips and edits (which is fine overall), and are convinced Tae and JK have a closer bond due to how much more online Tae is than JM and JK.

[adolfusraptor1985]

My Opinion on Physical Shifters

Honestly, I don't get why this subject rubs people the wrong way. Because I want people who follow, or even interact with my blog, to know where my general opinions stand, I feel the need to express how I feel on this matter in particular.

Long story short, I support physical shifters.

Listen. Physical shifters have the right to express their identity and experiences just as much as any other being. There are two major misconceptions/opinions that run rampant through the non/alterhuman and therian community. One being that all physical shifters are delusional, and the other being that all delusions should be "fixed". Both of these statements are (I feel) incredibly wrong and harmful to innocent beings.

First of all, I want to state that I do not believe all physical shifters to be suffering from delusions. Nonhumanity as a whole is such a nuanced and complex identity that we simply do not understand it well enough to put clinical labels on it. I've also seen physical shifters describe their experiences more similarly to that of how many physical nonhuman identities work. A "physical shift" could happen on a level not visible to other people. There could be a veil that covers a being's true form, making them appear human when they are not. People also experience reality differently than others. Just because something seems like a delusion to other's doesn't mean that it's not that person's reality.

Secondly, I don't believe that all delusions need to be fixed. In the vast majority of physical shifters I've seen, their delusions to not cause any major impairments on daily life. Sure, physical shifters will often express the hardships of their experiences, but hardships aren't the same as impairments. Plenty of physical shifts learn on their own how to properly manage and cope with their delusions while living a fulfilling life. These types of delusions are not something that needs to be "fixed".

As a bit of a closing, I want to throw in how I actually relate to physical shifters as a physical nonhuman. I believe fully in the idea that my human body is basically an illusion and that I'm the only one who can see my true physical form. Sometimes, this form feels very nonhuman and stands out to me. Other times, it's faded, and my nonhuman identity doesn't feel as physical. I consider myself a werefox, as I feel like my physical form (the one others can't see) shifts from more to less nonhuman. I'm fully aware that others may view this as a delusion, but I still believe it because it's how I experience my own reality. So, in a bit of a roundabout way, I'm honestly questioning if I could apply the term physical shifter to myself.

[mariacallous]

Right-Wing Media Sails On Despite Russian Scheme

It was the day before the most recent presidential debate and Benny Johnson, the popular right-wing podcaster and YouTube show host, was amplifying the latest falsehood—soon to be heard direct from Republican candidate Donald Trump’s mouth—that Haitian immigrants were dining on people’s cats. “This story is insane, all right!” Johnson chortled on The Benny Show. “I doubt any corporate media is going to go and tell the story of Springfield, Ohio, but we have to, actually, as our social obligation to you.”

The Sept. 9 video racked up more than 132,000 views and helps explain why The Benny Show has more than 2.4 million subscribers on YouTube. It also illuminates why its host—once the viral political editor of BuzzFeed before he was fired for multiple instances of plagiarism in 2014—was recruited by Tenet Media, a right-wing Tennessee-based media company identified by the US Department of Justice this month as a “covert project” of RT, the Russian state-controlled media outlet. “Benny used to say, ‘Do you know the difference between a good click and a bad click? They’re just clicks,’” recalls Bubba Atkinson, founder of Bubba News, a daily center-right newsletter, who worked with Johnson in the past. “I think that’s demonstrative of the ethos he lives by, where, you know, almost all attention is good for him.”

Johnson has issued a statement saying he was unaware of Tenet’s Kremlin ties. So have several of the company’s other prominent commentators, most notably the self-described red-pilled former leftist Dave Rubin and skateboarding libertarian Tim Pool. That may very well be true. Still, that such relatively big names in right-wing circles could find themselves entangled with anti-American forces—wittingly or unwittingly—speaks volumes about the state of conservative media in the age of Trump.

If you think of the hierarchy of the right-wing media world, particularly on the personality side, as a three-tiered pyramid, the top is occupied by Fox News figures like Trump cheerleader Sean Hannity. Go down a level, and you’ll find Ben Shapiro and his co-hosts at the Daily Wire, the Nashville company aspiring to be a right-wing Walt Disney Co. Then there’s a third tier of self-employed figures like Johnson, Pool and Rubin. Without the protection or the guardrails of an employer, they must compete for traffic with everybody else and have a financial incentive to go to extremes.

That could mean Johnson mocking the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney and Trump nemesis Fani Willis as “Big Fani,” or Pool hosting alt-right figures such as Richard Spencer and former Breitbart News senior editor Milo Yiannopoulos, who’ve been largely shunned for good reason elsewhere in conservative circles. But that only seems to have made Tenet’s commentators more attractive to RT. According to the indictment, their messages “are often consistent with the Government of Russia’s interest in amplifying US domestic divisions.”

“Look, the Russians were not stupid,” says Rick Wilson, co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project and a former Republican political consultant. “They recognized that these guys are very much influencers who can spread the kind of messages they wanted distributed to a wider audience, to drive social media engagement through the roof.” (Neither Tenet nor Johnson, Pool or Rubin responded to interview requests for this story.)

Given the nature of their businesses, the Tenet figures were also clearly more susceptible to the dangling of large checks—in at least one instance, $100,000 per video—than their peers with cushier employment arrangements. As Pool put it in an appearance on The Ben Shapiro Show after the indictment’s unveiling, he gets these kinds of offers all the time. “When someone reaches out to us, I say, ‘Great, cool. Someone handle it and talk to the lawyers,’” Pool told Shapiro. “The lawyers come back, do their due diligence, and then we say sure—or whatever.”

He added, “We have people tweeting at me, like, give the money back. Like dude, let me put it this way, we’re talking to our legal department.”

None of this impresses Cenk Uygur, founder of TYTs, a progressive online news network, who has appeared on Pool’s show—or at least he did before the news of the host’s RT connection. “Come on, man, somebody gives you $100,000 a video?” Uygur says. “That makes me ask, are other people giving you $100,000 a video? And who are they? If this is so normal, how often does this happen for right-wing media? And who else is giving you money for propaganda?”

As for Johnson, he’s continuing to rack up views on YouTube. Despite his association with Tenet, he’s had little trouble getting prominent Republicans to appear, including sitting members of Congress. The Benny Show goes on.

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[jovialjuggernaut-draws]

Are you open for commissions?

things are a bit hectic right now so if this is for, say, a christmas gift, i cant promise that ill have time to get that to you in time for the holiday itself

but if timeline isnt quite that pressing, you can always dm me and we can work out a deal!