#part 10b

[certifiedlibraryposts]

Happy Banned Books week! 2022 had so many book challenges that the ALA had to do a top 13, so maybe call your library and tell them how much you love being able to access books on controversial topics! The book banners are a vocal minority, we can drown them out!

1. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

2. All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

3. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

4. Flamer by Mike Curato

5a. Looking for Alaska by John Green

5b. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

7. Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison

8. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

9. Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez

10a. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

10b. Crank by Ellen Hopkins

10c. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

10d. This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson

More info: https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10

[roryelijah02]

Hello! Hope you're doing well! Wondered if you could analyse the whole 'what does Carol want' thing? There's the Eugene&Carol scene where she tells him to go meet Stephanie and then he says "I sincerely hope you get what it is that you want" - and the very next thing for her is negan giving her alpha's head. And then there's the Alpha hallucination being all 'what do you wantttt'. And then daryl asking her if she got what she wants after nearly jumping off a cliff and she says "no and I won't" but then she's insane with emotion when he says "you still got me". There's probably more. What is ittt, what does she want 🙃🫠 I feel like if you put all the scenes in sequence where they touch on it then you could see her working through that question herself, but then I feel like it's left hanging there and I'm never clear on what it actually is.

Hey there. Thank you so much for your ask. I'm very excited to get into this analysis so let's get started.

All throughout season 10a and 10b, a big focus on Carol's mind is to defeat Alpha. A big motivating factor for why she wants to defeat Alpha is to get vengeance and justice for her son, Henry's, death which was caused by Alpha. However, there's also a big part of Carol that wants to defeat Alpha to avoid anything like what happened to Henry and the other people who died at the end of season 9 happening to anybody else, especially Daryl (more on that later).

During Season 10 Episode 9, Squeeze, when the group are trapped in the cave, Carol has a conversation with Daryl where she admits to him that she doesn't just want to ki*l Alpha but that she also wants to hurt her, make her regret everything and beg for forgiveness before she does so. This is what I believe Daryl is referring to when he asks Carol if she got what she wanted in Season 10 episode 16, A Certain Doom. Carol and Daryl can understand each other extremely well, better than they can anybody else, so I believe that Carol knew that conversation was what Daryl was referring to with his question. This is why Carol responds with "no and I won't" because even though this is a really happy moment for her - she's reuniting and making up with Daryl after they had what was probably the worst falling out they've had since their bond blossomed - in terms of that conversation she had with Daryl in Squeeze, she didn't get what she wanted. She ended up having to reach out to Negan for help with defeating Alpha (my thoughts on why she didn't reach out to Daryl about it later) and he ultimately ended up being the one to ki*l her. So despite trying her hardest, Carol didn't manage to hurt Alpha or make her regret everything or beg for forgiveness, she didn't even get to be the person to ki*l her. Something that is interesting to note here is that Carol released Negan from his cell and asked for his help in Season 10 episode 4, Silence The Whisperers, before she had this conversation with Daryl in Squeeze, so if what she told Daryl was truly all she wanted, she was probably already aware at that point that she wouldn't get it because it would be Negan dealing with all of that for her. That's the first thing that makes me think what she said in that conversation during Squeeze wasn't what she truly wanted but I do still believe that the contents of that conversation was what Daryl was referring to with his question.

Let's move on to the scene between Carol and Eugene. Immediately, something important to note is that whilst Carol and Eugene are friends, Eugene doesn't come anywhere near to being as close to Carol as Daryl is. In fact, to emphasise again, nobody is as close to Carol as Daryl is. Therefore, it is very, very unlikely that Carol would have confided in Eugene, or anybody other than Daryl, about what she admitted to Daryl during their conversation in Squeeze. This leads me to believe that whilst yes, Eugene is likely aware that Carol wants vengeance and justice for Henry, he doesn't know the finer details of how Carol wants to take Alpha down and therefore, this makes me think that he's at least only partly talking about Carol's revenge on Alpha when he says he realy hopes she gets what she wants. I'm lead to believe this further by a couple of other things: Firstly, the context of the scene. This scene takes place in season 10 episode 12, Walk With Us. This is just 3 episodes after the cave incident in Squeeze and it's clear that Carol is in bits over her falling out with Daryl, breaking her promise to him and hurting him. This is proven by how in the previous episode, season 10 episode 11, Morning Star, Ezekiel easily finds Carol at Daryl's old camp and when Carol asks how he found her, his response is "This is Daryl's old camp, right? I figured you needed some comfort." This proves how much Ezekiel is aware about what Daryl means to Carol and how, if there's anyone who can provide her with comfort, it's him, even if that's in an indirect manner. However, it's not just Ezekiel who's aware of this. So many characters in the show are fully aware of Carol and Daryl and what they mean to each other. Some examples are: Glenn asking Daryl what they should tell Carol when they return to the prison without him and Negan calling Carol Daryl's girlfriend. Therefore, it is extremely likely that Eugene is also fully aware of what they mean to each other. Eugene has also just witnessed Carol being punched by Yumiko. This is a traumatic thing to go through in general. However, as Eugene is very possibly aware of Carol's past experiences, he's very likely to know that she needs Daryl for comfort during their conversation, just like Ezekiel had in Morning Star. The other thing is that Eugene tells Carol he really hopes she gets what she wants just after Carol tells him to go and be with Stephanie, who she knows he has a romantic interest in based on their conversation. This feeds into how Eugene is very likely to be fully aware of what Daryl and Carol mean to each other. Therefore, I believe that Eugene feels like Carol needs Daryl in this moment and maybe she needs him more than she's letting on so when he says he hopes that she gets what she wants it's almost like he's telling her to go and be with the person who will make her happy/find her happiness just as she's advised him to do with Stephanie.

