#so. the contrast between how hunter is with her / most people versus how he is with luz... chefs kiss

[crimeronan]

there's an amity POV thing i wanna write for the princess luz AU, but it's truly plotless n largely just involves her being a spectator to one event that has already happened within the AU canon. which is fine i guess, i can do whatever i want and all that

but. i must admit. that 98% of the reason that i want to write this is.... just for amity watching hunter and luz be How They Are. & having a very long moment where she's genuinely and not-unkindly like. okay. Wow. you two really truly honest to god are complete freaks. god bless, love and light, diplomatic phrasing and all that, but jesus FUCKING CHRI-

[sytokun]

i was wondering your thoughts on jaune as a character tbh. today i was thinking about atla and where it succeeded versus where rwby failed (especially because miles luna himself has compared rwby to atla multiple times).

one thing i disliked about rwby is that all four of the girls are super important in some way. ruby has silver eyes, weiss is the SDC heiress (richest company in the world), blake is WF leader’s daughter (also from a wealthy family), yang’s mom is a maiden. none of them are normal.

in atla, we have aang (the avatar), katara (who’s the last southern tribe waterbender… kinda?), toph (rich family daughter), zuko (firelord’s son) and sokka… who is completely normal. i like how they have a normal guy in atla which makes him relatable to the viewer.

the problem is in rwby, this normal guy is jaune. who ends up sticking along in the plot and being forced by the writers to be in situations which get him hate from the fndm. miles said jaune is partially inspired by sokka (dorky funny strategist type) but at the same time it means jnpr has to be part of the rwby adventures for jaune to be around. which makes people dislike jaune even more.

i kinda rambled but i was wondering yours thoughts on him? where did he fail where sokka succeeded and so on in your opinion?

Not to mention the inclusion of Oscar who is basically Normal Guy 2.0 before Ozpin came along, but yeah.

Hypothetically, Blake would have been a great everyman type for Team RWBY had she not been revealed to be of noble birth. Had she been written more as an orphan left to fight on the wilds outside the Kingdoms, her humble origin would have been a good contrast to the rest of Team RWBY, and grounded her with the audience within the team.

But in regards to Jaune, I've had some discussions on my server about him, and he's a tough nut to crack. Speaking of his failure within the context of canon, there is a definitely a disconnect between him being essentially a fifth main character and being a part of the B-team.

Another shortcoming is that he often, as many have and will attest, steals moments much better suited for other characters. Him vs. Cinder and killing Penny come to mind, both of which would vastly benefit Ruby more. And I think it's because he doesn't have an arc to speak of, ironically given his name.

For Sokka, he has a very distinct arc and dynamic within the Gaang that doesn't really overlap with the others. Neither Aang, Katara nor Toph are natural skeptics, nor are they non-benders, nor do they have an interest in technology or strategy. And his actual arc revolves around learning to be a man - not immature machismo, but responsibility and virtue. This alone lets Sokka occupy a niche that makes him valuable to the audience, because his unique experience is valuable.

However, Jaune, like Oscar, has many aspects that feel poached from other characters. His struggles as a leader steps on the toes of Ruby's arc as a team leader. His implied backstory as being from a line of famous Hunters can overlap with Weiss and the Schnee legacy (though due to how vague this detail is, there's room to play with this to make it more distinct). His niche as a strategist/tactician also overlaps with Ruby, leaving fans to headcanon distinctions between them, such as making Jaune a more "big picture tactician", while Ruby is a more "boots on the ground" strategist.

But the problem, as seen, lies in the fact that he offers very little to the audience, because what he offers, other characters can too. But because he does a little bit of everything, he is also always a little bit relevant to any situation, inflating his presence but not his importance in the show.

I've seen a post that posits that Jaune was at his most likeable in Volume 7, because there he was playing the role he should be to Team RWBY: a supporting character. While I do agree somewhat with this, as he was at his most likeable, being a sort of anchor trying to stay positive for everyone (nevermind that this is a trait overlapping with Ruby), he was also pretty... harmless?

I suppose it's because I've grown used to his extended presence, but him actually being more in the background also made him feel... kinda basic? There was really nothing too offensive, but also nothing terribly interesting for him to fall back on. He has no unique dynamic to bounce off of, no unique niche to fill. He's just kind of... there, occupying whatever vague role the story needs for him. And that makes him fairly forgettable; likeable only because he was no longer overstaying his welcome.

As for possible solutions, if I had to rework him from the ground up, I'd probably take Jaune in one of two directions, if not a bit of both:

A pampered noble. Lean more into his sheltered upbringing and weak start. He's from a long line of Hunters but for whatever reason was not raised as one or just lacks talent. Like Weiss but without any of the bite.

An underdog. This would work more if he was from more humble origins, but basically a no-name dude trying to work his way from the bottom.

Personally, I would lean more towards Option 1, if only because Oscar is clearly of humble birth and I would want to keep them as distinct from each other as possible. But for both, I would emphasize his underdog vibe as a weak fighter, as that is the one aspect he has in the series that everyone else doesn't.

Oscar would be weak too, but that's because he has no experience nor need to fight up until he joins the plot. But for Jaune, he would just be plain bad. He's bad at fighting even when he wants to be good, given his lineage, and that already creates a solid arc for him to work towards.

While Oscar would be fine with not being a fighter, it would be a source of a massive inferiority complex for Jaune, which totally checks out with how he behaves throughout Volume 1 and Jaunedice - sometimes even sabotaging himself because he's too stubborn to swallow his pride and admit he's weak and needs help, because a scion of a reputable Hunter family shouldn't be this weak.

As for his dynamic with the rest of the cast, knowing this, I'd probably make him incredibly weak, but also incredibly determined. While other characters can be determined too, Jaune would be so to an absurd amount, because he has to make up for his weakness with sheer will and persistence. If he falls down, he would get up more times than everyone else because he falls down more than everyone else. When faced with a problem, his natural inclination would just be to throw himself at it until either side yields.

This would be compatible with him having lots of Aura too. He's like a rock - uncomplicated in nature and immovable when it counts. Rather than make him a tactician, I'd make him the source of morale of the cast. People would be inspired by Jaune because even if he doesn't contribute much to a fight, he'll always be the last one standing; and seeing him would encourage the others to stand back up and continue fighting.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

The Voyage So Far: Alabasta (Part Two)

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano (1 | 2)

crocodile is one of my favorite villains in one piece for a number of reasons, and one of them is because he’s such a threat, the first real one faced in the grand line and one of the toughest in all of paradise. the villains from the arcs before this, like wapol or the agents from little garden, could barely even land a hit on luffy in actual combat. so crocodile is introduced here as an absolute force of nature, a complete contrast to recent villains and a very tangible threat. 

it’s an impression he very much lives up to later in the arc by crushing luffy not once but twice, which only makes luffy’s ultimate hard-won triumph feel all the better. luffy closes a huge gap over the course of alabasta in order to be able to beat crocodile, and giving us a sense of just how strong he is from the very start gives luffy clawing his way up to that level a lot more weight. 

the successive reveals of luffy’s family never fail to absolutely delight me, because in any other series they would almost certainly feel contrived, but knowing luffy, it is absolutely unsurprising he just never happened to mention his relatives. nobody asked! luffy’s unique brand of honesty is one of my favorite character quirks, because he’s very straightforward and in fact can’t lie for shit, but his priorities are so completely off the wall that he winds up omitting highly relevant information completely by accident. 

ace’s scene in alabasta really does impress me. oda’s said in an sbs that he knew ace’s fate from his introduction, which i find absolutely unsurprising given the intricacy of his story planning. that means he needed ace’s introduction to make him both likable and memorable enough in the space of just a couple chapters that the audience would be engaged when he became the focus of the story a couple hundred chapters on despite barely appearing at all in the intervening time, and he really succeeded. 

