#the great bug takeover

[hexoskeleton-anonymous]

<😠❓>

<🤬❓>

<⬆️⬆️⬆️‼️>

I’m lil’ free.

[backwzzds]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ car guy, roronoa zoro (nsfw)

you loved your man and his pretty piece of shit truck <33.

dating car guy!zoro who's very into cars but can only afford his shitty pickup truck that he uses as a daily. you'd accompanied him to a show as part of a date' (he really did try he bought you feed after and everything) and now you were stuffed in his truck, bottoms of your feet practically touching the base of his thighs.

“fuck," the puerto rican would groan with an aggressive toss of his head back. "ride that dick baby. milk me f'everyrhing i got," he encouraged you. the space in his truck was pretty tight, but you still made it work as you rode him crazy. your back was facing him, giving the tinted windshield a great view of your heavy tits that his hands had fun finding home in.

"baby, can't last," you cried, trying your hardest not to slow down. your knees were surely giving up, so zoro aided you by grabbing your hips and rutting upward into you, to meet the pace of your bounces.

"f-feel like 'm gonna, 'm gonna—“

zoro wraps his free hand around your neck and gives it a light squeeze as he brings his other down to rub at your puffy clit. "been such a good girl for me. so patient. cum for me mama.”

your eyes would open and squint in and out if consciousness as the only thing in your line of view of was the mini fabric puerto rican flag hanging up with your caribbean flag from the rear view mirror. zoro secretly thought it'd be cute to hang up your own flag with his the moment you became his passenger princess.

he didn't always tell you, but he did appreciate you. he knew you could have found someone much better than him and worthy of your time; but you constantly reassured him that he was better. he knew you liked car guys and it bugged him how you were with him because he'd rather you be with a bmw or even a scat pack dude.

but you'd been with him from the start. you'd watched him build his own truck practically from the ground up and even helped him with it too. so you knew first hand how much cooler his 1987 fj60 landcruiser was than a widebody v6. he didn't always have the money to upgrade the coolest mods, but zoro took pride in his little piece of shit, and has been since he was sixteen years old.

you knew he didn't have money to drive you around in a big bodied car or on expensive dates, you enjoyed nights like this. going to takeovers with him, sharing some sake, getting whatever island food was open so late at night, and ending the date with a much needed fuck-this was your perfect date.

as much as it bothered zoro, you always showed him you were down for only him because vou were hardly impressed with any of the dudes who tried to show of their builds to you at takeovers. your boyfriend's truck was cooler anyway.

your vision starts to fade in and out as you experience the most life changing orgasm ever. you're practically spasming all over zoro's body, but he successfully holds you up with the strength of one arm all while continuing to flick your clit with the other. the fatty pudge of your stomach cutely spilled out from his grip as you leaned forward into the steering wheel, legs finally giving out.

with heavy breaths, zoro pumps into you a few more times before letting out the nastiest groan, and shooting his hot loads into you. "fuck. you fuck me so good, mama." you two slow your movements in attempt to catch your breathing, his hand movements now stopping as he felt your body ease into his touch.

steam coated all eight windows of the truck, making the outside world completely invisible behind his five percent of tint. with a heavy sigh, you lean back against him, turning the bottom half of your body to the door. zoro gave you a loving kiss to the base of your sweaty cheek, running his hand through your braids and moving them out your face. "had fun t'day?"

you let out a satisfied hum and peck his lips before resting your head on his chest and closing your eyes. "the best."

[quitealotofsodapop]

I think, considering Wukong being pregnant, the Spider Queen would actually be very careful about how much her webs drain him. Like, part of the reason she started picking up other demons, after capturing Wukong and having the realization he was with child, was so she could justify not draining him more than the minimum amount necessary to prevent his escape. If she had won, and MK hadn't interfered, or DBK hadn't escaped with Wukong, she'd probably look into more comfortable ways to limit Wukong's powers and just keep him prisoner, as well as Stone Monkey pregnancies. Not because she likes him, of course, but because even she isn't low enough to bring harm to a pregnant mother. She'll definitely mock and make fun of his condition, though, to think the Great Sage himself went and hid away because he had a kid on the way!?

The Spider Queen can be surprisingly soft on maternal matters, especially since in the Jttw lore she and her sisters were adoptive mothers to a little swarm of bug demons. So when she captures a "fluffier than normal" Monkey King, she immediately takes a closer look and realises "Whoops. Did not expect that."

Wukong: *is wrapped up in the energy-draining silk and set down carefully* "Uh???" Spider Queen: "I may be a Queen, but I ain't no monster. But I still need your power. There's a resistor next to you that will cut the connection off if senses your hatchling getting distressed." Wukong, oddly touched: "That's really sweet of you to... accomodate my condition for your takeover. Mind spinning me a pillow too?" Spider Queen: "I ain't wasting more silk on your fat ass." Wukong: "HEY!"

Spider Queen's def the kind to loudly joke about Wukong's condition, especially considering she confidently taunted DBK about his wife. She's just a natural shit-talker.

[demonsfate]

@mechahero sent . . .

"Well, look at that!", trilled a voice before the heavy stomping of boots CLONK against the ground with each step. A familiar face pops into view. Familiar, but not quite. An eye tinged in sickly greens stares right at the Devil and past him. Studying him as if he were a bug. His head slowly tilts and a smile worms its way onto his face.

"Hm-", he says, voice crackling with bits of static. "Don't you look interesting?" //EVIL AI TAKEOVER MOMENT GO! TOSSES THIS AT YOU

At first, Devil mistook the face for Jin's friend. How could he not ? The resemblance was uncanny. But something about it was off — details that differ from the regular Lambda. Just how others might sense that he truly wasn't Jin.

Excitement had sparked in Devil when he thought Lambda had made an appearance, as he took great pleasure in their fights. But that thrill had turned into intrigue, this could be more interesting.

His jagged arms crossed over his chest, a smirk curling on his dark lips, threatening to snicker. ❝ I could say the same thing about you. What are you, some sort of virus, some sort of virtual demon ? ❞

[mariacallous]

On April 14, Eva Vlaardingerbroek told Tucker Carlson’s prime-time show that the Dutch government was opening “insect factories” to force people to eat bugs as “a compliance test” to see how pliable they’d be to state control. “Our politicians know that when they control the food, they control the people,” she said. Vlaardingerbroek, a 26-year-old political commentator from Amsterdam, was an occasional guest on Fox’s Tucker Carlson Tonight, railing against globalism and “elites” and alleging that European governments are using the threat of climate change (which she calls a “so-called” crisis) to “rule by fear.”

Vlaardingerbroek isn’t anything like a mainstream figure in the Netherlands, but the fictional version of her country she draws is useful for Carlson. Her Netherlands—“the pilot country for an organization like the World Economic Forum” and “the tester kid of the 2030 Agenda”—supports his narrative that a liberal takeover of the US would lead to climate lockdowns and compulsory bug-eating. But by elevating fringe characters and encouraging them to repeat or reference unfounded conspiracy theories, Carlson—who was suddenly dumped by Fox News yesterday—has helped bring often dangerous misinformation into the mainstream around the world.

Tucker Carlson isn’t just an American problem. He’s a dark spot tracking across the global internet. His evening slot was Fox’s most watched show, pulling in 3.5 million viewers a night. But clips of his show posted on social media have had a far greater reach, appearing across antivax groups and globalist conspiracy theory groups like QAnon. He has had a particular hold on international far-right movements, which have latched onto Carlson’s amplification of the white supremacist “great replacement” theory—the idea that white people are being deliberately and systematically replaced by non-white people. The narratives he’s pushed have been picked up and amplified by Russian disinformation campaigns across Europe and the US and used as propaganda tools by authoritarians.

“Fox News launders these extreme ideas and brings them into mainstream discussions,” says Bharath Ganesh, who studies online disinformation and hate speech at the university of Groningen in the Netherlands. Far-right groups talk about the great replacement theory in their own circles, he says. “Then Tucker Carlson picks it up, and then it gets pushed out.”

Carlson’s exit came days after Fox News agreed to pay $787 million to settle a defamation suit by Dominion Voting Machines, a polling technology company. Dominion had accused Fox of spreading the lie that its machines had been used to skew the 2020 presidential election results. It’s unclear whether the two events are linked. But Carlson did repeatedly give a platform to proponents of the “big lie” that the election was stolen from then-incumbent Donald Trump. And in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, in which thousands of Trump supporters descended on the Capitol, Carlson defended the rioters, saying the footage showed “peaceful chaos,” after selectively editing down Capitol surveillance footage provided by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Seven people died as a result of the violence, and nearly 140 police officers were injured.

On his show, which had aired since 2017, Carlson spun a story of a US that is relentlessly under attack from the forces of liberalism and “wokeism,” one where immigration, affirmative action, and attempts to confront the country’s history of slavery are a direct attack on white America. 

In many ways, Carlson treated his program as a “mirror” for far-right communities, says Jared Holt, senior researcher on hate and extremism at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank. Holt believes that Carlson’s team was highly attuned to far-right subcultures online, and that the topics Carlson addressed in his show were heavily informed by them. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen conversations happening among reactionaries on Twitter, or among faceless trolls on 4chan, only to see it pop up on Tucker Carlson’s show a day or two after,” he says. In 2020, one of the writers on Carlson’s show was fired for posting racist, sexist, and homophobic content on the 4chan-like message board AutoAdmit.

The ethno-nationalism of Carlson’s content resonates internationally because the online far-right is global, with communities in Europe, Latin America, and Australia overlapping, sharing spaces and stories. Groups in one country will often cherry-pick news stories in another to reinforce broader points. Overplaying the social impact of the influx of Syrian refugees into Europe in 2016, for example, helped build the case for the great replacement theory and support anti-immigration groups in the US and Australia. Such conspiracies can echo back and forth between countries, gathering momentum as they do so. 

Pushing the idea that London—whose popular, left-wing, Muslim mayor is a target of hate on Fox—is in violent chaos and terminal decline helps demonstrate the supposed dangers of liberal rule. But the lie then enters a feedback loop, with UK far-right groups picking up Fox’s coverage and using it to validate their own prejudices.

