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chancellorberrynewt · 5 years

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The Note

By R.L. Lawrence

My response to the recent mass shootings, in the form of a fictional suicide note from a gunman.

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Disclaimer: The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred. The sad fact that this disclaimer is necessary is one of the reasons why this was written.

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Congratulations! If you’re reading this, I’m dead, and by killing me you’ve played an important role in my plan. Thank you very much, and I hope you aimed for the head.

I’m writing this to provide context for what just happened here. By now the news media has already reported on a crazed gunman who went on a shooting spree, who was killed by the brave first responders called to the scene. I hope that they didn’t use my drivers license photo as my picture on the broadcast, I look terrible in that. Regardless, I apologize for the panic I caused, but I want you to know that nobody was ever in any real danger. All my guns were loaded with blanks, ordered online from a film prop supply store. Feel free to check my bank card history to back that up, just ignore the fact that I’m overdrawn right now.

So I guess this is where I get on with my manifesto, huh? I’ll bet you’re expecting a long diatribe about my grievances with the government, or with immigrants, or with socialists, or with whoever else you think I’m upset enough with to kill over. Tough luck there, this wasn’t meant to be a political act on my part. I mean, I suppose it could be broadly considered political, given that this is really directed at society as a whole, and politics and government are a major part of any society.

The reason I’ve done this is because it seemed to be the only way to get people’s attention, even if it’s only for a few days until the news cycle moves on to something else. Generally, our society only acknowledges one’s opinions as worth paying attention to if they are already famous for being wealthy (such as with business leaders), charismatic (such as with Hollywood celebrities), or both (most national politicians). I suppose you could say I fit the mold of a mass shooter: white, male, vaguely antisocial (though I prefer the term “uncharismatic”). Because of my lack of charisma and aforementioned lack of money, whenever I try to speak out against something I feel is wrong, it’s pretty much completely ignored. This is the case not only for me, but for the millions of people not already sitting at the top tier of society. Within the marketplace of ideas, my small voice is drowned out by pundits and ideologues in that top tier who are given a much more visible platform to speak from. I think regardless of beliefs, that’s what drives the majority of mass shooters to kill; it’s the feeling that they aren’t being listened to and they need to do something drastic to get their point across.

That’s not really an opinion though, that’s simply an evidence-based observation. Everyone knows who Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are, but I bet you’d be hard pressed to name a Columbine victim without a Google search. Same with Timothy McVeigh, Adam Lanza, Nikolas Cruz, etc., etc., etc… Media coverage makes these people famous, and every time it happens people already on the edge are effectively told “if you can’t be famous for something good, you can always be infamous.” Every commentator tries to decipher motives, some blaming divisive rhetoric by politicians, some blaming lax gun laws, some blaming video games, but it should be plainly obvious that anyone willing to go on a shooting spree isn’t 100% mentally healthy to begin with. You can hold strong opinions about any number of things without ever considering killing people over them. It takes a special type of crazy to do that.

So let’s go ahead and get to the meat of the matter here. Why did I do it? What message am I trying to convey that I felt wasn’t being listened to? What’s so important to me that I was willing to get shot over just to be heard?

Simple. Don’t be an asshole.

Well, it’s a little more complex than that, but that’s pretty much the gist of it. I’ve spent much of my life trying to share a message of kindness and acceptance. I haven’t always been correct about everything; I read, I learn, I reevaluate my ideas if they seem to be lacking, but I’ve always tried to do right by people and encourage others to do the same. From my point of view however, it appears that in a lot of ways, society is moving in the opposite direction. Our nation has become less kind, less compassionate, and less caring year after year. People can’t discuss differences of opinion without devolving into shouting matches and insults. Within my lifetime, our world has become more connected than ever, but at the same time, people are fortifying themselves within their ideological echo chambers and becoming more isolated than ever from ideas and people that differ from their close circle of like-minded friends. The dangerous us-vs-them mentality of tribalism and zero-sum competition that has driven wars and social division throughout human history has been cranked up to eleven. Recent resurgences of racism, nationalism, homophobia, misogyny, and every other form of bigotry have nearly eliminated decades of progress made in human and civil rights. Fear of “the other” having the same privileges as one’s own group has made cooperation between groups of people all but impossible. This isn’t a critique of one group either, this goes for all groups: religions, races, nations, governments, political parties, businesses, nonprofits, fraternal organizations. You name it, and the in-group/out-group mentality is rampant.