kohza is one of my favorite minor characters in the whole series, and i think he’s a big part of why alabasta’s civil war plotline works so well and feels so real. nobody on either side of the war actually wants to fight, but everyone has been driven to such desperation that they feel they have no other choice in order to save their country; and kohza exemplifies that. he's a good person who loves his country a lot, and who genuinely likes and cares about the royal family and vivi especially, and the only option he can see to save alabasta is terrible, but there’s nothing else he can do. 

it’s just fun for me to think about the fact that if crocodile was literally anything other than a very skilled logia, vivi would have ended the whole entire arc right here. 

i really like civil war storylines when they’re well-done, and i think alabasta is one of the best ones i’ve seen in media. most of it is down to what i mentioned earlier, about how nobody on either side actually wants to fight but feels like they have no choice but to. nobody here is actually in the wrong except for crocodile, and so until crocodile is defeated, nothing can be fixed- which is what luffy, of all people, is the one to realize. 

sanji’s mr. prince gambit is probably my single favorite part of alabasta, and i think one of the reasons i like it so much is because he basically beats crocodile at his own game. crocodile is terrifying in battle, but before anything else he’s a manipulator. he’s always working from the shadows, always deceiving people doing what he wants, and sanji manages to turn the tables on him and do the exact same back to him, twice. 

also sanji looks great in glasses

smoker and tashigi both get kind of unfortunately sidelined after this saga, but they’re both really great characters in alabasta. (tashigi especially; i’ll get to her later.) much like the rebel army, they’re good people trying to do the right thing in the tangled mess of tension and politics and resentment that is alabasta- and when that means working with pirates, they’ll buckle down and do it, despite how much it might contradict their worldviews. 

i love when events align in one piece so that people who don’t particularly like the strawhats wind up working with them for some common goal (as seen most prominently in impel down), and smoker and tashigi in alabasta are the first and still one of the best examples of that. 

the entirety of luffy versus crocodile round one is so well done. we’re a hundred and fifty chapters in, and although luffy has struggled in fights before now and then, we get the sense he hasn’t ever really been pushed to the brink, and he’s certainly never lost.

and then he does, completely and absolutely, without ever even landing a hit on his opponent, and it hits like a punch. 

oda seems to be a fan of characters just barely missing each other- the similar panel of robin and olvia running past each other from robin’s flashback comes to mind.

i’ve always liked that of all the strawhats, it’s usopp who gets the first “luffy is going to be king of the pirates” moment. they’ve all said it by the current chapters in wano (with the sole exception of robin, i believe), but usopp said it first, and that feels significant to me. he’s always been the one who feels the least secure in his place on the crew, but even so, he has so much faith in luffy. 

nami’s fight with miss doublefinger is pretty silly in places and i think it gets frequently (understandably, it must be said) overshadowed by zoro’s fight with mr. 1 directly afterwards, but i really like it nonetheless. it’s nami’s first real solo fight in the whole series, and once she finds her feet she kicks ass, and i really like that. it feels like a very satisfying development for her, to stand up and risk her life in direct combat for vivi’s sake. 

we’re now almost a thousand chapters in and its my firm belief that zoro versus mr. 1 is still one of the best fights in the entire series. i definitely think it’s probably zoro’s best fight- only his match with kaku compares. the narrative build over the course of the fight, from zoro struggling just to match mr. 1 (and getting shredded to pieces in the process) to cutting him down in one final stroke, is incredibly cool and satisfying to watch. it feels like a very tangible step forward for zoro in terms of ability, like a massive obstacle has been surmounted and, as he himself says, he’s now stronger for it. 

its also very cool that this is, i believe, the first appearance of what is probably observation haki, though it isn’t named or recognized as such. i’m always endlessly impressed by all the little moments of internal consistency that oda manages to sprinkle into his story. 

there’s barely any dialogue on these entire two pages, from crocodile dropping vivi to luffy and pell swooping in- the story is briefly told entirely through visuals- and i love that. it gives the impression of a single tense, frozen moment as vivi falls, which is then broken in spectacular fashion when luffy catches her. 

i really, really like the progression that runs through all three of luffy’s fights with crocodile. the gap between them goes from being impossible, with luffy unable to even land a hit and crocodile basically toying with him; to surmountable but still huge, with luffy able to land some hits but still outclassed; to finally putting them on basically even ground. and every inch of that growth on luffy’s part is hard-fought and hard-won and well-deserved. 

crocodile’s confidence in his abilities isn’t misplaced- he genuinely is that powerful. but if there’s anything we know about luffy by now, it’s that he doesn’t ever give up. it’s very fun to watch crocodile’s dismissiveness turn into disbelief turn into rage and frustration when luffy just won’t die. 

luffy is, additionally, pretty clearly a better brawler than crocodile (which makes sense, crocodile is clearly used to devastating long-range attacks with his powers while luffy grew up fighting giant wildlife with his bare hands), which means that by the time of their last fight, where they’re just whaling on each other in the catacombs and crocodile is starting to get sloppy and desperate and lose control, if anything it’s luffy who has the upper hand. 

zoro and sanji’s dynamic is always a favorite of mine, and one of the things i like best about them is how perfectly in sync they always manage to be when it comes to things that actually matter, despite fighting like cats and dogs pretty much every other time. i’ll never understand people who think they genuinely aren’t friends. 

tashigi is really good in alabasta, okay. she essentially has her own entire character growth arc. she goes from her stance in loguetown, where she isn’t even tolerant of (fully legal!) bounty hunters, to here, where she’s forced to confront that the world isn’t nearly as black and white as she’s always believed it to be, that sometimes pirates are good and allies of the government are bad, and ultimately makes the right choice to help the strawhats even though it clearly pains and frustrates her that she can’t do anything more herself. 

i’ll be forever mad that her only really significant appearance after this in punk hazard didn’t really live up to what her character deserved. 

i really like how the countdown sequence is done. the tension is ratcheting up and up and up as the clock ticks down in the final seconds, panels cutting all over the city to show all the different characters, everyone who’s caught up in this conflict and everyone who’ll die if the cannon fires-

and then the clock hits zero, and we get this panel that’s just... quiet, after all the madness, as we see how vivi stopped the detonation. i think oda is very good at setting up his pages so they have a flow to them, so no matter how quickly you actually read sometimes things feel like they’re going very fast and all happening at once and then it slows down and gives the reader a chance to breathe, if only to speed up again later. i think oda is really good at pacing in general, really, both on a micro level like this and on a larger scale. 

luffy’s greatest strength isn’t really his strength. he’s strong, absolutely, but that’s not really why he wins the fights he shouldn’t win. he wins because he just doesn’t fucking stay down. his fight with katakuri is probably the best example of this, because katakuri has him beat in pretty much every category except sheer endurance, and there as here, it’s that endurance that winds up getting luffy the win in the end. 

i do love that it’s the rain that ends the war. not the explosion and pell’s sacrifice, not vivi’s pleading, not even luffy kicking crocodile into the stratosphere, but the rain, the thing alabasta’s been missing for too long, the thing crocodile stole, the only thing all these people are fighting over. 

it’s crocodile’s symbolic defeat- at the same moment his power is broken by luffy, the stranglehold of dehydration he’s been using to foment war and rebellion is all at once gone, and he’s left with nothing at all, and alabasta can finally find peace and start to heal again. 

i always love the little moments that show, usually without words, just how much the strawhats love each other, and all of them unanimously waiting until vivi is out of sight to collapse so that she won’t worry, won’t see how ragged they ran themselves for their sake, is definitely one of them. 

