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tiffanys-aus-and-headcanons · 2 months

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Terrible Visions

A scrambled timeline is a timeline that has proceeded much like ours, except that some particular facet has been mixed up all over the place. For example, in the scrambled timeline we will consider today, our world's fictional stories have been told by different people, and in different ways.

Bryan Lee O'Malley, in this alternate timeline, is best known as the cartoonist responsible for Homestuck, a popular comic series about a group of children who become embroiled in a cosmic-scale video game known as Sburb. Although Homestuck is probably most often associated with the cult classic Edgar Wright-directed film adaptation released in 2016, the comics themselves are highly-regarded, and the film brought a new audience to them. Netflix has commissioned an animated continuation, The Homestuck Epilogues, which is due to be released soon.

Andrew Hussie, on the other hand, is a figure you're likelier to know if you're overly online. His "MS Paint Adventures" series - most notably including Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, which is kind of like Homestuck but weirder and hornier - have firmly remained a fixture of obsessive Twitter fandom culture. It doesn't help that the best-known iteration, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, is infamous for stretching thousands of pages of meandering digressions out of a simple and focused narrative starting point. Scott Pilgrim fans have developed something of a toxic reputation, which is not entirely deserved - although of course Knives discourse is interminable, and back in the fandom's heyday there were reportedly incidents of fans assaulting each other "for being evil exes".

Scott Pilgrim fandom was very big back in the day, though, and consequently it was a nexus for other creative figures who would go on to surpass Hussie. Perhaps foremost among these is indie developer Toby Fox. He was literally living in Hussie's basement when he produced ROSEQUARTZ, a universally-beloved retro Goonies-like RPG about a human hybrid boy born to a race of gem-based aliens. He's now developing an episodic spiritual successor, RAZORQUEST, with more overtly dark themes. It revolves around an inheritance dispute among a demon-summoning family.

Other foundational figures in this timeline's internet culture include Alison Bechdel, who helped get the webcomic scene started. Although she's now more seriously acclaimed for her personal memoirs, her gaming webcomic Press Start To Dyke, which premiered in 1998, was once everywhere. It had a broad appeal, and at its height, it was common to see even straight guys sharing pages from it. Time has not been especially kind to it, though, and at this point its main legacy is test.png, a meme spawned by one of the comic's most ill-advised pages.

Then there's John C. McCrae, more often known by his pseudonym Wildbow. A prolific and reclusive author of doorstopping "web serials" - long-form fiction published online - McCrae's best-known serial is still his first, Wind, a noir superhero story set in an alternate history where capes are mostly just a subculture of unpowered vigilantes. Wind landed in a culture already rife with comic book deconstructions, like Alan Moore's 2002 graphic novel Worm Turns, but it nonetheless managed to stand out from the pack with its extensive cast of characters and its themes of coordination problems and the end of the world. Later McCrae web serials include Part (the first "Otherverse" serial; an urban fantasy story about a couple who die in a car accident and find that they have become ghosts), Tear (a "biopunk" story set in a collapsing underwater city), Warn (the controversial Wind sequel), and Play (the second "Otherverse" serial, set in a small Indiana town that helps hide a psychic girl from the CIA).

Last and perhaps least, we should discuss J. K. Rowling. Far and away the most famous of any of these authors, Rowling's name is inseparable from the YA series that she debuted with, the Luz Noceda books, which remain her one successful work. Although it was heavily derivative of older fantasy novels - like Jill Murphy's Academy For Little Witches, or Philip Pullman's Methods Of Rationality trilogy - Luz Noceda was still a monumental and unprecedented success in the publishing industry, and the film adaptations were consistent blockbusters. The final book, Luz Noceda and the Watcher of Rain, contained some allusions to a romantic relationship between Luz and her recently-redeemed associate Amity. Rowling confirmed that this was her intent in subsequent interviews and indicated that she had fought her publishers for it; the film would then go on to escalate matters slightly further.

There have been many lengthy and heated online arguments as to whether the references in the book itself constitute text or mere subtext. Whatever your stance on this discourse, a new complication has been introduced recently: although she has put out no official statement on the matter as of yet, it has become quite apparent from Rowling's shrinking network of contacts and her conspicuous silences that she is certainly TERF-sympathetic, and likely an outright TERF herself. For many, this is leading to a critical reevaluation of the social values inherent in the Luz Noceda series; others, to say the least, are holding off on that kind of reappraisal.