Side note: I find it very interesting that Carol encouraged Eugene to go and be with the woman he was interested in romantically during season 10 and then during the first season of Daryl Dixon, Daryl encourages a man to go and be with his girlfriend.

Back to the analysis now and the scene that ultimately solidifies my belief that the "what do you want" notion for Carol throughout season 10 isn't just about her wanting revenge on Alpha has to be the scene where Carol hallucinates Alpha in season 10 episode 14, Look At The Flowers. Whilst it's Alpha on our screens talking, showing Alpha is who Carol sees and hears voicing her thoughts, it's important to remember that Carol is hallucinating in this scene and so all the things "Alpha" is saying are actually coming from Carol's head directly, these are distinctly her thoughts. At this point in the season, Alpha is already dead so it's very interesting that "Alpha" asks her "what do you want?" Because if what she wanted was for Alpha to meet her demise, that's already happened, so there has to be something more, right? And like I previously mentioned, I don't think what she wants is about her conversation with Daryl in Squeeze because Carol had already released Negan by the time that conversation happened so knew it was unlikely she'd be able to take Alpha down in exactly the way she wanted and she definitely can't do it now as Alpha is gone. Therefore, in my mind, there's definitely something more to it about what she wants and I believe this scene gives us a detail that heavily suggests what that is. At some point during her conversation with "Alpha", Carol ends up trapped under a boat with a walker desperately trying to get to her. "Alpha" starts listing off the people that Carol has lost: Sophia, Lizzie, Mika and Henry. She even mentions Ezekiel. However, it's Daryl's name that captures Carol's attention when "Alpha" adds him to the list and suggests that Carol could soon come to lose him too. It's this moment, upon hearing Daryl's name and the thought of him being in danger and losing him that gives Carol the emotional strength she needs to push the boat off of her and kill the walker attempting to get her, dislocating her shoulder in the process. This is a very telling moment for me as once again, it emphasises how important Daryl is to Carol and how she feels like she can't lose him. Many Carylers say there's no Carol without Daryl and I fully agree with them.

So, what does Carol Peletier want? Ultimately, whilst I do believe part of it was about wanting revenge on Alphaz wanting justice for Henry and wanting to protect the people around her from Alpha and the Whisperers, I do think it does come down to being about Daryl but Carol can't admit to herself, let alone other people, that it's Daryl who she wants, who her heart lies with, who is the only person who can properlu comfort her because she's terrified of losing him. Carol's conversation with "Alpha" confirmed that because the minute that she thought he could be in danger, she said that she could never let that happen and it was this notion that gave her the strength to get out from under the boat. It's also why Carol went to Negan for help with Alpha instead of going to Daryl because she knew how dangerous Alpha was - look at what happened to Henry - and if anybody had to lose their life in order to take Alpha down, it makes sense that Carol would've preferred it to happen to a villain like Negan instead of the man she cares about the most, Daryl. I believe Carol's fear of losing Daryl stems from all the other losses she's been through, especially after what she had to do to Lizzie, which makes her feel like she isn't worthy of him. I believe that Carol feels like she has a curse on peiple, where if she gets too close to them and crosses a certain line with them, their life will be in danger because look what's happened to all the other people she's loved - Sophia, Lizzie, Mika. With Henry, I feel like Carol started maybe started to think her "curse" was no longer a thing because she'd been Henry's mom for years without anything happening, but then he dies and it starts all over again. This is why, much as Carol really wants to be with Daryl, she feels like she's not worthy of him, like she doesn't deserve him and like she'll be putting his life in danger if she tells him how she feels about him/if they cross that line. That's why all of those times that people ask, she can't admit that to them, she can't admit it to anyone.

Hopefully, if she gets to work through some of her trauma in The Book Of Carol like the synopsis and information we've been given about the show have suggested, this will leave Carol's heart more open to letting Daryl in in the way she wants 🤞

[sxnedmemes]

DOGGYSTYLE GIF STARTERS PART II

[1A]  [1B]  [1C] [2A]  [2B]  [2C] [3A]  [3B]  [3C] [4A]  [4B]  [4C] [5A]  [5B]  [5C] [6A]  [6B]  [6C] [7A]  [7B]  [7C] [8A]  [8B]  [8C] [9A]  [9B]  [9C] [10A]  [10B]  [10C] [11A]  [11B]  [11C] [12A]  [12B]  [12C] [13A]  [13B]  [13C] [14A]  [14B]  [14C] [15A]  [15B]  [15C]

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

For those of y'all newer folks who don't know who Paladin is.... Intro, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 8b, Part 9, Part 10, Part 10b, Extra

[cuntyqueerleondraisaitl]

I can so see how Eddies current storyline could lead into his coming out arc in season eight, and possibly Buddie canon

He breaks up with Marisol because ... obviously. He cheated on her.

He breaks up with Kim because he's looking for what he had with Shannon. But Kim only looks like Shanon. She isn't and she will never actually be her. This could take one episode or a few episodes, ut Eddie is eventually going to find out, yet again. that he won't be able to replicate his relationship with Shannon with anyone.