i adore vivi’s sendoff, because while its sad she has to go, the certainty that someday they’ll meet again and that even if not they’ll always be crew manages to make this scene endlessly hopeful instead (which, i think, is also a good summary of one piece’s tone as a whole, at least in its more serious moments). luffy never says goodbye, after all, and nobody ever really leaves the strawhat pirates. 

i’m really looking forward to vivi’s re-entry to the story. i really, really want to see her reunion with the strawhats. 

hey look, it’s the panel my profile picture is from! 

the mystery surrounding robin and her past is built up in little ways long before enies lobby, from her harsh reaction when confronted with by tashigi to her aversion to being called by her given name to this flashback, of her talking to cobra about her dream. of them, the latter is my favorite, because i think it’s probably the most sincere she is until enies lobby- which makes sense, given she thinks she’s about to die. 

like many things about robin in alabasta, this gets cast in a new light by her backstory. if she dies here, so too does the entire legacy of ohara- but she’s so beaten down and hopeless that she really doesn’t see any light ahead to strive for. there’s no hope left, for her, and the whole world against her. 

and then there’s luffy, who creates hope everywhere he goes, who makes her live anyways. 

this is a hell of a spread to hook us very effectively right into the sky island saga. it’s a perfect reminder of just how much we still don’t know about all the endless mysteries of the grand line, and just how many adventures are still yet to be had.

[bestworstcase]

how's everyone in bitter snow feel about the justice system in Corona? also how are the guards in bitter snow, how do these people treat their positions as guards?

okay anon you said “everyone” so like

gonna talk specifically about all the character’s perceptions right now, as of chapter 9, because a lot of these feelings evolve over the course of benighted and also the rest of the series 👍

major characters!

cassandra!

she is well aware of the harshness of the system. her own birth parents were executed for their crimes—we’ll get more into that later >:)—and given who her father is and what her aspirations are, she knows some of the more unsavory details about what guard work can mean. there is a part of her that is… uncomfortable with this, but she rationalizes it as a discomfort related to feeling like she’s trapped in the shadow of the (very serious) crimes for which her parents were executed. she has very much drunk the kool-aid that all of this stuff is correct and just because it’s only being done To Criminals, who of course are not like regular people, who must be protected From Criminals (like her parents, there’s this whole nasty feedback loop of self-disgust going on with this). 

she also very much has her dad on a pedestal and doesn’t want to think badly about anything he does, and she wants to make him proud, and in her mind making him proud = succeeding as a guard. so that’s another huge thing tilting her in favor of the coronan justice system. 

rapunzel!

i don’t think rapunzel has quite made the connection between the existence of the king’s watch and what they actually do, which is arrest people and feed them into the horrible justice system. she knows that eugene was arrested and nearly hanged, and she doesn’t feel good about that, but she also has not been exposed to this system as a… daily thing with a wider scope than simply being something eugene escaped from. she has a very particular kind of self-centered naivety where it is still hard for her to grasp that people… exist, outside of her life, almost like a lack of object permanence where the concept of Other People is concerned? because she grew up in a tower with nobody but gothel. she’s beginning to develop inklings of this, but it’s not there yet, and with frederic and everyone in the palace actively trying to shelter her from the more upsetting pieces of palace life still, she’s still kind of navigating around obstacles that she can’t see in order to get there.

anyway all of which is to say she’s laboring under the impression that everything in corona is hunky dory. still very much in the homecoming honeymoon phase.

eugene!

eugene is in this weird transitional place where he, by his own actions in the last chapter, has been rather rudely shocked out of his own complacency and now he’s looking around at all the luxuries and privileges he has been granted purely by virtue of being the guy who happened to bring rapunzel home and he’s going: oh. oh i didn’t earn any of this actually. 

he knows exactly what corona is like. if you’re a thief in this world you know not to get arrested in corona. and he did get arrested in corona and he came very close to losing his life because of it. for a while there, i think he just fully embraced his pardon and decided to live it up because, well, why not, it’s what he deserves after a lifetime of hard living and fighting to survive… but fundamentally, he’s not an asshole even if he is sometimes an ass, and the more he lets go of the flynn rider persona the more his natural empathy reasserts itself. right now, his focus is on being better for rapunzel, but i think he sort of has in the back of his mind how very, very lucky he got in his brush with the coronan justice system and that inclines him to at least feel… dubious about becoming a cog in it. 

lance!

he’s sort of similar to eugene, in that he has this criminal background and he knows exactly what sort of reputation corona has in the criminal world… but there’s also this element of, he’s sort of… adjacent to law enforcement now. thief-takers are sort of like private investigators and sort of like bounty hunters, and they exist in the weird margin between law enforcement and criminal activity and lance has this very personal experience of having been sort of… invited into that space as an opportunity to reform his ways, and that worked for him.

i think he and eugene could probably have a really interesting conversation not too far down the line about how they got out of the thieving business and became better people and ways that could be applied on a broader scale versus just chucking everyone in prison, which i imagine tends to be the default not just in corona but in most countries in this region. lance sees his experiences helping victims of theft as intrinsically linked to his personal decision to never steal again, whereas eugene reformed because rapunzel, specifically, treated him with compassion and dignity. put those two things together and you have a decent platform for a restorative approach to criminal justice. 

varian!

varian is a kid. he has no clue about anything but his alchemy lol. i think he probably has a lot of romanticized notions of adventurous thieves in the vein of flynn rider and is accustomed to seeing guards/watchmen as The Enemy through that lens, but he has very very little actual real world experience with either and to him it all has this aura of fiction. it’s something that happens To Other People, not to him. 

caine!

caine saw the coronan justice system tear her family apart when she was nine years old, over a petty theft her father committed to feed his starving family. also, she’s saporian, so she has this extra pile of cultural grudges against corona in addition to this personal trauma. she hates corona, and unlike in canon—where the narrative need to make everything About Rapunzel demanded that her motivations be dumbed down—she puts the blame for what happened to her squarely where it belongs, on king frederic’s crackdown and the system backing it. though she’s not a separatist herself, she’s perfectly happy to work with them to attack corona, and she sees her piracy as… sort of a campaign against corona and its allies? in that she targets mostly trading vessels belonging to the seven kingdoms and has definitely liberated coronan prison barges in the past. 

as far as she’s concerned corona can just burn. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ up saporia

sirin! 

…honestly you’d be hard pressed to find anybody who hates coronan justice more than sirin does because [spoilers lol]. she keeps it on a very tight lock, because she is a pragmatist first and foremost and she isn’t interested in expending her rage on a doomed cause. when she acts on her hatred, she wants it to matter. and she’s also a leader, with a lot of vulnerable people relying on her to keep them safe, so she can’t just lash out the way she might want to if she had no other obligations. so she’s cultivated this very cold, very methodical anger and is proceeding with her plan very carefully but also, definitely enjoyed getting her hands bloody in the prologue. 

assorted secondary and minor characters (just the ones i feel like talking about, rip to everyone else)

commander peter!

it is peter’s job to enforce the coronan justice system. fundamentally, he has to agree with it. i think he has this ideal of what justice should be in the back of his mind and he sees all the ways that coronan justice doesn’t line up, and he’s trying his best to close those gaps while working from within the system. he cares very intently about his country and its people, and he firmly believes that he’s working to keep everybody safe—even if it comes at the cost of this harsh, sometimes unfair system. 

as part of this, he keeps very high standards of conduct for his watchmen. abuses of power do happen—peter can’t always be watching every single man in his force, and while he ostensibly commands the city watches in the rest of corona’s city’s too, in practice his influence tapers off outside of herzingen simply because of distance—but he tries to stamp them out as best he can.

