#why are hte numbers so small

[cutekittenlady]

Tumblr Plays Pokemon White 2 - Part 3

Picking up where we left off, I decide to do some last minute exploring around Aspertia City and managed to get an ultra ball! I think its only available from an npc in one of the houses after you beat the gym. Still happy I chose to explore. An ultra ball is a pretty good item this early in the game.

Heading towards Virbank from Aspertia I KO a few wild pokemon on the way. Once on my way out of Floccesy town Bianca catches up. Turns out she wants to update our pokedex to add a habitat feature which helps figure out which pokemon are in an area.

She also tells us about rustling grass which is one of hte only ways to get certain pokemon in this game. I will likely be including such pokemon in the polls in the future.

Once we get onto route 20 a hiker is blocking our path and wont let us through without a gym badge. When we show him we have one he immediately starts a battle.

He starts with a riolu and I send out aries. Riolu hits with a quick attack while I have Aries use cotton spore to slow it down. I then use thunderwave to paralyze the little tyke. Riolu used foresight making Aries easier to hit and followed up with endure. Aries used thundershcok to deal some damage but while it does decent damage its not enough to get into the red. Riolu hits with another quick attack and I have Aries use thundershock again. This gets riolu in the red. I try to finish him off with tackle but he uses endure before I can, letting him hang on by 1 hp. Paralysis keeps riolu from counterattacking though so Aries next tackle takes him out.

After that I head down the stairs and run into Hugh and Cheren again. Cheren tells us about the dark grass where you can sometimes face 2 pokemon instead of just 1 and they can be stronger than regular pokemon. He then gives us some Pecha berries and takes off.

I decide to have Aries beat up a small childs psyduck for exp. I mean, there IS going to be another gym coming up. With that concious clearing thought I beat up a little girls lillipup.

This is pokemon. You gotta harden your heart a little XD

After beating up several little childrens pets Bentley winds up at level 15 and Aries at level 13. On our way through the gate to Virbank the desk lady stops me, judges me by the number of pokemon I have and gives me some great balls.

RUDE

I mean I'm not saying no to free stuff but still

RUDE

Not two steps into Virbank and our mom calls. UUUUUGH I'm only one town over MOM. I even have a murder bean and an electricfied wool blanket to keep me safe! LET ME LIVE MY LIFE.

Good thing we hung up on ma when we did or else we wouldn't get to see this juicy drama unfold.

This guy wants to be both a ship captain AND movie star!

Yeah home boy dream BIG

But his... daughter? tells him how hes already a captain with, like, responsibilities and stuff and how if he doesnt move his ship stuff will go bad. But daddy-boy has a good comeback. evidently his daughter is the gym leader but also a member of a band. If she can do it why can't he? He then swaggers off like a BOSS

ROXIE! That is no way to speak to your father!

Maybe I should go to the gym and teach her a leson about respecting her elders.... later. I gotta heal up the team at the pokecenter. Plus, honestly? This is the first town I've been to on my own. Imma EXPLORING.

And with that I do things like talk to strangers, find "antidotes" in trash cans, be given burn medicine, pokeballs by complete strangers, etc.

I'm also going to go play in a construction zone and (checks polls) try and catch a growlithe! This is also the first area where shaking grass becomes available which means Audino is now available for grin training which is going to come in handy down the line. At the moment though I really don't want to over level my team so I think I may try prioitizing catching a growlithe over trainer battles for as long as I can. Although I am going to opt to hunt for a growlithe in the dark grass to both increases my chances for an encounter, as well as increase my chances for a higher level growlithe.

Not only do I eventually successfully encounter a growlithe, but the very start of the fight lets me see that it has the Intimidate ability which is arguably one of the great core abilities of the game.

I have Bentley at the front of the party so he is sent out first but I pretty quickly swap into Aries to paralyze Growlithe. Plus this Growlithe is level 14 so using Aries, who is one level under it, might be the better call. It helps that fire types take neutral damage to electric as well. Although the fact htat its raining in gme may change that a bit. After two thundershocks and taking a couple of embers Aries successfully gets Growlithe into the yellow. Not wanting to repeat Bentleys murder spree from earlier, and wanting a new team member of the poison type gym, I opt to go ahead and try throwing a great ball. (I'd like to save the ultra ball I got in Aspertia for later potential catches).

And with that our little lady Growlithe is caught!

In a bit of selfish irl insertment I've opted to name this little spitfire after my families elderly dog. (I'm not the first person to name one of their pokemon after an irl pet and I wont be the last)

Course after giving it such a personal name I was relieved to see she had a Hardy nature and could fit into the team dynamic!

Welcome to the team Molly!

With Molly successfully caught, I can now safely construct and release the next set of catching polls! Once I have those posted up, I'm going to go ahead and play through the Virbank Complex more or less on my own so i can train up my team in preparation for Roxies gym battle!

For now though I'm going to end this post here and we'll be able to tackle Roxies gym battle, POkestar studios, and potentially the beginnings of Castelia City in the next part!

Thanks for reading and keep an eye out for those polls!

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

"And particularly relevant in today’s world, the fact that a small visible part of a workplace is less segregated - and only white men are hired in the rest of the workplace, that needs to be understood as a way of upholding segregation not of fighting it." First, are you saying that Harry is only hiring white men outside the "visible" part of the workplace? If so, then I think that's clearly untrue and a jump that makes your points seem less unbiased. Second, are you saying that Harry is

"worse" than Louis bc he's hiring minorities arguably in certain places but not others (which to me is not a foregone conclusion) rather than just sticking with white guys across the board? If so, could you explain more why you think that? I'm very genuinely interested.

*********

I do think that principle applies to Harry - I think him using non-discriminatory hiring practices for the band, while maintaining an almost entirely white male workforce, and even more so in positions of power - needs to be understood as a way upholding segregation not fighting it. That was the main point I was making in that sentence, so I was talking in broad principles.

If I was going to describe what I think we do know I'd say this: Harry uses non-discriminatory hiring practices for his band, he almost exclusively chooses white men for positions that get a cut and have real power, and photos of his overall touring workforce show that his non-band employment practices discriminate against People of Colour and is gender segregation with white men taking almost all roles.

The first two parts of that are reasonably self explanatory. The non-discriminatory hiring practices for the band are self evident (as are that those are different hiring practices from any other part of hte crew). We know for a fact that in roles that are paid a cut and have real power (producers, writers and managers) Harry has only worked with two people who are not white men, and both in a limited way.

As I've said before, I don't think we can be sure of everyone's ethnicity or gender from a photograph - but we can generalise. So there's about 80 people in that touring photo of Harry I'd say about 15 were women and 8 were almost certainly not-white. There's about another 60 people who look like white men and most of them will be white men (I'm being deliberately fuzzy with the numbers to emphasise that while we can't be certain about individual people - if you see 10 people who look like white men most of them will be white men).

Harry's band is six people, 3 white women, two black men, and a white man. I know that at times he's also toured with other musicians, I don't know if they were in Brazil. But even if it's just the six - 1/3 of Harry's band is black and less than 10% of the rest of his touring party are.

When it comes to gender - one of the features of most gender-segregated workplaces is that there are some roles that are women's roles. In a touring party, that's administration, hair and make-up and food preparation and when most roles are taken by white men, those roles are almost always taken by white women. We know that the catering and make-up are done by women in Harry's crew. That leaves very little space for any women to be working in the roles that are dominated by white men.

A good comparison here is 1D, here's a photo of the same size touring party. There are about 14 women in 1D's touring party. We know that the 1D tour was an environment where women were sexually harassed and fired for sleeping with 1D members. So Harry hiring women at roughly the same rate (and with all the roles we know about outside the band - the same roles) as 1D, both suggests that that's about the number of roles that are traditionally done by women in that size of touring party, and is a sign of what a discriminatory employment environment he has created.

So the entirely accurate version of what you quoted would be: "Harry has hired almost entirely white men, outside of roles that are visible, or traditionally completed by women".

As to your second question - I don't think that and I've never said that. But I also completely reject the framing. I think it does real damage to ask 'but is this way to discriminate against people better than this way to discriminate against people?' I think there are lots of ways of discriminate against people and uphold segregated employment systems and I'm not going to rank them.

[im-the-punk-who]

20 Questions - Writer’s Edition

Tagged by @myrmidryad​ <3 <3 <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

40, which seems...low. lmao. but mostly because i never end up posting things i write LMAO

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

     96,197! which....is hilarious considering one of my eternal WIPS also jut hit 90k last week woops.

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

On AO3:

Black Sails (20)

Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019) (11)

Captain America (Movies) (5)

Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling (2)

Kingdom Hearts (Video Games) (1)

The Umbrella Academy (TV) (1)

Marvel Cinematic Universe (1)

On ff.net/LJ i had more Harry Potter stuff and i know there is still some Zim fanfic on my DA....

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Memories, Like Water, Can Be Tainted or Distilled; Sometimes Will Evaporate

is unfortunately always going to be first because it was written at the height of Stucky fandom and you just don’t recover from those sort of numbers xD

The Trouble With Jersey (Working title) - same deal. CapFam/Stucky fic at the height of CapFandom whoops

Between Breath and Love, I Choose Him - Okay I’m actually pretty happy this is number three because Black Sails fans are sluts and I love that journey for them <3 Also choking kink my beloved. <3

The Corner Booth - Drarry fic (antagonistic). what else is there to say.

Play, Boys - oh, abandoned WIP, my beloved. You deserved better but alas the hyperfixation wants what she wants.

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Ohhhhh god i don’t know. I know the angstiest ending I ever *planned* was for I Couldn't Get The Boy To Kill Me but I never posted the rest of that. Hmm, otherwise maybe the On Purpose series, which is a Black Sails post London series about Miranda and James so like. Angst angst angst angst.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Bold of you to assume I’ve written an ending to any of my fics. Okay well, Tying Rockets To Shoe Strings  is going to have a happy ending if it kills me. Most of my one shots end ...fairly happily....? I think....?

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I don’t only because if I don’t hyperfixate on something the brain simply Turns Off.

8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA almost exclusively. BUT I am very very into kink smut and D/s, A/B/O fic(although I don’t think I’ve ever posted any...) ot so much into the more vanilla smut - most of my explicit fics will have some level of light kink even if it’s just a little bit of choking play or like. Brat Michael.

9. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Oh god. You know how you go ‘I will do this when the Brain Returns From War’ ? Yeah. I do try to respond to comments but I’m....so bad at it. If I didn’t respond to your comment it’s not because I don’t appreciate it, it is that The Brain Turned That Function Off.

10. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

You know what I actually don’t think so which is weird but maybe I’m just not popular enough to receive that kind of attention. xD Although I have gotten plenty of hate on meta I’ve written so maybe that balances it out?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

God Bless if I have.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope <3

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I had co-written or started co-writing a couple things but they never got published for one reason or another. I would really love to, though!

14. What’s your all time favourite ship to write for?

I don’t think i could ever pick a favorite but honestly Axel/Roxas will always get me. But Malex is right now the favorite child.

15. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Did You Mean, All Of Them? I am notoriously so bad at long fics that I feel like this is All Of Them but the one I absolutely know I will never finish is Play, Boys (Umbrella Academy) and I Couldn't Get The Boy To Kill Me (Captain America)

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, I think? Also I think I’m pretty good at writing smut.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Finishing my goddamn fics, honestly. I also tend to be not great at keeping a consistent verb tense and...if I let myself go on an internal character monologue I *will* ramble for one thousand words without any physical indicators.

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I LOVE it, i love it i love it i love it, although same as Gin, because I’m not *reaaaally* fluent in anything but french and english i haven’t written much actual dialogue. Although in Doubting Thomas I play around with how the language barrier affects the communication and such by using other indicators other than typing out hte dialogue, which has been a really fun process. (Although none of that part is posted because.....see ‘weaknesses’ LMAO

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Neopets. I said what I said. (actually it was probably Sailor Moon or Tamora Pierce’s Protector of the Small series.)

20. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

God okay listen I love all my children equally but honestly Doubting Thomas   and Tying Rockets To Shoe Strings, the parts i’m working on right now are just REALLY GOOD okay i know i’m never probably going to post them but they’re SO GOOD. Posted, I am actually REALLY please with how Sound Garden turned out, and Sometimes A Family and Into The Blinding Sun both just HIT that found family vibe that sets me off. Special shoutout to Hand In Unloveable Hand   and Some Boys Do for being my own personal comfort fics <3

UHHH TAGGING???? YOU WANT ME TO TAG???? PEOPLE???? lmao @queer-crusader, @angrycowboy, @ladynox, @bydayornight, UHHHHH literally anyone in the black sails discord please i know none of your tumblr handles but I know you’re all fantastic writers. @haloud IDK EVERYONE?????