“Anywhere you see this international far-right movement, you see what we call appropriation,” says Julian Droogan, associate professor of terrorism studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. This was most evident during the Covid pandemic, when far-right conspiracy theory groups used the real sense of crisis to drive their own narratives. “It became all about white genocide and a plan to kind of install a liberal world government that was going to undermine white people and so on,” Droogan says.

There is still a significant overlap between white supremacist communities and antivax groups online. Fox and Carlson have a prominent place in Covid disinformation circles too. Screenshots of Carlson appear alongside coronavirus misinformation circulated in the Spanish-language Telegram group Verdades Ofenden (Offensive Truths) with more than 15,000 subscribers. Posts from this channel are regularly circulated in other Spanish-language and Latin America-focused disinformation channels, including those run by a network called Médicos por la Verdad (Doctors for the Truth) . The group was removed from Facebook in 2021 for violating the platform’s Covid misinformation policies. But its several Telegram groups have a combined total of around 98,000 members.

Droogan worked on several studies on the online far-right for the Australian government, following a 2019 terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, by a white supremacist who had allegedly been radicalized online. He calls Carlson’s reinforcement of the great replacement theory “the most dangerous of his actions.” That theory has been cited as motivation by several white supremacist terrorists, including the perpetrator of the Christchurch shootings.

There is, Droogan says, an implicit violence in the theory, particularly when it’s filtered through a US perspective. American mainstream media, and Fox in particular, gives platforms to people who use conspiracist terminology—including references to “elites” and “globalists” and nods to the “great reset,” like those made by Vlaardingerbroek—in a way that rarely happens on broadcast television in Europe or Australia.

“Terms like ‘race war,’ concepts like accelerationism—to go out there and create societal crises or to exaggerate them to intensify them to create some kind of culminating, purifying violence against all these threats to white identity—these really come out of the American psyche and popular culture,” Droogan says. 

It’s impossible to draw a direct line between content on Tucker Carlson Tonight and political events inside or outside the US. But his place within the information ecosystem means he’s been, at the very least, a passive participant in some startling coincidences.

In June 2022, Carlson interviewed Jair Bolsonaro, then the right-wing president of Brazil, who spent the months running up to the country’s elections in October trying to sow doubt about the validity of the vote. 

“During the interview, [Carlson] was speaking the same language as the far-right in Brazil,” says Bruna Santos, a researcher and activist with the Coalizão Direitos na Rede in Brazil. Santos says Carlson’s focus on anti-communism, skepticism about the Covid pandemic, and concern around “anti-white racism” resonated deeply with Brazil’s far-right. “The external approval coming from the US,” says Santos, reinforces and validates the views of the far-right in the country.

Eduardo Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro’s son, often featured clips from Carlson’s show on his popular YouTube channel, where he has over 1 million subscribers, with translations and subtitles in Portuguese. These clips, as well as others from Carlson’s show, would then circulate amongst the country’s far-right groups, appearing in Telegram channels and WhatsApp groups.

In the lead-up to the Brazilian elections, says Santos, short clips from Carlson’s show were being shared in these groups. “A lot of Carlson’s criticisms of [US President Joe] Biden, or what Biden represents, would be redirected into something that could help Bolsonaro,” says Santos. “And a lot of this comes from YouTube and social media networks, and that’s generally where the conversation starts.”

Then, on January 8, 2023, Bolsonaro supporters tried to storm the presidential palace in Brasilia, after the right-wing populist lost an election runoff to his leftwing opponent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro isn’t the only authoritarian that Carlson has boosted. He’s been a vocal advocate for Viktor Orban, Hungary’s president, who has railed against LGBTQ rights and migration, and who routinely accuses the American financier and bête noire of the far right, George Soros, of interfering in the country’s politics.

“[Carlson] is a celebrated figure in authoritarian countries he championed on his show,” says Matt Gertz, senior researcher at Media Matters for America, a media watchdog group. “He received a glowing reception from Orban, and his Ukraine coverage was touted and promoted by Russian propagandists.”

Carlson has echoed Russian talking points on Ukraine and criticized the US government for supporting the government in Kyiv. Several researchers told WIRED that Fox, and in particular Carlson, have been useful tools for Russia, amplifying narratives about the dangers of liberalism and the impending collapse of Western civilization. When news of his firing broke, Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov offered Carlson a job.

Yesterday, Vlaardingerbroek posted a picture on Twitter of herself with an arm around Carlson. “Tucker is the best of the best in the industry. He tells the truth like no one else does, in a way no one else can. I stand with him 100%,” she wrote, before retweeting the right-wing conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich, who claimed that Carlson’s firing meant that “the evil ones will try to win and remove him from history, and commence another Armenian-style genocide against all of us.” 

[1tbls]

What do you think will happen to Steban and Ulixes during the Return?

ooooh i don't know that i'm particularly the person to ask, being neither a particular expert on le retour (i haven't even finished PJOL! shame on me) or steban + uli....

BUT. okay. le retour. it's clear that captain pryce is gearing up for something, and soon. you've also got evrart accelerating things between the dockworkers' union and wild pines. then there's the EDC check that implies that pryce sent harry to martinaise specifically to investigate krenel? which makes me wonder if there's some kind of collusion between pryce and evrart, or if pryce has bugged the union/has a plant.

considering pryce's plans, le retour could be a police coup, ergo a literal police state, which... has phenomenally bad optics. a real [Nobody liked that.] moment. the RCM is obviously fucking despised, and they've barely got control of the city as it is, so i doubt they'd manage to hold power without serious support/someone more popular or powerful being the face of the revolt.

which comes back to collusion with the union(s), overt or not. i could see pryce letting things boil over with the dockworkers' union, perhaps a wave of union takeovers following, and quietly swinging in after that to take over coalition buildings. he still gets a piece of the pie, but the revolt still looks homegrown and grassroots lol. i know la puta madre also has some role to play in PJOL?? but i'm not sure about that.

as for steban and uli. sorry boys, but i think this is gonna be a bit of a "oh my god we missed the boat" moment, and perhaps a heartbreak. i think during the wave of union takeovers, most people will continue on with their lives relatively normally, as these things go. there might be some instability in infrastructure and goods, but otherwise.... the boys will continue (not) going to their classes, and discussing their theory. they might ramp up their recruiting, but i doubt there would be much of a foothold for them to get involved. like the dockworkers' union, i think everyone would be stonewalling, until suddenly one morning everyone wakes to the news that coalition bureaucracy has been kicked out on their asses, and the RCM has appropriated their offices.

i said a heartbreak before because.... i don't think it will be much like their idealized imaginings. sure, they're aware of the suffering and death associated with revolution, but i think they still have a bit of a naive idea of the end result. that you come out the other side to communist theory paradise. but i think the retour that's being built up to has.... a lot of personal interests and private grabs for power vying together, and by happenstance working together.

there's something to be said for the fact that the anticentennial revolution was motivated by a multi-national communist movement with a central philosophy, while the oncoming retour seems.... decentralized, with seemingly no philosophical/political call to arms other than "we want an independent revachol" and empowerment of at least their individual organizations/unions. maybe i'm being cynical about the unions at least (pryce, i don't trust you a lick), but i don't think it's going to be pretty. certainly realistically no revolution would be! but here in particular the political outlook is not great! imo!

anyway. says i'm not an expert, writes 6 paragraphs. please give your feedback and correct me where you think i'm wrong or where you disagree ♥️ also wasn't sure where to fit this in, but considering what evrart is doing with martinaise, perhaps we can expect some kind of state ownership type government post-retour? iunno.

[sojutrait]

its a long one lads

( @aomi-nabi ) THANK U AAAAAAAAA ur asks always make my day omg 😭😭❤❤❤

THE WALK WITH ME IS SENDING ME KFKJFDGFGK so far we’ve also canonized him death dropping so i can really see his ass doing both-

nothings going on dw ive just been busy dkfjdfk 😭😭

TYYYY RIGHT BACK AT U MWAHH

( @deathbypufferfish ) death by pufferfish . com 

( @astralsi ) I CAME BACK JUST FOR U MAMA MWAAAHHH 🤧🤧❤❤❤

( @lava-nder ) ngl my sims rarely even interact with townies made by the game kfgjfk 😭😭 if i do notice my sim getting close to a townie (.ie nadine or josh) THEN i’ll give them a makeover, but other than that i just ignore them or put in my own townies kdfjk as for lots, i just build my own or place down any new ones once i realize ive been to a lot too many times and want to switch it up

GATIA BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

REAL i love oshin sm omg, been with her since her get famous lp 😌

( @lake-lunvik ) YOU ARE SUCH A HORNDOG LIO SDJFKDFJKF

HELPPPFKFDK im not surprised, during homelandertrait halloween takeover i was ready to lose some followers 😭😭😭

( @mmusicalwhims ) thank u so much !! 🤧❤❤❤❤ i should bring back that username tbh it was kinda iconic KDFJKFD

( @wildmeadowsims ) (link) AAAAAAA I SAW im not really a concert person but im excited to see everyones recording of it dkfjfkfkg and i heard she was adding more international dates eventuallly so fingers crossed !!!

ive never had that problem god bless KFDJK but i think u can turn off auto mean interactions with mcc so theres a temporary solution 

the randomize button is my beloved 

THIS ASK MADE ME GET OFF MY ASS AND FINALLY ORDER A MIC SO SOON IF I DONT PUSSY OUT DKJFKGF

( @velvet-disc ) TYYYY take them, they’re too much for me to handle anyways 🗿

( @25dejulho ) it depends on the save, but usually i start in another simmers save (my faves are ratboysims and simlicys), either build a house or find a shell off the gallery and decorate it myself, make a fam, then make some townies, give them all skills, careers, etc. just so theyre not like- newborns THEN start playing dkfjk its hella overkill and takes hours but thats how i do it 😭😭😭 tbh u dont even gotta do all that, u can just start in the aforementioned saves by other simmers and start ur own sims from scratch dkfjfgkj

( @catladyfinds ) hi!! i try to keep my cheating pretty minimal, but theres no like- hard fast rules i do. i never cheat money just bc i think its boring for my sims to be hella rich skfjkgfgk but at the same time, if they have to pee and the toilet is 3 stories up then ill just say fuck it and cheat it 😭😭 so my rule is pretty much, quick lil cheating of needs is fine, but nothing that would make the game too easy or unrealistic 

currently its cas and gameplay! but im hoping to get bit by the building bug again bc i have some ideas dkffkfg

aaahhh, idk really i get hella attached to 90% of the sims i make instantly 😭

( @chlosimly ) TYYYYY 😭😭😭❤❤ its all the cc makers not me KFDJKF

(referring to the non-canon halabi death i overruled) SEE its so depressing and dark i dont even wanna say it 😭😭😭 ITS OKAY, THAT TIMELINE NEVER HAPPENED I INTERVENED 

see i take offense to this bc the charm family is ugly as hell 🥴🥴

thank you!!! 😭😭❤❤❤

HELP i dont want to be too annoying so i try to keep the soju shut up posts to a minimum but im glad u like them 😭😭❤❤ im a chronic complainer so theres more where that came from dkfkff

i didnt wanna use her last name in the tag in case she got married and changed it 😭😭 same kinda with her first name, lord knows i cant resist family gameplay so i wanted something that could still work if i ever post from her future kids pov!