Anyway, Scott Pilgrim just beat Luz Noceda in a Twitter poll for Most Gay Media, and people are piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissed

#the scrambled timeline

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upliftpro247 · 2 years

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drabblesandimagines · 5 months

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Elevation

Leon Kennedy x female reader More of my fluffy nonsense

Hunnigan slams the phone down into the cradle at the end of her call and if you hadn’t already been casting auspicious glances up at the scene before you, her actions would’ve made you jump.

“What is it, Leon?” Hunnigan’s tone is blunt.

It would be so easy to look up at the handsome DSO agent then. You’d be perfectly within your right to look up too, your desk opposite sat directly opposite Hunnigan’s so you had ring-side side seats to the commotion. It wouldn’t look odd - he’d be in your eyeline, after all - but you fight the temptation, keeping your eyes fixed on the paper in front of you, fingers tapping idly away over the keyboard as you transpose to the screen.

Exactly what you’ve been doing the past ten minutes that Leon Kennedy has been wandering around the office, dressed in a pair of form-fitting jeans today, his gun holster peeking out from underneath a beloved leather jacket, directing all attention to a certain pair of assets.

Not that you were keeping track of how long he’d been there, of course, you had work to do.

“Huh?” For someone who had apparently been waiting on her call finishing, Leon’s thoughts seems elsewhere.

“I said,” Hunnigan adjusts her tone, “can I help you with something?”

“Does there have to be something? Surely a guy can just come visit his favourite FOS agent.”

“But you haven’t come to visit, you’ve come to loiter.” Hunnigan retorts. “I told you already, if I have anything for you, I will be in contact. Go home.”

There’s an incredulous scoff as he tries to think of a reason to stay, but it quickly transforms into a sigh as he admits defeat. “Fine.”

He begins his retreat towards the exit and you hear the tell-tale beep of his pass against by the door panel, the electronic lock then clunking in release.

“Have a good afternoon, ladies.”

You look up then – and only then - to find him looking directly at you. You give him a polite smile in return. “You too.”

He grins in return, a proper one that makes his eyes crease, before giving you a nod and a wave as he through the door. The smile stays on your lips as you reach for your mug of coffee – now ice cold - and take a sip.

“I think he likes you, you know?” Hunnigan states in her oh-so-nonchalantly way, making you choke on the gulp you’d just taken.

“What? No…! I mean, who?” Your voice is tight in response from having swallowed the liquid the wrong way, internally cursing. Smooth, real smooth.

“Leon.” The agent continues hammering away at her keyboard, kindly ignoring your attempts at being subtle.

“I don’t know where you’ve drawn that conclusion from.” You don’t – you really don’t. You could probably count the amount of conversations the two of you have had with all of your fingers, all just pleasantries.

“I’ve worked with him for years now and he’s never been here as much since your transfer started.”

“Coincidence, I’m sure. He just seems eager for work.”

Hunnigan goes to open her mouth in response when, thankfully, the phone on her desk rings. Saved by the bell.

Being afraid of elevators had never really been an issue until you had taken this assignment, being sent to work on the 12th floor. At the very least it’s proving to be a good workout the number of times a day you now trudge up and down the stairwell from your desk to the archives below. The DSO holds a surprising amount of paper copies of intel in the basement – both handwritten and old typewriter documents - secured behind a vault door, rumours of the place being rigged to ignite in flames if an intruder is detected to prevent it all from falling into the wrong hands.

The DSO board had decided that intel should now be stored in the government-secured cloud and on paper and you’d been brought in as an archivist/analyst hybrid, on loan from the CIA. The project you’d been tasked with, single-handedly, was transferring intel that was currently only held in those paper copies to the online system. There was technology that could do but it wasn’t perfect – scrawled handwriting would often prove indecipherable by most machines or it misread words, so everything would need quality checked. It was agreed a human touch was best and your name had come up after the CIA had undertaken a similar audit of their files a few years ago to excellent results. Once everything had been digitized, it had become easier to quickly identify any links between incidents past and present – using surnames, terms, intel – and even stopped a handful of potential ones, so the DSO had been keen to put the practice in place.