His relationship with the rest of the 118 is strained by his cheating, leaving him feeling 'Isolated', maybe with an episode or two left in season seven. But Buck stays by his side for another episode. What eventually causes Buddie divorce #3 is that Eddie starts doing what Buck was doing In season one. Sleeping with a different woman every night in order to try and find his person. AKA; a Shannon carbon copy who he will never find.

While Buck understands, he leaves Eddie to his own devices at the end of season seven. it's not exactly a fight, but while Buck understands what Eddie is going through, he also understands it's not the best way to go about it. He tells Eddie that when he's ready, Buck will be there for him.

Season eight begins a few months later, and Eddie is still trying in vain to find a Shannon replacement. Buck is still giving him space. Finally, after an exceptionally bad night with a woman, he comes knocking on Buck's door, and just breaks down. He starts talking about how he doesn't understand why he can't have what he had with Shannon, and he doesn't understand why he can't replicate that experience, or find a woman who makes him happy in the way she did. And Buck just holds him while he cries.

Eventually, Buck tells him that maybe now just isn't the time for him to find someone. So they decide to go to a bar and just hang out for bit. Both of them get a bit drunk, and Eddie starts getting hit on by some guy, and to his surprise, he starts flirting back. And it feels so much more natural. He's been doing the same thing with a different woman every other night for months but it just feels so different and so right.

So, with a few surprised looks from Buck, they keep flirting. They go back to his place, and then in the morning, Eddie rushes to Buck's house, pounds on his door and speedruns his entire sexuality crisis on his couch.

Maybe this guy sticks around, maybe he doesn't, but either way, Eddie is finally coming into himself.

Buck and Tommy break up, amicably. Maybe its just an issue with scheduling, or maybe Tommy moves somewhere else (Tommy spinoff??? 👀👀👀) But they end on good terms

Then, last episode of season eight,, they're sitting on Buck's couch, eating his lasagna that they finally perfected. They're talking to each other about life, about how their relationships never seem to work out but now they feel like they're closer than ever to finding one that sticks. They make eye contact and boom. Something clicks between them. Cannon Buddie with the last scene of season eight.

Season 9A secret dating arc

Season 9B "we fucking called it" arc with the 118

Season 10 A domestic fucking bliss. Maybe Tommy comes back and he and Buck are best friends because they ended super amicably and Eddie's a bit jealous for like one episode.

Season 10B, Domestic fucking Bliss part two, but they're moved in together, proposal in the finale

Season 11, Wedding.

[turtlevariabilis]

<- INDEX

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

-> Screenshots Season 1

Episode 1 Mystic Mayhem (part 1/2)

Episode 1 Mystic Mayhem (part 2/2)

Episode 2a Origami Tsunami

Episode 2b Donnie’s Gifts

Episode 3a War and Pizza

Episode 3b Newsworthy

Episode 4a Repo Mantis

Episode 4b Down with the Sickness

Episode 5a The Fast and the Furriest

Episode 5b Mascot Melee

Episode 6a Shell in a Cell

Episode 6b Minotaur Maze

Episode 7 Bug Busters (part 1/2)

Episode 7 Bug Busters (part 2/2)

Episode 8a The Longest Fight

Episode 8b Hypno! Part Deux!

Episode 9a The Gumbus

Episode 9b Mrs. Cuddles

Episode 10a Stuck on You

Episode 10b Al Be Back

Episode 11a The Purple Jacket

Episode 11b Pizza Pit

Episode 12a Smart Lair

Episode 12b Hot Soup: The Game

Episode 13 The Evil League of Mutants (part 1/2)

Episode 13 The Evil League of Mutants (part 2/2)

Episode 14a Late Fee

Episode 14b Bullhop

Episode 15a Mind Meld

Episode 15b Nothing But Truffle

Episode 16 Shadow of Evil

Episode 17a Portal Jacked!

Episode 17b Warren & Hypno, Sitting in a Tree

Episode 18a Operation: Normal

Episode 18b Sparring Partner

Episode 19a You Got Served

Episode 19b How to Make Enemies and Bend People to Your Will

Episode 20a Mystic Library

Episode 20b The Purple Game

Episode 21a Man Vs. Sewer

Episode 21b The Mutant Menace

Episode 22a Turtle-dega Nights: The Ballad of Rat Man

Episode 22b The Ancient Art of Ninja Hide and Seek

Episode 23a One Man’s Junk

Episode 23b Snow Day

Episode 24a Cloak and Swaggart

Episode 24b Jupiter Jim Ahoy!

Episode 25 Insane in the Mama Train (part 1/2)

Episode 25 Insane in the Mama Train (part 2/2)

Episode 26 End Game (part 1/2)

Episode 26 End Game (part 2/2)

-> Screenshots Season 2

-> Screenshots The movie

If you encounter any URL issues, please let me know through private message.