THE WAY THAT POST IS STILL FLAGGED TOO UGHHH

( @starterflowers​ ) thank u so much !! i also think hes pretty awesome kfdkfgk u have a great day/night as well ! 💕💕💕

*jumps then falls flat on my ass*

in theory 😌

REAL i need him as an actual tangible person i can slap around (affectionately) 

i dont think its a specific part, more so just trying to make someone who doesnt look bland 😭😭 if a sim is too cookie cutter ik i wont feel any emotion for them kfkgfk

i actually liked how evermore/folklore had no hype! the surprise made the whole thing more special, like i lookback at those releases fondly dkjfkd now- yeah she def overhyped midnights 🗿🗿🥴🥴 this roll out has been so lackluster and so help me god if we get another anti-hero remix im gonna snap 

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 13, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

NOV 13, 2023

In a speech Saturday in Claremont, New Hampshire, and then in his Veterans Day greeting yesterday on social media, former president Trump echoed German Nazis.

“In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day [sic] we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Racists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream…. Despite the hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our country, we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”    

The use of language referring to enemies as bugs or rodents has a long history in genocide because it dehumanizes opponents, making it easier to kill them. In the U.S. this concept is most commonly associated with Hitler and the Nazis, who often spoke of Jews as “vermin” and vowed to exterminate them.  

The parallel between MAGA Republicans’ plans and the Nazis had other echoes this weekend, as Trump’s speech came the same day that Charlie Savage, Maggie Haberman, and Jonathan Swan of the New York Times reported that Trump and his people are planning to revive his travel ban, more popularly known as the “Muslim ban,” which refused entry to the U.S. by people from some majority-Muslim nations, and to reimpose the pandemic-era restrictions he used during the coronavirus pandemic to refuse asylum claims—it is not only legal to apply for asylum in the United States, but it is a guaranteed right under the Refugee Act of 1980—by claiming that immigrants bring infectious diseases like tuberculosis.

They plan mass deportations of unauthorized people in the U.S., rounding them up with specially deputized law enforcement officers and National Guard soldiers contributed by Republican-dominated states. Because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) doesn’t have the space for such numbers of people, Trump’s people plan to put them in “sprawling camps” while they wait to be expelled. Trump refers to this as “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” 

Trump’s people would screen visa applicants to eliminate those with ideas they consider undesirable, and would kick out those here temporarily for humanitarian reasons, including Afghans who came here after the 2021 Taliban takeover. Trump ally Steve Bannon and his likely attorney general, Mike Davis, expect to deport 10 million people. 

Trump’s advisors also intend to challenge birthright citizenship, the principle that anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen. This principle was established by the Fourteenth Amendment and acknowledged in the 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision during a period when native-born Americans were persecuting immigrants from Asia. That hatred resulted in Wong Kim Ark, an American-born child of Chinese immigrants, being denied reentry to the U.S. after a visit to China. Wong sued, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment established birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court agreed. The children of immigrants to the U.S.—no matter how unpopular immigration was at the time—were U.S. citizens, entitled to all the rights and immunities of citizenship, and no act of Congress could overrule a constitutional amendment.

“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” Trump immigration hardliner Stephen Miller told the New York Times reporters. “The immigration legal activists won’t know what’s happening.”

In addition to being illegal and unconstitutional, such plans to strip the nation of millions of workers would shatter the economy, sparking sky-high prices, especially of food.

For a long time, Trump’s increasingly fascist language hasn’t drawn much attention from the press, perhaps because the frequency of his outrageous statements has normalized them. When Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 referred to many Trump supporters as “deplorables,” a New York Times headline read: “Hillary Clinton Calls Many Trump Backers ‘Deplorables,’ and G.O.P.* Pounces.” Yet Trump’s threat to root out “vermin” at first drew a New York Times headline saying, “Trump Takes Veterans Day Speech in a Very Different Direction.” (This prompted Mark Jacobs of Stop the Presses to write his own headlines about disasters, including my favorite: “John Wilkes Booth Takes Visit to the Theater in a Very Different Direction.”)  

Finally, it seems, Trump’s explicit use of Nazi language, especially when coupled with his threats to establish camps, has woken up at least some headline writers. Forbes accurately headlined yesterday’s story: “Trump Compares Political Foes to ‘Vermin’ On Veterans Day—Echoing Nazi Propaganda.” 

Republicans have refused to disavow Trump’s language. When Kristen Welker of Meet the Press asked Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel: “Are you comfortable with this language coming from the [Republican] frontrunner,” McDaniel answered: “I am not going to comment on candidates and their campaign messaging.” Others have remained silent.

Trump’s Veterans Day “vermin” statement set up his opponents as enemies of the country by blurring them together as “Communists, Marxists, Racists, and Radical Left Thugs.” Conflating liberals with the “Left” has been a common tactic in the U.S. right-wing movement since 1954, when L. Brent Bozell and William F. Buckley Jr. tried to demonize liberals—those Americans of all parties who wanted the government to regulate business, provide Social Security and basic welfare programs, fund roads and hospitals, and protect civil rights—as wannabe socialists.

In the United States there is a big difference between liberals and the political “Left.” Liberals believe in a society based in laws designed to protect the individual, arrived at by a government elected by the people. Political parties disagree about policy and work to change the laws, but they support the system itself. Most Americans, including Democrats and traditional Republicans, are liberals. 

Both “the Left,” and the “Right” want to get rid of the system. Those on the Left believe that its creation was so warped either by wealth or by racism that it must be torn down and rebuilt. Those on the Right believe that most people don’t know what’s good for them, making democracy dangerous. They think the majority of people must be ruled by their betters, who will steer them toward productivity and religion. The political Left has never been powerful in the U.S.; the political Right has taken over the Republican Party.

The radical right pushes the idea that their opponents are “Radical Left Thugs” trying to tear down the system because they know liberal policies like Social Security, Medicare, environmental protection, reproductive rights, gun safety legislation, and so on, are actually quite popular. This weekend, for example, Trump once again took credit for signing into law the Veterans Choice health care act, which was actually sponsored by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and signed by President Barack Obama in 2014. 

The Right’s draconian immigration policies ignore the reality that presidents since Ronald Reagan have repeatedly asked Congress to rewrite the nation’s immigration laws, only to have Republicans tank such measures to keep the hot button issue alive, knowing it turns out their voters. Both President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have begged Congress to fund more immigration courts and border security and to provide a path to citizenship for those brought to the U.S. as children. They, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, have tried to slow the influx of undocumented migrants by working to stabilize the countries from which such migrants primarily come. 

Such a plan does not reflect “hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our country.” It reflects support for a system in which Congress, not a dictator, writes the laws. 

A video ABC News published tonight from Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis’s plea deal makes the distinction between liberal democracy and a far-right dictatorship clear. In it, Ellis told prosecutors that former White House deputy chief of staff and social media coordinator Dan Scavino told her in December 2020 that Trump was simply not going to leave the White House, despite losing the presidential election. 

When Ellis lamented that their election challenges had lost, Scavino allegedly answered: “‘Well, we don’t care, and we’re not going to leave.” Ellis replied: “‘What do you mean?” Scavino answered: “The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power.” When Ellis responded “Well, it doesn’t quite work that way, you realize?” he allegedly answered: “We don’t care.”

*The GOP, or Grand Old Party, is an old nickname for the Republican Party. 

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[ear-worthy]

List Envy Podcast: It's The Wish List Listeners Want

People love lists. All kinds. Top ten politics podcasts. Five meanest celebrities. The top 20 comedy movies of all time. Any writer who cares about attracting readers knows that lists work as an attractant, or if you are feeling mean, audacious clickbait.

How about a podcast that caters to list-mania? Welcome to List Envy, a podcast that understandably features lists. 

 Here's the marketing pitch: "What's the most-used emoji? Who's the best Bond villain? Does anyone care that an olive is technically a fruit?

Discover hidden gems from pop culture to pasta, hip-hop to history, and meet the creatives, enthusiasts, and experts who love them.

Each week, host Mark Steadman collaborates with a guest to build a top-5 list on a topic they choose. If you want to know what your next TV binge should be, or where to go on your next trip abroad, List Envy has you covered."

Host Steadman adds: "Whether it was singing karaoke, listening to audiobooks, or devising a radio station in my bedroom, I’ve always appreciated the power of the human voice."

It's admittedly an excellent concept for a podcast. But is it executed well? The answer is an unqualified YES. 

One of my favorite episodes is the June 18, 2024, show where guest Ashley Hammer (Host of Taboo Science, also a terrific podcast) discusses real world inventions inspired by science fiction. Steadman and Hammer make the show informative, funny, witty, and clever. They discuss sci-fi concepts like the mobile phone, autonomous vehicles, credit cards, and even the World Wide Web as current realities often crafted by the sci-fi community.

The July 9, 2024, show with Valerie Paris about James Bond gadgets brought back great memories of Bond, Q, and the often preposterous nature of these MI-6 gadgets that always elicited glee. Here's the show note: Nothing is ever quite as it seems in the world of spies. A watch isn’t just a watch – it’s a deadly weapon. That phonebooth? Also a weapon. Bag pipes? Weapon. This sandwich though, that’s just Q’s lunch. Don’t touch it."