[anari3l]

Oh my god I saw your requests were open and bolted 👀 Haha Id love to request a thranduil imagine where his wives enemy (that no one including thranduil knew about) comes to Mirkwood in hopes to duel to the death with her? Thanks so much!!

Pairing: Thranduil x Reader

Words: 963

You smiled, relaxing into your husband’s embrace beneath the trees of your private garden. Wine had been flowing, and birds chirping overhead as you lounged about with your husband. Skirting duties was always so much fun, no matter how hard you had to convince Thranduil to leave the paperwork for another day. 

Nothing could ruin the relaxing afternoon in the garden.

Thranduil groaned, leaning back against the tree you sat under, wine glass raising to his lips as he glared at the guard who had appeared at the end of the flower lined walk. You sighed, rolling your eyes as you leaned against Thranduil’s shoulder.

“What is it?” Thranduil’s tone still held the light air from his laughter, but the icy overtones were still present. 

“There is a gentleman here to see you,” the guard started. 

“Can you not see I am terribly busy,” Thranduil started, only to be cut off by a short cough.

“Excuse me, my King,” the guard said, nodding graciously. “But I am afraid they are asking for the Queen.”

“What?” you sat up, looking over to the guard. “Who is this visitor? What does he want?”

***

The throne room was guarded by twice the number of usual guardsmen as you and Thranduil stepped in, striding up to your guest. The cavernous room was dimly lit with torches and candlelight, moonlight seeped through the ceiling of the cavern. 

“Who is this?” Thranduil’s voice boomed as he turned to look to the man kneeling on the floor before him. 

The man chuckled, shoulders jumping with the motion. “I am an old … acquaintance of your dear Queen’s.”

You turned, hands folded in front of you. “You must be more specific. We do not have time for trivial remarks.”

The man shifted, lifting himself to stand. The guards on either side stepped forward, but quickly retreated to the edges as Thranduil raised a hand. 

“You know who I am,” he smirked, looking straight at you.

Your stomach dropped as you looked on the man. A man you hadn’t seen in years. You had no idea how he had found you. For a moment, he stood there, staring at you with a triumphant smirk on his face. He looked anything but the soldier you had faced off against all those years ago, leaving him with an arrow in the shoulder and knee. 

His hair was long, but well kept, dirty from his travels. He wore polished steel armor beneath his ragged travel cloak, and the dirk and sword belt held in the guard’s hands proved he had come here on a mission.

“Take him to the dungeons,” you said after a lengthy silence. “The lowest one you can find.”

“No!” he fought against hte guards as they grabbed him, dragging him from the hall. “I came here for a challenge you owe! Face me you elven witch!”

“Strip of his armor, and all his clothing. Dress him in rags,” you ordered. 

***

“What in all that is good was that?!” Thranduil’s voice boomed through your quarters as he followed you into the room. 

You sighed, shoulders relaxing from the tense posture you had been holding since the throne room. You turned, shrugging your hands out in defense before continuing through the room to the large balcony. “I haven’t a clue, meleth,” you answered. “I thought he was dead.”

“A human man just walked into my kingdom and threatened my wife,” Thranduil started, reaching for your elbow to turn you to him. “Who is he to you?”

“No one you need concern yourself with,” you started, turning into his outstretched arm. “Years ago … I had the misfortune of running into a group of bandits on my way back here from Imladris. A small group, and they were quickly dispatched, but this man … He vowed to take revenge on me. Revenge on me for protecting myself and my family.”

“Have you seen him other than that?”

You nodded, turning away. “Each time, he ends the fight injured, just on the cusp of death. I leave him be. It is always on a lonely road on the plains.”

“Why have you never told me of this?” 

“Because you would have scoured all of Middle Earth for a human who dared threaten me.”

“You are right,” he responded with a curt nod. “But now he is here.”

“Here in the dungeons. I have spent years regretting leaving him alive, years always thinking he would show up on the road and I would be the one left to die. It is time this farcical rivalship comes to an end. He wished to trifle with the Queen of the Greenwood, let him.” You straightened your shoulders, meeting your husband’s icy glare. “I will fight him. Tomorrow. If he still stands, he will live out the rest of his life in a dungeon cell.”

***

The man was barely standing. His leg bled from the arrow he had taken early on in the fight, his left arm was held close to the side, blood trickling down his skin. He looked tired, pulling on every ounce of strenght he had left to come after you. 

You stood in your leather armor, short swords in hand, breathing heavily. He had been able to land one well placed cut on your side. The bow and arrow lay forgotten in the grass beside Thranduil’s feet. Thranduil himself stood, sword belt and full armor, looking the picture of intimidating. 

“I will not fight you any longer,” you spoke, voice even as you brushed hair out of your face. You turned, and as you did, the soldiers lining the ring drew their bows. “Take him back to his cell. Feed him once a day. Do not let those injuries fester. I am done with him.”

[popculturebuffet]

Porky Pig Black and White Birthday Special!

H-h-hello you happy people! And it’s time for my first birthday special for  Looney Tune! While I covered some with Tex’s birthday last week, this is the first of these specials i’ve done to cover one of their stars.. and it’s apporirate it starts with their first big one: Porky Pig! 

Yes for those of you who didn’t know, and until a few months ago that included me turns out Porky wasn’t always a second banana who still had an iconic habit of closing out shorts with his signature “T-t-that’s all folks!’. He was Warner Bros first big star and mascot. Like Daffy would do in Porky’s own shorts he started out  as a sidekick in shorts for Beans the Cat

No one Brak, that’s why eventually Beans, who was a diet Mickey outside of his first short, which we’ll get to in a moment, got the boot while the stuttering adorable pig got the starring role instead. Porky was the studio’s big headliner for years and years.. but most wouldn’t know it. Outside of Porky in Wackyland, none of his shorts without Daffy or Sylvester really got a lot of play on Cartoon Network or other repackages, likely because most were black and white and for whatever reason they didn’t mix them in. But after seeing oh so many in the menu for Looney Tunes on max I was super curious, and thus super excited for this day to come so I could take a look and see how they held up, holding off watching them so they’d be fresh. And outside of three shorts: his first appearance, one suggested by my friend Blah and one picked by my Patreon Emma, as one of the perks for my patreons is getting to pick a cartoon when I do one of these 10 cartoon specials, I just went with my gut, what sounded interesting or what have you, avoidnig the ones where he was Daffy’s sidekick and what not to focus soley on porky hamself to see how he stacked up alone. 

How’d it turn out? Well join me after the cut for a nice pile of ham, bacon, sausage and other pork products as we dig into everyone’s favorite pig. Well almost everyone I have my own favorites. 

Yes yes you are sweetie. Reviews of 10 Porky Shorts, all but one in black and white, under the cut.  Trigger warning: One of these shorts involves attempted suicide Yes really. So if that’s a trigger for you, please avoid this review entirely or if you want to just avoid that specific entry, the one on Porky’s romance. Thank you. 

1. I Haven’t Got A Hat (1935): Bope A Dope A Dope Dope

As I mentioned Pre-Porky, Warner didn’t have a star to compete with Disney, and given Disney was so character based, and a lot of these shorts were coming out at the same time Disney was spinning Donald off into his own series giving them TWO huge stars, it was clear Warner needed at least one to complete. So they came up with a plan: a knock off of Our Gang, aka what would later be dubbed The Little Rascals, starring a bunch of animal kids to see if one or all caught on. As you can tell one did but as the intro made clear it took them a few shorts to realize it. 

The short is about a school recital to raise money for the teachers, just in case you thought them being underpayed was a new thing. So it’s really an excuse for four diffrent segments of hyjinks following a diffrent kid or kids each. Our first is the reason this one is here, porky’s introductoin where he stutters, and struggles throught he midnight ride of paul revere. It’s alright mostly do to his animated actions like the above seen simulating hi mriding his horse. Not bad but like a lot of Porky jokes it relies on his stutter which wasn’t funny to me as a kid or now as an adult, and comes off pretty inesnitive in hindsight, especially as the stutter was a medical condition of his voice actor that forced him to retire and be replaced by Mel Blanc after “Porky’s Romance”, which we’ll get to.

The other three bits are likewise decent: Kitty, a small cat, nervously makes her way through mary had a little lamb next, whic is fine enough. My faviorite is after here, Ham and Ecks, two puppies performing the title number, which is mostly funny because they sing like normal kidddies.. except after saying the title name with Ecks suddenly going in very low. it’s not bad. 

Finally we have Beans and Oliver Owl. Beans wants to get back at Oliver for not sharing Candy so he puts a dog and cat in his piano. It’s colossal, it’ stupendous.. it’s mediocre! As is the whole short, not bad bits, but only the title track is super memorable. It is easy to see why Porky stuck out the most though with his stutter and neat design. As mentioned it would take warner a few shorts to realize his appeal but once he did he was off to the raises and the next three shorts are all from the very next year. 

2. The Blow Out (1936): Insert Silly Jig Music Here

This one is simple but it works: A mad bomber, what bombs in broad daylight, is setting up time bombs and being hammy. Meanwhile Porky, whose still a kid in this one, wants a big old soda float and only has half the money, but after helping a guy pick up his cane on relflex, starts helping people pick up their items. You can see where this is going and the climax is damn fun as you’d expect from Tex Avery. The runner of Porky doing a silly little dance with a catchy musical sting as he trops the pennies he gets in his pocket is also pretty neat. Not the best he’s done, given I did a whole birthday special last week he’d get much better, but still some fun silly stuff. 

3. Plane Dippy (1936): Spin It! Even better, with a simple premise: Porky joins the army, we get some hyjinks as he does the tests and then he’s assigned to dust a remote plane that Kitty ends up accidently directing when talking to her dog. There’s some really fun screwball stuff here, though the ending is a bit weak, everything else is pretty strong. The pattern for the last three holds: not the best thing i’ve seen from Disney, Warner or MGM, but pretty neat. 

4. Porky In The North Woods (1936): Turtle Paddlin

This one’s a disney style picture as Porky sets up an animal refuge, only for an egotistical hunter to outright ignore his signs and presumed legal right and set up traps then try and kill Porky for daring to. undo his traps.. in an area outright labeled as an animal sanctuary. I’d say just hunt somewhere else but as the modern republican party has proven Stubborn assholes afraid of change won’t just go away or obey the law. The animals return Porky’s kindness by kicking hte guys ass, the best bit being some turtles grabbing some paddles and giving him what for, to the point I screencapped that bit specically.

But other than the Climax it’s just alright, but the hammy villian does help elevate this one. 

5. Porky’s Romance: I made a Huge Mistake

This one was one I picked out I knew wasn’t on Max but curious about Petunia’s first apperance, I added it to the rotation anyway. 

I’m not sugarcoating it because this short dosen’t deserve it: This is the worst of the shorts i’m covering here today. It is pure awful distlend into 7 LONG minutes. 

As some of you may recall, back when I did my first shortravaganza for Donald Ducks birthdy, I reviewed Donald’s Diary, the last Daisy short and one with some pretty cute Donsy stuff but ends with him reconsidering proposal like a jackass because he asasumes marriage will be terrible and she’ll turn abusive and “GASP” make him do chores like a responsible partner. It’s one half a good short, and one half a really bad short. 

You want to see the truly terrible version of that done years earlier, on less of a budget and only satisfying at hte very end? No. Well I didn’t either but that’s what I got. The short starts okay, with a bit introducing Petunia in am eta way. But the short itself after that little meta bit?

The short has Porky lovingly picking out choclates and a ring for Petunia. Petunia in this short.. is a horrible monster who dismisses him out of hand and only lets him court her to get his choclate, her dog barks at him trying to get some, so their all assholes, and she outright laughs at his proposal. 

It’s here where I needed a trigger warning, as Porky tries to kill himself over it. So we have a woman using a prospective partner for finacials and her real intentions driving him to suicide. I.. why would you put this in here. How is this funny? or entertaining? Or anything I want to watch in a looney tune? I don’t want to watch Porky get depressed and try and hang himself. No one wants that and if you do, please get some help. 

He hten has a dream, hence the comparison, of an awful wedded life with Petunia where he does everything, and she GASPS puts on weight.. even though...