(there’s definitely a big range within the king’s watch itself vis a vis how the guards approach their work. i think, taken on average, they... are cops. their job is to enforce the system first and foremost and they wouldn’t get into that career if they didn’t believe in it; some try to be more compassionate about it than others and some are just in it for the authority but they’re all... working to serve the system.)

arianna!

she’s both a foreigner originally—she was born and raised in eldora, one of corona’s neighbors—and very well traveled, so she has seen a lot of other models of justice in action and this leads to her taking a dim view of the way corona handles things. i think she and frederic probably have a lot of heated arguments about his crackdown in particular, and it’s one of the biggest points of contention in their marriage. she does often succeed in being a moderating voice, and i imagine she is a vocal proponent for reform not just in corona but in the seven kingdoms generally, but unfortunately she has no real authority in corona (because frederic is the monarch, not her) so her influence in this regard is limited. 

frederic!

in contrast to arianna, frederic i think truly believes that cracking down harder on crime is the only way to make it go away. he’s thinking about how a criminal in a jail cell is a criminal who isn’t out on the streets hurting people, rather than thinking about where these criminals are coming from in the first place. he listens to arianna—and to ludolf and peter, who are other moderating voices in this regard—but he also has a very hard time stepping out of this mindset of “we just need to take the bad people and put them somewhere else so the good people will be safe.” in a way, i think he has a very similar mindset to rapunzel in that they both tend to engage in black-and-white thinking, but where rapunzel sees only the good parts of the world, frederic tends to see things in the most bleak light possible. 

gilbert! 

gilbert is a career military guy in a kingdom with no standing army during a time of peace. this… absolutely has an impact on his approach to domestic justice, and in particular he takes the attitude that criminals and dissidents are The Enemy. he feeds into frederic’s worst impulses and fears because in his mind, frederic is too cowardly to do what must be done to quash The Threat. i think… like frederic a lot of this ultimately comes from a desire to keep corona safe, he’s just jumped fully overboard into not considering the “wrong” sort of coronan part of the country he wants to protect. and then him seeing everything through this military lens is fuel on that fire. 

ludolf! 

he’s a champion of compassion. he hates the existence of the prison barges and the gallows, but i think he also does not have much in the way of actionable alternatives; he’s has this kind of idealized, almost rapunzel-esque idea that if they just apply a little faith and goodwill then the problems can be solved (and this tends to weaken his stance politically, because he runs into the “well then what do you propose we do” problem; he works best in tandem with someone like arianna or peter, both of whom are details people who can come up with real solutions). 

quirin! 

having been… sort of? the closest thing aphelion had to law enforcement back in the day, i think he has strong opinions on corona’s system—namely that it’s all wrong—but he keeps them to himself because he’s not one to talk about the past in general and he’s also well aware that in corona, he’s just some peasant and his opinions aren’t wanted. mostly, he tries to keep his head down, keep himself and his kid out of trouble, and focus on preserving the simple life he has constructed for himself. 

(in aphelion, i think criminality was dealt with through the moonstone cult—this decayed somewhat over the course of the dedication, as aphelionese people lost their strong connection with the moonstone, but the basic philosophy still remained, and the basic philosophy was “work to understand the root of the problem, then shine the light of truth and understanding on it until the problem reveals its solution”)

adira!

adira very much thinks coronans are all a bit nuts and unlike quirin is not at all shy about voicing this thought when it happens to come up on the rare occasion that she stops being a vagrant long enough to talk to somebody. but that doesn’t happen very often. mostly she’s been too focused on searching for the sundrop and fixing the moonstone to care much about what corona does with its criminals, but also if she were directly asked she’d be like “were you trying to create a criminal assembly line? because that’s what you did” lol

nigel!

i think nigel is a very fearful person in general but this also wars with a degree of practicality. the notion of criminals frightens him but he can also recognize that many people turn to crime out of desperation or fear, and he has a tough time navigating this dissonance. on the whole i think he’d tend to lean toward whoever argued the most reasonably on any specific subject where coronan justice is concerned, which in practice means he ends up aligned with peter a lot—he respects peter’s authoritative experience in dealing with criminals, and peter tends toward this reasonable-sounding, incremental reform approach to the system that speaks to both nigel’s fearfulness and his practical side. 

feldspar! 

he’s in kind of an uncomfortable situation, in that he is saporian but i don’t think he is particularly open about that fact and would really prefer his coronan neighbors not… know about it. because being saporian, he has a clearer view of how the coronan justice system disadvantages his people and how the crackdown landed especially hard on saporia. i think he lives in perpetual anxiety over the possibility of getting in trouble or being accused of a crime and having his whole life destroyed as a result. also with his friendship with cass, there’s definitely a part of him that wants to just. shake her. until she wakes up to the injustices being done; but he’s far too anxious to actually do something like that so whenever she starts going on about being a guard he’s just kinda like :| 

xavier!

as the royal blacksmith and thus supplier of the weapons and armor used by the king’s watch, he has this closeness to the law enforcement side of it that definitely biases him a bit in favor of them; they’re one of his primary customers and biggest sources of business. but also, he’s a very intelligent, very well-read person, and i feel like he spent some time traveling in his youth, so he’s in a similar boat to arianna where he knows for a fact that this is not the only or the best way to do things and he could probably be coaxed into a lengthy conversation about it with the right questions. 

[supersaiyadaddy]

Dystopia Reading Recommendations by my friend Victoria H:

 

All Good Children by Catherine Austin

The American government has developed a treatment to cure teenage delinquency which is bad news for 17 year old Maxwell, graffiti artist and angry, young man. This novel is a chilling look into the future of social control using pharmaceuticals.

Angel Fall by Susan Ee

One of the few books on this list I haven’t read, but book sellers and readers alike love this series. I’m looking forward to reading how 17 year old Penryn Young survives when warrior angels attack San Francisco, beginning the apocalypse. 

Children of Eden by Joey Grace

Rowan is her parent’s second child, which in a world of strict population control, makes her not just illegal but marked for death. Another novel recommended by my bookseller best friend which has received rave reviews.

Gone series by Michael Grant

I’m honestly not a huge fan of this series, but mine is definitely a minority opinion.  One day, all the adults are simply gone with no explanation, leaving teens suddenly in charge of a world of children. A scary scenario which becomes more perilous as animals and the remaining humans begin to change, developing dangerous supernatural abilities. 

Sixteen by Julia Karr

One of the lesser known books on this list, but one of my favourites as unlike so many other dystopias the setting isn’t also the plot. Nina is nervous about her fast approaching sixteenth birthday when she’ll receive a government mandated tattoo indicating she is now sexually available. After her mother is attacked, Nina discovers that everything she’s been told her about post-sixteen life is a horrible lie.

Legend series by Marie Lu

In the dystopian Republic, June is a fifteen year old military prodigy determined to capture her country’s most wanted criminal, fifteen year old Day, a survivor of the slums. Both think they know everything about their world, but both the hunter and the hunted will be profoundly changed when they learn the truth. The whole series is a must read. 

The Hive by Barry Lyga and Morgan Baden

To rein in online bullying, the government now controls who is targeted for mob justice, and what level of punishment is deserved. Teenaged Cassie has had every reason to believe in the fairness of this system, until one online joke makes her a target of a violent punishment far in excess of her crime. Fully believable and scary; I couldn’t put the book down until I reached the end.

Bumped by Megan McCafferty

A fascinating novel of what happens when fertility is limited to the teenage years, and the competition is fierce for the privilege of impregnating the smartest, healthiest and best looking girls. Melody, who scores high on all three categories, believes she’s the luckiest girl in the world until she discovers she has an identical twin sister, Harmony, who is determined to save her from a sinful future.