"There's the grenade pen from Golden Eye, the mini-rocket cigarette from You Only Live Twice, and the garrote watch in From Russia With Love."

Through 62 episodes, Mark Steadman has excelled at bringing listeners the unexpected, the funny, the outlandish, and the bizarre -- all packaged with a unique British twist.

Mark Steadman, the creator and host, studied Media & Communication at Birmingham City University, specializing in Internet radio. He graduated the year the term “podcasting” was coined, but it would be a further four years before he’d pluck up the courage to pick up a mic and plug it into the Internet.

But in 2008, the podcast bug finally bit, and he started what would be a 14+ year career helping people make podcasts, first in exchange for beer, and then for money.

In 2016, he founded the media hosting company Podiant, which took him to the British Podcast Awards, and saw him present at International Podcast Day in 2020. The product served millions of listeners across thousands of podcasts, and in 2021 he sold Podiant, so he could focus on working more closely with individuals and small teams, to set them up for podcasting success from day one.

Steadman, in his bio, says: "My love for radio started at a local level, in the glory-days of personality-based breakfast radio. That love affair was sparked at my home city’s famous BRMB, but a succession of cost-cutting measures, takeovers, and technological advances would slowly snuff out that candle."

In 2021, he founded Origin to help impact entrepreneurs build trust with their audiences, and catalyze change. 

Steadman observes: "I do this through a combination of consulting, training, coaching, and mentoring. It centers around driving messages from the ear to the brain, where – through consistency and authenticity – they eventually land in listeners’ hearts."

On List Envy, Steadman has an ear for all kinds of lists, from the typical to the arcane. Episodes have included lists about top five emoji reactions to the Top 5 Korean TV Romcoms." 

On the show, Steadman sounds like he's having fun with all this, and he tends to bring on guests who don't take themselves -- and these lists -- too seriously.

Check out List Envy. It satisfies our evolutionary need to make lists to bring order to our chaotic world. Along the way to this biological imperative, we learn a lot about a diverse set of subjects -- top 5 time-travel romance films to the top 5 ways to eat potatoes -- and enjoy the amiable and quick-witted host Mark Steadman, along with his guests.

Here are some ideas for future episodes:

1. Top Five Beatles Songs

2. Top Five Fast Food Menu Items

3. Top Five Rodney Dangerfield quotes from Caddyshack

4. Top Five BBC podcasts

5. Top Five U.K. current tennis players

[vitaminseetarot]

First of all, a really big thankyou to you for your Hardwork and kindness. I'm really very greatful and appreciate that. Here's the feedback; Well the reading overall was a great help, helped me refocus and served as a confirmation. Lately, I've been trying to grow myself spiritually and trying to manifest things. But what happens is i get my Laziness takeover me or somehow some obstacle occurs that shifts in my focus from my manifestations/spiritual work. So the message which you gave me was helpful and insightful also I'm getting another hidden message maybe something is that was supposed to be seen by me? idk if I'm right here or wrong but still so overall the reading and especially the cards were a bug help and all the messages i received served me as a confirmation and resonated well with my current situation. Greatful-!! I'll forever be greatful to you for your kindness and really appreciate it! Sending lots of love-🤍 Take care>33 🧿✨

You're very welcome! Since your reading involved me talking about crystals, I wanted to add one extra thing: you do not necessarily need to go out and purchase quartz if it's inaccessible to you now (money, space, etc.) or for any other reason. I have found that meditating with the crystal in mind, or using a representation like a picture or marble, can be just as effective in practice.

Lol I'm not sure if that was the secret message you were referring to, but I just had it in mind as of typing this.

Thank you so much for your feedback and patience! 🍊

[back-and-totheleft]

After The Fall

“Man looks in the abyss. There’s nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss.”

—Lou Mannheim (Hal Holbrook) in Wall Street

In Oliver Stone’s new film, World Trade Center, a rescue worker stands atop a pile of steaming rubble, planning his descent into the inferno below. “I need a medic up here,” he yells. “Anybody a medic?”

“I used to be a medic,” comes a voice from the darkness.

A tiny figure scrambles up the base of the hill like a large bug. As he passes into the light, we see that it’s Frank Whaley, an actor who got his start with appearances in Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July, The Doors and JFK.

“My license lapsed,” the figure says. “I had a few bad years. But I’m good.”

Such is the legacy of Stone — a towering figure in modern film who always seems to be wrangling his own personal demons — that it is almost impossible not to read a scene like that autobiographically. A three-time Oscar winner as both writer (Midnight Express) and director (Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July), Stone has spent much of the past dozen years surrounded by controversy or chaos: His satirical tabloid blitzkrieg Natural Born Killers caused novelist John Grisham to accuse him of engendering real-life murders. Nixon, his oddly sympathetic portrait of the ex-president, eluded liberals and conservatives alike. The jumpy, kinetic editing style he employed in the day-for-noir U Turn and the pro-football pageant Any Given Sunday inspired longtime Stone critic Elvis Mitchell to label the latter “the world’s first ADD epic.”

Then the first of two HBO documentaries (Comandante) on Fidel Castro was shelved for being too sympathetic, while a subsequent portrait of Yasser Arafat (Persona Non Grata) saw Stone’s crew fleeing Ramallah four hours before the Israeli army attacked the Palestinian leader’s compound. (A third film, expected to profile either Kim Jong-Il or Saddam Hussein, was canceled.) He has been arrested twice — in 1999 and 2005 — for DUI and possession of marijuana, respectively. During an appearance at HBO’s “Making Movies That Matter” panel at Lincoln Center in October 2001, he allegedly made inflammatory remarks regarding the September 11 attacks, earning him scorn and ridicule in The New Yorker and elsewhere. Most painfully, when Stone, in 2004, finally realized his 20-year obsession to make Alexander, a sweeping history of Alexander the Great filmed on three continents, the film failed to find a domestic audience.

Now comes World Trade Center, a delicate, contained and extremely powerful evocation of our 2001 national trauma, starring Nicolas Cage and Michael Peña as John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, New York City Port Authority cops who were miraculously excavated from beneath the glowing rubble of Building No. 7. In an odd way, it brings Stone’s career full circle: His first student film, Last Year in Viet Nam, made at NYU in 1970 (for film professor Martin Scorsese), opens with a panorama of southern Manhattan and what would have been the Twin Towers, except that they weren’t completed until January 1972. But in another respect, World Trade Center may be Stone’s most subversive film yet — a rousing, populist, patriotic adventure story that kicks the legs out from under the right-wing criticism marshaled against him. It could prove the ultimate irony that the bête noire of American conservatives — the man who profiled right-wing death squads in Salvador, My Lai–like atrocities in Platoon, hostile takeovers in Wall Street, the anti-war movement in Born on the Fourth of July and, most notably, the fecund proliferation of Kennedy-assassination conspiracy theories in JFK — may find his most enthusiastic audience among the very partisans who have heretofore decried his lifetime of work. As no less a cultural observer than Mel Gibson said of Stone in the 1997 thriller Conspiracy Theory, “He’s a disinformation junkie for them. The fact that he’s still alive says it all. He probably should be dead, but he’s not.”

In person, Stone has an infectious laugh, seems genuinely engaged and takes the full measure of my questions before answering, at which point his ideas often come so fast they seem to be skipping across the surface of the conversation. He’s also the most fun kind of intellectual, in that he perpetually appears to be trying to figure himself out. Briefly a classmate of George W. Bush’s at Yale, he seems — at least on the evidence of our wide-ranging, three-hour discussion — to have absorbed a good deal more of its freshman syllabus. We spoke at his West L.A. editing suite, where he is currently preparing a three-hour, 45-minute DVD-only “road show” version of Alexander, complete with intermission.

L.A. WEEKLY: Where were you on the morning of September 11, 2001?

OLIVER STONE: L.A. Asleep. My wife put the TV on.

And what did you think was happening?

It was sensational. It was exciting. It was horrifying. It reminded me in its barbarity and ferocity of the French Revolution — the tumbrels, heads falling. And I had feelings of anger in me, and vengeance. I had a fight with my son, actually, because he was much more objective about it: “How do you know? Don’t assume anything. You’re acting like the mob.” But there were other feelings as well. You know, I realize I’m an older person; I’ve seen Vietnam and a lot of death and shit. Oklahoma City was horrible. JFK’s assassination. Watergate. The 2000 election. We’ve been through our times of shit in this country, so this was another version.

World Trade Centeris very powerful — emotionally powerful. I had a very visceral reaction to it. I think it’s obviously the film, but it’s also more than the film — it’s the fact that the subject matter is so loaded. If you make a film about fire jumpers, and a fire jumper comes to see it, he’ll say, “Well, you got this part right, you got this part wrong.’?” With this film, we’re all fire jumpers. It’s also very different from a lot of your other films — it’s gentle and contained and quiet. I’m wondering if you had to devise a different approach because the subject matter was so delicate.

I just want to say first that the way I look at myself — it’s not necessarily in the result — but with every film, I really have made an effort to make each one an island unto itself in this little sea that we go around in our ships. And every island has been a destination, a stop for a period of time. I’ve tried to take a different style for every film, because it’s the story that comes first, and the subject dictates the style. Even with something like Natural Born Killers, which seems very stylistic and eccentric, it’s still the content that I think is valid and important. With this film, certain things presented themselves: Obviously, the sensitivities of everyone involved, but ultimately that’s the sky around the project. With JFK, for instance, there were his children to think of, Jackie was still alive, Teddy Kennedy. Blowing his head off in Dealey Plaza didn’t go down well with them either. But there was a bigger story to tell.

Here we were limited by movement, so we worked out a style by which, methodically, the film would go in and out of light: Light would fight with the dark, or rather, light would try to make it up to the dark. Claustrophobia is an issue with a film like this. I did Talk Radio, so I know that feeling of being on one set the whole time. Also, Born on the Fourth of July: That was a very contained movie, in a way, because we had a young man in a wheelchair in the second half, where there’s very little movement. When I read this script, I said, “How do we make this movie watchable? How do we make the tension manageable for a mainstream audience?”