It did mean, however, that every day you’d go down to the vault, select a box of paperwork – either the one you’ve got partway through or a whole new one - trudge back up the many flights of stairs, and then start typing from page to screen to produce a digitized document. It was imperative that no-one else see the documents, so they’d set you up in Hunnigan’s office as one of their most trusted agents.

Wanting to look professional whilst in the office but not break your neck on the stairs, you kept a selection of heels in your locker to swap out of for your reliable sneakers. Hunnigan was still working away when you packed up around 7pm, kicking off your heels to switch out, and had been in a lengthy, hushed tone call for the past hour. You nodded your head as you heaved the box of documents up in your arms, and she waved back in acknowledgement.

Beeping your ID card at the door, the lock buzzed and the door opened automatically – a godsend as the box you had today was particularly heavy – everything within held in those awful arch-lever folders.

As you emerged, you heard the puff of the elevator doors beginning to slide shut, not even giving it a moment of thought. You turned to the left to head down the stairs as usual, when a gloved hand slammed between the elevator doors, preventing them from closing with a thud and giving you a start, turning to see a face.

The face of Leon S Kennedy catches you entirely by surprise. He hadn’t even been by the office today to bother Hunnigan, though you know he does have his own desk somewhere in the building, maybe even his own office. He smiles at the sight of you, beckoning you over.

“Hey. Hop on in - I’m going down.”

You hesitate at the invitation. You haven’t been in an elevator for years and he’s just stood there, waiting, holding the door open. You have to say or do something. “You okay?”

Next thing you know, as if you’d been hypnotized, you were walking towards the elevator, then stepping over the threshold into a place you swore you never would enter again.

“Basement?” Leon fingers hover over the button panel in anticipation.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

He presses the buttons for ground and basement simultaneously with two fingers, and the door slides shut with another puff of air.

The elevator and your stomach begin to descend in unison.

This is fine.

“Looks heavy. Can I…?” He gestures to the box, offering to take it.

“Oh, thanks, but it’s okay.” You bump the box up with your knee, trying to strengthen your grip on it. Your palms are sweaty, but you’re not sure if the cause is the elevator or the handsome man besides you.

Leon crosses his arms, leans back against the wall. “They still not given you a lackey to do all the grunt work? I thought that’s what they took on interns for these days.”

“It’s difficult when no-one else is meant to handle it, let alone see it but me.” Leon gives you a quizzical look at that. “It’s protocol, narrows down the potential for leaks. If anything gets out, it’s on my head, so…”

“What about when you take breaks? You don’t…”

You nod, shifting the box in your arms again. Why do they feel like jelly? “Gotta lug it back downstairs to be locked back in the vault.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Mm-mm. It’s fine – good exercise for me, I guess, between sitting at the desk all day, so…”

“Surely they could at least give you a desk closer to the grou-“

The elevator’s smooth descent is transformed into a shudder, followed by a loud metallic screech and a sharp jerk that makes your stomach truly drop before all motion halts. No, no, no, no.

“Huh.” Leon muses, calm as anything. He immediately presses the emergency call button, illuminated in red, but the only sound that emits out of the speakers is static. He presses it again to the same result, and then in rapid succession, as if that’ll coerce it into working.

You tighten your grip on the box, wanting to tell him to stop but, thankfully, he gives up before you can have the strength to find your voice and pulls his cell out from his pocket.

“Damn, no reception.” He looks back over to you then with a sympathetic smile. “Well, this is one way to get overtime outta us, hey?”

There’s no chance to reply before the elevator plunges into darkness and you drop the box immediately, thankfully away from your feet. It can only be a few seconds at the most but it feels like an eternity before the emergency lighting comes on, casting the small metal prison in a pale yellow hue.

Leon’s staring at you, looking concerned. “You okay?”

“Y-yeah.” You reply, not at all convincingly. You bend down to pick up the box to escape that blue-eyed gaze for a moment, heaving it back up in your arms. “Is this… normal for this office?” You hope he can’t hear how tight your voice is.

“Power must be down, seems like the back-up generator kicked in.” The agent shrugs, looking around the elevator as if something of use might be around. “It’ll prioritize the critical systems – so I’d guess lights, vending machines and elevators are not gonna be particularly high up on that list.”

“Wonderful.” You reply, breathily. It’s warm. Should it be warm? “Here, let me just…” Leon reaches over and gently tugs the box from your weak grip, no sign of surprise at the weight of it as he takes it. “We don’t know how long we’ll be in here, so let’s put this down.”