[dutchdread]

Rebirth Update 10b

The crappiness of the Cait Sith (whom I still don't like in general btw) segment was easily forgotten though by the gold saucer date. I had refrained from listening to Aeriths song prior to the game since I didn't want anything spoiled and wanted the song in context, and now that I've heard it, man is it clearly about Zack. I can't wait to finish the game and watch different variations of certain scenes, because I don't see any way that anyone can look at a game that has this in it and still think Cloud and Tifa aren't the canonical ship. Again Cloud and Tifa are framed together opposed to Aerith, almost never is it that Aerith and Tifa are presented as being mirrorings that Cloud has to choose between. It's always Cloud and Tifa as a single unit being pitted "against" Aerith. Signaling that Aerith is helping them, and they her. Since you can essentially go on a date with everyone, and it all depends on their feelings towards you, we can say that the dates essentially tell us something about Clouds relationship dynamic in regards to the other team members. And Tifas date makes it exceptionally clear that their relationship dynamic is that of a young couple in love, come together again after years and slowly growing closer. My guess is that his date with Aerith will be more spiritual and about healing, but until I see it I can only guess. And I can't wait to see the other ones. Man, I am sure I've forgotten a bunch that I wanted to mention. It comes as I play but with 10 hour sessions a lot of it is lost to time. Will probably slow down a bit now, I've been working towards this part and man I am kinda burnt out with all the side quests and I just got a few new ones.... One thing I can't help wondering about though. How must it feel for a Clerith to play this game? I can't imagine the mental gymnastics needed to not go "...oh damn... I was wrong". I do feel a bit sorry for them though. I remember 20 years ago explaining to people that Tifa was the more valid love interest was such an uphill battle. It required so much analysis and explanation because you were just swimming up stream, going against the grain, all those nice little analogies, it was sooooo exhausting. And then for 20+ years it was just material after material confirming what Clotis had been saying from day one. And the Cleriths just had to keep moving goalposts, keep spinning, slowly driven into a corner to where now we don't just have the deeper analysis to point at, but even just the superficially obvious. As someone who always enjoys arguing for positions that are unpopular because they're not obvious, but are nevertheless true, it's honestly been a joy to watch the public perception change this much. Lets hope part 3 continues the good work, but honestly, it kinda has to, what has happened in part 2 really can't be taken back. Any romance between Aerith and Cloud after this would be....well, problematic and icky would probably be the best words. One more thing, having Cloud say very matter-of-factly "oh yeah, Zack, my friend who is totally head over heels for Aerith was satisfying. I don't see jealousy there, I don't see conflicted feelings there, I don't see a man who is thinking about trying to hit on the girl his friend loves there. Cloud knows about Zack and Aerith, Aerith knows about Cloud and Tifa, they're all helping each other with those issues, not coming between them, it, my friends, is over.

[senkusphone]

Dr. Stone chapter 3D trivia post

Hello, um. I hope yall had a pleasant solstice celebration of your choice- I've been pondering whether what we just saw merits a triva post, but let's try to squeeze some for the sake of completion, shall we?

Check out also my trivia posts for chapters 1D and 2D.

They're the same picture.

It took me way too long to notice what was off in this cover, it seems to be nothing but an aesthetic choice. Other than these off colors, this specific suika melon design first appeared during the Treasure island arc, right after Ryusui punted her off the Perseus.

To directly quote what I wrote at one time on the wiki:

Too bad, the ship Chelsea shows up in is not the Perseus D. Monkey from chapter 214 (which itself is a One Piece reference, as Boichi is a big fan).

Interesting that we get a nearly identical shot, instead of Kohaku standing behind her, it's Ruri and Matsukaze.

This posture done my Matsukaze is called Namaste (with other names such as Namaskar), which is used both as a greeting and as an indication of reverence all over the southern parts of Asia, along with other similar gestures. I know this is familiar to many myself included but I had never looked into the deeper details until now.

Figurines showing this pose have been excavated from the Indus valley civilization dating to between 2700 and 2100 BCE, making this piece of cultural heritage at least 7800 years old by the time of this panel.

Xeno has clearly had his hand in the architecture of the Japan side of the KoS, with some new constructions resembling his own Evil Disneyland back home.

Hold back yer tears

Kaseki has lived well. It's hard to tell how old he is now, he lived longer than the timeline's consistency thats for sure, I blame time travel.

At the time Taiju got wed, he was around 70 years old.

Kaseki and Chrome go back way further than the KoS, the fanbook tells us that Kaseki helped Chrome build his shed when he was just a boy.

Feel your heart a bit shakey? hang on there, we now get to talk about whyman's sorrow, and a small observation that I've made

Whyman can have emotions, the circuits that process that can be switched on and off, but the fact that a message can, or needs to be "left" for themselves, as well as his farewell for all eternity, has an interesting implication: once switched off, whyman loses the recollection of any experience they had in the meantime. These circuits allow whyman to feel, and also to then forget. This is useful, as emotions help them survive, but forgetting prevents the emotional baggage from growing infinitely over a virtually immortal life.

"If we remembered every single parting person, it would only be a few generations before the sorrow would pile up to the point it became unbearable. Maybe it is a blessing to forget. Forgetting allows us to get even. Forget sorrows as new ones replace them. Life can go on, if tragically. No accumulating loss that would one day make everyone struggle to survive and eventually pass on; though that last thing does also sound very much like today."

(10B points to the ~2 people who know where this quote is from, I digress)

So that's cool, and heartbreaking, but so what, does it connect to anything we've seen before?

Well...

In ch. 232 we see that Whyman does not know what created them.

How could that be, if they can remember things over deep time?

Maybe it is that Whyman chose to forget their creators, and everything they felt about them. Beings that they may even have loved in the deep deep past, and could not cope with yearning for.

The blonde, bangs & ponytail lineage.

The village graveyard. Last time we saw it, Byakuya's gravestone was opened to reveal the glass record.

A lot of recognizable headstones are still up now, some appear to have moved.

Other headstones might be gone or be different... The one with four dots that was there originally can't be seen in this new shot but it can be seen later in the chapter.

Also, I hate to break this to you, but there's more headstones now than there were before.