It may surprise a lot of people that you’re not using a lot of shock cuts, moving around inside the frame — what you’ve termed your “cubist” style.

Well, where can you move in a hole? A hole is limited. Finding the right point of view in the hole is crucial.

You once said about Platoon, “I felt like if I didn’t do it now, I’m going to forget.” We’re five years out from 9/11 now, and there is much public hand-wringing about whether it’s too soon yet to deal with this subject matter.

I think it’s a bogus question. The consequences of that day are far worse today. More people have died since then because of the war on terror. There’s more war, there’s more fear, and there is constitutional breakdown left and right. Have the good sense to go to the psychiatrist quickly. If you’ve been raped, talk to somebody about what that day itself was like before you build up all this armor.

You pursued this film, correct?

Yes. Petitioned. My agent, Bryan Lourd, a man of taste, said to me, “Look, I read this script two weeks ago — it stays with me, it’s emotional. I don’t know if it will make a dime, I don’t know if I can get it financed, but just read it.” So I read it, and I said, “My God, I never thought of this — to do 2001 this way.” I knew [World Trade Center producers] Michael Shamberg and Stacy Sher. But no one would make it; Universal dropped it at the [proposed] budget. I was doing other things, I wasn’t stopping my life. But then it came back around. Paramount was just coming into being [under new management]. We were very lucky, because that new studio energy was coming in, and they wanted to make it so badly that it happened right away.

And did you talk with the producers about politics — if there would be a political viewpoint that informed the story?

There was no room for it, because John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno were not interested in politics, per se. They don’t talk about politics like you and I do. Their lives are not determined by it; they live according to what is given them. So it never entered into the equation. I loved the script [by Andrea Berloff] as it was. I loved the inspiration of the story. So I vowed to stay inside those parameters.

New York is probably the most liberal city in America, and yet the 9/11 attack has been so politicized, its imagery considered so proprietary, that right-wing skepticism has been mounting steadily against you since this project was announced. A story in The New York Times said the film is being strategically marketed to right-wing opinion leaders using the PR firm that advised the Swift Boat Veterans group. It even quoted the conservative National Review Web site as saying, “God Bless Oliver Stone.”

I knew [the studio] was doing grassroots marketing to everybody — Hispanics, cops, firemen, teachers, church groups. I didn’t know that they had hired a specific firm; I found out that day. I’m pleased they like it, because it goes beyond politics.

Could you foresee a left-wing backlash against the film?

If people on the right are responding with their hearts, I’m all for it. But if they’re making it into a political statement, it’s wrong. Those on the left might say, “Oh, this is a simplified context, and these are simplistic working-class values. You’re not showing a wider political context.” Or secondly, that we’re sentimentalizing the event — which would be unfair, because I think there’s a lot of grit there. But this is a populist film. We’ve said that from the beginning. In our hearts, it was a Frank Capra type of movie. And he didn’t necessarily get great notices.

In an odd way, I was reminded of Preston Sturges’ Hail the Conquering Hero — a wartime comedy that pokes fun at the notion of patriotism and, by extension, patriotic movies but which, by the end, almost subversively, fills you with this patriotic fervor. I’m wondering if you see this as your “Nixon in China” moment: Only the director of Nixon and JFK could get away with a film where the most heroic character is an ex-Marine who consults with his pastor before putting himself in harm’s way.

That character, Dave Karnes, is an unlikely hero. He goes to church — that’s a documented thing; he checks with his pastor in a born-again church before he goes down to Manhattan. He evaded the authorities. Get it done; that’s a Marine thing. I think you can argue that the Marine is an ambivalent character, because at the end of the movie, this sense of vengeance is what fuels the wrong war in Iraq.

But for him it’s the right war.

For him it’s the right war. That’s correct. I think if you really look at JFK or at Nixon, which are the two political films I did uncensored in my career — which is amazing unto itself — JFK is neither right nor left, and was attacked equally by the left, who did not like the Kennedy figure of 1963. It was done in the centrist tradition of American dissent: It questioned government and the authority of government. So I was taken aback that the right made such a big issue out of it. I suppose, because they were in office [when the film came out]. But they had never done that historically. They would have been on the side of the investigation; [Barry] Goldwater may well have been. JFK was not a bunch of fantasies strung together. It involved an enormous amount of research — as much as World Trade Center, if not more.

You could make the same argument about Nixon. You took the dominant political figure in our lifetime and gave him the Shakespearean treatment his life cried out for.

It was a psychological point of view. The right wing thought it was going to be a hatchet job; instead, it made him a human being. Unfortunately, in my career, I have spoken out between films, and that’s what’s gotten confused with the films themselves. I think the focus has been lost. Somewhere along the line, I guess, I said, “Look, I’m a filmmaker, but I’m also John Q. Citizen, and things piss me off. I have a right to say, if people ask me and they’re interested, what I fucking think.” And that’s the line I’ve always gotten in trouble with. It’s always between the films, if you look at the statements I’ve made. There’s nothing in the films themselves, as far as I know, that’s really offensive politically.

How much of the criticism against you do you think is organized for partisan political gain?

I’ve always wondered that — especially in the ’90s, after the JFK situation. You have to wonder: Will it come out one day in a government file? You hear about those programs from the ’50s and the ’60s. I was so grateful that Michael Moore came along. He helped me.

He seems to enjoy it. Maybe it’s the counterpart to how the left treats Charlton Heston.

Charlton Heston once said in an interview, “People like Oliver Stone would never hire me in the new Hollywood.” And I went out of my way on Any Given Sunday to hire him. I loved him. I said, “Forget politics, I love your character.” Political reputation pigeonholes you, and in a society that’s very busy, it’s an easy way to get rid of having to think too much about people and what they’re saying. I’m a dramatist; I’m a humanist. I protest.

There’s one line in World Trade Center — I think we hear it on a TV monitor in an office at the Port Authority — where the announcer says, “. . . the shock of the explosion that was coincidental with the two towers coming down,” and then you move on to something else. Was the suggestion that an unexplained explosion might have accompanied the towers’ demise the one seed of doubt you intentionally planted in an otherwise apolitical movie?

Well, I think that all reality is questionable, as you know. Frankly, I’m not an expert on that at all. And I haven’t pursued it, because I think the consequences of where we are now are far worse. But even if there was a conspiracy, it wouldn’t change where we are now. We’re into another place, where there’s more war, more terror, more bankruptcy, more debt, above all more constitutional breakdown and more fear than ever before. That’s very serious. And we’re on the edge of possibly something bigger and very dangerous. Richard Clarke’s book [Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror], at least, is about a true conspiracy that we know existed, of a small group who took over the government and did it their way — manipulated, created the war. It’s 30 or 40 people, right?

Sy Hersh says it’s 11 guys.

It was a conspiracy, and it was basically at the top. It’s Cheney and Rumsfeld influencing Bush. Cheney and Rumsfeld go back to the Ford administration, and when they got their way, they kicked butt. That’s a great story. But that’s not even all of it. When you’ve got a guy like Representative Pete Hoekstra from Michigan, who was a friend of the Bush administration — who had approved of the Patriot Act, the eavesdropping, the taxes, the bank records, all of it — saying in the press that there’s something worse that he’s pissed off about, because they hadn’t consulted him. Something worse? I mean, all the cards are not on the table, right? This is a big story. And we’re living it. How can you write about it? We’re fucking rocking in the boat. It’s like trying to write a great war novel when you might be going into World War II.

Were you at Yale the same time Bush was?

I was in the same class, yeah. I don’t remember him. I was never in a fraternity. I went twice — I dropped out one year and then went back for half of a second year and dropped out.

But at one point Bush requested to meet you, didn’t he?

Yeah, I met him. It was a political breakfast speech here in California at a club, the Republican right wing. They invited me — they’ve always had fun with me, I don’t know why — and it was a big hotel room and a speech about tough love and justice in Texas. He was governor then, around ’98 or so. I swear, I knew in that room on that day that he was going to be president. There was just no question. He had that confidence, and they adored him. There was an organized love for him. He asked for me to come up to the podium and we had a one-on-one. I was in the Bush spotlight — that thing where he stares at you and he gets to know you a little bit.

Assigns you a nickname.

There was one funny line. He knew I’d been in Vietnam. Actually, I didn’t know he’d been at Yale. He told me he’d been in my class; it was a surprise to me. But then he said he’d had a buddy who had been to Vietnam who’d been killed. “Buddy,” he said. It was funny — it was on his mind, he raised it. And it was the way he looked at me: I just felt like, boy, I bet you he’d rather his buddy had come home than me. But he was very friendly, very charming — a very sociable man.

Have you ever thought about going into politics — running for office? Would you consider doing that in a later part of your life?

Not seriously, no.

Orson Welles wrote a weekly political newspaper column during WWII — he was friends with FDR through Sumner Welles, a distant relative of his and a presidential adviser, and at one point he considered running for the Senate from California or his native Wisconsin.

Politics is about raising money and being popular and shaking a lot of hands and spending a lot of time with people. Those are not my strengths. It would be exhausting and would completely destroy my ability to do what I do.

You were pro-Vietnam before you enlisted in the infantry, right? You were fairly conservative?

Yes.

So we could say that you spent the entire 1960s across the political divide from most of what you’ve now come to stand for?

My story is complicated. I did write a novel about being 19 called A Child’s Night Dream. My parents divorced when I was 14, and being the only child, there was no family to go back to. Basically, going to Vietnam was really throwing myself to the wolves. It was a form of rebellion and suicide.

I’ve read a quote to the effect of, “I felt like I had to atone for the act of imagination.” Was it actually the failure of the novel that sent you over the edge?

After I left Yale the second time and finished the novel — I was writing the novel instead of going to class, and that’s why I flunked out — my father was supporting me, and that’s an impossible situation: 19 years old, your father is furious at you for the tuition that he’s lost, and you’re living in his apartment trying to finish a novel. It’s like Jack Kerouac moving back home with his mother. But I really believed in it: I was insane with passion. It was the only thing I had. I had no woman friends in my life. I had nothing to support me beyond that. And when that failed, I went into the Army with the idea of “Let God sort it out, whoever I am.” It’s egregious to think that you can be on the level of Mailer or any of your heroes — Hemingway, or Joyce; I was into Joyce heavily at the time.