The Knife of Never Letting Go series by Patrick Ness 

On an alien world, a small community of human men have the ability to hear each other’s thoughts. But when soon to be 13 year old Todd discovers that the Noise of everyone’s thoughts isn’t as omnipresent as he’s been told, he’s forced to flee for his life. For there are many dark, violent secrets on this world where keeping secrets should be impossible. 

Burn Mark by Laura Powell (sequel Witch Fire)

In an England where the Inquisition never ended and witches are still burned, developing the ability to do magic during your adolescence is a curse almost no one wants. Glory is determined to embrace her gifts despite them trapping her in a life of crime. By contrast, Lucas, son of a Chief Inquisitor, feels cursed by his developing powers which are threatening everything he ever wanted. These novels contain one of the more realistic depictions of the practice of magic, and of the oppressive history of British social classes.

Divergent Series by Veronica Roth

A very well known series, but unfortunately much maligned due to the declining quality of the movie sequels. However, the books themselves, especially the first two, are a compelling portrayal of a society at war with itself.  I couldn’t help but root for Tris and Four, two young people determined not to allow violent prejudice limit how they live their lives.

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera 

In this near future, computers predict with unfailing accuracy who will die in the next twenty-four hours. Two very different teenage boys receive the much dreaded notification, and as the hours pass for them, you will question with increasing anxiety how accurate the title of this novel is.

Scythe Trilogy by Neal Shusterman

On an Earth where humans have conquered death, Scythes are responsible for compassionately ‘gleaning’ a quota of people to keep the burgeoning population under control. Two teenagers, Citra and Rowan, are unwillingly recruited as apprentices. Soon, their own lives will be on the line as there’s a growing movement within the Scythedom to destroy the rules that limit their ability to kill.

Unwind Series by Neal Shusterman

And if you thought the world of Scythe was twisted, this dystopian series by the same author is set after an American civil war where the opposing sides reached a terrifying compromise. Abortion is now illegal, but between the ages of 13 and 18, unruly teenagers can be sent by their parents to be ‘unwound.’ A process that claims it allows the teen to live on in their donated organs inside more worthwhile citizens. Despite this bizarre premise, the author manages to create a very convincing and terrifying future.

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud (first book of the Bartimaeus series)

In this alternative universe, the British Empire dominates the world because British magicians are able to summon and control powerful demons. When Nathaniel, a young apprentice magician, decides to summon a djinn to get revenge on his teacher, he’s immediately in way over his head. For Bartimaeus is a conniving and hilarious demon, who is often too smart for his own good. If we lived in a just universe, people would have lined up for these books like they did for the Harry Potter series.

Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld

A well known dystopian series that deserves all the praise it has received. Tally has been told all her life that she’s ugly, that everyone is until they turn sixteen and extensive cosmetic surgery transforms them into a Pretty. Tally has eagerly awaited this transformation all her life, until she makes a friend who doesn’t want the surgery as it does far more than just alter outside appearances. This whole series is well worth reading.

The Chrysalids by John Wyndham

A classic from the 1950s that’s still easily available for good reason. This novel is set in a post-nuclear war Labrador where any mutation from ‘the norm,’ no matter how small, is feared and hated. Suspect crops are burned, mutant animals are slaughtered, and any human who appears abnormal is sterilized and exiled to the dangerous, radioactive Fringes. David Storm believes he’s lucky because his differences and those of his friends are invisible. But the arrival of his sister Petra, whose telepathic abilities outstrip all of theirs, threatens to expose them all.   

An Introduction to Zombies:

Zombies Versus Unicorns edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier

An amazing anthology of short stories about zombies or unicorns by some of the best YA authors. Funny, disturbing and moving stories of the zombie apocalypse alongside unicorn stories like none you’ve ever read before.

The Girl with All the Gifts by Mike Carey

Told from the perspective of ten year old Melanie, the titular girl, this tense thriller takes place in a world where a fungal infection has transformed much of humanity into cannibalistic hungries. This novel tackles all the hard questions of what makes someone human, but never falters from being an entertaining and scary page turner. Also, the movie adaption is as excellent as the book.

Rot and Ruin Series by Jonathan Maberry

Fourteen years after zombies first appeared, the United States has reverted to the Old West, with small towns surrounded by the rot and ruin of civilization. Benny Imura, 15, doesn’t remember what life was like before, but wants to believe there’s more to existence than living behind tall fences and locked doors. But zombies aren’t the only dangers beyond the town’s borders. This entire series is an Intelligent, compelling and believable version of a zombie apocalypse.

This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

Barricaded in a high school in a small Canadian town, Sloane Price and five other teens try to survive a zombie outbreak, their troubled pasts, and each other. A tense, smart thriller I couldn’t put down. Warning: themes of suicide and child abuse. There’s a sequel novella, Please Remain Calm, that I haven’t read yet, but it’s available on kindle.

Peeps by Scott Westerfield

This is smart, scary book where zombies aren’t caused by a disease, but a parasite which turns people into cannibals who hate everything they used to love. Warning: the teen protagonist, Cal, has become an expert on all kinds of parasites and describes them in graphic detail. But if you have a strong enough stomach, this is one of the most unique visions of zombies from an excellent writer. There’s a sequel that’s hard to get called The Last Days that’s shamefully still on my pile of to be read.

[kippersforbreakfast-billie]

Do you like Gothic literature? Southern or otherwise e.g. Cormac McCarthy, Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Conrad, Brontë et cetera.

“Do you like Gothic literature? Southern or otherwise e.g. Cormac McCarthy, Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Conrad, Brontë et cetera. I only ask as quite a few songs, such as Anda and Fish, on the new album have that feeling to them. That same feeling found in other great works influenced by books such as Five Leaves Left or Closer. Maybe not so much a gut feeling as something more rooted in the primordial ear. ”

--

Dear Declan, thank you for your question. 

The short answer would be yes – I do like some Gothic Literature and it does influence me, but it wouldn’t be my favourite genre. Obviously, I’m a huge advocate of the Brontës’ works, and I’ve mentioned Shelley in a previous essay - Frankenstein in particular is so important and pivotal to nature’s storyline. I like prose that are simplistic in plot, and will probably allude to the sublime at some point, so I’m more of a Romanticist I guess.  

I love Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Grey for the way he talks about beauty. He says -

“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”

And also,

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”  

Which is spot on. 

In all of the Gothic writers there seems to be a lilting theme of loneliness as a great and wonderful thing, a tragedy, but characters are at their happiest when so. I like the heartache, but the eventual optimism and general ‘life goes on’ mantra at the end of them makes everything return to normalcy.  I preferred McCullers’ Ballad of the Sad Café to Heart is a Lonely Hunter for a long time, but now I like the latter. It’s funny how books can change in your internal ranking, it shows how you grow and develop through life; contradicting yourself constantly is important. McCullers really reminds me of Harper Lee, they both have this sweet observational style and tone to their works. It’s the southern principles versus the natural romantic -contrasting style and substance to create something brilliant. Characters are stripped down to their core ethics and characteristics, often drawn into one community, placed there to agitate and spark off one another, and all the while putting them in a seemingly dull and uninspiring setting; it’s clever. 

I sometimes feel attached to the more existentialist works. L’Étranger is my favourite book and will be until I find something to take its place. It’s always the balance between simplicity and the profound that makes me think and reflect more so than a classic ‘story’. I’ve just finished Huxley’s Crome Yellow and that does some of the same thing, together with a more modern work – Naïve, Super by Erlend Loe, but that touches more on philosophical thought than existential consideration. Crome Yellow scoffs at and satirises the fashion of the time, which reminds me of writers like Richard Yates or Wilde - this being another example of observation ahead of its time - pushing towards eccentricity or people who think and feel a deeper kind of thought.