It’s partly because of this that humanity has largely conflated legality and morality. Instead of treating everyone with compassion and kindness, society has agreed that if someone is not a part of your group, it’s morally justified to inflict any sort of punishment you want on someone that breaks the rules of the group. It’s why brown people looking for a better life are put in concentration camps. It’s why a black person pulled over for a broken tail light can be murdered by police. Without even mentioning specifics here, there’s a huge portion of the population that will justify any atrocity committed in the name of “law and order”. What’s worse is that they don’t realize that they aren’t even a part of the in-group in these situations. When it comes to laws, the in-group is never those who the laws apply to, it’s always the people making and enforcing the laws. People with power and money create and advocate for laws that benefit them and their friends personally. It’s why there’s effectively two separate justice systems in our country, one for the rich and one for the rest. It’s why a black man selling loose cigarettes can be killed by police while bankers who ruin the economy and businessmen that destroy the planet get at worst a slap on the wrist.

This is also why nothing is ever done on a legislative basis to combat the types of mass shootings that I attempted to mimic in my actions. Politicians see no personal benefit to it; in fact it’s usually the opposite. They know that any substantial change will anger the lobbyists that line their pockets. For most legislators, funding their next campaign is far more important than the loss of human life.

I suppose my motive here is be that I am trying to draw attention to the sort of change I’d like to see. I want to see less selfishness and more compassion. I want to see less competition and more cooperation. I want to see a world where people help each other, rather than just helping themselves, a world where we stop asking how something benefits us and start asking how it benefits others. Less discrimination and more acceptance, less vitriol and more consolation. I want a world in which people are judged based on their own merits, and not who they know or what group they belong to. I want to see a world where those who have a prominent public voice and platform stand up for those who don’t. I want to see a world where people who need help can get it without being looked down upon for their circumstances.

Overall, I just want to see less hate and more love. Maybe then there won’t be so many people willing to commit mass murder just to be listened to. Maybe then people like me wouldn't prefer death to living in this world as it is.

#mass shooting #guns #violence

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beccaland · 6 years

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Beccaland reads and responds to an article about Doctor Who that she really should have known better than to have read in the first place

You know how you KNOW you should never read the comments sections, but sometimes you just can’t help yourself? That’s usually how I feel about reading articles about Doctor Who during the past few years, except from a handful of trusted sources. Yet there I was this morning, checking my regular email from Tor.com, and out of a slightly-morbid curiosity, I found myself reading “How It Feels to Want to Watch Doctor Who Again” by Alex Brown.

Partly, I really am interested in the fans who are getting interested in Doctor Who again. They left for a lot of reasons, and really you can’t begrudge anyone’s waning interest in a TV show. And it would be far, far more silly to begrudge them regaining interest! I’m excited for the awesome changes that are coming on October 7th, too. And I am fully aware that not every era is every fan’s cup of tea. On the other hand, I also know that I’m frequently irritated by the shallow criticism levelled in order to “justify” some fans’ disaffection. So there I was. Reading an article I knew very well was probably going to annoy me, like a masochist.

And just because I feel like it, I’m going to quote a bunch of it and offer my own commentary. I’m going to be as fair as I can, noting where I think a given critique is valid, where I think it’s valid but still disagree, and where I think it’s the same old tired, inaccurate nonsense.

Here we go:

“I miss Doctor Who.”

ME TOO!

“There was a time when I watched it fervently, reverently, passionately. It was something I put on when I was stressed or overwhelmed or needed to be reminded of the good things in life. The relationship wasn’t perfect, but it was powerful and affirming.”

Yeah, I do that too, but I never really stopped.

“Until suddenly it wasn’t.”

I mean, sure. Doctor Who did something on a purely personal and emotional level for the author, and then it stopped. That’s totally fair.

This actually happened to me with the novels in the ‘90s–they just weren’t doing enough for me imaginatively or emotionally anymore to justify the challenge of finding them and the expense of buying them. It happens. (I still wanted Doctor Who in my life though, so I rewatched my VHS tapes instead, until they had degraded in quality to the point where that wasn’t very fun either.)