Part of the fun of watching someone like you working without a net, from a distance, is charting the rises and falls of your career. And sometimes there are films that don’t hit right, that suffer because of the moment or the context — the sky around it, as you put it. I’m thinking specifically of Nixon, which was a commercial failure, but seems to get more sophisticated every time I see it. Or, more recently, Alexander.

I’ve had three big setbacks, in terms of being completely dismissed: Heaven and Earth, Nixon — by many people, at least — and Alexander. On Alexander, it was just devastating, because in America and England, the numbers were so tough. It wasn’t just that people didn’t like it. It was ridiculed. It was destructive criticism. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world we were connecting, we were among the top 20 films of that year in the foreign market. We did better than four of the five Oscar nominees abroad. It was well respected.

Why didn’t Alexander connect? Do we agree that it didn’t connect with English-speaking audiences?

I like the director’s cut better than the first version, because I had more time to prepare it. And the structure is different. It wasn’t because of the homosexuality — that’s a red herring. The mother’s back story and father’s back story, which are really essential, don’t come in until later. We’re doing a third, expanded version now — we’re going all out. This is not for theatrical; it’s for the people who love the film who want to see more of it. It’s the Cecil B. DeMille treatment — three hours and 45 minutes. What I’m doing is going back and showing the whole thing in its sumptuousness, really going with the concept that it had to be an old-fashioned movie, with an intermission, like a road show. Be a showman, instead of trying to be a responsible filmmaker. Go all out on this one. This is my Apocalypse Now, my DeMille epic. [The first time] I was trying to step up to the plate, so to speak. I should have pulled it back, taken an extra year like Marty did with Gangs of New York. But it would have cost a lot of money.

In Oliver Stone’s America, the documentary included with the DVD box set of your films, you say, “I’ve always admired Alexander because of the momentum and the speed with which he traveled and conquered. In my small metaphoric way, I would say the countries were films, and I moved through them like him . . . he’s striking everywhere. I think it was great. We had a great run. But it’s definitely a new phase.” Is Alexander the figure you most closely identify with?

I am a Method director to a certain degree. I do become part of what I shoot. And I think with Alexander, the perception is of hubris, certainly — “Alexander the Great? Who the fuck is he? He thinks he’s Alexander.” I could see that coming. But I always knew who Oliver Stone was. I never lost track of that. And I made the film humbly, in 94 fucking days on three continents. I ran the crew like I always run the crew. Nothing changed in my habits. I walked in the deserts, we shot in a sandstorm once, and it was the same old Oliver who did Salvador. Hubris is taking 110 days on some stupid comedy. That’s an insult to filmmaking the way I was raised. I’m sticking to NYU principles, and I still do to this day. Movies are a tradition; we didn’t invent it — we take it from somebody else and pass it on.

But with Alexander, you faced a challenge like you’ve never faced before, because no matter how bruising the attacks on JFK and Nixon, your core audience was always still with you. For whatever reason, Alexander failed to connect with an audience.

Yeah. In America.

In America. I don't wish to judge it; this is an empirical observation.

No, it didn't connect. Alexander is the high point of my life, and it always will be. I’m not asking for universal love on that; it’s just impossible. It’s not paced to the American style, nor is he a conventional hero. He’s filled with doubts. But Alexander is a beautiful story, and I think I did him well. I mean, I wouldn’t have released it [otherwise]. But I can’t give up; I would never give up. I would be all wrong in my assessments of myself as I work. You have to hear your own self, follow your own drama, or whatever Thoreau said long ago at Walden Pond. [“Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour.”] Alexander was a huge setback for me, and it certainly hurt me in this business. But you have to understand that people have been saying bad things about me for years. I don’t listen; I have to try to keep going.

I don’t want to make specious connections, but you’ve had several high-profile drug arrests in the last few years. Before that, you were making super nihilist films in an edgy, frenetic style. I'm wondering if these are all moving parts of the same phenomenon.

I’ve smoked dope and drunk alcohol most of my life, okay? Getting pulled over and arrested is a fault, it’s a mistake — a wake-up call. I did get busted a couple of times. One was at a roadblock, so it’s not like I was endangering anybody’s life. The other time, I got pulled over by a civilian cop; I was actually busted for driving too slow. And when the tests came back, I was below the intoxication level. Nobody knows that, because it never got published that way. I should get a chauffeur is what I fucking should do. [Laughs.]

But nobody cares if you smoke pot. They care if it affects the work, if it’s part of a larger problem.

Okay, but I don’t feel bad. I got heavier, physically, at certain points, and I think that gives the appearance of degradation, like Jim Morrison. But I did have a pre-diabetic condition through my mother, and I was on too much sugar. Any Given Sunday, I love that movie, but it was more effort than you think — it was like a three-ring circus, to make five football games in five stadiums work. It took so much energy. There were some problems with the crew on that film. So by the end of that movie, my doctor said I was too stressed, and at my age it was dangerous. There were some issues of medications and stuff, no question about it. But sports people love that movie. With Alexander, there’s a fan site where there are people who have seen it 50 times. They go to the sites in Macedon. They love the romanticism of it. So it’s confusing to me. I’ve tried every fucking time to get it right, even if I haven’t been in my best physical shape. I will get it right. Not everyone is going to agree with me, but I’m going to get it right.

With World Trade Center, it's your first time to deal with studio financing in a decade; you look better, healthier. Has your life changed? Is this a new start?

Your story is a journalistic narrative, and it’s a good one, about Oliver coming back after Alexander, and how there’s a change in his life. And I’ve somewhat agreed with it, but I’ve also pointed out that my methods have stayed the same. But it is about your storyline, in a way — about life. If you go to film school, and you think about your career traditionally, you arc up, in the sense that your budgets get bigger, the stars, whatever. There’s a nice arc to a man’s life. You make your better films later — it’s horrible if you’re Orson Welles, if you make your best film first. And Alexander was a chance to do something on another level entirely. So I reached a peak of ambition. And the ambition was perhaps not matched by my execution, although there are points in the execution that do match the ambition, I think. So then it died a metaphoric death. Point of view died with it, as it died when Heaven and Earth came out. That [movie] was a very sensitive side of myself that I loved — it was tender, and the woman was tender. And it was ridiculed and killed, and part of me, you know . . . those feelings were hurt and eradicated for a while. Same thing with Nixon. You want to get rid of the person after you finish. You want to go back to being who you are, but you’re no longer the same person, because your journey has changed.

And part of me did die [with Alexander] — that part that was enamored of “my very important storyline,” end of quote. Me being the storyline. I played it out. I did all my biographical figures. I have no need to be John or Will. I had a need to be Ron Kovic. I had a need to be Alexander. I had a need to be Nixon and Morrison and Garrison. That’s the change. So now I can be myself, maybe. I can be more authentic to myself. I think there was an attraction to go from the past into the contemporary world in its most hellish moment. It’s like I dropped out and I couldn’t get back in, until by going back to 2001, I could come back into this era. I feel liberated, in the sense that, not that it would be next, but I feel I could do a movie about those next five years. Not that I think it’s complete yet — I think there’s a lot going on that we don’t know about in the government. But I think there’s something in the air. I smell it, and I feel fresh again, having done something — my new, 24-hour, humble microcosm of that day. Wherever I go with World Trade Center, it’s going to spin off to wherever I go next.

-Paul Cullum, "After The Fall," LA Weekly, Aug 9 2006 [x]

[hexoskeleton-anonymous]

Give you a packet of rowlet seeds with a flower pot beside it

Yum!

<😧❗️>

<🤬>

Hey! Give those back! End don’t curse a round the baby!

@$#(!

[ruthlesslistener]

Frankly i am so tired with "PK and WL" are colonizer... first, she is an ancient tree, she probably was born in hallownest eons ago (she probably CAN'T move around great distances so she either hided during the radiance time or was saw as a minor deity), in other hand, the people who worshiped the void was wiped out of existence due The Radiance "you are with me or you are my enemy", at least PK was "all right you other gods stay in your lane and we all ok" (+)

(+) they are gods, they dont really understand (or care in some cases) mortal lives...even Unn who is the most hands off (ha) of her followers, she hide herself and left them to believe she abandoned them to the plague.

...

Yeah same here, though I'm hesitant to say that PK was in any way better than the Radiance because Unn herself is pretty damn old, which indicates that she and Radi likely lived in harmony before PK bc they weren't fighting for the same caverns. But hard agree on WL being native to Hallownest's caverns, because her roots are spread all over the kingdom, which indicates that she lived in Hallownest her whole life. So she literally can't be a colonizer, because these are her native lands, she just didn't have power at the time- AND she married the Pale King, whom she is still very fond of even after his death. The Radiance, on the other hand? We got no idea when she came to Hallownest, let alone if she was hatched there. What we DO know is that the Void civilization appears to be the oldest instance of bugs and gods in the caverns, and that they mysteriously 'dissapeared' before the Radiance gained power, which leads me to believe that they are the true natives and she was the one that destroyed them- esp. since Seer mentions how she tires of 'history's repetitions' when talking about the gods

Also, the thing with Radi losing power? It wasn't because of some violent takeover, as PK himself didn't engage with her directly. He literally just convinced the moth tribe to change sides. Sure, these are just the developer notes, but seeing as the idea persisted to the final game, I don't see why I shouldn't accept this as a somewhat rough explanation of what happened in canon

And like. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not defending what PK did or claiming that what he tried to do was justified, since this sort of shit is really serious and could count as cultural genocide. But it's important to note that the moths managed to keep their culture through the years and that there is no mention of the Pale King himself being the reason they died out, so it's likely that they were simply incorporated into Hallownest after he took it over. I don't believe his claims that he gave bugs mind in the slightest, but after seeing how Radi herself seizes control through the infection, my guess is that she likely did not allow anyone but her moths the freedom of will, and all he did was break that control. Radi gives me very Bad Christian God vibes tbh, in that she only allows you to accept her rule and will brutally punish you if you don't follow her every whim, so I really wouldn't put that sort of thing past her. Count in how she has an angel aesthetic vs Grimm's devil aesthetic, and it becomes even more apparent. Really Radi is more of a crusader than anything else, determined to burn out what she considers to be her enemy- the void- despite it literally just vibing otherwise

I also really despise equating what the gods did to colonization, because actual colonization is so much worse than whatever happened in Hollow Knight. We have no proof that the bugs who followed PK weren't native to the caverns, and the gods themselves don't follow along mortal ethics, either- the reason why they're securing this power struggle is because they NEED worship to survive, so if anything, they're like giant animals fighting over resources, caring little for how their followers live or if they get trampled in the process. There's also no proof of each of the different cultures within Hallownest being snuffed out by the current god, as they only get punished if they show deference to the 'wrong' one. Combine those points with how we KNOW there was a void civilization before Radi and that it has been OBLITERATED from the records, and, well...the lore really points to Radi being the one who initiated all the genocide, with the shift from her reign to PK's coming about simply because she was no longer as popular with her source of energy as the shiny new light in town was.