“No, I shou-“

“I promise I’m not going to try and read any of it.”

You watch him as he places it down, he’s sure to bend with his knees rather than his back, and tucks it into the corner under the button panel, out of the way. He stands back up to his full height, looking at you for a response, but all you manage is a shaky nod.

“Are you feeling okay?” “Y-yeah. Fine.” “Mm. Not a great liar.” He tilts his head, scanning you with his eyes once more. “What’s the matter?” “I…” Another swallow in the hopes of your mouth not feeling so dry. “I don’t like elevators. Always take the stairs.” “Oh.” Not the answer he was expecting it seems. “Wait, why’d you get in, then?” “Well, er…” You hesitate again, how do you answer that? “You… You told me to.”

He can’t help the goofy smile that crosses his face. “Huh, that’s all it takes? Interesting. I’ll have to remember that.”

You’re about to ask him what that’s supposed to mean, the words just on the tip of your tongue when the elevator jerks and they turn into a shriek. It’s over before it even begins, really, but Leon’s reflexes now have you pressed up against the wall, his arms braced above your head to protect it from any sort of impact.

“It’s all right,” he says, softly. “I’m here, I’ve got you.”

Your heart is beating too fast, tears burn at your eyes at the fright. He’s so close, you can smell his cologne – musky, hints of vanilla – but this isn’t where you want to be having this moment.

“How about we sit down, huh?”

“I’m okay.” Your answer is breathy again, your chest feeling tight. Panting like you’d finished climbing up 12 flights of stairs.

“It’ll be more comfortable.”

“Don’t wanna…” You try and take a deep inhale, but it doesn’t seem to reach the bottom of your lungs. “Don’t wanna s-shake it.”

“You won’t.” He drops his arms from against the wall and instead grabs your hand, squeezes it in an attempt to ground you. “Trust me.”

You want to trust him, but the panic is too strong. This was such a bad idea, why did you do this?

“I…”

“We’ll do it together, okay?” He somehow coaxes you to shuffle forward and then slips in behind you, taking hold of your other hand. “Just lean against me and we’ll ease on down.”

Leon presses his chest firmly up against your back and you wonder if he can feel how hard your heart is beating. He wraps his arms around your waist next, meaning you’re hugging yourself in a way before he slides down against the elevator wall, bringing you down with him, onto the carpeted elevator floor. He thought it was a seamless maneuverer, but the way he’d felt your nails dig into his leather gloves from how tight your grip was, he knew you weren’t of the same opinion.

“There we go.” His thighs are spread either side of yours, now that you’re nestled inbetween his legs. “Worried you were gonna pass out – you’d gone really pale. Just sit here and concentrate on your breathing a minute, okay? Feel how I’m doing it.”

You close your eyes and try to concentrate on how he’s breathing, feeling his chest expand as he inhales, loudly and deliberately through his nose, holds the breath, then exhales heavily through his mouth, tickling the back of your neck.

You try and mimic him, get your inhales and exhales in sync and, slowly, the pressure begins to ease in your chest as you feel your breaths get deeper and deeper.

"Feeling a little better?”

His voice reverberates from his chest being pressed up against your back, feels comforting. “Yeah. Thank you.”

“Hey, don’t mention it. My fault you’re in here, after all.” He replies, gently. “I’m gonna move now, okay? Wanna check you’ve got the colour back in your cheeks.”

You nod, and he somehow manages to shuffle back and to the front of you with overly cautious movements – definitely for your benefit, ever the gentleman - withdrawing his legs into a crossed position and giving you a smile as he takes in your appearance. Being so fixed in his gaze makes your cheeks prickle with heat – maybe not the colour he’d hoped to be checking.

“Yeah, you’re looking better. Good.” He nods in affirmation, more to himself than you. “That noise – I think someone was trying to get the power back on, sounds like it only worked for a second before it could get going. The elevator’s not gonna fall.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve had to disable some of them before – for work, I mean. They’re all equipped with multiple failsafe systems to prevent that exact scenario.”

“Disable them?”

“Just so they stop…” He gestures in a circle as he tries to find the words, “elevating, I guess, so I’m not pursued. Make ‘em take the stairs.”

“Ah, right.” You nod. “Wind them a bit.”

“Exactly. If you don’t mind me asking, you always been afraid of them?”