“The show twisted into something unrecognizable and unpleasant. And so I abandoned Doctor Who just as it had abandoned me.”

The really negatively loaded language here bugs me a lot, but this article is a personal fan narrative more than it is a review, and it’s impossible to refute a subjective response. Clearly, it’s true that Alex Brown and the show were no longer on the same wavelength. So, fair enough.

“If you asked me in 2016 if I would ever watch Doctor Who again, I probably would’ve shaken my head and sighed. The chances of the show making the kind of changes necessary to pull me back seemed slim to none. But here we are, fall 2018, and I am so excited about the Season 11 premiere that I can barely stand it.”

I’m really happy about everyone coming back. I share this excitement!

[I’m omitting a couple of paragraphs here where Brown describes more of what Doctor Who meant to her when she first encountered the show during an obviously extremely difficult time in her life. It’s really moving, and I find it relatable in some ways.]

“With the takeover by Steven Moffat in 2010, my relationship with the Doctor shifted dramatically. As much as I loved Doctor Who, I wasn’t blinkered to its myriad problems.”

See, my issue with this is simply that it implies that people like me ARE “blinkered by its myriad problems.” We’re not. But sometimes we disagree about what those problems are, or where the blame (and praise) for those problems (and their amelioration) properly lies. Hence this post.

“Trouble was, the annoying but tolerable issues were magnified into something unbearable by Moffat’s numerous faults as showrunner. Under Moffat, seasons went from episodic romps loosely knitted together by repeating themes—think “Bad Wolf” Easter eggs throughout the first season—to Lost-style mystery box seasons bogged down in an increasingly convoluted and grimdark mythology.”

I think it’s fair to say that the series 6 arc in particular was much heavier than previously attempted by the show, and this was a turnoff for some viewers. Personally, I liked it a lot conceptually, but I acknowledge that it could have been better executed. It’s also not representative of Moffat’s whole era; he experimented a lot with structure. That in itself was probably frustrating to some viewers–again, I liked it a lot, but that’s neither here nor there.

However, calling the Moffat era “grimdark” is frankly bizarre. It seems to confuse a shift in LIGHTING with a shift in TONE. The Moffat era’s TONE was, if anything, substantially more hopepunk than the RTD era (to say nothing of Torchwood, which Brown also professes to adore).

“River Song, Cybermen, Daleks, and the Master work best when used sparingly,”

Yeah, I agree.

“but Moffat dragged them out of the toy box so often that they lost their appeal.”

A criticism that (aside from River, for whom YMMV) applies equally to the RTD era.

“Even the Doctor suffered from too much focus. Doctor Who is a show that flourishes when it cares more about the people the Doctor helps than the Doctor. The Doctor is much more interesting as a character who drops into other people’s stories than when everyone else exists only to serve the Doctor’s narrative.”

This is a matter of taste, and on that level cannot be refuted.

But I’m not actually sure it’s true that the stories in the Moffat era focused more on the Doctor than was the case in previous eras. It didn’t seem that way to me. I suppose one could develop some way of objectively evaluating the validity of that premise, but I’m not going to go to that much trouble.

“Worse, women went from equals with their own vibrant lives to codependent followers.”

This is not merely a matter of personal taste. It is an assertion about content of the sort which could hypothetically be supported by evidence. If it were true. And it is literally the opposite of true. It’s a gross mischaracterization of the Moffat era companions, and moreover ignores the sometimes-problematic characterizations of the RTD era companions. I’m skipping the rest of that paragraph, which merely rehashes worn-out, shallow readings of Amy and Clara’s characters. I have nothing to say about those arguments that I haven’t said elsewhere before.

“[Moffat’s] seeming disdain for how fans interpreted the series,”

Showrunners SHOULD disdain how fans interpret their work. Or, more accurately, they should ignore it. Since fans are a motley bunch, the alternative would be a total lack of creative vision, either deeply bland or utterly fractured.

“for critiques of his own biases and bigotries,”

In reality, Steven Moffat demonstrated a remarkable openness to critiques of his biases and made steady progress in addressing them both in front of the camera and behind the scenes.

“and for the depth the show was capable of became a virus that infected everything.”