TDLR: What the gods did is in no way even CLOSE to colonialism, and even if it was, then it would be the Radiance's destruction of the Void Civilization that would be the closest instance of it, while PK (WHO IS STILL IN THE WRONG BTW IM NOT DEFENDING HIS ASS) just kinda booted her out and took over the shop, perhaps because he just so happened to fall in love with another god that was already living there (WL).

[sour-star-galaxy]

(Sorry for the several asks)

Do you have any Kirby OC?

nah don’t worry about it at all! i love getting asks lol! also yes I do, though they have multiple versions at this point lmao! but here they are: Jasper and Juniper! (their refs as well as moodboards!!)

by the way i am so sorry if this post looks awful i made it on mobile 👍👍👍👍

also i tried to say it but tumblr ate it so if you see me say this somewhere else in the post sorry: fun fact juniper is half moth half yellow-jacket (their moth side is based on a Vapourer Moth)

I’ve kinda taken the focus off of their story and begun developing an original OC story with versions of them that don’t look like kirby characters, but basically their story revolves around Jasper and Juniper being childhood friends.

story under the cut because oops it’s kinda long.

They met while he and his family were on a vacation on Popstar. Juni and their family had escaped from Floralia bc of Queen Sectonia becoming a tyrant and were now living happily in Dreamland somewhere. Jasper and Juniper became great friends despite a big age difference (like 6 years ig lol), and Jasper promised to try and keep in touch after his family left. He did for a while, but… eventually he seemed to just vanish.

Then came the Haltmann Works Co. takeover. Junipers family was of course a bit worried because. Damn they left their old home to escape tyrany now look what’s happening some big mechanical takeover damn. but anyway lots of stuff happens that i never planned out, and Juniper is separated from their family somehow but meets up with Jasper!! hooray!!! until she realises like “wait how did you even get here” andddd whoopdeedoo Jasper got roped up in HWC as like from the moment he turned 18 his parents pressured him into working for such a big, strong, and profitable company. needless to say Juniper is pissed. shit goes down, they beat his ass because despite the fact they are Small they are very stubborn. other HWC employees are like “oh shit jaspers getting beat up by a 14 year old bug” and try to grab Juniper but they get away.

After that Jasper didn’t really do much. He kinda fell into a depression upon realising how much pressure his parents have always put on him to ensure he’d be “perfect” and never refuse them because “they know best”, and how much that hurt him in the end. He refused to work, and it got so bad to the point he was fired. After the Popstar takeover was complete, they would send him home.

BUT THEN STARDREAM EXPLODED BABY!!!!!!! Jasper got stranded on Popstar yippee!!!! Anyway he kinda just. tried to pretend he was some wandering traveler since he never really saw that many Popstar residents when he was working for HWC, and after a while of working odd jobs and never really finding his place, he goes back to Juniper’s family and explains everything. It takes a while but eventually he’s forgiven and they practically adopt him.

Nowadays he and Juniper go on quest-like adventures, doing chores for people like running to the store, or getting rid of a pest infestation, helping paint a fence, working at shops when store owners have important things to do but need someone to run the store in their absence, or more exciting things like going to the hospital after Juniper rammed her head into a lightbulb because moth brain saw light and went “holy crap” and it shattered and now there’s glass in their head!!! anyway they’re an odd duo who can get on each other’s nerves but they love each other very much

[usafphantom2]

Ronnie Bell Following

Douglas Dauntless (SBD) 380.

The Dauntless (SBD) Described

By David Brazelton

According to the pilots who flew it, the Dauntless was a well-liked airplane. Its maneuverability permitted it to be flown like a fighter. It was this nimbleness that permitted the SBD to score a very respectable number of victories against attacking fighters.

Remember that, although the airplane was technically a bomber, the French used it for about five years as an aerobatic trainer. It did have aerobatic limitations, a relatively slow roll rate in particular, but it had the strength to permit fledgling pilots to make spectacular execution errors with an excellent chance of survival.

It was this great structural integrity, combined with a famously reliable engine, that permitted aggressive attacks on a heavily defended target with a good chance of getting back to the carrier/base.

One SBD staggered back to the flight deck after action in the Coral Sea Battle with 214 holes in its airframe. A pilot can easily fall in love with an airplane like that!

Possibly the Dauntless’s greatest deficiency during its life was in its gun-power. In 1941, it could be considered a well-armed airplane. By 1943-1944, the two forward-firing guns were simply not adequate. Two good guns are all that are required for good air-to-air gunnery, but ground support is best performed behind a hail of lead.

The Dauntless’s fuselage was an all metal, aluminum alloy, semi-monocoque, stressed skin structure built in for sub-assemblies.

The cockpit was enclosed with a continuous transparent canopy with one stationary and three sliding sections. The windshield had a laminated bullet-proof glass and steel armor plating was installed in strategic locations to protect the crew.

The radio operator-gunner was equipped with a duplicate set of controls and was armed with a pair of .30 caliber machine guns on a ring mount.

The yoke bomb displacement gear was located beneath the center of the fuselage and afforded 12 inches of propeller clearance for the bomb.

The wing was made of all metal, multi-cellular stressed skin construction. Lift was generated by an NACA 2415-2409 airfoil augmented by hydraulically operated trailing edge wing flaps.

Additional drag was available to control diving speed by the perforated split dive flap function of the trailing edge flap. In a dive, the lower flap was depressed 40 degrees and the upper flap raised 37.5 degrees.

The hydraulically operated landing gear retracted inwards flush with the bottom of the wing surface. The strut was faired but the wheel was exposed. The full-swivel tail wheel was fixed. The ailerons were of all metal ribbed construction and fabric covered. A metal trim tab was installed in the left aileron.

The tail assembly featured an all metal cantilever structure. The stabilizers were metal covered and the movable surfaces were fabric. Trim was accomplished with tabs in the trailing edge of all movable surfaces.

This was the airplane that prompted Rear Admiral John McCain to state, “The Douglas SBD has sunk more enemy combatant tonnage than all other arms of the service combined.”

This was the aircraft of which TIME Magazine wrote in 1944, “She had no bugs, no streaks of temperament. She was a thoroughly honest aircraft. She could take a frightful beating and stagger home on wings that sometimes looked like nutmeg graters.”

The airplane grew old during World War II and by the war’s end was mainly used up. So common was the airplane in the lives of aviation people at the time and so completely exhausted was she that no one thought to preserve its memory and legend by saving some for display.

Like many Americans whose way of life was momentarily in the hands of the Douglas Dauntless, I have never seen one.More About the Dauntless SBD

Designed as a scout/ dive bomber, the Dauntless has its roots in a Northrop development prior to takeover by Douglas. Ed Heinemann's team produced the prototype XBT-2 which resulted in an order in August 1939. Production commenced the following June with the initial Douglas built SBD-1s going to the USMC in late 1940 and the SBD-2s to the USN in 1941. The SBD-2 had an extra 100 US gallons fuel capacity and one less 50 cal. fuselage mounted gun.

The SBD-3 appeared in March 1941 with increased fuel capacity in self sealing tanks, increased armor and armament, and an R-1820-52 replacing the R-1820-32. Some were altered to carry a twin 30 cal. gun mount for the gunner. The SBD-4 was basically the same as the -3 using a 24volt electrical system (instead of 12volt) and a hydromatic propeller. The SBD-5 featured the 1,200 hp R-1820-60 engine, increased ammunition capacity, twin 30 cal. gun mount as standard, and radar.

The final production version, the SBD-6, used a 1350hp R-1820-66 and carried more fuel. The US Army also utilized the Dauntless, where the SBD-3 was designated A-24 Banshee, the SBD-4 as A-24A, and SBD-5 as A-24B. The aircraft were similar to the SBDs, but lacked a tail hook. Most also had a pnuematic tail wheel, as opposed to the solid rubber tire favored by the USN (some USMC aircraft also had this change). Production amounted to 5,936 aircraft of all types (ending July 22, 1944).

The RNZAF operated 69 dauntless aircraft (NZ5001-NZ5068, Bu28452) in the 1943-44 periods. Initially 206 A-24 aircraft were to be allocated under lend-lease provisions during 1943-44. However, none were delivered. When deliveries were delayed, the RNZAF was loaned 27 USMC SBD-3 and SBD-4s from Marine Air Group 14 (MAG-14).

These aircraft were allocated to 25 Squadron at Seagrove for training purposes in July 1943. The SBD-3 aircraft were initially operated in US markings with temporary RNZAF serials (NZ205-222), although these were later reallocated serials NZ5001-NZ5018. The SBD-4 aircraft were allocated NZ5019 through NZ5027. The aircraft were formally transferred to New Zealand in November 1943.

The 25 Squadron pilots underwent a 60 hour conversion course onto the Dauntless. Many of the pilots had come from disbanded Army Cooperation squadrons. The training aircraft were notably war weary - some of them were reputedly veterans of the Coral Sea and Guadalcanal. It has been estimated the serviceability of these aircraft was only in the order of 40%. However a formation of 18 aircraft was put up over Auckland on January 6, 1944 to mark the end of training.