He wakes up, finds Petunia likes him now but leaves, takes the choclates and kicks the dog. Haha he’s sitll not a good person. 

As you can tell, this short is throughly miserable. It’s not funny, it’s not tearjerking, it uses sucicide for some reason and takes a dark tone, and is VERY sexist saying “Well women be like this you know” it feels like. It also makes VERY light of domestic abuse, and while that was the style at the time it dosen’t make it any better. Tackling either suicide or domestic abuse is fine, their very important issues.. but don’t put them in your looney tune, for god’s sake. I do not get the tone they were going for but I hate it. I HATE THIS ONE. Do not watch it it bad. Let’s please move on. 

6. Porky’s Garden (1937): It’s A Me! An Itallian Sterotype!

My good friend Emma, whose now one of my patreons, picked this one mostly because it popped up on youtube when she did a youtube search. ironically she herself is itallian and i’m 100% convinced she had no idea what this cartoon contained: Porky versus an itallian sterotype for a county fair prize. Now is this the worst thing Looney Tunes has done? Nope the censored eleven exist, Porky’s Romance exists and Loontics unleashed exists, so i’ts not the worst but it’s still just very cringe inducing that the only joke the guy has is “laugh at the evil foreigners funny accent” It’s not very good, not worht your time, and has weird popeye joke for some reason. 

7. The Case of the Stuttering Pig (1937): The Creampuff in the Third Row This one could’ve been done for Halloween, as Porky deals with a lawyer turned into a monster stalking him and Petunia.. whose possibly his sister here which somehow makes Porky’s romance even worse but given the unviersal adaptor cast of the looney tunes, i’m assuming it wasn’t. That short is horrible enough own without that little chesnut. The short is dripping with atmosphere but on the whole is just okay, though the runner about the villain insulting a guy in row three only for that guy to get even at the end and save the pigs is pretty great not going to lie. 

8. What Price, Porky? (1938): Daffy!

I purposefully chose not to have as little of other looney tunes as possible, in order to make this Porky’s day. As you can tell for the most part that’s been a mistake but even the one with Daffy is just okay, but at least has a creative premise. Porky is a farmer, a surprisingly common theme, and some local ducks are stealing his Chicken’s corn. So while he tries to ask them nicely not to, the general, played by daffy, attacks. Sadly he’s barely in it but we do get some neat gags and it’s far more of a ride than the last few. The ending is bad, the ducks win despite being the antagonists, but still pretty fun. Thankfully we’ll be getting more Daffy in April. 

9. Porky’s Hare Hunt: Halfway To Bugs

As you can tell this day ended up being kind of a disapointment: Porky just isn’t the most intresting leading man and ended up working better as a straight man.  I still genuinely love the character, but it’s clear there was only so much you could do with him in the lead and by the end here, he was either being sidelined so Chuck Jones could do something else like the last one or made the foil to someone goofier often daffy but our last two, and today’s two best, this one being secon dbest, prove whyt hey’ve stuck to that since. 

This one has him hunting a Rabbit whose a bit nuts and utterly delightful, a prottype for bugs.. and for woody woodpecker, whose va he shared, and Screwball Squirreel. THANKS...FOR...THAT... but unlike screwy, this rabbit at least is being hunted, so we get a fun breezy short with some goofy antics and a loveable protgangsit going up against Porky as the antagonist. Good stuff. 

10. Porky in Wackyland: Ending on a High

As I said this ended up being kind of a slog. I wanted to honor Porky by showing his solo career and instead found it dated with a few good shorts.. but only a few really held a candle to the disney stuff going on at the time or the warner stuff to come later like Porky’s Hare Hunt and the Blow Out. Otherwise it’s pretty standard outside of the previous entry.. and there’s only one true masterpiece. This one. Porky in Wackland. 

Porky in Wackland is just Bob Clampett going nuts for 7 minutes and it’s glorious to watch. Porky is hutning for the last Dodo and ends up in the utterly deranged and wonderous wacky land. The only bit that does not work in this entire 7 minute orgy of weirdness is a refrence to the jazz singer with a creature screaming mammy that’s a slight caracture of a black person. I’ve seen much worse but i’ts still eesh. But unlike some shorts, that dosen’t slow it down for long and it’s almost etnirely just fun, utterly batshit stuff and a great chase with the dodo himself at the end and one hell of a warner brothers logo gag. Check this one out, it’s admired for a reason. Tremendous stuff. Should be on max with.. that bit.. edited out. 

So that was a look into Porky’s solo career and yeah, I can see why he’s better as a straight man. I still love the guy though and he has lasted as long as his brothers while others from this time were forgotten> He’s still a good character.. he’s just better paired with Daffy or someone else, part of a team. As a solo act.. he’s just okay but as part of a group.. he’s sensational. 

If you liked this review, reblog it, follow me for more and join my patreon. Until then...

[dicecast]

Blast to the Past: Why do people like Baldur’s Gate II

What did it Bring to the Table

If Baldur’s Gate is the first modern CRPG, Baldur’s Gate II is the first Bioware game.  Bioware gets a reputation for formulaic story writing, but if you look at BG, that doesn’t really prove to be the case.  BG II is where the Bioware Formula and story eccentric role-playing really take off.  Some of the new additions include

1) Romance story-lines with companions, something which would eventually become one of Bioware’s main selling points, BG II was the first RPG to have full romance lines, though they are really wonky compared to the current iteration 

2) Stronghold quests.  BGII introduces the idea of you getting a special location that you can fix up, run, and do various quests for, it all starts here

3) Companion quests, which you do for them and improve your relationship with them

4) Multiple Endings.  BG doesn’t really have variable endings, while BGII does, which reflect your play style

5) Companion banter.  Technically Baldur’s Gate had banter, but it was very occasionally and had no follow through, in BG II you have actual companion relationships growing over time

6) A steady act based plot, with actual story events changing the events of hte world 

Ok so that is what it brings to the table, so what makes BGII unique 

1) Like BG 1 its grounded in the D&D universe which means mechanics as character, deeper lore, and confidence in its setting

2) If you like sidequests and hubworlds, this is your game.  BGII is absolutely packed with shit to do, and variety is the name of the game.  Not only does the game have more sidequests than you can possibly imagine, many of these sidequests have so much story in them they could easily be the plot of a whole game.  And they have variety.  I mean just in the first act you can

Investigate an order of Fallen paladin who have started their own vigilante/fight club

Deal with a cult of blind people who worship beholders and to defeat their leader you need to access a dead god and save it from the personified rage of its betrayed worshipers 

Find a place where animals and nature have gone crazy and challenge the head druid to a druid off to claim the circle

Negotiate a Peace between a bunch of monster races and the local town

Defeat  Child Murdering gnome serial killer and his party of flashed skin monsters

Clear out a inter planar sphere full of extraplanar creatures which appeared in the city

After seeing a group of actors get kidnapped for pissing off an extra planar patron, follow them to Caceri the Red Prison to free them

Battle a Lich who is living in the back room of a tavern

Clear out some battle pits in the rear of a tavern

Find a teddy bear for the ghost of a child 

Help a paldin fix his marriage issues 

And that is just off the top of my head

3) Takes full advantage of Dungeons and Dragons.  Most Games based on D&D use the standard fantasy monsters, not so BG.  You will encounter almost everything in the 2nd edition playbook from Drow, to Mindflayers to Gods to Jinn, if you want a game that will illustrate the sheer amount of options D&D has to offer, BGII is probably your best choice 

4) Stuff.  I don’t say this lightly, but BGII is a packed game. While the storyline is pretty good, it isn’t anything to write home about, what really impresses you about this game is just how much is in it.  not just tones of monsters and quests, but also a massive amount of magic items, cool locations to visit, a main quests which is impressively long and devolved, some really challenging fights, a large number of companions and just the sheer amount of stuff to do in this game is mind boggling.  

5) Epic play:  No other RPG in history makes you feel more epic than BGII, especially with the Throne of Bhaal expansion pack, again partly due to the grounding of the D&D universe.  You might be powerful in Dragon Age or Mass Effect, but because of the structure of those games, you are always fighting enemies roughly scaled to you.  In BG, you started out as humble as they come, and by the end of Throne of Bhaal you are level 40, in a universe which usually tops out at 20.  Two 1/2 absolutely epic massive games deliver an experience no other RPG comes close to in terms of feeling accomplish, because of how small you start and how long it takes to advance, and how incredibly difficult htis game is.  

6) The Party Structure.  Especially when you reach mid level play, you really can engage in the mechanical variety and complexity that D&D offers, which few other RPGs can do.  Coupled with the variety of enemies and location, if you like controlling a whole party, this is the game for you 

[starswornoaths]

Prompt 28: Attune

Serella hated conjury. To master it was to accept and feel all of nature surrounding you, of trusting it to give and take. She...she couldn’t. Not after it had taken everything from her and left nothing in exchange when she was but a child.

The stars, though...the stars had ever lit her path, and been a constant comfort. 

Or:

Hi I wrote how Serella became and AST.

Word count: 1,830

Even after all this time, Serella struggled to attune to nature.

It had been a prerequisite for her to become the Paladin she had always dreamed of being. Certainly, she had more than taken a shine to the sword and shield, but conjury? Taught to her by a padjal in the Twelveswood, of all the godsdamned places?

To attune to such a thing would be to trust the wood that robbed her of everything, once.

Every time she tried to under E-Sumi-Yan’s patient tutelage, all she could hear was the splintering of wooden planks, of panicked screams of villagers, practically feel her nose fill with the dust and dirt kicked up in the wake of the beasts that had charged her little village on the edge of the woods, on the order of the Twelveswood, all because they didn’t obey fast enough.

Unaware of her trauma, her mentor had pressed her, once, to push past her initial resistance. “The wood will let you in, child, you need only breathe—”

When she heard her father calling out for her, she screamed in agony.

Despite everything...she had managed to learn enough to pass by E-Sumi-Yan’s exacting standards. She half suspected it was done out of pity for her...after she had to explain why hearing the wood had been so traumatizing, he had taken a decidedly softer approach with her training. And though it had been far from perfect, it didn’t have to be in order for her to become what she had dreamed of. Perhaps he knew that, and settled for what she needed, rather than perfection.

The moment Serella had her Paladin soul crystal and Valiant armor, she celebrated by burning her conjurer’s gear and drinking as much as she could stomach.

And that had been that, or so she thought. Convinced that healing magic would never be within her realm of attainability, save for the Clemency blessing she had been taught, she instead focused on what other magic she might learn. Thaumaturgy and Arcane summoning were a bit easier to grasp, though she understood quickly that she would not be able to master either. So she mastered what she could of her training, and made that enough.

And she had been...mostly fine with that. It didn’t make her less acutely aware of her incredibly limited use in combat...but she didn’t work alone, so that was fine, surely? She had mastered the bow, was a Paladin head and shoulders above many in the ranks, and was learning how to properly be a pugilist. She was versatile...wasn’t she?

Then the losses mounted around her. The bodies piled up. And she became painfully, uncomfortably aware of how little she could do to mitigate that. 

After losing Haurchefant— and almost immediately after, losing Ysale and Estinien— finally the losses were too much. She needed a moment to breathe, even she could concede that, after how poorly she had handled herself afterward.

With the assurance that she was well enough to leave Ishgard under her own power (and a fervent, repeated promise to Aymeric to contact him if that changed,) she made for the Twelveswood. 

Bitter though the pill would be to swallow, surely she could force herself through the mental hurdle of losing everything and everyone she loved and just accept the wood as a necessary evil, right? If it meant she could protect people better, could heal people and save them from the things she let slip past her shield, surely just jumping into her past trauma feet first would be fine?

A pretty lie, but hey. If it kept her from losing more people— or at least, fewer people than if she continued to go without healing magic— then so be it.

“Unhand my grandfather!” Cried a voice from deeper in the wood, off the path.

Serella pulled on Ullr’s reigns and strained her hearing to pinpoint its source. Someone was in distress— the hows and whys could wait. Her own problems could wait. When a startled cry of pain carried to her, she found which direction it came from, and steered Ullr straight toward it.

Far enough into the thicket that they were not visible by the road, she at last spied them— there was a woman draped in starlight motif robes and long lilac hair trying to aid a lancer. Judging by his spear, he was of Gridania— though the knight guarding both of them wore distinctly Ishgardian chainmail. Intriguing, but it would have to wait; Serella quickly realized what was going on.