From where I sit, Doctor Who demonstrated far more depth during the Moffat era than during the RTD era (and some of the deepest scripts in RTD’s era were written by Moffat and according to RTD, barely touched by his editorial influence). I’m willing to consider the possibility that the RTD era displayed depths that I failed to perceive, but given the number of times I’ve rewatched it and the fact that I study texts for a living, I have to say I think that’s a long shot. I would welcome a persuasive analysis of the depths of the RTD era.

“I have never been one to shy away from dropping shows that I no longer like, but I held onto Doctor Who longer than I should have. I finally tapped out after the frustrating penultimate episode of Season 6, “The Wedding of River Song.” Reductive, repetitive, and boring, the episode encapsulated everything I couldn’t stand about Moffat’s storytelling.”

OK, Brown has got a point there. I love TWORS for purely personal reasons (it was just FUN, in the same way that the more crazy-ambitious failures often are in Doctor Who), but I’m under no illusions about its quality. In addition to being “reductive [and] repetitive” that episode was also rushed and full of holes. I didn’t find it boring, but that’s a subjective thing.

It’s a bit weird though that Brown claims to have quit watching Doctor Who at the end of series 6, since earlier she critiqued both Clara and Moffat’s “over"use of Missy, both of whom post-date Brown’s purported exit. Hmm. Seems like (as is not uncommon, in my experience) people who dislike Moffat base a lot of their dislike on mere hearsay.

"Although Moffat drove me away from Doctor Who, other factors kept me from coming back. A not insignificant chunk of my exhaustion came from the frustratingly limited diversity and the frequently poor treatment of characters of color—see Martha and Bill, plus the weirdness around the few major interracial relationships.”

OK, this is approximately half fair. There WAS a frustrating lack of diversity which continued well into Moffat’s era. Martha and her weird marriage to Mickey are RTD’s doing entirely. And the author claims not to have ever seen series 10, so she’s hardly in a place to evaluate Bill’s treatment (which, for the record, seemed pretty great to me–vastly better than in any previous era, anyway, though there’s no doubt that there is still room for improvement).

“Prior to Season 11 there had never been an Asian or South Asian companion despite the fact that people of South Asian ancestry make up nearly 7% of the population of England and Wales, according to the most recent census. Islam is the second largest religion in the UK, yet Muslims are also largely absent from the show, and certainly from the role of companion.”

This is a totally fair criticism.

“Moffat said it was hard to cast diversely without impinging on historical accuracy,”

Gonna want a citation for that one; I admit it’s possible he said something like that at some point but I feel like I would remember if he had.

“a notion that is patently false and wholly ignorant of actual history.”

A point which Sarah Dollard makes in the series 10 episode “Thin Ice,” with the enthusiastic approval of Moffat himself.

“To be fair, Moffat also admitted this claim was nonsense and rooted in a white-centric view of history and acknowledged that the show needed to do better…then made absolutely no changes.”

Thanks for being fair…almost. In fact he made substantial changes during his tenure, though most happened after Alex Brown quit paying attention. Seems to me that if you’re going to write an article for a blog affiliated with a major SF publisher, you might actually want to check your facts rather than relying on information that’s several years out of date (if it was ever true).

“And don’t even get me started on frequent Moffat collaborator and Who writer Mark Gatiss who infamously whined about diversity initiatives ruining historical accuracy because they cast a Black man as a soldier on an episode about Queen Victoria’s army battling Ice Warriors on Mars.”

Yeah, this I do remember. Ew, Gatiss! What were you thinking?

“Not to mention Moffat’s asinine declarations that we couldn’t have a woman Doctor becausehe 'didn’t feel enough people wanted it’ and 'This isn’t a show exclusively for progressive liberals; this is also for people who voted Brexit.’”

This is also the man who wrote the first-ever gender-changing regeneration (of the Doctor, no less!) in his comedy special, “The Curse of the Fatal Death,” the first female incarnation of a previously male Time Lord (Missy, who turned out to be incredibly popular), and the first official, non-comedy, on-screen gender-changing regeneration scene (the General, in Hell Bent), thus paving the way for even many of those non-liberal, Brexit-voting audiences to accept a female Doctor, and making it virtually impossible for the BBC not to do it without looking like total assholes (though by that point they were totally on board and needed to further persuasion).

But sure, go ahead and cherry-pick a couple of real-but-not-representative Moffat quotes to perpetuate your misogynistic Moffat pseudo-narrative.