“No. Got stuck in one in an old apartment block years ago – it didn’t feel particularly modern. There were three of us – me and two drunk guys who kept jumping up and down, convinced that would make it move. The fire department got us out after two hours cos I had one of those… episodes. Haven’t been in one since.”

“Idiots.”

“They just kept laughing the more panicked I got. I felt so stupid.”

“Panic attacks are no joke. That box breathing always helps me if I feel on edge, though.”

“Yeah, that was really good.” You feel a shy smile creep over your face. “If I had to get suck in an elevator with anyone, I’m glad it was you.”

He practically beams. “Now I don’t feel quite so bad. I’ve gotta ask again though, you really got in here just because I said to?” He’s already seen you a panicking mess, so why not just be honest? “Your smile helped too.” “Well, consider me flattered.”

“It’s a nice smile…” You swallow, a little cautious of the next word. “Enticing.”

You swear you see a smidge of colour flush Leon’s cheeks then, but it must be a trick of the artificial lights. “Well, since we’re confessing – yours is too. That’s the real reason I was bothering Hunnigan. Wanted to see if I could win another.”

“You came to see me smile?” You’re definitely blushing now – cheeks prickling with the heat.

“Guilty. I don’t think you’d remember, but a week or so back I was having a real shitty day. Went to go debrief with Hunnigan and she wasn’t there, but you were. When I stormed in, you just gave me the best and most genuine smile I’d seen in days. Meant a lot.” He rubs the back of his neck, sheepishly.

You smile again, can’t help it, and he groans, jokingly. “Ugh, see? Not again – I don’t think my heart can take how sweet it is.”

You don’t know what to say to that but you’re excused when, suddenly, the lights transition overhead with a flicker from the emergency dulled tones to the standard, harsh fluorescent light and the elevator begins its smooth descent once more.

“Finally, huh?” Leon gets up easily to his feet and then offers you a hand.

“Yeah.” You accept it without hesitation, goosebumps prickling up your arm as he wraps his fingers around your hand and he pulls you up with ease. Slyly, his other hand now rests on the small of your back, drawing you in close…

The elevator dings, announcing its arrival on the ground floor and the doors slide open to reveal a maintenance worker, clad in blue overalls, waiting in the lobby. Leon draws back then, but still keeps his hand steady on your back.

“You two all right? Power-cut had rotten timing, I was gonna repair that emergency speaker tonight when most of the office was cleared out.”

“All good, thanks.” Leon bends down, picks up the box again without question and you follow him out of the elevator in pursuit, only to hear a cell begin to ring from his pocket. He balances the box with one arm – you’ve no idea how – and pulls out the device, frowning at the name on screen.

“Sorry, I’ve really gotta take this.” His brows furrow in annoyance. “You be okay with taking that downstairs?”

“Yeah, of course. I really should take it back now anyway, you know, just in case…” You trail off as he eases the box over to you, making sure you’ve got it properly before he lets go. “Thanks… for everything.”

“Pleasure was all mine.” He replies, sincerely, before reluctantly lifting the cell up to his ear.

“Kennedy.”

You leave him to his phone-call and head down the stairs for a thankfully unremarkable trip down to the vaults to replace the box back in its rightful place. It’d be a lie to say when you climbed back up to the lobby that you weren’t disappointed when there’s no trace of him to be found.

The next morning, after passing through the security check, you make your way down to the archive vault as usual, pressing your hand against the door panel to gain access. Sadly, you’ve still got a lot of work to do in the box you’d been working on yesterday, so you dutifully log its withdrawal in the computer system, and heave it up once more in your arms before heading out.

You only make it up one flight of stairs when you see him, leaned up against the stairway wall, one arm held against his chest whilst his other hand is holding his cell, squinting at some text. He looks up as you scuff your trainer on one of the steps and he smiles as you reach him, tucking his cell back away.

“Good morning.”

“Morning. What brings you here?” You curse inwardly. “I mean, not that it’s not a pleasant surprise, just…”

He waves it off. “I getcha. Well, I have some pretty good sway here, you know, so I’ve volunteered.”

“Volunteered for what?”

“Volunteered…” He steps forward and wraps his arms around the box, “..to be your stairs lackey.”