Dismounting and moving over toward the trio, she watched the group ahead of them warily. An old man in robes similar to that of the lilac haired woman was crouched before three people in bandit’s tunics, sneering down at them with weapons drawn.

“Ah, feisty. We’ll fetch a fine price for that one from the pleasure barge captains.” Drawled the Duskwight woman who led the group of ne’er do wells. 

“You won’t get any of them if I’ve a say in it.” Serella spoke up, her sword and shield drawn.

Though the robed woman looked startled, the knight Serella moved beside gave her a nod of acknowledgement. “Ah— the House Fortemps ward. Your help is welcome, Mistress Arcbane.”

Even as she gave him a nod, her eyes did not stray from those who held the woman’s grandfather captive. 

“Grab the old man. These wizard types carry on them all manner of begemmed baubles and golden trinkets.” Snarled the bandit leader, her eyes hawkish from behind her mask.

One of her three underlings seized the old man by his arm.

“Up, or I’ll toss you to the snakes!” He demanded, and the group watched in horror as they began to drag him away.

Serella’s mind reeled. Her bow was still in her saddlebag, to take the time to reach it and draw would spell death for the poor old man. She could toss her shield, but any follow up attack would be too slow to protect him. There was her thaumaturgy...but with only rudimentary spells, she wouldn’t exactly do much good. Every solution she could think of was too slow to guarantee the hostage would be safe.

Had she looked toward the captive, she might have noticed him toss a glimmering gem toward her before they began to haul him away.

“You want to see the old man again, you’ll leave us the girl. Try anything, and he’s dead.” The leader said, her eyes never straying from Serella’s, as if she had her figured out before Serella had even moved.

Knowing when she was beat, the Paladin grit her teeth but sheathed her blade. 

“Wait!” The lilac haired woman called, but they were already cresting the hill, out of sight. 

The trees shifted in the breeze, and a glimmer from within a small patch of grass caught Serella’s eye. As the poor woman grappled with her grandfather being kidnapped, Serella drew near to the faint golden glimmer. 

It was such a perfectly smoothed out stone that for a moment, Serella had mistaken it for a gem that had fallen out of its setting. The shine on it as she knelt down to inspect it, however, was unmistakable. 

A Soul Crystal.

“Was this your grandfa—?” Serella had begun to ask, as she had reached for the stone.

The moment her fingertips brushed the smooth surface, everything around her grew cloaked in darkness.

And...and it didn’t frighten her. Somehow, she knew, as surely as she knew herself, that it was nothing but the comfort of night that shrouded her eyes. She would find herself in the dark. The stars had always lit her path in such times, and they had never once led her astray.

Sure enough, little pinpricks of light, brilliant and beautiful, glittered like gems strewn about a wine dark sea. Some connected and formed constellations, but now...now she could see the image those stars formed. The expanse of the known and the unknown surrounded her in its comforting, cooling shadow. Familiar, but powerful, it thrummed through her and around her. It was as if she could see and understand everything in that instant, even if she could not process it. Rather than frighten her, it calmed her; the stars always showed her what she needed to see in the dark.

When she opened her eyes again, though everything was exactly as it was before she had picked up the stone...she understood on an intrinsic level that everything had changed, even if she couldn’t see it in the light of day. 

More aware of herself and her surroundings again, she realized she had stood up again, and turned toward the trio that had been left behind, her hand extended to offer the soul crystal to the robed woman. 

“Grandfather’s soul crystal…” She murmured as she drew near. “Why would he leave it here, surrendering any power he might have had to free himself from those bandits?” The hand she had reached out to take the crystal back paused. “Unless...you were the one he saw in this reading before we left hte Old World...but that was more than a moon ago! My grandfather scried from the cards that he would serve as the bridge for countless souls to be passed to another...might you be that other…?”

“I know nothing of these cards you speak of, but I can...I don’t know. It feels different.” Serella looked up. “Even with it being daylight out...I can see the stars.”

The woman gasped. 

“These men of the forests are careless. Tracking them will be no difficult feat. I shall follow and strike before they have time to regroup in numbers.” The knight spoke up.

The woman held her hand out to him as if to beseech him to be silent. 

“The stars have spoken.” She said, and somehow, Serella believed her, even if she couldn’t understand what they were saying. “They have laid their path not before you, but before the adventurer here.” She turned back to Serella. “You.”

“Serella.” The Paladin introduced herself.

“You. You must take the Soul of the Astrologian and place it near your heart.” She said, and her voice had lowered as if to give softer instruction. “Listen to the tales of those who walked before you, and know their jounreys as you do your own.”

“But what—”

“As for the tools you require and the knowledge needed to wield them, I, Leveva, shall see to those matters.” 

Leveva smiled then, encouragingly, and any trace of fear she had harbored before had vanished. 

Serella did as instructed, closed her eyes, and let her soul attune to the stars. She listened to the whispers of lives lived before her time, felt the wash of healing magic, starlight washing away the blood and the agony of those who needed succor. For the night is calm and quiet, ideal for restoration.

Somehow...it felt like homecoming again.

[smokeybrand]

Bad Manager

Story time. All this talk of Karens has got me reminiscing about my time in retail. Way back in the wild of my youth, before my chick and i really started getting heavy into out relationship and she mellowed me out, I was a manager at the most ghetto Gamestop in the greater Sacramento area. I actually got the job like i got most things back then; After an argument over Dragon Ball Z. That’s actually how i met my chick, and argument over DBZ, but i digress. I had a thirty minute debate with the assistant manager at the time and he immediately gave me an interview with the store manager. This is, of course, before i found out how sh*tty Gamestop corporate is in real life. In about a year, I worked my way up from seasonal part-time, all the way to Store Manager and i have a Karen story for each phase of my brief career.

Seasonal Part-Time: When you’re a part timer at the ‘Stop, you are basically house b*tch. They make you do the most mundane bullsh*t. Clean the bathrooms, take out the garbage, vacuum the stores, etc. B*tch sh*t. The most mundane task you have, though, is f*cking alphabetizing the goddamn game racks. I HATED that sh*t. it was tedious and f*cking stupid. Once, it took me my entire four hour shift just to properly arrange the PS2 rack. Sh*t was whack, son!

So i finish this sh*t early one day, probably about an hour and a half before i’m off, and this Karen comes in with her kid. He wants a PS2 game. Fine. This little asshole f*cks up the entire system because he can’t find his game. I kept telling the little sh*t that everything was in alphabetical order but he ain’t care. He’s an idiot. After about ten minutes of watching this bundle of cooties and Capri Sun ruin my hard work, i ask him if he knows what “Alphabetize” means and his mom blows up! She accuses me of being cruel and how i had no right to chastise her child and that she would have my job.Obviously, this dumb b*tch escalated the scenario and i had to get my manager. She actually demanded a free game because i asked if her kid understood the order of his ABCs.

Full-Time: Once you graduate to full-time, you get to be looked upon like you are a responsible individual and not house b*tch anymore. There’s usually new part-timers for that. I became third key, a person who’s basically management but gets no management pay, after the ASM who hired me, left. Everyone moved up a rank after that. I started getting opening shifts and sh*t. This is before i was disillusioned with work life and still applied myself for faceless conglomerate who see you as expendable numbers. Don’t worry, we’ll get there soon. Since i’m Third Key, i get opening shifts now. Still don’t do payroll or take corporate calls, but i do everything else management does. As such, thee  are days when it’s just me in the store. I’m the proxy manager because the two others above me make too much hourly and it’s cheaper for me to act as management instead of paying actual management.

It’s, like, six minutes before the store closes. My pat-timer is winding down their ABCing busy work because corporate decreed it so. I’m closing out one o the registers and setting the alarm on the safe to open because that sh*t takes, like, 30 minutes and my ass wants to go home ASAP. We are breezing, man, and about to be out this b*tch in record time. NOPE! Six minutes, man. I remember very distinctly because i glanced at the little clock on the register. Six minutes. This wild Karen rushes my door with her four goddamn crotch spawns six goddamn minutes before lock up! They destroy my store. My part-timer and eye can only watch in dismay. all that work. all that prep. all of it, mute. The f*cked up thing? This b*tch ain’t even buy nothing. We were located next to a Togos.She had the audacity to walk up and small talk at me about how they were waiting for their sandwiches to finish and just needed to kill time.

I tell her that we were closing and she told me, and i quote, “Not with me and my kids in the store.” 9 rolls around and  tell her we have to lock the doors and she’s like, “Go ahead.” I explain to her that i’m not legally allowed to lock up the store with customers on the premises. She looks me dead in the eyes and says, “ Well i guess you’re gonna get some OT tonight then, right?” I’ll never forget that sh*t. That was the first time i felt Retail Rage. I wanted to murder this b*tch. Straight up keelhaul this hoe and set her little monsters on fire. I maintained my composure and after about forty extra minutes, they left. I ended up finishing the close by myself because i had to sen the part-timer home. that’s ABCs, Shelving, closing registers, re-timing the safe, etc. I didn’t get ot of that store until about 11 pm. And had a morning shift at 7. All because a Karen turned my store into a waiting room/playground six minutes before close.

Assistant Manager: My Store Manager got into some sh*t with corporate and they fired him on straight BS. Probably time card fraud, i dunno. I do know he had been with the company for eleven years so f*ck em. I got bumped up to Second Key. Got a little it of a raise. Made schedules now, officially, even though i’d been doing that sh*t since i was Third Key. It’s fine. I can do refunds now and give discounts. I’m “The Manager” and, boy, do you hear about it!

Gamestop is about money. They never want to lose a sale. As such, we have a POS system that let’s you look up merchandise throughout the district. If we don’t have something, we can send you to another store that does. That’s how this story starts. I get a call from another store asking about a game. We have one copy left. They tell me to hold it because someone is coming to get it. Fine. Karen comes in a backpack full of trade-in to pay for this game and get a few extra credits for a birthday gift. Whatever. Back then, we had to test every game that came i. This b*tch had, like, 30. Fine. She also had an old, ratty, PS1. The rectangle ones. That was going to be an argument because she was only getting, like, four dollars for it. She kept gloating about how she got it at launch when she was young and what not. Motherf*cker was as old as Jesus. Also, it rattled. We found out later that was because there was dead roaches in it but that’s a story for another day.

I finish this ridiculous trade in; Tested all the games, made sure they read on both PS2 and PSOne. a few were too scratched to read so i had to run them through the disc cleaner and they ended up being viable after. I trade all of this sh*t in, and the b*tch gets upset when i tell her she’s walking out with less than a hundred in credit and even less than that in cash. She blows up on me, demands to see my manager. I tell her i am the manger, and she just starts going in. I immediately disengage and become visibly indifferent because, if i don’t, i would have beat that b*tch up in front of her children. Like, straight up curb stomp cunts and sh*t. She berates me for being an hourly employee and how she makes more than i do the entire year in a week and all this other sh*t. She just kept getting more and more upset at the fact that i was indifferent to her bullsh*t. B*tch even drops the n*gga wit hte hard “R” a few times, like i didn’t notice. I maintain through all of this racist disrespect. That ain’t what she expected and it definitely wasn’t the reaction she wanted. She demands the corporate number, takes all her games, leaves the Sony RoachMotel, and storms out. I get written up a week later for being an asshole to the customer. I literally just stood there while she turned bright red racist hulk, all over my person, but i’m in the wrong. Okay, Karen.

Bad Manager: My Senior ASM quits because Gamestop is on that bullsh*t so now i’m big man on campus. My DM is forced to promote me to acting Store Manager. Basically, i’m responsible for everything the actual manager does, but i don’t get paid what the manager i pad. It’s that Third Key bullsh*t but, you know, not. By now, it’s been about six months and i do not care. Full on disillusioned and well on my way to outright militant. That’s what Retail does to you. It slowly kills your joy and makes you hate people. I already hated people but this? This sh*t just effortlessly validated why. So it’s me and the other ASM in the store. I hire some regular to round out the staff an change literally everything about the store.

First thing to go was that whack ass dress code. I believe you do your best work when you’re comfortable so it had to go. The next thing i nixed was the ABCs. That sh*t was stupid and a waste of time. As long as the helves were neat, we were good. The next thing i did was spread the reserve and sh*t around. I held a meeting and everyone agreed that was best for the entire store. Numbers were met and no one straggled. Everyone got to keep their jobs and i didn’t have to cut hours. The last major change i instituted was letting staff play games, in store, during downtime. If everything was legit int the store and it was slow, go ahead, pop one of the used titles in a test station, and have a blast. I don’t care. Just don’t be a dick to customers because i don’t want to get hassled. I don’t want you to get hassled. No one wants t get hassled. The time that i was in charge of that store, our numbers were spectacular and we killed even the richest stores in the district. It’s dope how well a team works together when they have high morale ya dig.