In all of these books, the theme seems to be this omniscience without bravado, being quietly confident in the minutiae and taking time with description, to create a clearer and calmer bigger picture. Writers often glide over the profound whilst making their characters do something mundane with their lives. It’s why songs are written in a similar way. For me I like alluding to the sublime almost every time, because it’s so important to me and usually the cause and solution to all my problems. Don’t tell Nick but I prefer Pink Moon to Five Leaves, and the title track inspired La Lune – ‘One side is pink and the other is black’, which, now that I think of it, puts his lovely metaphor into a sort of Gothic context, unintentionally. The song Untitled also references him as I ‘tip my cap to the Northern sky’. I’ve said it before but the way he references colour is beautiful, and ‘weaker than the palest blue’ will forever be his best line. I feel like that sometimes but it can’t be articulated any other way. My bassist told me once that her Mum calls it ‘feeling a bit little’. Those moods and days where your brain swings off somewhere and nothing feels settled, you’re alone around people and you feel as though the earth is going to catch you out. It’s impossible to articulate but I spend most of my time writing trying to pin it down. Drake was such a huge inspiration for me to start making songs and to view the world a little differently; if I got to meet him I think we’d agree on most things. 

On the other hand, there are parts of Gothic Literature I don’t like, such as McCarthy, but I should probably read more of his stuff before I say this. Nothing clicked with me, and it was maybe a little too macabre for a fragile mind. As I’m drafting this essay I’m also buying Wise Blood, so thanks for the recommendation. 

To summarise, because I’ve strayed from the question and now this is a general overview of literature and things I do/do not like: I think we’re drawn to abnormality and the idiosyncrasies of humans; characters who see and live a cloud above or below everyone else, in that their status is not hierarchal, just different. A simple, non-convoluted storyline can discuss this, as those anomalies find their community and ultimately become accepted or, in some more primitive cases rejected (Heathcliff). I personally enjoy finding beauty and peace in an otherwise mundane existence, which is why the minutiae are so important to me, as they ultimately form the whole peach. 

From,

Billie 

[emblem-333]

Rebooking WrestleMania X-8

By 2002 “The Attitude Era” officially ended when Steve Austin slammed The Rock in the head with a chair his long time nemesis Vince McMahon fed him in Houston, Texas. 2002 is the period between the aftermath of The Attitude Era and what John Cena would define as “Ruthless Aggression” goes undefined. Casually lumped into the waning days of the aforementioned Attitude Era.

World Championship Wrestling went out of business for lack of money and years of a rapidly declining product. Paul Heyman’s Extreme Championship Wrestling went defunct not for a lack of interest or decline in the product, but for a lack of capital. Regardless, the WWE and Vince McMahon stood alone as kings of the wrestling universe.

Suddenly, the WWE (then the WWF) were given an embarrassment of riches. An awful lot of talented personnel found themselves without work and did not enjoy the finacial security the bigger names Hulk Hogan, Goldberg, Kevin Nash and Scott Steiner enjoyed after the demise of WCW.

Deciding it is in their best interest to introduce the new talent they had by having them pose as a band of rebels eager to takeover the WWE. The Invasion angle introduced wrestlers hardcore fans of the WWE were bred for more than a decade to hate. Rob Van Dam. Booker T. Diamond Dallas Page. Instantly made an impression on fans and carved out, at the very least, decent runs in the WWE. Only they packed the teeth to intimidate viewers. This became exemplified when numerous WWE personnel defected to the WCW/ECW alliance. Stone Cold Steve Austin and Kurt Angle switched allegiances against all logic because creatively the powers that be behind the camera did not have faith in the WCW/ECW products.

Overall, The Invasion storyline became quickly muddled in a constant string of betrayals, with The Alliance never really gaining the upper-hand in the feud as the two sides remained relatively even. It all came to its climatic finish for Survivor Series 2001. A 5-on-5 brawl between the best the WWF has to offer against the best WCW/ECW could muster up. At the last second Angle turned Babyface and slammed Austin to the canvas, The Rock got the pin and just like that Team WWF prevailed like Vince McMahon always wanted. The story devolved into another saga about the dysfunction of the McMahon family. Paul Heyman was marginalized as merely a cheerleader for ECW from the announcers table. Even though McMahon in real-life won the war, he had to show how much he did in his own universe too.

The night after Vince ceased to be a Babyface and returned to his familiar role as a Heel. Later, he introduces the New World Order to the WWE universe. Their task: take the company down from the inside. Okay. Sure. A weak premise lacking any foundation in logic. Point is, Hulk Hogan is back in a WWE ring. At the No Way Out pay-per-view the black shirted trio crashed a title match between Steve Austin and champion Chris Jericho. The three beat the snot out of the Texas Rattlesnake and with Y2J none the wiser proceeded to pin his challenger and retain his title. The NwO proceeded to beat on Austin some more before tagging his bare back in black spray paint with their initials.

Jericho went into WrestleMania 18 the champion, ultimately dropping the belt to a Babyface Triple H recently betrayed by his real-life wife, Stephenie McMahon, who sided with Jericho.

The NwO continued to raise havoc, taunting Austin and The Rock, going as far to nearly kill an injured, defenseless Rock by crashing a semi truck into a ambulance. Somehow, Rock was able to compete in a two-on-three handicap match not long after his brush with near death. The feud came to a boiling point at WrestleMania. Austin took on Scott Hall and Kevin Nash in a two-on-one handicap. While Hollywood Hogan challenged The Rock mano a mano. The good guys won out and Hogan, upon defeat turned Babyface and the NWO ceased to be relevant in the WWF despite hanging around for a couple of years.

We’ve all heard the original plans for ‘Mania that fell through because of various complications. Austin was supposed to square off against The Hulkster. Only neither wanted to job to the other and the two already having a history in WCW, the plan was scrapped. Then, it was designed to have Austin continue to feud with Hall and Nash, they were to go over in ‘Mania. Hall’s behind the scenes vices instilled a lack of confidence in creative and the plan was scrapped in favor of a easy, quick ending.

But what-if it was all different? What-if, there was more than bragging rights at stake heading into WrestleMania 18?

If you simply reverse the results of the Royal Rumble you have The Rock winning the Undisputed Title from Jericho, and Kurt Angle last eliminating Triple H to earn the right to challenge Rock at ‘Mania for the belt.

The Rock and Kurt Angle have had some brilliant singles matches together. There ain’t never been a better technical wrestler than Kurt and no one showed more razzle-dazzle in the ring than Rocky. In a vivid clash of opposing styles, they went together like peanut butter and jelly. For three consecutive WrestleMania’s The Rock headlined with the title on the line. WrestleMania 18 would be the fourth occasion in which that is the case.

There are contrasting stories on how well fans received The Rock in the moment. The conflicting reports during his match versus paint a picture of either a crowd who was split, indecisive or wholly on the side of Hogan. There isn’t a version where The Rock wasn’t viewed as second-banana. Either fans loved him, or preferred him as trash-talking Heel, or simply never cared for him. I hope the last possibility wasn’t the reality. The Rock found his footing as a Heel, made his best impressions as a Heel and as a Babyface wasn’t too bad either. Though, I preferred him as a Heel.

Nonetheless, the crowd was electric the entirety of Rock vs Hogan.

The otherwise tamed crowd roared for one match in particular and it wasn’t the subsequent Triple H vs Chris Jericho match, which by all means was the superior technical show.

But this event was based in Toronto. Hogan country. Here was the man, the myth, the legend, the gateway into so many childhoods standing before them. Of course, the ultra-Heel, murderous Hollywood Hogan was going to get the bigger, more visceral pop. By 1999 the NwO brand grew stale. Simply plopping them in the WWE universe as a fresh coat of paint was what the doctor ordered.