I counted 45 in the original shot, 50 in the new one, not including any that Chelsea and Senku may be covering. Granted this is likely just an oversight.

(I should mention that in order for them to match bottom to bottom, the top image is flipped horizontally).

(omg look at the babiesss)

What Xeno is telling Chrome is that if whyman went and altered their own past, then what they are seeing currently is the result of that, since whatever changes they made, are in the past after all.

They already happened and they are part of the timeline that leads them to where they are now.

Assuming they actually found Byakuya (or a petrified time traveler) means that either whyman created some sort of causal loop that is self sustaining (ie, the ramifications of the changes in the past include whyman going back to do them in the first place), or more in line with the many worlds hypothesis, that going back to the past and changing it creates a new parallel timeline where the repercussions of that happen, with no effect in the first one.

In the latter case it means the timeline we see now was altered by the whyman from a parallel universe.

The stone axe is a bit dissonant with where they are, technologically speaking, yes? Thing is, that's the one Senku took to the moon with him.

He's had it since chapter 1.

A few people I've seen mystified about this structure they unearthed at the cementery:

This is a collapsed building just like the structures that the Tsukasa empire occupied.

(shoutout to that guy about to die in the back)

Interestingly, this means that Ishigami Village is established on top of a once urban area.

I am always pumped for any extra bits of village lore I can get.

Did Suika's handwriting trigger your AI generated image senses? it did for me.

We were bamboozled again. If it ends up happening it's gonna be like the tale of the wolf. The moment we stop taking it seriously, Inagaki is gonna smack us across the head with it.

We were actually preparing for the poop on a stick to hit the f.a.a.n on discord. What do I make about the ending? I don't know, I got no big analysis this time around but I believe it's very likely we'll see more at some point.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The learned helplessness of Pete Buttigieg

The apocalyptic airline meltdown over the Christmas break stranded thousands of Americans, ruining their vacations and costing them a fortune in unexpected fees. It wasn't just Southwest Airlines' meltdown, either - as stranded fliers sought alternatives, airlines like AA raised the price of some domestic coach tickets to over $10,000.

This didn't come out of nowhere. Southwest's growth strategy has seen the airlines add more planes and routes without a comparable investment in back-end systems, including crew scheduling systems. SWA's unions have spent years warning the public that their employer's IT infrastructure was one crisis away from total collapse.

But successive administrations have failed to act on those warnings. Under Obama and Trump, the DoT was content to let "the market" discipline the monopoly carriers, though both administrations were happy to wave through anticompetitive mergers that weakened the power of markets to provide that discipline. Obama waved through the United/Continental merger and the Southwest/AirTran merger, while Trump waved through Virgin/Alaska.

While these firms were allowed to privatize their gains, Uncle Sucker paid for their losses. Trump handed the airlines $54 billion in covid relief, which the airlines squandered on stock buybacks and executive bonuses, while gutting their own employee rosters with early retirement buyouts:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-05-04/airlines-got-the-sweetest-coronavirus-bailout-around

Incredibly, the airlines got even worse under the Biden administration. In the first six months of 2022, US airlines cancelled more flights than they had in all of 2021, while the airlines increased their profits by 45% - and kept it, rather than using it to pay back the $10b in unpaid refunds they owed to fliers:

https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/economic-liberties-releases-model-legislation-to-eliminate-airlines-liability-shield/

Dozens of state attorneys general - Republicans and Democrats - wrote to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, begging him to take action on the airlines. After months without action, they wrote again, just days before the Christmas meltdown:

https://www.levernews.com/state-officials-warned-buttigieg-about-airline-mess/

For his part, Secretary Buttigieg claimed he was doing all he could, trumpeting the order to refund fliers as evidence of his muscular regulatory approach (recall that these refunds have not been paid). He assured Americans that the situation "is going to get better by the holidays."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FlD6fHq8-g&t=145s

But the numbers tell the tale. Under Buttigieg, the DOT "issued fewer enforcement orders in 2021 than in any single year of the Trump and Obama administrations."

https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/economic-liberties-releases-model-legislation-to-eliminate-airlines-liability-shield/

As the crisis raged, enraged fliers and opponents of unchecked corporate power blamed Buttigieg. So did opportunistic, bad-faith Republicans looking to score political points. The "liberal" media lumped all this criticism together, insisting that Buttigieg had done everything in his power and declaring it unreasonable to expect the Transport Secretary to prevent transportation catastrophes:

https://www.levernews.com/the-partisan-ghost-in-the-media-machine/

Buttigieg's defenders trotted out a laundry list of excuses for the failure, ranging from the nonsensical to the implausible to the contradictory - Pete's Army continued to claim that the aviation meltdown was the weather's fault, even after Buttigieg himself went on national TV to say this wasn't the case:

https://twitter.com/GMA/status/1608075800254767105?s=20&t=wmaJq3OWU0r0e6TS9V-9sA

Buttigieg is the Secretary of a powerful administrative agency, and as such, he has broad powers. Neither he nor his predecessors have had the courage to wield that power, all of them evincing a kind of learned helplessness in the face of industry lobbying. But there is a difference between being powerless and acting powerless.