[Cutting the rest of that paragraph because it adds nothing to the critique]

“Why can’t we have a trans or disabled companion? Why can’t the Doctor be a queer woman of color?”

These are totally legitimate questions, and we should keep asking them.

“Do you know what it’s like to be told by someone in a position of power that you don’t belong here? That you are an aberration, a glitch in the matrix, that including you would be so inaccurate that it would collapse the narrative structure of a fictional television show that features a frakking alien traveling through time in a police box?”

Yes. I do.

And when you dismissed Amy and Clara as mere sexist stereotypes, mere codependent hangers-on of the Doctor, you re-inflict that wound on me and many other fans, because you’ve been granted a position of power, a platform in the blog of a major international SF publisher.

“Hearing that message all the time from pop culture is hard enough, but to get it from my favorite show was heartbreaking.”

I feel ya, Alex Brown. This needs to continue to be addressed.

But I’ll also remind readers that the Moffat era, despite its still-too-limited representation, gave us more disability representation than any other era of the show up to that point.

“Cut to the Jodie Whittaker announcement in July, 2017. For the first time in years, I watched the Christmas special—live, no less. To give credit where credit is due, Moffat’s swan song exceeded my (very low) expectations and Peter Capaldi was as excellent as I hoped he’d be. Whittaker had almost no screen time, but what she did get left me with a smile a mile wide.

"On top of her pitch-perfect casting, Thirteen will also be joined by three new companions, one a Black man and another a woman of Indian descent. Plus, the Season 11 writers’ room has added a Black woman, white woman, and a man of Indian descent. Several women will also be directing. New showrunner Chris Chibnall proclaimed that the renovated show will tell 'stories that resonate with the world we’re living in now,’ and will 'be the most accessible, inclusive, diverse season’ ever produced.

"These changes go beyond tokenism and into real diversity work. The show isn’t just sticking a woman in the titular role and patting themselves on the back. Diversity can’t just be about quotas. It must be about inclusion and representation in front of and behind the camera. Marginalized people need to be able to tell our own stories and speak directly to our communities. The majority already gets to do that, and now that conversation needs to happen across the board. The show still has a lot of work to do, both in terms of undoing the status quo of harmful tropes and in laying strong groundwork for later casts and crews. Yet, somewhat surprisingly, I feel hopeful for the show’s future.”

I totally agree with these three paragraphs (except I had high expectations of TUAT, which were also exceeded). In fact these paragraphs are a big part of why I felt like this article was worth sharing. I just couldn’t do it without significant reservation.

“And isn’t hope what the show is really all about? Doctor Who is a story about the hope for a better tomorrow, faith in your companions, and trust that you’re doing the right thing. It’s about a hero using their immense powers responsibly and in order to benefit those who need it the most. The Doctor creates space for the marginalized to stand up and speak out, to fight for their rights against those who would silence or sideline them.”

I’m not totally sure that that’s ever really been true before, but it’s an ongoing aspiration that the show keeps moving closer to.

“For too long, that ideal was lost to puzzle boxes, bloated mythology, and trope-y characters”

No it wasn’t. See above.

“but with the appearance of each new Thirteenth Doctor trailer, my hope grows a little more.

"It’s not often that you find your way back to something you loved and lost. At first, Doctor Who was a touchstone during my trials and hardships. Then it became a cornerstone in the foundation of the new life I was building. For a long time I left it encased in a wall, hidden in the basement of my subconscious, untouched and unwanted. Yet here I stand, sledgehammer in hand, putting a hole in that wall. I have set free my love of Doctor Who as Jodie Whittaker cheers me on. October 7 can’t come soon enough.”

This sentiment is really lovely. Welcome back, Alex Brown, and every other fan returning to Doctor Who after an absence of any length and for any reason. It’s shaping up to be a great new era.

Please remember, though, when talking to other fans, that other eras meant as much to some of them as this one means to you, and for similar reasons.

To those who are leaving because of toxic discourse about previous eras making them feel like their presence isn’t welcome and/or participating in fandom right now will only cause them pain: I’m going to miss you. I hope your DVDs and Big Finish and stuff continue to bring you joy. I hope you’ll come back again when it’s safe to do so.