How Hogan worked the crowd is why people like Eric Bischoff sing his praises until he’s blue in the face. He’s seen the manipulation, the seduction of millions with his own eyes. Something no one can do quite like Hogan. The one ace up the aging legends sleeve was, in fact, his ability to captivate an entire arena that dearly missed him.

If you were the subtract The Rock from the tango is the mood any different? Possibly. Look up and watch the lukewarm reception Triple H versus Sting got. Two legends going one-on-one in the square circle in the biggest, most brightest of settings only to inspire little reaction. Was it because Trips style didn’t get the crowd into the moment? Yes. It’s also the fact Triple H was never a fan-favorite on the level of Hogan, Austin, Rock or even Angle.

You’ll need serious stakes to unglue the Toronto crowd. You need Triple H to fight for the good name of Monday Night Raw and against Hulk Hogan’s attempt to have NwO solidify itself as the sole opponent to Vince McMahon and the WWE.

The Game vs Hollywood, winner gets ownership of Smackdown. Hogan gives the people what they want and goes over on The Game. The next week, the NWO drafts little known bear of a man Brock Lesner first overall in the WWE draft the next week. Smackdown is rebranded “New World Order Wrestling.”

Why is this better? Firstly, it gives the NwO more to do after WrestleMania 18. They don’t stick around and meander until the plug is mercifully pulled on them for good. Instead of Eric Bischoff and Stephenie McMahon battling for Vince’s favor you actually have charismatic, personality driven personnel running the ship. The whole brand split gimmick was only hatched because the WWE signed a whole bunch of talent from the defunct wrestling leagues. All the drama around who is best is a farce because we all know where the money is going and the plug was never going to be pulled on Raw or Smackdown.

The New World Order Wrestling, where the Heels go over constantly and Babyfaces go to die! Is basically WCW only not run by idiots.

Triple H made a rare face turn after spending years as a womanizing, weasel Heel. His wife had left him for Chris Jericho. Trips suffered a legit quadricep muscle injury and was battling for his belt. The McMahon-Helmsley partnership which skyrocketed Hunter from mid-carder to top billing in both keyfabe and reality ended abruptly when their marriage broke off after Stephenie lied to Hunter about her being pregnant, as a way to force him to redo their wedding vows.

Stephanie aligned herself with Kurt Angle, refereeing a match between the two for the right to challenge whomever was the Undisputed Champion at ‘Mania. Naturally, Ms. McMahon was biased towards Angle leading to his victory and a brief partnership between the two. Ultimately, Stephanie choose the side of the champion Jericho. Ric Flair came out the night after Hunter losing to Angle to grant him his shot at a rematch, with Stephenie barred from the ring. Triple H was victorious setting the stage for an otherwise fantastic, but forgettable match and finish to a solidly executed feud which showcased Hunter’s ability to shift between dastardly Heel to lovable underdog.

Eventually you’ll get Lesnar breaking free from the NwO declaring himself his own man after winning the Undisputed Title from The Rock at Summerslam and single-handily puts the group into their coffins. Forever.

[realestate63141]

HUFFPOST HILL - Civil Society Implodes, Paul Ryan Dabs

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Donald Trump lost the popular vote, scored a sub-par Electoral College tally and now over 50 percent of Americans disapprove of his performance ― so the revolution is going real swell. Jason Chaffetz threatened the head of the Office of Government Ethics ― we guess he has to do something with all the extra time he previously spent looking his children in the eye. And another political controversy has erupted over a painting, but it’s unclear whether Duncan Hunter will employ his world-renown art-yanking skills to resolve the conflict. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Friday, January 13th, 2017:

TRUMP HISTORICALLY UNPOPULAR - Yeah but wait until you see the crowd size at inauguration. Lydia Saad: “In Gallup polling conducted two weeks before Inauguration Day, President-elect Donald Trump continues to garner historically low approval for his transition performance, with 51% of Americans disapproving of how he is handling the presidential transition and 44% approving. Last month, the public was split on this question, with 48% approving and 48% disapproving. Trump’s 48% transition approval rating in December was already the lowest for any presidential transition Gallup has measured, starting with Bill Clinton’s in 1992-1993. Trump’s current rating only further separates him from his predecessors ― particularly Barack Obama, who earned 83% approval for his handling of the transition process in January 2009, up from 75% in mid-December 2008. Republicans’ rating of Trump’s transition has remained positive, with 87% approving in the Jan. 4-8 poll, similar to the 86% recorded last month. Very few Democrats approve, which has also been fairly steady, at 13% this month versus 17% in December. Meanwhile, his transition approval among independents has fallen from 46% to 33%.” [Gallup]

Oh wait, Trump doesn’t even have crowd sizes going for him: “President-elect Donald Trump has boasted (incorrectly) that there is nary a dress to be had in D.C. for inaugural balls, and that attendance at his swearing in will be ‘record-setting.’ However, bus permit applications for the weekend tell a different story. As of Friday, roughly 200 bus permits have been requested to park in Washington D.C.’s RFK stadium on Inauguration Day, a spokesperson for the District Department of Transportation confirmed to The Huffington Post. (A total of 393 have been granted within the entire district that day.) By contrast, nearly 1,200 tour bus permits that have been requested for the Women’s March on Washington the following day.” [HuffPost’s Catherine Pearson]

Errrbody gonna git druuuunk: “The D.C. government has announced 108 District restaurants, bars, and hotels will be able to sell alcohol until four a.m. from January 14-22.” [WJLA]

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE - S.V. Date: “Days after announcing that he would not be putting his business assets into a blind trust, President-elect Donald Trump is meeting with billionaire real estate developer Steven Roth who co-owns two of his buildings. Roth is to meet with Trump Friday afternoon, according to the schedule provided by spokesman Sean Spicer during a conference call with reporters Friday morning. Spicer did not immediately respond to a Huffington Post query regarding the nature of the meeting. CEO of Vornado Realty Trust, Roth has done business with Trump for decades. Vornado currently owns 70 percent to Trump’s 30 percent of two buildings: one in San Francisco and the other on Sixth Avenue in midtown Manhattan.” [HuffPost]

TRUMP ACCUSER COMING TO D.C. WITH A BIG SQUAD - Dana Liebelson: “When Cathy Heller, one of more than a dozen women who have accused President-elect Donald Trump of sexual harassment or assault, arrives in Washington next week to protest his inauguration, she won’t be alone. Heller plans to travel from New York City to D.C. with an Amtrak car full of supporters. The 63-year-old made news last fall when she came forward to allege that Trump tried to kiss her without her consent about 20 years ago, at a Mother’s Day brunch at his Mar-a-Lago estate. She has reserved an entire train car to bring people to the nation’s capital for the Women’s March on Washington on Jan. 21.” [HuffPost]

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Does somebody keep forwarding you this newsletter? Get your own copy. It’s free! Sign up here. Send tips/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to eliot@huffingtonpost.com. Follow us on Twitter - @HuffPostHill

THIS SHOULD TERRIFY REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS - Ariel Edwards-Levy: “Voters who elected Trump largely are inclined to take his side in such disputes against congressional Republicans and traditionally conservative pressure groups, according to a new poll.” [HuffPost]

INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING SEND DEMOCRATS INTO A RAGE - Akbar Shahid Ahmed: “Congressional Democrats raged against FBI Director James Comey on Friday after he and other intelligence agency chiefs provided legislators with a classified briefing on Russia’s involvement in last year’s presidential election. Interviewed by The Hill, Democrats said they were furious. ‘I’m extremely concerned,’ said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) said he had lost confidence in Comey, citing the last 15 minutes of the briefing as a tipping point but providing no details on what the FBI head or other intelligence officials said. ‘I’m disappointed, outraged — many of us are right now,’ Walz told The Hill. Comey upset both Democrats and Republicans by declining to comment on whether his agency is investigating reported ties between President-elect Donald Trump and the Russian government, sources inside the briefing told the Guardian. Democrats want Comey to look into the allegations, which the intelligence community has not proved but has flagged as important enough to share with Trump and President Barack Obama.” [HuffPost]