To see what a fully operational battle-station looks like, cast your eye upon Lina Khan, chair of the FTC, another agency that has a long history of dormancy in the face of corporate power, but which Khan has transformed - not through ideology, but through competence. Khan - and her fellow Biden administration trustbusters Jonathan Kantor and the recently departed Tim Wu - have an encyclopedic knowledge of their powers, and they haven't been shy about using them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

Over the Christmas break, even as the airline industry was stranding Americans far from their families, Khan proposed a rule to ban noncompete agreements, which are widely used to prevent low-waged workers like fast-food cashiers from quitting their jobs and seeking better pay from competitors:

https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/antitrust-enforcers-to-ban-indentured

These are, as Matt Stoller writes, a form of indentured servitude, used by private equity crooks to lock in their workforces. "30% of hair stylists works under a non-compete, as do 45% of family physicians." Noncompetes destroy the livelihoods of workers who start their own businesses, too: "One comment to the FTC came from a graphic designers for signage who was bankrupted by a lawsuit from her control-hungry former boss and a small town judge":

https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FTC-2019-0093-0015

Noncompetes are a scourge, and there should be bipartisan agreement on this. If you're a Democrat who believes in labor rights, noncompetes are manifestly unfair. But that's also true if you're a Republican who believes in competition and the power of entrepreneurship.

Nevertheless, noncompetes have trundled on, with neither Congress nor the administrative branch showing the courage to act - until now. Khan's proposed rule bypasses Congressional inaction by invoking powers that she already has, under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.

Section 5 gives the FTC broad powers to prohibit "unfair methods of competition" - an incredibly broad power to wield, and one that the FTC hasn't bothered to use since the 1970s (!):

https://casetext.com/case/national-petroleum-refiners-assn-v-f-t-c

Which brings me back to Secretary Buttigieg and the airlines. Because Chair Khan isn't the only federal regulator with these broad powers. As David Dayen writes for The American Prospect, "the Department of Transportation has the exact same authority":

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/ftc-noncompete-airline-flight-cancellation-buttigieg/

Under USC40 Section 41712(a), Buttigieg has the power to unilaterally ban transportation industry practices that are "unfair and deceptive" or "unfair methods of competition." Per the DOT's own guidance, this provision is "modeled on Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act":

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2020-title49/pdf/USCODE-2020-title49-subtitleVII-partA-subpartii-chap417-subchapI-sec41712.pdf

The are a lot more recent examples of the DOT using this power than there are of the FTC using its Section 5 authority, like the Tarmac Delay Rule. But as Robert Kuttner writes, the airlines reneged on their end of the $54b bailout, slashing staffing levels and failing to invest in IT modernization - examples of the "unfair and deceptive" practices that the DOT could intervene to prevent:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/ftc-noncompete-airline-flight-cancellation-buttigieg/

As Dayen writes, "The definition of 'deceptive' is 'likely to mislead a consumer, acting reasonably under the circumstances.' If the airline scheduled a flight, took money for the flight, and knew it would have to cancel it (or, if you prefer, knew it would have to cancel some flights, all of which it took money for), that seems plainly deceptive."

This is the same authority that Buttigieg used to fine 5 non-US airlines (and Frontier, the tiny US carrier that flies 2% of domestic routes) for cancelling their flights - his signature achievement to date. But as Dayen points out, this authority isn't limited to taking action after the fact.

The DOT can - and should - act before Americans' flights are canceled. It can use its authority under 41712(a) to "say that the cancellation itself is an unfair and deceptive practice and issue a fine for each canceled flight." It could "promulgate a rule saying that cancellations due to insufficient crews, or due to dysfunctional computer scheduling systems, are unfair and deceptive, with stiff fines for each violation."

Both of these were within Buttigieg's power months ago, when the State AGs begged him to take action to prevent the mounting epidemic of cancellations. Both of these are within his power now. Heads of federal agencies are among the most powerful people in the world and they can use that power to materially improve the lives of the American people.

Just ask Lina Khan.

Image: Gage Skidmore (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/49560191032

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

[Image ID: A vector drawing of a man slumped at a desk with his face on his laptop. The man's face has been replaced with that of Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg. He has a DOT logo on his shoulder. There are also DOT logos on a coffee-cup on the desk and behind the desk, on the wall.]

[bloomingflowersthings]

Blooming prompts!!

Hello guys!! I’ve finally gathered some prompts that you can use when requesting fics, so it’s easier for both parts!! I’ve used some prompts from @goldenempyrean , @somber-sapphic , @thewidowintheweb and @budzdorovanatasha and some from random posts!!

Sickie!!

1A. “I can't be sick, I feel fine.”

2A. “I’ll be okay.”

3A. “Can you dim the lights a little?”

4A. “I feel strange…”

5A. “I don’t have time to sleep off a little cold.”

6A. “I’m freezin’, can we cuddle?”

7A. “Don’t leave me.”

8A. “Ugh, sorry. My cold made me sneeze.”

9A. “Relax, it’s just a cold.” 

10A. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

11A. “Is it cold in here, or is it just me?”

12A. “Baby, can you pass me the tissues?” 

13A. “Do we have any coughdrops?” 

14A. "I’ll rest later! I have really important work stuff to finish.” 

15A. “We ran out of tissues.”

16A. “I thought the medicine was non-drowsy…” 

17A. “I’m just trying to get all this work done! I have no time to rest.”

18A. “You probably shouldn’t kiss me.” 

19A. “You need to stop worrying about me.” 

20A. “I’m a little out of it today.”  

21A. “I do not have a cold!” 

22A. “I’m just a little under the weather that’s all.”

23A. “It’s just a silly little cold.”  

24A. “I just can’t stop sneezing!”

25A. “We were meant to go out tonight!” 

26A. “You’re literally my favourite person on earth right now.” 