“Oh, no – it’s fine, honestly.” You feel flustered at the very idea. Leon’s one of the top, if not the top agent of the DSO. He can’t be doing manual labour for you, he shouldn’t. “You have so many better things to be doing. I can mana…”

“Please?” He tilts his head, gives you that enticing smile again. “I mean, I could just tell you,” – he teases – “but I thought I’d ask this time, so you’re sure.”

The smile makes you feel weak at the knees and you’d already proven yesterday you couldn’t resist its magic. “Okay. But you should definitely take the elevator then.”

“Uh-uh.” He shakes his head, taking the box into his arms. “It’s good cardio, got my weight-resistance. You’re practically doing me a favour by taking the stairs.”

“Is that so?”

“Mm-hm. Though,” he bites his lip in a pause, “I may have ulterior motives.”

“Right, and what would those be?”

“If I were to, say, visit the office around six tonight and carry this thing back down to the vault, maybe you’d go to dinner with me?”

God, you feel absolutely giddy - there’s no way you can hold back your smile. “I think that’s… acceptable.”

“Then we have a deal. Ladies first,” he nods with his head to up the stairwell.

“No, I… I think you should go first. Just so I can keep an eye on you on the way up. I’ve got to make sure you’re not sneaking a peek at the assets, you know?”

He quirks an eyebrow, you know he’s wondering what you’re thinking, but he shrugs it off all the same. “As you wish.”

And as you follow him up 12 flights of stairs, you slightly breathless and him seemingly fine, you can’t help but sneak a look at a different pair of assets before you.

---

Comments, likes and reblogs make my whole day x

Masterlist . Requests welcome . Ko-fi/Commissions

#ghostdogwrites #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy fluff #leon kennedy x you

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qqueenofhades · 3 months

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I don't know why I thought it was a good idea to argue with people about the worthlessness of voting third party. They just keep insisting that the influence is worth it, and that I was a coward for daring to suggest that we don't HAVE any other options than Democratic. I even cited how voting third party likely played a part in Al Gore losing ffs.

There's no "likely" about it, Ralph Nader DID directly cost Gore the election. He ran explicitly on the same "both parties are the same, so leftists/liberals should vote for me instead" rhetoric that we are still seeing among the Online Left, and it was successful: he got, for example, over 97,000 votes in Florida. Bush won Florida (and thus the presidency) by a miniscule 537 votes, after the fuckery of Bush v. Gore and SCOTUS ordering the recount stopped in Bush's favor. If the tiniest percentage of those Nader voters had gone for Gore, we would have had a president who was arguing in favor of tackling climate change in the year 2000. We would have been incredibly ahead of the curve. We would, in all likelihood, have a president who took the CIA's warnings of an impending al-Qaeda attack in the US seriously. We would not have had the disastrous Afghanistan and Iraq invasions and the "War on Terror," the rampant Islamophobia, "No Child Left Behind," the 2008 economic crash, and everything else that Dubya and his band of bloodthirsty neocons inflicted on us in the early aughties. Look, I try not to look back too much, but having Gore instead of Bush as president would have reshaped the entire timeline we're living in to such an unfathomably better degree that every moron thinking of voting third party For The Protest should be sat down and forced to learn this history intimately. Of course, they already saw it happen in real time in 2016, but they didn't care about that either.

The good news is: there are plenty of persuadable voters out there, and you can do work to reach them and convince them to vote for Democrats! They're just not online, because all the Online Leftists are terminally brain-poisoned against voting anyway and trying to argue with them is generally a waste of time. Instead, what you should do is take a gander at the following links:

This is the one-stop shop page for volunteering to get Democrats elected. You can do in-person and remote work, there are tons of different ways to get involved (i.e. you don't have to go directly out and knock doors if that's not something you're comfortable with), and your local Democratic party will welcome the volunteer help. There is also a page for finding your state party website:

I went there, clicked on my state, opened the webpage, and there was a "Volunteer" link right in the header, with an easy and quick form to fill out to register your interest and explain the kinds of work you would be interested in doing. You can canvass directly, you can manage data on the back end, you can phone bank, you can send texts and postcards to voters who may need an extra nudge, you can otherwise work with your state party in lots of ways, and it will be so much more productive and make you feel so much better than arguing with online idiots who will never, ever change their minds. What you can do is reach out to voters in your own community, in your own state, and have conversations with people who actually ARE willing to listen, but might need a little more educating on the facts, what's at stake, the truth about this election, and the danger that Trump poses. All of this will convert into critically important Democratic votes, and you can actually put your desire to make a difference into action. So yeah. I would 100% suggest you do it this way instead. Good luck.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

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yellowocaballero · 10 months

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ORV Characters Ranked by Least to Most Likely to Commit White Collar Crime

You guys said you wanted my ORV takes, and I try not to say things unsolicited, so I'll drop the good meta-analysis and literary criticism that I'm known for. For comedy purposes please pretend that ORV is American.