To those who are leaving because they don’t like the idea of a female Doctor and/or two POC companions: BYE BYE! To be honest, nobody will miss you, but nevertheless I hope that eventually you realize how silly and harmful your biases are. When you do, I hope you’ll come back to Doctor Who. And you’ll be welcome.

#doctor who #series 11 #thirteenth doctor #dw fandom discourse

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mudbloodt-a · 6 years

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bubble bubble toil and trouble / i heard rumors that [ lily evans ] is part of [ the order ] ! [ she ] is/are [ a cis woman ] and [ twenty ] ! they are often mistaken for [ ludovica martino ] and known to be [ assertive and overemotional ] ! i wonder if they’ll survive the war.

LINKS: pinboard, stats page CHARACTER PARALLELS: lois lane ( dc ), jane sloan ( the bold type ), katarina stratford ( 10 things i hate about you ), leslie knope ( parks and rec ), donna pinciotti ( that 70s show ), sam ( the perks of being a wallflower ), trish walker ( jessica jones ).

HISTORY

lily is born late january, 1960, as the second child to jonathan and miranda evans, a pair of muggles who have found the perfect balance between standing out and being ordinary. she grows up running after ( and sometimes in front of ) her sister, petunia, her best friend for most of her youth. her father works as a bank teller and – like many – hates his job. her mother is a stay at home mum, who mostly spends her free time tending to the family’s garden — their pride and joy.

lily has many memories of that garden. plucking flowers for her teachers, playing hide and seek, digging through the dirt with her tiny fingers, having barbecue’s and picknicks, laughing at her father’s deep hum of a voice as he complains about customers, crying in her mother’s arms when she scuffed her knees.

so life was ordinary and happy and simple. sure, lily was able to make flowers grow with a touch of her fingers if she concentrated deeply and caused small explosions when she raged ( which was often — lily was an energetic child, but an explosive one, too ). they explained it away with laughter, and kept on living. and then there was severus, whom she met when she was nine, who explained it all.

lily was a witch, and she loved it. she didn’t quite understand it, but she loved it. her parents seemed enthusiastic enough, too, even if they didn’t start believing it until a witch showed up on their doorstep. severus was a new friend, someone who’d help her brave this new world. and petunia … petunia was withering away from her life, slowly taking steps back and back until things seemed beyond repair.

going to hogwarts was confusing, at first. when she stepped on that train, something between her and petunia was changed forever, and lily shed a few tears before she met up with severus. once arrived, she was sorted in gryffindor in a matter of seconds. honestly, i don’t know what to say about hogwarts what wasn’t stated in canon — lily was a great student?? loved learning, had natural skills, was charming, etc. she wasn’t perfect, of course — she was prone to starting debates in class, to going on tangents, cursed quickly and easily and very … creatively

what i’m trying to say is she definitely wasn’t a goody two shoes?? yes, she cared about her education, but no, she was no stickler to the rules. lily was and is a firecracker, someone with fire, and there were plenty of times when she chose to disregard rules, or to go against what was asked for her. not out of spite or just because, always for a good reason, but still. also got into plenty of fights, mostly verbal, mostly with purists, but also with plenty of other people.

lily excelled in charms and potions, specifically. was a big fan of herbology as well, and transfiguration merely bc of mcgonagall.

and then, things seemed to shift. severus called her a mudblood. he was the only person who’d been part of her life before and during hogwarts, and now she couldn’t look at him any more without feeling nauseous. tensions were rising all around her, too. lily started wearing her blood status as a badge of pride even more than before. she became unforgiving and angry and determined to see change. she worked hard in her classes and worked hard on her friendships and tried not to combust with her rage.

and she somehow fell for james potter too, what a fucking tool. both of them. ugh. such a sappy story!!! but yes. they became a thing, and i stan.

lily graduated and had no clue where to go, until it dawned on her — her voice, her anger, her need to find truth: she could use that all. screw having a particularly magical job; lily applied at up and coming news site and magazine lumos and started interning there the summer after graduation. lily as a journalist is very important to me. her whole need for truth is in all honesty the most important thing about her so excuse me as i am about to go on a RANT.