One day, i get a call from my new Third key. He and his part timer, his wife at the time, were opening. I wasn’t scheduled to come in that day but he was hysterical. Apparently, this Karen didn’t like her trade in quote and called the f*cking cops. Sac PD was in my store, intimidating the sh*t out of my staff, all because this b*tch thought she deserved more than 20 dollar for her used Gamecube or some sh*t. I walk my ass all the way to work, on my day off, and diffuse the situation with the cops. I explain that prices are set by corporate and there was nothing we could do about the trade in value. I then ask way the f*ck they were even giving validity to this crazy b*tches allegations when she freely admits nothing of hers was actually stolen. Cops didn’t like my questioning their motives and hassled us for another thirty minutes but whatever. They left eventually. I left. The Karen left. The it came back.

This b*tch was in my store for a total of three f*cking hours, trying to sabotage every transaction throughout my Third Key’s shift. Eventually, he clocked out and left. His wife stayed for a few extra hours and this Karen b*tch took the opportunity to just assault her with insults. My part-timer maintained a strong facade. I was so proud of her, man. A lot of the sh*t said was very cruel personal attacks about my part timer’s heritage and status. She was a Ukranian refugee, came over to escape Russian aggression. Gorgeous chick, for real. Very funny. Very affable. Bluest eyes i’ve ever seen on a person. They were unnervingly clear and mad piercing. She was also dummy thicc. Like, she had that super stronk Snow Bunny charm. Let’s just say i made sure to schedule her for a full shift when the Madden and 2K reserves went live.

Anyway, the actual scheduled ASM just hid in the back room while this assault was occurring because he was weenie. Sweet kid, total puss. Karen was going in on how immigrants were the worst and that since she couldn’t understand my part timer’s accent she didn’t deserve to be in the country or have this job. She effectively called her a slut, several times, by insinuating she probably “F*ck your big black boss for this job.” My part timer endured for hours. When she took her break, she immediately called me in tears. She filled me in on the situation. I couldn’t make it back to my store fast enough, man. i blew up on this Karen. I called her out on her elitist bullsh*t, her classist ignorance, and the fact that we didn’t need her stupid f*cking business. I attacked her appearance. infantilized her entire lifestyle. I told her she was a depleted cum-dumpster jealous that my part timer was so vibrant with because her genuine shine reminded the Karen of everything you lost by being a suburban cliche. A middle class punchline. I banned her for being a toxic b*tch. She left my store in gross, sobbing, tears. No one f*cks with my crew like that. I got written up again.

The next day, i was on shift and the Karen bought her husband in to “speak” with me. Part timer and i opened and this big ass, corn-fed, white boy, walks in, bobbing his head around like a rooster. I’m half-sleep behind the register because insomnia, so i let my part timer do her thing. I’m over yonder, full Sith mode, Decepticon hoodie full cowl and bad attitude, wishing a motherf*cker would. And a motherf*cker did. This motherf*cker is right red, trying to assail my part timer, again, just like his wife did before.Speaking of Karen, she’s out front, pacing the entrance like a shark, expecting the fireworks her beau was supposed to bring. Not today, Satan. My part timer was standing her ground, using a lot of firm language, but this motherf*cker is big and i start seeing him using that size to intimidate.

I, immediately, physically step between dude and my part timer. He’s about three inches taller than i am so he presses my gangster. I pull back my hood, and tell him i’m the manager of the store but i can clock out and just be a n*gga in the street if he wanted the Smoke. He didn’t want the Smoke. I called him a b*tch to his face, his wife a cock-gobbling hoe, and his mother a slut. He still did not want the Smoke. He bailed. His wife started gassing on him for being a b*tch as they both shrunk away like the cowards they really were. Never saw either one after that. I didn’t get written up for that though. No f*cks given. Bad Manager life. Gang gang, n*gga.

[evilelitest2]

Mayor Pete Conspiracy Theories

So one of my frustrations with the left is that as much was we (rightfully) complain about fake news, conspiracy theories and misinformation that permeates the right, but we don’t ever seem to be like “hey, should we work to prevent ourselves from falling for the same tricks”.   So ok...lets talk about Mayor Pete and Iowa

Background and Context.  

Basically the US primary system starts with the Iowa caucus which is...too long and complicated to explain here but basically just imagine the most needlessly convoluted way to design a voting system and thats pretty much it.  Iowa doesn’t really matter in terms of delegates but because it goes first, so who ever “wins” Iowa is given a ton of free media attention and it ‘proves” that they are a real candidate who has a chance of winning.  In 2008, Obama winning Iowa was a real game changer.  

So in this race, the front-runner has been the conservative Democrat Joe Biden, who is competing with other centrists such as Bloomberg, Klobuchar and Mayor Pete, while the progressive “lane” is split between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.  The assumption was that Iowa was going to be won either by Sanders or Biden, with everybody else fighting for the 3-5 slots (except Bloomberg).  If Biden one Iowa, it would affirm him as a strong candidate and clear leader of the centrists, and if Sanders won it would show that the progressives had some real staying power.  Then two weird things happened.

Number One: The Shock 

Biden didn’t win Iowa.  He didn’t come in second in Iowa.  In fact, he came in fourth, getting about 15% of the vote.  The centrist who did best was in fact Pete Buttigieg basically tying with Bernie Sanders, each getting slightly over 26% of the vote.  Elizabeth Warren got 3rd with 18% of the vote.  This was on its own, a massive victory for the progressives.  Not only did Warren over-perform, the front runner was in 4th, and the centrist wing of the party was clearly going to split.  See Sanders likely can’t win the election unless he 

A) Unifies the Progressives

B) Convinces moderates to come to his side

C) The Centrists don’t unify

And while he might be able to do A and B on his own, but he has very little control over C.  If Pete drops out and Biden holds unto his base, then Biden might still win the primary.  But if Biden’s base is split between Pete and himself, suddenly Sanders (or Warren) has an opportunity to emerge victorious.  So its actually great for Sanders that Pete did well, because Pete is just strong enough to hurt Biden...but he can’t actually compete long term  See Pete’s Base is.....super white.  He has basically no Black Support, which is where Biden’s base is.  And you kinda need African American voters to win the primary.  Some are willing to listen to Sanders or Warren but not Pete because...his record on race isn’t great.  So Sanders not only is surging, but now his main opponent (Biden) is fighting Pete rather than him.  

So what is the conspiracy theory here? 

Number 2: The Fuck up

Iowa went...badly.  Basically the app which allowed each precinct to count the votes fucked up so for almost three fucking days we didn’t have any official info on who was winning?  And this is a massive display of incompetence and ineptitude on the party of the Iowa Democratic Party, which reflects badly on the DNC as a whole.  Counting the votes has proven to be a massive cluster fuck and in current “final count” it looks like Pete won Iowa by .1% over sanders, and thus won 2 delegates due to....a really absurd series of events it takes too long to get into.   

The fact that we couldn’t get the count for a few days did fuck over Sanders because it blunted the narrative of how well he was doing and downplayed the narrative of how badly Biden is doing.  

For the record, it really fucked over Elizabeth Warren, whose overperformance in Iowa was basically forgotten.  

Critically, before anybody new the results, Pete claimed victory, which prompted Sanders to also claim victory.  Now it turns out once the votes are counted it either looks like Pete was right, or Sanders was right by such a small margin that it is understandable that he thought he won.  Again, we are talking a .1% difference here.  

The Conspiracy 

So the logic of the conspiracy by some Sanders stans is this that Shadow, the company who made the app...

Wait I need to stop here, the company is literally called Shadow.  There is no fucking way that it is a conspiracy because they wouldn’t call themselves shadow.  The idea is that because Pete’s campaign had paid Shadow $42,500 for software rights and subscriptions in order to make it look like he won, with the help of the DNC.  

I keep seeing a lot of Sanders stans say that hte DNC is trying to screw Sanders over again by helping Pete, just like they did in 2016 with Clinton. 

This is....a bad take

Why this is stupid

So in 2016, it was a two person race between Sanders and Clinton, and Hillary was clearly the favorite of the DNC.  Here though....why the fuck would the DNC want to fuck over sanders...by helping Pete?  Wouldn’t the DNC want to help Biden, the guy who has an actual chance of winning the primary?  Helping Pete only helps Sanders, because it allows Pete to do well enough to weaken Biden in in the South, where he is much stronger.  Honestly this is basically a double victory for Sanders

Like if Warren fans were bitching about this, it would make sense.  Like it is still a conspiracy theory with no evidence, but at least Pete doing well has fucked Warren over, but Sanders fans like....two delegates aren’t going to matter, because Pete is by far the weaker foe than Biden.  

[maealbert]

The Liaison // Part 16

AU Characters: Team x OC A/N: we are back to ‘parts’ (for now). Master List The Liaison

tag list: @idkbutspencer @literallyprentissstwin @remember-me-forever-silent-angel @cynbx @tenaciousarcadeexpert @rawritsmolly @dontshootmespence @princesswagger15 @drspencerreider @illegalcerebral @marvelfanlife @rt8815 @punkpenguin2019 @extremeobsessions101

“Spencer!” Lucy calls from the apartment door. “Elizabeth just buzzed in! She’ll be up in a minute! Are you dressed yet? We’re going to be late for work!” Heading over to the kitchen island, she quickly writes a note for the maid and for Elizabeth. “Anca?” Lucy calls out. The maid steps out of the hall and quickly walks over to the island. “Ambassador Prentiss will be here any second. When she knocks on the door, I want you to open it and let her inside. Take her coat and bags and bring them to the guest room. Her coat gets hung up in the hall closet. Alright? Everything you need to know is written down right here. I left a note for Ambassador Prentiss. Spencer and I are leaving for work, we should be back by six, maybe later if we aren’t called out on a case. Please help yourself to any food that you want except what is labeled with Spencer’s name on it.” Pulling open a drawer, she pulls out a cell phone. “We know you don’t have a cell phone on you, so Spencer bought one for you. It’s just a standard cell phone with an hour worth of minutes on it each day. You may use this for emergencies or any questions you might have for me. My cell and office numbers are already in here and on speed dial. Number two for my cell and number three for my office. I always have my cell on me so majority of the time I’ll probably answer it--” Lucy was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Be sure to look through the peep hole and then open the door. Always address her as Ambassador Prentiss.” Lucy says leading Anca to the apartment door. “Just a minute!”

Anca walks over to the door and peers through the door. Opening the door, she stepped aside to let Elizabeth inside. “Good morning, Ambassador Prentiss.” Anca speaks. “May I take your things for you?”

“Thank you, Anca.” Anca nods her heads as she helps remove Elizabeth’s coat and takes her bags from her hands. “I see you brought over Anca from Romania.” Elizabeth says as she walks over to Lucy.

“Emily mentioned that her family’s been with you guys since Emily was little so I contacted Anca’s father.”

“Well good. I love her family. I remember when she was just a small girl. Comes from a good family.”

“Well good.” Lucy says smiling. “Then these next few days should be pretty easy for you two.”

“Okay, I’m ready.” Spencer says walking out of the hallway. “Hello, Ambassador Prentiss.”

“Hello Agent Reid. Pleasure seeing you again.” Elizabeth takes in a deep breath. “Well I see you two are heading off to work. Tell Emily i said hi and that I plan to invite her over for dinner.”

“I’ll mention it to her.” Lucy says as she picks up her bags. “I left my number for you on the counter, there’s plenty of food and Anca will show you to the guest room. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Will do, thank you again for letting me stay here.”

“Oh it’s not problem. It’s a lot cheaper than a hotel.” Lucy says winking at Elizabeth before following Spencer out of the apartment.

“So why didn’t Emily offer up her guest room?” Spencer says as he turns onto the highway.

“You know what they’re relationship is like. One night with Elizabeth at Emily’s apartment, it will be hell for Emily.”

“But I thought they were getting better.”

“It’s a working progress, like my mother and myself.” Lucy says as she rests her head against the headrest of the seat.

“But your mother is like my mother. In due time, she isn’t going to know what happened between the two of you.”

Lucy looks at Spencer. She couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Is that how you see things? That one day our mothers aren’t going to remember who we are. That one day they won’t know who their grandchildren are? How could you say something like that?”