27A. “My boss won’t let me take a sick day.”

28A. “It’s just cold in here, you all feel that, don’t you?”

29A. “I'll be okay after I take a quick nap.”

30A. “It’s just allergies.”

Caretaker!!

1B. "let me take you home, baby. you're clearly not feeling good."

2B. “You’re not going anywhere. I’m taking your temperature.”

3B. "Go back to sleep, honey."

4B. “Don’t even think about going to work/class today.”

5B. “You’re really not feeling well, are you?”

6B. “You’ve got a fever. Still want to pretend it’s just allergies?”

7B. “Stay put while I get the thermometer.”

8B. “You’re burning up!”

9B. “Let’s get you out of those wet clothes.”

10B. “We need to get this fever down.”

11B. “Are you feeling any better?”

12B. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this sick…”

13B. “I really don’t like the sound of that.”

14B. “I thought you said you didn’t have any allergies?”

15B. “Bless you! Are you sure you’re ok? You never sneeze this much.” 

16B. "Bless you!… since when do you sneeze more than once?

17B. ”There’s no way you’re going to stay home alone like this.”

18B. “Please just sit down for a moment.” 

19B. “You shouldn’t be walking around when you’re this sick.”

20B. ”Bless you… Bless you! Are you okay- bless you again!”

21B. “Maybe you should just take it easy.” 

22B. “Somebody’s certainly sneezy today.” 

23B. “You’re sweating.”

24B. “Those sniffles of yours really turning into something, huh?”

25B. “It sounds like you’ve caught that bug going round.”

26B. “I think your fever is spiking.”

27B. “I think you have the flu, nobody’s ever this sick with a cold.”

28B. “You’re kinda cute when you’re all sick and needy like this.”

29B. “Are you done pretending you’re fine?”

30B. “After all of the times I’ve told you it’s a bad idea, you still insist on going out to play in the rain.”

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

🏷️ Taglist: @natashamyl0ve @wandanats-goodgirl @goldenempyrean

[tomorrowusa]

The Biden administration is trying to limit junk fees. The president made reference to this during the State of the Union speech on Thursday. Of course Republicans think junk fees and screwing the consumer are great.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday unveiled a heavily anticipated rule cutting the late fees that credit card issuers can charge, delivering on an objective that President Joe Biden touted in his State of the Union address last year. The regulation caps fees for a missed payment at $8, down from the current level of up to $41. The rule has already sparked intense pushback from banks and congressional Republicans pledging to fight its implementation. The Chamber of Commerce is vowing to sue.

Republicans are serving predatory banks which give them big campaign contributions. Excessive fees enable the banks to get fat off of poor people. Most likely the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would be abolished or neutered by a second Trump administration.

The rule will “stop some credit card companies from ripping you off with late fees,” Biden said at a meeting of the White House Competition Council Tuesday afternoon. “This action will collectively save families $10 billion in credit card late fees every year.” The rule is part of the Biden administration’s broader campaign against so-called junk fees that has targeted industries from car dealers to cable operators. It’s a central focus of Biden’s reelection campaign and one that he’ll likely highlight in Thursday’s State of the Union speech. “Late fees have gotten out of control,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said on a call with reporters Monday. “Today the credit card industry hauls in more than $14 billion in late fee revenue, which our research shows is more than five times that of the companies’ associated costs.”

Banks would still make insanely large profits even with reduced junk fees. But greed makes them want to squeeze every cent they can out of American consumers.

Yeah, rightwingers already find themselves on the wrong side of the abortion and IVF issues. Now they are also trying vigorously to position themselves as defenders of price gouging, junk fees, and shrinkflation.

Tens of millions of Americans are inundated by credit card junk fees — and now right-wing media are rallying to defend this price gouging

[bluepoodle7]

#Illbleed #Level3Woodpuppets #GifsAndGifVideos

I wanted a gif of the Woodcutter telling the player as a changed Woodpuppet telling them they can't jump in this form with the player checking out their new form.

https://gifmaker.me/video-to-gif/viewimage/20240918-20-aUAy2RSVOzEDSSXq-pyECHY-hnet

4:36-4:38

Let's Play ILLBLEED Part 10B - Why Would You Do That - YouTube

[o-craven-canto]

Ea, Our Second Chance (10b)

10b. Eucytobionta (part 2/3, unicellular diversity)

(Index) (< 10a. Eucytobionta, cell structure) (> 10c. Eucytobionta, biotechnology)

(original link)

« The diversity of microscopic life was, and still is, overwhelming: from day one, each drop of water and grain of sand revealed a bewildering variety of forms. No more than on Earth, of course; don't think for one moment that we fully understood the complexity of our mother world when we left it. We're still making new discoveries from the few experimental models we brought over. Nevertheless, this represented the perfect opportunity to test out the new kind of science we were going to build. » – dean Sofia Torres, Tabula Rasa

I. Kingdom Monokarya (etym. "one kernel"). Unicellular, never colonial. Usually very small (<20 μm); only protonucleus (almost certainly secondary loss of paranuclei; polynucleate kingdoms do not form a clade). Usually flagellate, at least at one stage. Mostly endoparasites, within fluids of multicellular organisms (lymph, hydromuscular liquid); a few intracellular species. Outside of hosts they form capsules highly resistant to dehydration, heat, and radiations. Representative genera: Ankylococcus, Myoecia, Nesokaryon.