CHAFFETZ THREATENS ETHICS OFFICE - Super-ethical thing to do. Nick Baumann and Paul Blumenthal: “Walter Shaub, the head of the OGE, is ‘blurring the line between public relations and official ethics guidance,’ Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, wrote in a sternly worded letter to Shaub Thursday. Chaffetz, the Republican who announced last year that he wouldn’t be able to look his daughter in the eye if he endorsed Trump and then went on to vote for Trump, demanded that Shaub show up for a private interview on Capitol Hill as soon as possible — or else face a subpoena forcing him to do so. ‘He’s coming in,’ Chaffetz told Politico. ‘This is not going to be an optional exercise.’ Chaffetz noted in the letter that his committee has the power to reauthorize the ethics office. What Chaffetz didn’t have to say is that his committee could also push to shutter the office entirely. Earlier this month, House Republicans tried to gut another ethics watchdog, the Office of Congressional Ethics, before backing down.” [HuffPost]

MICHAEL FLYNN POSSIBLY BREAKS LAW - It’s OK, though, because he saw a report on NewsNowFast.poo that Hillary Clinton once underwent reiki healing with Saddam Hussein ― truly she is the real criminal. Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel, Susan Heavey and Emily Stephenson: “Michael Flynn, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for national security adviser, held multiple phone conversations with Russia’s ambassador to Washington on the day the United States announced retaliation for Moscow’s interference in the U.S. presidential election, two people familiar with the issue said…. Whether Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak discussed those sanctions is unclear. An 18th-century U.S. law, the Logan Act, bars unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments that are in disputes with the United States.” [Reuters]

But because nothing matters anymore, neither does this. Republican voters have decided to believe Trump on Russia over literally every piece of available evidence, a new poll shows. [WaPo’s Aaron Blake]

GET READY FOR SCHRÖDINGER’S OBAMACARE REPLACEMENT - Republicans won’t be able to sleep tonight over the excitement of kicking millions of their insurance! Matt Fuller: “Without a single Democrat voting in support, the House narrowly advanced a budget blueprint on Friday intended to be the eventual vehicle for gutting Obamacare…. Most Republicans, though not everyone, agree they will need to replace Obamacare with something once it’s gone ― which is why Republicans are planning to delay the date of enactment on a repeal for a good long time.” [HuffPost]

Republican governors really don’t want Congress to take away all that Obamacare Medicaid money.

PEOPLE TAPPING HOT AIR TO LIGHT THEIR HOMES - The internet of things is terrifying, not as terrifying as Donald Trump, but terrifying. Jeremy Olshan: “IFTTT — which stands for ‘if this, then that’ — allows users who know nothing about coding to create cause-and-effect algorithms.... I asked IFTTT how many people have set up algorithms to track Trump. ‘We have just under 1,000 people using IFTTT to keep up with Donald Trump tweets,’ spokeswoman Anne Mercogliano replied. The most popular Trump algorithms automatically email his tweets to users, or post them in intracompany message boards like Slack, she said. Some IFTTT users have set their lights to blink whenever Trump tweets, Mercogliano said. Putting the president-elect’s social stream of consciousness to productive use, others link IFTTT to banking services like Qapital to have small sums of money move into their savings accounts every time Trump fires off a new tweet.” [MarketWatch]

Here’s a video of Ben Carson laughing maniacally.

JOHN LEWIS NOT MINCING WORDS ABOUT TRUMP - And he’s skipping the inauguration. Matt Ferner: “Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) does not consider the presidency of Donald Trump ‘legitimate,’ he said in an interview with NBC News that appeared Friday. ‘I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president,’ Lewis told Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s ‘Meet The Press.’ ‘I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected and they have destroyed the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.’” [HuffPost]

Steve Harvey met with Trump for some reason Friday, and the president-elect immediately put him on the phone with Ben Carson, the other black guy he knows.

BIDEN DID TELL US OBAMA WAS ‘CLEAN’ - Paul Blumenthal: “Scandal has consumed the final four years of every two-term president in modern history ― George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon. Barack Obama’s administration is the exception. While there were some minor scandals and resignations during Obama’s eight years in office, wrongdoing never fully occupied his presidency. None of it even directly touched the White House. There were no grand juries investigating his aides. There were no impeachments. There were neither convictions of White House staffers, nor pardons to protect government officials…. President-elect Donald Trump, meanwhile, is set to enter office with unprecedented conflicts of interest related to his business empire, already setting the tone for a very different administration.” [HuffPost]

HERE’S A BIG HEAPING SLICE OF ‘OH’ -  Peter Hermann and Aaron C. Davis: “The U.S. Army general who heads the D.C. National Guard and is an integral part of overseeing the inauguration said Friday he will be removed from command effective Jan. 20 at 12:01 p.m., just as Donald Trump is sworn in as president. Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz’s departure will come in the midst of the presidential ceremony — classified as a national special security event — and while thousands of his troops are deployed to help protect the nation’s capital during an inauguration he has spent months helping to plan. “The timing is extremely unusual,” Schwartz said in an interview Friday morning, confirming a memo announcing his ouster that was obtained by The Washington Post. During the inauguration, Schwartz would command not only the members of the D.C. Guard but also an additional 5,000 unarmed troops sent in from across the country to help. He also would oversee military air support protecting Washington during the inauguration.” [WaPo]

HOO BOY, THAT DOJ REPORT ON CHICAGO COPS - Kim Bellware and Ryan J. Reilly: “The Chicago Police Department regularly violates citizens’ civil rights, routinely fails to hold officers accountable for misconduct and poorly trained officers at all levels, according to a sweeping Justice Department probe of the nation’s second-largest police department…. The report comes after a bruising year for the Chicago police and a violent one for the city: More than 750 people were killed last year. Meanwhile, CPD solved fewer than one-third of all murders — less than half the national average. Allegations of abuse, torture and corruption have dogged the CPD for nearly a century.” [HuffPost]

HuffPost broke out the lowlights from the report, which you should read if you want to get upset.

BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR - Here’s a dog helping other dogs.

SURE, WHY NOT, ANOTHER PAINTING CONTROVERSY - Philip Kennicott: “Last week, a little-known tradition of modern presidential inaugurations brought unwanted attention to the St. Louis Art Museum. Since Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985, an American painting has served as a backdrop during the inaugural luncheon, at which members of Congress play host to the newly installed president. When Donald Trump is made the 45th president of the United States on Jan. 20, George Caleb Bingham’s ‘The Verdict of the People’ will be the chosen painting, hanging on a partition wall behind the ceremonial head table in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall…. A Change.org petition, which criticizes ‘the use of the painting to suggest that Trump’s election was truly the “verdict of the people,” when in fact the majority of votes...were cast for Trump’s opponent’ has more than 3,000 signatures.” [WaPo]

COMFORT FOOD

- Because nothing is less obnoxious than homeless chic, here’s how to live in a storage unit.

- Bad teenage poetry come true: stars are being stolen out of the night sky.

- Why not: a bunny playing Jenga

TWITTERAMA

@thisisjendoll: America II: Just when you thought the government had disgusted you as much as possible, they’ll DISGUST YOU EVEN MORE!

@MEPFuller: If your takeaway is “Wow, only 9 GOP defections, we were so right that this was never in trouble,” I can’t really help you.

@Mobute: i hope every “DEPLORABLE ____” account on here is actually a  sophisticated moscow-designed bot made by that “slugheads!” guy from goldeneye

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