“Well it’s the truth,” Spencer says. “I’ve begun to come to terms with this whole thing.”

“Well I haven’t, Spencer! I finally got my mother back after almost thirty years and you have the nerve to say that?! She’s all I have left!”

“You have me!” Spencer exclaims. “I am the father of our child.”

“But that’s it? That’s all you are to me?” Lucy could see his knuckles turning white as he tightened his grip around the steering wheel. “If that’s all you say you are to me, than why are you with me?”

“We have a baby coming.”

“So that’s it? You’re just my baby daddy?”

The rest of the car ride to the office was silent. No words were exchanged. The radio wasn’t even turned on. As Spencer pulled the car into a parking space, Lucy got out grabbing her bag and throwing it over her shoulder. Keeping her eyes on the ground she quickly made her way into the building. Reaching the elevator, the doors closed and the elevator jolted as it began moving up the shaft. The doors opened on the sixth floor as a single tear slipped off her cheek and hitting the floor of the elevator. She quickly wiped her face and stepped out of the elevator. Heading down the hall to her office she was stopped by Garcia. Instantly her bright smile faded as she got a good look at Lucy.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” She asks.

“Hormones...” Lucy lied as she unlocked the door to her office.

“Luce..”

“I just want to be alone, Garcia..” Lucy says pushing open her office door. “Please.” She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. Dropping her bag beside her desk, she sat down in the chair with one hand resting on her stomach. Another tear slipped down her cheek. Sniffling she wipes it away and pulls a stack of cases close to her. A knock comes on her door and JJ peers her head in.

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

JJ clears her throat as she walks over to one of the chairs opposite of Lucy. “What’s going on?”

“What?” Lucy says furrowing her eyebrows.

“Lucy.. You don’t think you just push Garcia away without her saying anything?” Lucy sighs as she lowers her gaze to the top the desk. “And Spencer? He looks like he had a sit down with Cat again..” Lucy scoffs shaking her head. “Come on now, Luce. What’s going on?”

“I don’t want to talk about it..”

“Lucy.. You can’t keep things bottled up inside of you.”

“Did Will ever see you as just his baby mama?” Lucy says lifting her eyes to look at JJ. “Before he asked you to marry him? Did you think he just saw you as nothing more than that? Not his wife or his girlfriend, but just the mother of his child?”

“Is that what Spencer thinks?”

“He said I had him because he’s the father of my baby. He didn’t say he was my boyfriend o-or going to be my husband. All he said was that he was only the father of our child, nothing else.”

“Lucy, I’m sure he means more than that. He loves you. He’s head over heels in love with you.”

Lucy shakes her head. “He made it clear that he’s only with me because we have a baby coming...”

“He was with you before you got pregnant. He loved you before he got your pregnant. He loves you, Lucy. He loves you more than just being the mother of his unborn child.”

A knock comes on the door and Lucy looks around JJ to see Spencer standing in the doorway. Looking away she grits her teeth and grabs a file off of the desk. JJ leaves the office letting Spencer inside.

“Can we talk?” He asks sitting down where JJ last was.

“Talk about what? Custody situations when our daughter is born? Living situations?”

“Luce..” Spencer says laying his hand on top of hers. “I didn’t mean what I said in the car.. You know that..”

“I don’t know what you mean anymore...” Lucy says as she gets up from the desk and walks over to the filing cabinet.

“Lucy, please..”

“No Spencer... You said what you said... And you’re right... We never made plans for marriage, our mothers are slowly losing their memory... They eventually won’t know who we are or who they are. My daughter won’t grow up with grandparents...and your father doesn’t count. He walked out on you and your mother the second he got the chance. He most likely won’t want anything to do with his granddaughter, let alone his own son.” She turns to face Spencer, her eyes covered with tears. He walks over to her and wraps his arms around her. “I’m not leaving you and I’m not leaving our daughter.” He says kissing hte top of her head. “And I do want to marry you. I want to have a nice wedding with your brothers and our team. I want to bring this baby into this world knowing how loved she is and how much we love each other.” He wipes his thumb across her cheeks and kisses her.

“Ew okay, not at the workplace.” Spencer chuckles as he turns to face the doorway. “But I couldn’t help but overhear something about you two getting married.”

“Not yet Garcia.” Lucy says giggling.

“But someday.” Spencer says smiling down at her.

“So everything is good? Little dispute is over?”

“We’re good.” Lucy says.

The rest of the day was only paperwork. Nothing but paperwork. Leaving the copy room, Lucy skimmed through the papers as she put them in chronological order from the beginning of the case to the end of it. Coming across the written report from the police department, Lucy read what was written about Nathan. She could feel the cold metal of the gun on the back of her head. Standing there in the hallway, she was in her tracks.

“Luce..” A voice faintly spoke. “Lucy... Hey, Luce. Lucy!” She blinked her eyes several times as Luke’s face came into view. “Are you okay?”

“Hmmm? Yeah, uh..”

Luke looks down at the papers in her arms. He could see Nathan’s photo poking out from between the thin sheets of paper. “Sometimes I can’t shake the sight of a gun being held to your head..” He says. “He could’ve killed you and I wouldn’t have been able to stop him.”

“Hey, there you two are.” Rossi says as he walks up to Lucy and Luke. “Emily wants us in the briefing room.”

“I’ll meet you guys there. I have to take these back to my office.”

“I’ll let her know.” Luke says as he follows Rossi to the briefing room.

After putting the papers away in the file cabinet, Lucy leaves her office and heads to the briefing room to meet up with the others. Stepping into the room she sees Hotch standing on the other side of the room talking to Spencer. Probably giving him tips on parenthood. Hotch noticed Lucy standing in the doorway and a smile spread across his face. “Well look at you.” He says. “How are you doing?”

“Let’s just say that I miss sleeping on my stomach.” Lucy replies making Hotch chuckle. “So what brings you by?”

“Oh you know, just wanted to stop by and visit everyone.”

“Well it’s good to see you. How’s Jack?”

“Good, good. School’s going okay, he’s excited to be starting high school next year.”

“He better not hold his breath.” JJ says. “High school isn’t at all what it’s cracked up to be.”

Lucy’s phone began to ring in her pocket and she pulled it out to see Anca’s number flashing on the screen of her phone. Excusing herself from the room she answers the call. “Anca, how is it going?”

“Thank goodness you answered. I’ve been trying to call Emily but I guess she didn’t recognize the number.”

Anca’s voice sounded a little off. “Anca, is everything okay?”

“It’s Ambassador Prentiss. She was in an accident.”

“What?! When?!”

“Not too long ago, I presume. I just got to the hospital. She’s alive but in pretty bad shape.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll get Emily and we’ll be on our way. You stay there.” Lucy hangs up and rushes back to the briefing room. Her eyes locked with Emily’s.

“What happened?” Emily says as she heads over to Lucy.

“That was Anca... Your mother was in an accident. She says she’s alive but in really bad shape.”

Emily looks back at Hotch. “You go ahead. I’ll come check on you later.” He says giving her a small smile. Lucy grabbed hold of Emily arm and pulled her out of the room and to the elevators,

“Lucy!” Anca says as she runs up to Emily and Lucy in the front entrance of the hospital.

“Hey Anca, where is Elizabeth?”

“Right this way.” Anca says leading them down the hall through double doors to the ICU. “Right here..” She says stopping into front of her room.

Emily turns her eyes to look at Lucy. “I’m gonna take Anca to get some food. You let me know if you want me to bring you back anything.” Emily slowly nods her head as she walks into the room, closing the door behind her. Lucy turns to Anca. “Have you eaten yet?” Anca shakes her head. “Come on. I know hospital food isn’t always the best but it’ll have to do.”

“I’m not so used to American food quite yet.”

Lucy giggles. “It’ll take time.” She says leading Anca down the hall to the cafeteria.

Seriously a weird ending though.

Next part to come soon!

If you liked this part, than please be sure to leave it some love and feedback! :)

[the-firebird69]

i actually dont see our brand Zues Hera nope not there Thor Freya so we look now and ck and find it nowhere in big magazines and go to small ones all the damn day long Hera Zues and we ck and no.  so we look now to get it in as she suggested. and we see tons who like it want it..and we do it..and we sell our rta version and put it in as that...it is not a kit car and he can advertise he assembles them neglecting to say he builds them lol which workstoo as a starter. and i see it wow..good. and your new one will sell tons of the kits yes and tons are in asking now.  it is a huge crowd and friends. yes. and some arent so friendly but we do business. tons in.  huge lots. too.   we sell a complete line of products well we sell a line sebastian says.hge lots of cars and bikes and now lawn and garden machines and tons of them huge numbers and all are like the ones in the 80′s you assemble them and they have warrantees. it is nice work too they are quality.  as were the first few years....of the mags types.  huge losses no...yes we seel tons. and it is on we do this and get him th bike see where and it is impossible to talk to these idiots they are mean as hell.  we use it now on them.  we want out need it sebastian says.... huge inquireis aobout the race safety and procedure and cordon off monsters giants and more. and we agree it is for all..and now tons. a nd it is on they say we go htere and prep. it is enormous the response and from ours are we licensed to do that huge questions.  massive quesstions. and we hear this..we want him well now. and work. and tons do. and hear it all over nope and yes. your out then you louses fight nothing and nobody we win. and take them down we hire now and we want that too for you.   to seeyou do ok here at least... and we see she had an issue made and flooded an area a small one. they were dismayed eah and every one of them called said who and we want to know..now. and then this fake....and tons were grabbed and arrested for mocking you. tons. and all were morlock no.  half.  half macs yes mostly macs . and we see it now. they are insane.  fed it though lol.  and garth is in the middle  and fun. ok.  where he cannot be. and now macs  are dismayed why what is your plan say sim back to me..sym mac says and i tis chinese for sympatico no it is a chinese name. they know it too and yes are the chans. and he says ruined me but i have wealth have stock in it and such. ok. and your him one of hte owners and we sahre stuff and work and like before but not on such mockery lame project we both got an a for it lol. wei and caa did a project and they got an a. a copy company startup. and it was situated well and had a business look. both said. and were congradulated it did. after thier project two days after,  company moved in had a new name was copying and it was  Kinkos and to geet the kinks out...now this is it one of his companies yes. tons followed it and heard his suggestions, high speed only.  no customer copies here and more no.  he said you do that and out front and get business and be graciuos and nice tons saw it take off copied it lol ahaha.  and they wer efamous for it lol...tons said it too he is a son yuor copy.  i started laughing made my own company same buiding in china took thiers and named it Copy cops and he said yours and need to  yu shall see and i did an wow this is it helped.  tons. and fun too. hahaha lol. hwat aholes.  and wei is limited as you did with ghwb and in his coutnry like a prison and gets freer daily no has to elimninate all macs as most konw now. and mac says i ts on and says we copy it out lol nad nah we are the copy cops and haul  i t. ok similar only. hahaah bad jokes makes one ill and then your resusitation will fail...well. if bja tries it. ok we hit the Morlock now. wee do too and us. and we have success and wie says what time is the race....and we say tommorrow well he cahnges it to saturday and both starting to bring in at nine am. aand the drag is at 11. and reasonable....now hiring pit crew laides to wear the simi pit women outfits and yes the fun ones ok..your ladies and we do too and im china wei says we hire you qe and ok one of the two races...oh race traitor hahahaha wei laughs so do i and macs frown....like bruce lee when he saw the big black guy...hahaah me ahaha lol.  ok we do this and then..whoah ok. hold up ok and ok. and we do it too hire our ladies and for the pit crews... and tons sign up to be thre. tons. and all famous and huge crowds will arrive brad died. mac has it. the race is on and it is colorful the metaphors and epiteths lol wow and this is it we will have to we think  their pricing is outrageous styles and more not greaat and the tech is not good.  we see them fret.  ouch this blows. and wei ahs some decent ones so many ppl too much time to fix  and thenohhhh awww fly away butterfly no way man this is it and we see. and tons are at them and he sees it. and then this we are ready  fun ok always says it then nope and we see this is fun we invite car and driver and other mags and tv too. they are ready...and come over. head down plow in and calm calm it is on your invited no problems. and ok..and they are better..yes.  and then la times we sent our man to storm still opened yes.  and said is this the la times..and no.  walked out got in a lambo and was off and yes a diablo they called the cops.  thught it was you.  and they were interogated and yes downtown. for hours..tons say it wow..they were there for it..and why we know china. and wie saw and heard it. and over at la times.  we see you there a gun in your pocket.  he handed them the invite and said your cordially invited and they said we know..and a box of cigars for the editor in la. and then it is not our area...it isnt hand it back he gestured oonly and no no we tke it to him..ok thanks...and walked out almost they said hold  it we need you to see him..and  he held it back out and he said thank you and your name, he said Seth Asser and he smiled ok Seth thank you..and good day used his name and i read the article on jerry springer loved it...left happy and he called the cops to report a sighting of you....and was interrogated...for hours. and hey laughed the Diablo left... and a trick no Hera buckin for the job Zues

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g8514934/best-midsize-family-sedans/

[popculturebuffet]

Animaniacs: King Yakko Review (Comission by BlahDiddy)

Hello my beautiful technicolor rainbow! It’s time for Animaniacs, and while there is no balonga in my slacks there is one last christmas review for my friend to finish up, and after two visits to Acme Lab for the spinoff we’re finishing up with a look at Animaniacs proper.  Suprisingly for a show that stands so easily on it’s own it’s existance is entirely thanks to another show: Tiny Toon Adventures, which had largely the same staff, including ep and co-creator stephen speilberg and Todd Ruegger, who was brought aboard from A Pup Named Scooby Doo. Since TIny Toon was a colossal hit with tons of awards and merch, including some very good video games I wish Warner would find a way to re-release, I mean.. come on if disney can rerelease the disney afternoon games (If...not..for..switch), and LIon King and Aladdin games (If somehow FOR switch), then Warner, which has it’s own game stuido no less, can put together a collection of the good Tiny Toons games when the new show comes out soon. 