Omniscent Reader's Viewpoint characters broken down by likelihood to commit white collar crime, least to most:

Lee Hyeonseong: he's convinced that he's never committed a crime in his life. Intentionally, of course not. Unintentionally, he takes shopping for groceries extremely seriously, and is sometimes so wrapped up in the fruit inspection experience that he'll leave without paying. Due to his innocent face, bulk, and sheer confidence, he's never caught. In an economically thrifty maneuver, KDJ always sends him on snack runs for parties and texts him math problems while he's there. He insists it's like couponing. It's not couponing.

Jeong Huiwon: similarly, of course she would never choose to commit a crime. Also similarly, when KDJ says, 'Hey, wanna commit a crime?' she always participates. Since the crime is normally targeted at rich people, KDJ can usually morally justify it to her. She calls this harm reduction. It's not harm reduction.

Lee Jihye: would love to commit a crime in theory, almost never in practice. She has an idealized image in her mind of the ideal high school experience and it involves grand theft auto. However, the worst she ever gets is breaking & entering and trespassing, mostly because she didn't stop to wonder if the building was abandoned or not. She can't even shoplift from Claire's.

Shin Yuseung: the kind of kid who sets the dissection frogs in the school laboratory free. Looks up illegal exotic animal trading on the deepweb and sighs in longing. But exotic pet trading isn't very Animal Rights of her, so she just leaks information to the CIA and busts the rings. Lee Gilyeong convinces her to track down shady sellers on Craigslist and bust their kneecaps. Neither of them view this as significantly different from the dissection frog liberation. KDJ gets her a rescued exotic cat for her birthday as a reward.

Lee Gilyeong: self-explanatory.

Han Suyeong: she's been pirating media since she was eleven and has never stopped. World-class expert in pirating everything. She's the unsung hero who rips the CDs and games and puts them online. Runs the pirating websites. Has never paid for a webnovel or manwha or manga in her life. Despite this, she insists that pirating books is immoral and that people should support small authors. The FBI knows she exists and has been trying to catch her for years. She brags about this constantly.

Yoo Sangah: has committed tax fraud before, will commit tax fraud tomorrow, is currently committing tax fraud. Embezzles her company's embezzlement. Insists that she's only committing victimless crimes, mainly because she doesn't view business executives as people. Her ability to evade the IRS is mythological and it's how KDJ got a crush on her.

Yoo Junghyeok: does not understand adult life well enough to knowingly commit any sort of white collar crime. He is this high on the list because he enables and helps KDJ in literally everything he does, especially using his clout as an influencer. This is because KDJ has convinced him that these things aren't crimes, and he doesn't understand adult life well enough to figure it out.

Kim Dokja: has done every white collar crime under the sun. I can't emphasize enough how much crime he does. He's currently blackmailing SYS's college tuition out of a US Senator. HSY makes the shell companies and launders so much money with him. Alternates between running a pyramid scheme and a ponzi scheme depending on the month. Started a cult that one time but we don't like to talk about that. Runs the betting ring for YJH's esports games. Fixes the games. YJH does not know he does this, but KDJ splits the profits and Yoo Mia also needs a college tuition so he decides not to think about it too hard. Big into crypto and runs every crypto scam you can possibly think of, which is normally where the the ponzi schemes come in. Steals YJH's identity often. Somehow everything he does is technically legal. The only crime he does not commit is pirating. Exclusively targets the wealthy and ultra-wealthy and has never stolen money from a poor person. Sugar daddies all of his friends and pays all college tuitions. Anonymously yet obviously sponsors huge amounts of money to YJH's Twitch streams, mostly in apology for the ID theft. Would really rather be living a quiet life in a big house with all of his friends, but that big house ain't gonna pay for itself.