i mean, lily herself is honest. brutally so. she can’t lie, either, and barely ever sees cause to. it’s partly just nature, but also a bit of nurture, i think. her sister, for example, so caught up in her lies and her wish for perfection seems altogether untrue because of it. severus, who hid true thoughts from her. her father, who never told his customers how annoyed he truly was. so many blood purists in the world, keeping their views carefully quiet. this war is based on lies. the world wizards live in is based on lies, and lily hates it. she seeks truth, always has, always will. it’s part curiosity, part anger.

her job as a journalist allows her to seek truth. it also allows her to cover the war, to talk about it, to hold interviews and seek out sources, to think of good questions, to be critical and empathetic and clever. all things lily likes and loves and wants to do.

lily also joined the order. i mean, what other option was there to fight? her family, her friends, she herself — everyone was in danger because of this damn war. there was no bone in her body that thought about sitting still, and when she was approached about the order, she didn’t think twice before saying yes. there is no way that lily ever accept the reality these death eaters want. no way. she’ll die before she sees that happen.

where her and james are at is still something i’m discussing with liz, but they’re def happily in love! lily is about to get pregnant too and she’s going to freak

CURRENTLY & PERSONALITY

okay so i know i’ve mentioned lily’s anger a lot, and i think that’s an important thing to talk about? lily is a very feeling person. she’s compassionate and kind and empathetic. she cares about others, and does so easily. she does so deeply. and she feels deeply too, always has. she cries easily, laughs easily, rages easily. combine those two things and the fact that there’s a war going on that’s fueled by such sickening bigotry … well, of course she’s fucking angry. her anger comes from her kindness, it comes from her compassion and her warmth. her motivation isn’t her anger, per se — it’s her wish to see the world different, to see it be good, but her anger is a huge drive.

lily loves muggle shit so much. she came into the lumos office and dropped a whole lot of muggle office supplies on her desk and said: “if i cant work on paper then im walking” and they were like … dude its ok lol wtf. she’s kind of very extra abt it but in this current economy she’s so set on being PROUD of being a muggleborn and she just loves muggle stuff too — i mean, wizarding fashion is Nothing compared to mom jeans and plaid shirts??? she loves muggle music too, especially indiepop and classic rock and just everything by Cool Ladies.

was raised catholic and still practices it but in a v liberal and modern way because she has seen a lot that with the more traditional views. so yeah, her thoughts on religion and especially the way it’s practised have shifted a lot. she still prays, goes to church every now and then ( but definitely not ever sunday ) and sticks with it, even if it’s hard to cling to faith when the world looks the way it does.

cannot cook to save her life, help her

a big fan of white wine and rose, lolol. will also drink loads of beer if the occasion calls for it. a fun drunk, but also a mama bird when drunk, holding back your hair and drying your tears.

honestly lily is slightly dramatic, full of rage and a downright good person. such a good friend, holy shit. so blunt. so extra. so loving. dances and fights through life. laughs wildly and loudly. gives great hugs. supports blanket forts, always. loves loves loves.

#brontideintro

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pikapepikachuu · 5 years

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Mick Mulvaney's latest effort to whitewash Trump's failures is a joke

This exchange between Mulvaney and CNN's Jake Tapper is highly instructive: Tapper: Your own border experts in your own administration say that investing in those countries is working. For instance, in El Salvador, USAID money has gone to El Salvador. The homicide rate has gone down and migration from El Salvador has gone down as well. Isn't this also self-defeating? Taking away aid from those countries ultimately will make the migration crisis worse.

Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney defended Trump's decision to cut aid to three countries.Credit:AP Mulvaney: Look, there's a lot of good ways to help solve this problem ... Honduras could do more. Nicaragua could do more. El Salvador could do more. And if we're going to give these countries hundreds of millions of dollars, we would like them to do more... We could prevent a lot of what's happening on the southern border by preventing people from moving into Mexico in the first place. And that's what... Tapper: Right, but that's [what] the USAID money does... it makes those countries more stable. This is not according to me. This is according to experts in your own administration. Loading Mulvaney: OK, career staffers, but let's talk about - let's talk about that for a second. If it's working so well, why are the people still coming? ... I think at least now people are starting to realisethat we were not exaggerating a couple months ago, when we had this nationwide debate about the wall. First, Mulvaney's sneer that only "career staffers" are claiming aid helps stabilisethose countries is absurdly dismissive. After all, this includes Trump's own Customs and Border Protection commissioner, Kevin McAleenan, who has said this repeatedly. In December, McAleenan told ABC News that a then-new State Department plan to increase aid to those countries is a "tremendous step forward", because investments in improving both the security and economic conditions there would improve migrants' "opportunities to stay at home". More recently, in March, McAleenan told reporters: "We need to continue to support the governments in Central America to improve economic opportunities to address poverty and hunger and to improve governance and security." In saying these things, Trump's own border chief is stating what is now widely understood: These migration surges are largely driven by terrible civil conditions at home. Thus, what is called for above all is a regional strategy designed to discourage them in the first place. People who have worked on this problem in multiple administrations agree with this.