At that time it was largest formation seen over Auckland. One aircraft was lost by 25 Squadron during training in a fatal accident- NZ211 (not yet serialed NZ5007) stalled while low flying near Wailuku on September 13 1943 and crashed and burned with the loss of P/O William McJannet and Sgt Douglas Cairns. A further aircraft was written off in training by 26 Squadron (see below)

25 Squadron were posted to Espiritu Santo at the end of January 1944 for forward operational training without aircraft. The A and B flights of the Servicing Unit (25 SU) which had formed in October 1943 left New Zealand on December 7 (aboard USS Octans) and arrived at Santo on December 12 1943. (C flight traveled up by air in January after 26 Squadron was disbanded). There they prepared 18 more loaned USMC SBD-4s (NZ5028-NZ5045).

Records show the first 9 aircraft to have been brought on charge on December 17. The next four were brought on charge on Dec 26, with a further aircraft on Dec 30. Two more pairs were accepted on January 8 and January 26, 1944. Again these aircraft were reportedly in poor condition. The aircraft were used to carry out operational training. Based from Pallikulo, the six week program involved area familiarization, radio work, and practice missions - including working with US (predominantly USMC) dive bomber units. During this period one aircraft, NZ5037, was lost. The aircraft had been on an early afternoon flight for radio familiarization when it disappeared with F/O Alexander Moore and his WOPAG, Flt.Sgt John Munro. The wreckage was not located until 1987, when it was found about 23 miles North West of Santo (more on this aircraft below).

The SBD-4 aircraft were replaced by new SBD-5 aircraft (NZ5046-NZ5063) prior to the squadron commencing combat operations from Bougainville in March 1944. The aircraft were officially brought on charge on various dates from February 19 to early March, 1944. New Zealand serials were applied from February 25th. 25 SU were sent by sea to the new base arriving on March 15th to take up the camp previously occupied by MAG-24 at Piva near Torokina. The arrival of the aircraft was postponed as the area was still subject to enemy shelling. The first wave of aircraft departed on March 22, and arrived on March 23, with the remainder arriving the following day. One aircraft was lost in route, when NZ5055 crashed and was written off at Henderson Field on the 22nd. On the 24th a number of sorties were carried out from Piva against enemy positions near the perimeter - 4 for artillery spotting, and 19 for bombing. It was a curious situation as the ground crew who bombed up the aircraft could then watch them take off and deliver the ordnance on the target. A further 15 local sorties were carried out on March 25th, and these activities continued for a fortnight.

The primary role for the squadron was to assist in actions against the Japanese bases at Rabaul. The first operation was scheduled for March 26 against Kavieng airfield, but the squadron did not make the rendezvous. The squadron only failed to complete a mission on two other occasions, successfully completing 29 operations between March 27 and May 17. The squadron was under the control of General H.R. Harman COMAIRSOLS (Commander Air Solomons) and was effectively part of the Strike Command. However, the dive bomber squadron was frequently tasked to attack airfields in company with RNZAF 30 Squadron who operated TBF-1C Avengers. The 25 Squadron aircraft would suppress gun positions, while the Avengers attacked the runways. 25 SU were tasked with providing 12 serviceable aircraft each day from the average squadron strength of15. They managed this on all except one occasion. The first operational losses occurred on April 2, 1944. On this day NZ5054 and NZ5059 crashed and burned at Piva. On April 4 while three replacement aircraft were being ferried to Piva one (BuAer 28452 coded '176') became separated and was last reported as ditching.

The pilot, FO Leslie McLellan-Symonds died on May 25, 1944 of toxemia in a POW camp near Rabaul . On April 17 NZ5050 went missing on an operation against Lakunai Airstrip. Last seen over the target, it was believed to have been shot down with the loss of P/O Geoffrey Cray and W/O Frank Bell. NZ5058 was written off after the same mission due to damage from anti-aircraft fire. The final loss was NZ5051 which crashed in Greet Harbor during another attack on Lakunai, probably due to anti-aircraft fire. The crew were F/L Jack Edwards and W/O Louis Hoppe.

On the same mission, a 30 Squadron TBF-1c, NZ2541, was lost under similar circumstances. The last two replacement aircraft appear to have joined the squadron around April 25, 1944. The last operation was carried out on May 17, 1944. The surviving aircraft were then returned to the USMC at Renarde Field in the Russell Islands on May 20th.

The 22 crews are reported to have averaged 95 hours each on operations. On return the aircraft on average had accumulated 120 hours flying and were reportedly in 'as new' condition, which reflected highly on the activities of 25 SU. The squadron was unique in New Zealand service, in that crews were assigned to particular aircraft. This gave rise to some distinctive aircraft decoration. Having completed an eight week tour, 25 Squadron were returned to New Zealand and the Squadron disbanded on June 19th. (The Squadron was reformed at Ardmore on October 30, 1944 as a fighter unit).

The New Zealand based SBD-3 and SBD-4 aircraft were passed to 26 Squadron for training at Seagrove. However, a decision to cancel the A-24 allocation in favor of further fighters saw the unit disbanded after only two weeks. The final training loss occurred on January 19, 1944 when NZ5004 failed to get airborne from Ardmore and the aircraft operated by a 26 Squadron pilot swung off the runway into a ditch. Subsequent investigation found the controls were in a locked position.

The SBD aircraft were used during January and February 1944 to train replacement aircrew for 25 Squadron before being placed in storage at Hobsonville. Seagrove then closed as a training base, becoming a satellite field for Ardmore. Three Dauntless aircraft were utilized as instructional airframes (NZ5009 to INST91 and NZ5018 to INST92 at TTS Nelson, and NZ5016 to INST110). As well as the two SBDs lost in training accidents, three more aircraft were handed back to the USN in June 1944. The remainder were sold for scrap in 1948.

Via Flickr

[wewinbees]

in regards to all the issues with MCC 14 im gonna bring up how unspeakably scuffed MCC 7 (july) was. focusing on the SBI v DT issues, which to preface both teams were tryharding because they were told it would be the last time they were allowed to team (at least for a little while) and they both wanted to leave with a win.

purple - dream, george, sapnap and sylvie

orange - techno, wilbur, phil and seapeekay

battle box - this started off with horrible lag, to the extent that it was unplayable for some teams, but they didn’t reset it until like round 4 or 5. additionally, they paused it before they decided on a reset, and a tonne of teams started to accidentally team kill with the power-up TNT packages, including wilbur killing CPK and techno going >:/ eventually they reset the whole round to try fix the lag, voiding the points from the first half meaning some players did better than they would have and others did Notably worse, like dream’s team who lost against a lot of teams they’d beat in the first rounds.

side note, but MCC 7 battle box scares the hell out of me just because wilbur blew up 2 of their teammates later on in the new rounds bc of Miscommunication (he asked if it would get them extra points by TNTing them at the end bc he got some when he team-killed in the pause, and techno was talking to himself and said ‘yea’ at the same time about something else), made worse bc it was against purple and dream got the points (although Techno lived and placed the wool so they still won) and then they spent the rest of the rounds arguing, with BOTH OF THEM going D:< and phil had to tell them to shut up. either way, it worked out well for orange, winning 8-1 while purple suffered, only winning to 5-4 largely bc of the reset. either way the girls were fighting and Oh My God it freaks me out lmao

build mart! not exactly a broken bit or a glitch but i feel like it would be POORLY RECEIVED in this current mcyttwt climate. basically orange had always been infamously bad at build mart, coming 8th last tournament, and were strategising on how to win. the night before, wilbur offhandedly mentioned getting every block so they didn’t have to rush back and forth, but this was unrealistic because there were too many blocks. but local tryhard (affectionate) technoblade took this and RUN, watching 6 hours of footage across every MCC vod to make 4 shopping lists, divided into sections for each player to collect, that had the exact number of each block needed to complete any of the 26 possible builds, and they came 1st place as a result. the funniest thing is they would have done even better if the timer wasn’t reduced from 15mins to 12mins, which was probably done bc of their complaining. the really fun part about this is techno went to boast about it to dream at the end, telling him he’d went through all 26 builds, only for dream to interrupt him “there’s 27, actually” BECAUSE HE DID THE SAME THING HAHAH!!! at least something similar, including some strange Java programme? idk but their strategy didn’t work nearly as well, with their team coming in 6th (from 9th last tournament)

the real drama this time though, was audience takeover! this was the first MCC with serious issues around the takeover; before dream joined in MCC6, it was whatever techno chose, and since they both chose battle box for MCC 6 it didn’t make a difference. but this time they divided votes. dream wanted HITW and techno wanted rocket spleef. after a harsh twitter poll, HITW won with 47% to Rocket Spleef’s 43%. now at this point i think the way that voting worked was that there’s 50 NPCs in the dome, each representing 2% of the vote. but because of how many people voted and how close the polls had been, the system glitched and gave techno’s team the win in rocket spleef. THIS WENT DOWN AS POORLY AS YOU COULD IMAGINE WITH THE DREAM TEAM, who had never played rocket spleef before. the admins paused the game and tried to swap it over, but it was not in the code for them to actually be able to swap to a new game, so they had to just play on. as a result, Dream’s team fell by A Lot, and they got pretty mad about the whole situation, especially given the fact that battle box had already been reset at this point, so the fact that they couldn’t reset rocket spleef got them pretty mad, w dream genuinely threatening to log at one point

that’s the last of the Major scuffs, i think there were some minor bugs too, like an arrow pick-up glitching in dodgebolt that meant phil died (which was Unfortunate because they lost 2-3) but in the end of the day guess what!!? it doesn’t actually matter! because it’s a non-profit for-fun MINECRAFT tournament!! any streamer that gets toxic tends to immediately apologise, and the discovery of bugs and exploits helps them get patched to never happen again! the build mart block randomiser gets added, they changed the coding of the audience vote to be shiftable! and ‘let’s just play rocket spleef’ becomes a great reoccurring joke among the MCC community

the noxcrew are amazing game developers, and even the breakers myof games should be treated like fun because in the end of the day It Does Not Really Matter :) i know we’re all chill on tumblr but i just want to reinforce how good MCC is okay and i did it with this big long post about how scuffed it can be, but the important part is how it improves and how we as a community react