II. Kingdom Pogonocyta (etym. "bearded cell"). Unicellular, frequently colonial. Usually have superficial cilia or flagella. Often have two protonuclei, which they exchange in a form of sexuality not synchronous with reproduction (which occurs by fission or sequential fragmentation). Often very large species (commonly >0.1 mm with >20 paranuclei, Titanopogon reaches 8 mm in length); may have structures such as ciliate wheels, funnels, traps, stylets, articulated "jaws", etc. to feed on smaller cells, as well as visual organs and permanent digestive vesicles. Eyespots may have developed from endo-symbiotic unicellular algae. Smaller species may form clonal colonies via incomplete fragmentation, e.g. Petrovella. A few aerial species are known (most within genus Uranocyton). Representative genera: Hekatokaryon, Hylonectes, Nanognathus, Petrovella.

III. Kingdom Ostracophyta (etym. "tile-plant"). Unicellular, rarely colonial. Rigid polyhedral shell, apparently formed by crystalline sulfonamide impregnating the cell net; pseudopodia emerge from gaps, usually regularly placed, sometimes at the vertices of the shell. Macroscopic needleweed ("Hyalophyta", e.g. Arslanophyton). In the colonial forms (e.g. Endolithus), the shells may fuse and trap sediment forming stromatolite-like structures, pseudopodia may connect cell bodies. Usually phototrophs or mixotrophs (= energy from both sunlight and organic matter). All major forms of frostblight (white, purple, mealy, etc.) are ectoparasitic Ostracophyta with invasive root-like pseudopodia, but do not form a single clade. Representative genera: Arslanophyton, Astrapocyton, Endolithus, Phytopachne.

IV. Kingdom Colloplasmi (etym. "glue-form"). Unicellular, almost (?) exclusively colonial. Lobate cells, able to move by circulating cytosol through the lobes. Adhesive cell envelope, apparently rich in glycosyl-sulfonamides, which may form a common matrix for colonies. Sometimes mineral particles are incorporated (origin of Lithobionta?); mushroom-like, coral-like, or grass-like colonies both in water and on land, with specialized fruiting bodies. Often the colonies liquefy or "evaporate" when disturbed or damaged (special toxic cell morph in Ceratoides). Saprotrophs, herbivores, carnivores; unconfirmed case of a Cordyceps-like neural parasite. Representative genera: Ceratoides, Danaë, Eidocarpus, Xanthoplasma.

V. Kingdom Lithobionta (etym. "stone-life"). Multicellular. Forming pumice-like porous mineral structures; "living boulders". Representative genera: Lithobius, Pliniella.

VI. Kingdom Haematophyta* (etym. "blood-plants"). Multicellular. Photosynthetic organisms with zinc-based pigments; "red plants". Representative genera: Corynetes, Hypogaea, Tomophylla, Tribaculum.

VII. Kingdom Fuscophyta (etym. "dark plants"). Multicellular. Photosynthetic organisms, methanogens; "black plants". Representative genera: Cystophyton, Dendrocystis, Nepheloecia.

VIII. Kingdom Enantiozoa (etym. "mirror-animals"). Multicellular. Mostly motile chemoheterotrophs; Ean "animals". Representative genera: Akkadia, Dendrocephalus, Prosopogyrus, Semaphorus.

* Named "Erythrophyta" in other publications. The two names are to be considered synonymous, when defined as "the most exclusive clade including both Maurophytum purpureum and Corynetes corynetes".

– Vikram Jariwala et al., "Preliminary notes on Ean "eukaryote" diversity", Xenobiology Review, 14 (38 AL)

[sxnedmemes]

ANAL GIF STARTERS PART I

[1A]  [1B]  [1C] [2A]  [2B]  [2C] [3A]  [3B]  [3C] [4A]  [4B]  [4C] [5A]  [5B]  [5C] [6A]  [6B]  [6C] [7A]  [7B]  [7C] [8A]  [8B]  [8C] [9A]  [9B]  [9C] [10A]  [10B]  [10C] [11A]  [11B]  [11C] [12A]  [12B]  [12C] [13A]  [13B]  [13C] [14A]  [14B]  [14C] [15A]  [15B]  [15C]

[kyanako5972]

2023 Summary of Art

Happy New Year!

On DeviantArt, I have a tradition of filling out those little art summary memes with one art work from each month. Since I'm more active on Tumblr now, I'll also post it here.

It's telling that the last time I posted a summary of art on Tumblr was 2020, when I was somewhat active with YTTD.

I like how you can tell how long I've been into MILGRAM based on this.

Template (DeviantArt)

January: SWAP Ensemble Day 24, page 15 February: SWAP Ensemble Day 25 title page March: SWAP Ensemble Day 25, page 12 April: Jack Hollock's Super Easy Adventure (title page) May: Jack Hollock's Super Easy Adventure part 10b June: SWAP Ensemble Day 26 and beyond, page 5 July: Elsie Harmony (acrylics) August: Haelie, first incarnation (acrylics) September: Disillusioned senior Mahiru October: Inktober Day 5: "Boku-tachi" November: Amanevember Day 10: "Magic" (watercolor pencils) December: College Friend (watercolor pencils)

You know what? I think I'll main tag everything in here.

[stargazer-sims]

Parts 10 and 11 should probably actually be labelled 10a and 10b, but I’m not falling into the same labelling mess that I had going on with The World, According to Victor & Yuri. In The Art of Redemption, every post gets its own individual number.

Also, unrelated to part numbering… I just want to state that Stan is a Personality™