Trump has cut aid in retaliation to countries not doing enough to stem asylum seekers.Credit:Bloomberg "Resources from the United States are vital if we're going to create the conditions that allow people to stay," Cecilia Muoz, who oversaw the Obama administration's responses to these surges beginning in 2014, told me. "Cutting off resources that are allowing these countries to make progress - to say that this is cutting off our nose to spite our face doesn't even begin to cover it. More people are likely to do the desperate thing, which is migrate." Mulvaney's responses in this regard are startlingly weak. He claims the cutoff is designed to get countries to do more to keep people from migrating. But as one former US ambassador to Honduras notes, the use of this aid as leverage is misguided, since much doesn't go directly to governments but rather is administered by nonprofit groups via US programs. And those governments can't block people from migrating. But that aside, Mulvaney's claim still skirts the core issue, which is that cutting off aid will set back to an untold degree efforts to discourage migrations by addressing their causes. Mulvaney questions that very premise, by asking why aid isn't reducing these surges. But the State Department only just announced its latest aid package a few months ago. Loading And if anything, Mulvaney's answer only underscores the fact that the conditions causing these migrations are dire indeed - which argues for increased efforts to address them. That's precisely why Trump's own border chief is saying we need to keep those efforts going, and build on them. At bottom, Mulvaney's defence of Trump's latest rage-policy points to a much deeper failure at the core of Trump's whole immigration worldview: the idea that migration surges can only be the result of efforts by migrants and/or their home countries to rip the US off and take advantage of the country. Atlantic writer Adam Serwer likes to say that the "cruelty" of Trump's policies "is the point". That's true, but so is the worldview animating that cruelty. This double-sided depiction of what's driving these migrations is absolutely foundational to Trumpism. In his 2015 announcement speech, Trump didn't merely call Mexican immigrants rapists; he also accused Mexico of sending them our way. Nothing has changed: Trump is now thrilling rally crowds by mocking asylum seekers. But note why he's mocking them: for supposedly hyping the conditions in their home countries - again, to scam Americans. This justifies both the underlying bigotry and Trumpian solutions that are cruelly punitive and defensive: He will discourage migrations by making migrants as miserable as possible (family separations), and by walling them out. He will compel other countries ("s---hole countries" that are foisting their criminal outcasts onto us) to somehow detain their migrants by withholding aid from them. But none of Trump's prescriptions are working. The family separations didn't cause a slowdown in migration, because the terrible conditions at home are a primary impetus. Nor will Trump's wall make a difference. Geographical realities dictate that more barriers will not stop migrants from setting foot on US soil, and besides, they are largely turning themselves in to apply for asylum in any case. Loading In this context, it's absurd for Mulvaney to be pointing to the latest migrations as vindication for claims of a national emergency to build the wall. Precisely the opposite is true: The migrations underscore the utter failure of the very worldview that imagines this to be a "solution". Will Bunch argues provocatively in Philadelphia's Inquirer that Trump might not even mind failing here: More chaos at the border, leading to more cruel imagery (such as migrants penned under an El Paso bridge) and ever more cruel responses, will galvanisethe base into 2020. It's a measure of how low we've sunk that this cannot be dismissed out of hand: Remember, Trump reportedly claimed of family separations that "my people love it". But all the cruelty and failure caused a massive backlash in 2018, helping cost Republicans the House. And it looks as if the border is going to get worse before it gets better - a lot worse, now that Trump appears determined to make it so. Greg Sargent is a Washington Post columnist. Washington Post Most Viewed in World Loading https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/mick-mulvaney-s-latest-effort-to-whitewash-trump-s-failures-is-a-joke-20190402-p519sr.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed

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