Point is it was a mass sucess and Warner Bros likes money, so they had Speilberg try to get Rutger to come up with another show for the two of them to do, something with name value. Rutger found his inpsiration when seeing the iconic warner water tower and taking some platypus characters, came up with our heroes and the rest is history.. well okay he retooled them from plataups’ to early looney tunes and other toons style characters minus the racisim of say bosko the tall ink kid but still, the rest after that is history. And the rest of this review is after the cut

The show was, and KINDA still is, a variety show: taking a page from looney tunes, as well as tex avery’s other work, the crew decided rather than just focus on the warners, to instead create a whole cast with various ensembles to work with so we got Pinky and the Brain, The Goodfeathers, Rita and Runt,  the Hip HIppos, Katie Kaboom, Chicken Boo, and my personal faviorite Slappy Squirrel.. and the bane of my existance, Buttons and Mindy.. or rather Mindy’s Mom. The kid did nothing wrong.  So naturally the first thing Animaniacs related I cover.. is an episode entirely breaking from format for one 20 something minute Warners cartoon. I do intend to do more animanics stuff in the future, so i’ll hopefully get a chance to talk about everyone, I just feel unlike with say house of mouse most people reading this probably know who they all are, and I can save any deep dives for if I cover the characters specifically. Spoilers: there’s probably never going to be a buttons and mindy deep dive unless someone tourtues me by paying for it. 

So with that out of the way, we can dive into the episode.. which I won’t be covering in my usual recap it point by point because the writers have freely admitted that’s not what Animaniacs is about. While some of i’ts SEGMENTS are more story based like Pinky and the Brain, Goodfeathers and Rita and Runt, most are just based on simple set ups to reams and reams of gags. And I love it. I grew up with this stuff not just Tiny Tunes and Animaniacs but the classic Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and Droopy shorts. 

Their well timed, well executed feats of comedy and most have aged pretty well.. emphasis on MOST. I’m keenly aware why there are several gaps in the shorts for both Tom and Jerry and The Looney Tunes on HBO Max, including all of the Pepe LePew and Speedy Gonzalez shorts. Also all of Droopy is missing. 

My grumblin aside though, it is VERY NICE to have all the classic Warner and Tom and Jerry shorts at my fingertips and it was one of the biggest selling points of Max for me. Last year I gained an intrest in the old disney theatrical shorts, hence my various birthday specials, so I BADLY wanted to revisit the theatrical shorts I grew up with. And honestly.. Max is the best way to do that: their in crisp hd, in neat season collections (Though the Looney Tunes one is better sorted, tom and jerry’s seasons are just.. random smatterings of shorts across various eras), and most importantly EVERY SHORT they felt comfortable with putting up there is on there. Every. Single. One.  I make a big deal about this because Disney.. has only maybe 30-40 of their hundreds of shorts on there. Now lucky for me the vast majority are still on youtube and I get why some really arne’t suitable.. we probably don’t need the donald duck short where he prepares to shoot a penguin in the face or the Goofy short where his own reflection, the goofy equilvent of tyler durden I guess?, keeps saying “Hey Fat” to him. And yes BOTH of these actually happened. But.. there’s MANY shorts with no clear excuse why their absent like the triplets first apperance, gus’ only apperance, and one a friend told me about.. that time mickey built a robot to box a gorillia. Again not making this up, just wondering why you can’t restore the rest of these for plus. They’ve ADDED shorts ocasionally, but it still dosen’t make a whole lot of sense to just.. not have them all up there. and to not put them in some sorta collection for easier consumption but hey it’s Disney. They either full ass things or half ass it. There is no middle ground.  Point is Warner.. actually cares about their heritage in shorts and honors it and thus has everything avaliable in the best quality, so tha’ts nice.

My point after that detour is I really love this kind of humor, and now as an adult I can see the effort the timing, pacing and character chemistry these shorts had takes. And Rugger and co.. they got it. They got it down perfect. And this episode is a great show of that and just how they barely updated this format for the 90′s. But as I said it’s more about the jokes and basic setup, our heroes are slotted into x scenario and just left to run wild. It’s been the basic seutp for looney tunes, tom and jerry and all the gag based greats, and it works perfectly here. Sure there’s some setting and continuity with the warner lot, scratch n sniff, ralph, plotz and in the reboot Rita, but it’s mostly just our heroes go up against “X asshole” and it just works. 

And that’s.. entirley what this episode is. The short is an homage to the graucho marx film Duck Soup, which given the warners were based on the marx brothers that isn’t a huge suprise, a film like brian’s song I have not seen, but genuinely want to. The basic setup is the same: An underqualified womanizer, though since htis is Yakko it dosen’t get past hitting on his chancelor, played by hello nurse, constantly, which is still.. ewwwww... but clearly not the same thing, becomes king of a small nation and ends up at war with another country. There were spies and other stuff in the original short but that was left out to streamline things.  But this homage stands on it’s own fine: The basic plot is this: Yakko, due to being a distant relative and the last one alive, becomes king of the small happy and very musical, as the wonderful opening number shows, country of Anvilania, which makes anvils and why yes there is one MASSIVE anvil gag as a result at the end. Yakko says he’ll try his best and geninely tries to with the shenanigans you’d expect, including Dot not gettnig Polka Dot’s are a thing and instead taknig any mention of it as a sign to polka, Yakko again hitting on his colleague and wanting ot get a new anthem because the current one by “Perry Coma’ puts people to sleep. Honeslty that gag didn’t do it for me: Partly because I genuinely know next to nothing about Como and he’s far past my generation.. and because despite this, SCTV did a MUCH better Perry Como gag over a decade before this episode that while still left me baffled as to why anyone cared about mocking him, was 80 times funnier and felt far less like you needed to know who he was to be funny. 

That being said it’s one of only three running gags, and jokes period that didn’t land for me. The other ones being the hello nurse bits, because it’s aged really badly to have Yakko harass one of his employees and his age is hte only thing that keeps it from scuttling the episode as he’s just 13 or 14. Maybe 15. 

So SO glad I now have that on hand whenever i need it. The other being the “Your highness” joke as it just.. dosen’t make much sense and isn’t very funny. But that’s it: a refrence i specfically don’t get and I doubt most of you will, and if you do fine we all have our frames of refrences, a joke that’s dated very poorly, and one that just.. didn’t land. And even then the Perry Coma thing’s third use to knock out the opposing army DID work for me as did the VERY clever joke of “Sire” “Maybe later”, so even the weaker bits still had some legs.  But getting back to what little plot there is the king of the rival country, upon hearing this, assumes he can easily intimidate a child into giving him the throne and goes to a royal reception. Instead, as you’d expect, the Warners mistake him for a party clown, show him no respect and fail to take his delcration of war seriously, and while in a REALLY great gag, and the reason i’m not doing a strict summary is 90% of the review would be me saying something to that effect, Yakkos’ call to action for his troops ends up having them all run off in fear, the Warners take out the army as noted above and then in one of the most GLORIOUS climaxes in the series history...

 In which the Warners give the bad guy “all the anvils” as he requested. I sadly coulnd’t find a clip of it but seek it out if you got hulu, my words can’t do it justice as they hit him with anvil after anvil in increasingly clever and insane ways till the guy finally gives up and it .. is glorious.  Other highlights not already mentioned include: The opening song, the bad guy dictator from the other nation not being able to hear because of his helmet and his attendee having to lift it, leading to Yakko taking off his helmet just to end the “what’ running gag, Yakko’s bit explaning his distant relation and more.  So yeah not a ton to say on this one. It’s a very good, very funny episode but also very typical of a warner cartoon in structure, just stretched over 22 or so minutes. As I said with few exceptions the jokes work, the anmation is crisp as always, and the climax is one of the series best. A crisp, quick watch and a nice quick review after a week of with some really tough ones behind me and ahead of me and a month of rather large ones a few weeks out. So yeah if you like animaniacs, even ifyou’ve seen this one worth a watch, if you have any more animaniacs you’d like me to take a look at feel free to comment or comission and until the next rainbow..

[nhajers]

#4 - Old Habits

FFXIV 30 Day Writing Challenge Prompt #4 - Self-editing

"RNGH!", came the unmistakably pained cry of a woman who had just hit the ground.

Pulling herself up so that she wasn't quite laying prone, Nhaji narrowed her eyes in a glare toward the object of frustrations, that thing that had thrown her to hte floor; a large, studily-built training dummy. 

The thing had been built so that, when struck, it would swing about to bring one of the wooden rods poking out from its base to bear against its assailant - A decision made with shield-work in mind. The intention was to have the trainee strike, bring her shield up to block the retaliation from the dummy, strike again, and repeat. It was a fairly simple pattern, and one that Nhaji had long since consigned to muscle memory. 

And that's why it was getting her. 

Blocking the first strike sent her way was an easy feat, though her reliance on that muscle memory, the immediate, unconscious response to bring her shield up to block the attack, left her legs exposed to the second bar that swung a moment afterwards, sweeping her out from under her feet.

Another sting of pain shooting up across one of her shins pulled her back from her moment of introspection. A tattooed hand was brought forward, stroking gingerly across the reddened flesh of her shin. That one'll be showing up as a bruise in the morning. Bruises were alright though: preferrable to the scars she'd receive if she didn't work off this trained response of hers, anyroad.

Picking herself back up from the ground, Nhaji squeezed at the grip of her blade: she hadn't dropped it, at least. That was good. A solid grip was always important, even -- no, especially when you're being struck. The untrained hand would flinch at the pain, open its fingers and disarm itself out of reflex, and it would all go downhill from there. No, she kept a strong grip on her sword.

That grip tightened, the Xaela lifting up her blade to strike at the dummy once again.

"Whatcha' think, Walnut?"

A large mixing spoon, wet with golden-brown batter, was extended toward the big-eyed, bushy-tailed ball of fluff that sat atop the corner of the kitchen counter. The little Nutkin's mouth opened up wide, wide enough to be visible past those gigantic buck-teeth of his, and he nibbled at the edge of that extended spoon a little. A wiggle of his tail and a quick little nod was his reply.

"Aye, reckoned so too. The extra bitta' cinnamon this time around gives it an extra' sorta'.. Somethin', ya'know? S'pose we won't find out 'ow it really is 'til they're baked.." Cleaning that mixing spoon off briefly in the sink, Nhaji took up that large bowl of batter and began to pour out globs of the stuff onto a wide, paper-lined tray. As she usually did, she took out that little metal brush of hers and began to shape those globs into the intricate little cards that they always were...

Before she stopped. A wrinkle of her nose and a glance back toward the Nutkin, reclined back against the upturned chopping board with his Walnut - the little creature's namesake - in his lap, and she would turn her gaze back to the half-finished card on the tray.

"Hrmpfh. Ah' can do better, make it a li'l more..."

Adding on another hearty glob of batter, Nhaji stuck her tongue out a little and allowed her tail to flicker about, coiling about her leg one moment and absent-mindedly dancing through the air the next. It could do what it wanted, she was dedicating her focus to this little bit of work...

...A small while later, Nhaji was pulling that selfsame tray out from the oven in Blue Sky's new kitchen. Another batch of the Xaela's ginger cookies, most of them shaped to look reminiscent of the leve cards that they were wont to deal in. A number of those cookies, however, were designed after something different. The chief among those deviances from her typical format was the image of a big-eyed, bushy-tailed little creature. Nhaji was no artist, but she reckoned that she captured Walnut's likeness with some amount of accuracy.

Transferring the cookies to a drying rack placed near the bar, Nhaji wiped a finger across her cheek to scoop up a small bit of batter that had landed across it, promptly sticking that digit between her lips and sucking it clean. Her brow knitted slightly, finger 'pop'ping out from her mouth afterwards so that she could look it over.

"..Nahh, too much cinnamon. Overpowers the ginger a little..."

[the0ther-side0f-dawn]

i would appreciate if my brain would stop focusing on death, and the loss of things from my life that were either A) good or B) had the potential to be good or C) had the facade of good.

Summer (2015/16) I graduated as Dux of my school, straight-As, and an OP1. Impressive. I'm not sure I am really intelligent, or that I worked hard enough to deserve it. I certainly believe that in that respect, the odds were in my favour.

last January (2016) my best friend, since i was 6 years old, stopped talking to me. I'm not even sure what happened. I know that she got caught out for some bad things which she did, yet somehow managed to divert hte blame away from herself, to an unknown "other" person. I'm thinking of contacting her but I don't know what to say. Before then things hadn't been good between us for a while, she made a new friend, and did some other bad things, and it was difficult for me to reconcile those actions with who I'd thought she was. But I miss having a best friend. I miss her.

August (2013) my dad did a really bad thing, which really hurt my sister. I tried to rationalise and forgive it, telling myself he was so drunk he didn;t know what he was doing. It was selfish of me to do so, because i should have just acknowledged he was a bad person, instead of desperately trying to hold onto the one person who made me a priority above all else.

October/November (2016) My cat Jojo died. he was 10 years old. he had been very sick for a while. we knew he was dying. I didn't find out he was dead until 3-4 weeks after he died. I found out my cat died on the same day my mum told me that: November (2016) my mum told me that my parents were divorcing. i didn't see it coming.

Summer (2016/17): i found out these things the day my mum picked me up to take me home for summer break. the proceeding week i had my 18th and my sister had her 14th. it was hectic. the week after i started a 6days 40+hrs per week job. I didn't get the opportunity to process my emotions.

February (2017) I moved back to college, and I decided I would no longer speak to my dad. i stopped reading his texts. I blocked his number.

The past few months: I have learned some truly awful things about my father. He has done a lot of bad things whilst drunk. He has also been using hard drugs for a long time. He also said some truly awful things. He didn't keep the secret of what he'd done. It wasn't his right to decide who knows. That right is my sister's and her's only. He said the most awful thing [to my mother] about what he'd done. It was the most fucked up thing anyone could possible ever say. He essentially said "Well, I could have done worse." It makes me sick thinking about it.

Recently: My cat, Jaspurr. Who is my cat. not a family cat. mine. has been missing for about 6 weeks. My mum thinks she is dead. mauled to death by dogs. the dogs behind our property have already been known to have mauled a cat and small dog. i don't want to think about this. I keep having dreams where I'm at home, and i see a black cat, and get really really excited. i then get closer and the cat is not Jaspurr. this nightmare happens almost every night in some form or another.

My cats are very dear to me, because well, for the most part, my family sucks.

Also, my mother, is a never ending torment. She doesn't love me. She loves some ideallic image of me she has in her head. An image i never live up to.

My grades: i am barely passing. it's impossible for me to get any better than straight 4s at this point. i hope i don't fail any courses. that would truly be the end of me.

ALso friends: why do i struggle to trust people and feel safe and comfortable around people? I'm starting to feel comfortable around one person, who i have known for about 3 or 4 years, but even still.

And on top of all these things, i am plagued by my anxiety and depression. my sleep is fucked up. some days i go 24 hours awake because i cannot sleep, other days, i struggle to stay awake for 10 hours.

and i worry that nothing is as bad as it seems, and that i choose to feel bad and have poor mental health, and all i have to do is wake up and decide to be normal, and i will be, and that perhaps all this is something i fake, because i crave attention and i am pathetic. i worry that i do all this, and exaggerate it, and make selfish decisions, because I am a monster.

and im not sure which is worse: the fact that everything around me appears to be awful or else i am an awful being.

NB: if after reading this you are concerned for my sister, know that all matters relating to my father, she has had the final say on, including legal matters. she has a strong support system.

[evilelitest2]

2020 is not 2016

The entire leftist conversation around Trump is overcorrection, honestly.  I”m seeing a lot of people who were totally confident that Trump would never win in 2016 doing the opposite in 2020 and this is super frustration, because its actually the same behavior just reversed.  In both instances, you aren’t actually looking at the factors on the ground, you are just sort of creating these myths of invisibility and hoping they work.  Trump winning in 2016 does not mean he is going to win in 2020, in fact he is significantly less likely to win now than he was earlier.  

    See in 2016, people were convinced that Hillary Clinton couldn't possibly lose, so much so that they didn’t really pay attention to the fundamentals of the election, namely that Hillary Clinton was an extremely unpopular candidate who ran an extremely poor campaign.  Those aren’t the only factors, Russia, Sexism, bad luck, the inherently corrupt nature of the electoral college all also played a role, but at the end of the day the most unpopular presidential candidate in history was up against the second most unpopular and so the results shouldn’t be too surprising.  

Because this is the most important thing to remember about 2016, is that despite hte email scandal, Clinton’s shocking ineptitude, her unpopularity, Comey’s last second fuck up, the electoral college, voter suppression, Russian interference, Third Party Cannidates, despite all of that

We barely lost 2016

I know it doesn’t feel like that looking back, I think most leftists are traumatized because of that night when we saw all of those states going against us, but if we look past CNN and at the specfics, we actually barely lost.  And by barely lost, i mean we won the popular vote by 3 million but apparently that doesn’t fucking count.  

Ok so this is what happened in 2016, and remember you need 270 electoral votes to win

And this is what happened in 2012

Now it is important to remember the way the Electoral college works is each state is worth a certain number of points, and who ever gets the majority of votes in the state gets all of the points. And this is critical, it doesn’t matter how large that margin is, if somebody wins a state by only a single vote they get all of the points in that state.  So the way you become president is to get all of the points a state is worth.  

So for example, in 2012 Obama won Florida, and in 2016 Trump won it. Now some of you might be thinking “Omg, Florida collectively must have switched sides radically” and the answer to that is no.  lets look at the numbers in 2012

Obama: 4,237,756 votes

Romney: 4,163,447

So basically 2012, about 8.3 million Floridians voted, but because 74 thousand more of them voted for Obama, Obama got all 29 of those electoral votes.  It was a very small margin of victory 

So even though Trump has 306 electoral wins to Clinton 232, that doesn’t actually mean he got a ton more voters it means that slightly more Republicans came out than democrats.  And one of the important factors of 2016 is that Democratic voter turnout was lower than 2012 or 2008, while Republican was at records high.  Likely beause most Republicans like Trump while many democrats didn’t like Clinton.  

So what changed in 2020 vs. 2016?  Well specifically it was 6 states 

Iowa (6 Electoral Votes)

Ohio (18 Electoral Votes) 

Florida (29 Electoral Votes) 

Wisconsin  (10 Electoral Votes) 

Michigan (16 Electoral Votes) 

Pennsylvanian (20 Electoral Votes) 

All of which went blue in 2012, and went Red in 2016, so why is that?  Well if you look at the numbers, in Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pensslyvania, Trump wins by less than a percent, in fact in several of those states he only wins by like 30 thousand votes.  And this is a year where Democratic voter Turnout is down, if we can improve Democrats performance by only a small margin, we win.  This is really important so I am going to say it again in Bold

In all of the important states in 2020, if Dems only slightly increase there turnout, we win.

In fact, if we vote in 2020 at the same rates we voted in 2018...we win easily.  Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvanian all went Blue in a major way during the Midterm so as long as we can keep that up, we win.  And this is assuming Democrats don’t make any other gains, but we actually have a very good chance of gaining Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Arizona, and to a lesser extent Ohio and Iowa.  

So what is different in 2020?  Well first, let me just assume for the sake of argument three things 

A) Almost everybody who voted Trump in 2016 will vote for Trump in 2020.  This is not actually a foolproof assumption, there are many people, mostly Farmers hurt by the tariffs or people who voted for him as a joke, or delusional people who don’t know what the term “independent” means who might leave him, but lets assume that Trump gets roughly the same numbers of voters in 2020 as he did in 2016, because he is very good at rallying his base.

B) Lets assume that Russia is also invested in helping him in 2020.  This also is not actually 100% guaranteed, Russia doesn’t necessarily have the same interests now that they did four years ago, but lets just be pessimistic and assume they continue to actively support Trump the same amount

C) Lets assume that Trump is able to raise as much or more money now than he did four years ago.  Again, not necessarily true especially with the NRA falling apart but lets just give that to him

D) He won’t have a primary challenger worth a damn

Even with all of that going for him, Democrats should be able to make this in 2020.  Because 

1) We aren’t all assuming Clinton is going to win anyways.  A lot of people stayed home in 2016 because we didnt’ take Trump seriously, now we are and voter turnout is going to increase in response

2) None of the serious 2020 Candidates are as unpopular as Clinton, in fact all of them have a net popularity.  Biden, Harris, Warren, Sanders, Mayor Pete, Gillibrand, Castro, all of the big names will do better than Clinton.  The only cannitates who might not are Gabbard and Williamson, neither of whom are likely to make it to the next debate let alone win.  And while some people reading this are going to be like “oh Fox news will destroy that’ Clinton had net unpopularity by this point in the 2016 election 

3) Voting against a hypothetical Trump is different than voting against the reality of Trump, democratic voter turnout is going to be far higher this year since defeating Trump is now the primary goal of the democratic party

4) there are more democrats now than in 2016, and less Republicans.  Since most of Trumps supporters are old, some of them have died in the last four years, while more young people have become eligible to vote.  Demographics aren’t destiny but they do help

5)We won’t have the fucking email scandal this time around.

Despite everything, we are far more likely to win in 2020 than we were in 2016, calm down.  You don’t need to vote for Biden just because you feel he can win, almost anybody we have can win.  

[sparots]

A-Z Tag Meme

Tagged by @kiznais (thank you <3)

A. - Age: 18 B. - Biggest fear(s): Being abandoned, walking alone in the dark C. - Current time: 11:51pm D. - Drink you last had: Water E. - Everyday starts with: any schoolday starts with slowly waking up, not leaving my bed for 30 minutes and then deciding I need breakfast before class F. - Favorite song: Bad News - Bastille G. - Ghosts, are they real: Yes and I still believe I have one in my own house (but I don’t believe any shows like ghost hunters) H. - Hometown: A small town in Friesland (not giving its name), but I’m in Leiden most of the time and officialy live there. But Friesland feels more like home I. - In love with: no one except for Spartos

J. - Jealous of: so many people for no good reasons

K. - Killed someone: Not what I know L. - Last time you cried: I cried a few days ago for no reason, but real crying was like 2 weeks ago when I realized I messed up for uni but today I found out I passed that class so yay :D M. - Middle name: Don’t have one N. - Number of siblings: One, my older brother O. - One wish: a nice job when I graduate? Being able to travel and meet friends? P. - Person I last called/texted: My mom because I had to know where she was waiting for me at the airport Q. - Question you’re always asked: online: How do you pronounce your name? irl: Why would you want to be an ancient history student?

R. - Reason to smile: My friend’s smile

S. - Song last sang: No idea, it was a song in hte car, don’t know which one T. - Time you woke up:  8AM U. - Underwear color: Black/blue/green V. - Vacation destination: I always wanted to go to Canada, but any trip through Europe makes me happy.  W. - Worst habit: I bite my nails a lot (I pretty much have no nails), I’m trying to stop, it won’t work X. - X-rays you’ve had: X-rays should be around 5, but I guess I can also add 3 MRI scans? (and that all for one stupid leg) Y. - Your favorite food: My mom Jambalaya, stampot and erwtensoep Z. - Zodiac: Taurus

Tagging: @kougs-ren @winu-bignsmall @symphoniclolita @bluelotusmagi @gay-magi