#omniscient reader's viewpoint #orv #kim dokja #yjh #kdj #orv is about capitalism and systems of power and how they should be broken #and destroying the narratives of the powerful designed to keep us complacent and infighting and bootlicking #fucking shame how nobody's written a leverage au #'why do people tell stories' hope and love and the human condition :)#but also in order to control people determine their futures determine their fates #and even if the story isn't true you can make it true #like the fbi planting coke in black neighborhoods.#also hugely the capitalist exploitation of the entertainment industry #the chinese sweatshop worker makes the idol merchendise for the tired overworked korean #who works for little pay and no credit and overtime in the outsourced korean animation studios #for american cartoons that depressed americans watch because it offers a sliver of joy in our lives #bc the americans are being exploited by fascists and oligarchs #the korean idol is exploited by their superiors and dehumanized by their fans #i should probably make alla that a. different post jklasdf #anyway that's why they do so much crime fuck the system

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freedom-in-truth · 7 months

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youtube

Are they LYING to us? CIA spy tells all

Uploaded Oct 28. Transcript below.

Spoiler, yes the US Gov lies to you. 😱

Added [my edits] to the transcript in square commas.

Biden quote: “Terrorist group Hamas unleashed pure unadulterated evil in the world…”

Now, let’s talk about Hamas for a moment, because President Biden just called them a terrorist group. Let’s be honest about Hamas. They have been labelled a terrorist group by less than 12 countries in the world.

The vast majority of the world, including The UN, does not consider Hamas a terrorist group.

Instead they consider Hamas to be a political party; a force and the legislative body of the Gaza Strip, elected democratically and in power since 2007.

So, Hamas, whether we like to admit it or not, has a militant wing, but they are also a recognised political party inside the Gaza Strip. They were voted into power. They have an established leader and a hierarchy.

And, even worse, they are a political party without any kind of citizenship, because Palestinians (who they represent) aren’t a recognised country [thanks to colonialism]. So, what that means is that Palestine and Hamas are politically accepted by the majority of the world. It’s really only the United States, and US allies Paraguay and the European Union that see Hamas as an actual terrorist organisation. And, of course, Israel as well.

The rest of the world sees Hamas as a political group.

A political group without a country and, importantly, without a military to defend itself.

So, I want to make sure that you understand that when President Biden says that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, he’s really talking from an American point of view in the eyes of Americans and in the eyes of the Israelis.

Hamas is a terrorist group but, to be fair, in the eyes of Iran the US military is a terrorist group. So it’s all about perspective on this one.

[I can assure you! it's not just Iran who view the US military as a terrorist group!! Plenty of countries do as well!]

Biden quote: “Sadly the Jewish people know perhaps better than anyone that there is no limit to the depravity of people when they want to inflict pain on others…”

Now, this is another thing that I think is important, because the President just said ‘the Jewish people’. Hamas exists for one reason; they were created in 1987, specifically to prevent and destroy Israel, because Israel was oppressing the Palestinian people.

It was the oppression of Israel against Palestine that was the birthplace for Hamas. Let’s not get the order of actions confused here. Hamas did not exist prior to 1987.

[Israel first began expelling Palestinians in the late 1940s, look up 1948 Nakba.]

The ongoing pressure and conflict between Israelis and Palestinians [in other words, the ethnic cleansing of indigenous people, Palestinians, by Israelis] in the country of Israel, and the marginalisation, oppression, discrimination that they were putting onto the Muslim people there is really what led to the birth of Hamas, as a way of fighting back against Israeli oppression.

[Please note: Palestinians are a mix of faith. While predominantly Muslim, Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Jews also exist, and are also oppressed by Israel. Plenty of footage has been online of Israeli crimes against all three religious groups.]

Hamas is targeting only Israel, not Jews. There’s a big difference between an Israeli and a Jew.

[Plenty of Jewish people do not support the settler state of Isael. Plenty of Jewish people do not condone ethnic cleansing in their name. Being Jewish is not centered around colonizing other countries.]

The president here said that Jews are the target, and that is not accurate. Israel is the target, the country of Israel. Hamas doesn’t care whether Israel is full of Christians, Jews, or other Muslims, if it’s oppressing Palestinians, if it’s depriving the Palestinians of a homeland, then Hamas is there to fight and counteract it.

Outside of Israel, the state of Israel, Hamas doesn’t really exist, which is why the rest of the world does not see them as a terrorist group.

Interestingly, it is also the reason that the United States does label them as a terrorist group, because [the US] is trying to show support for Israel [the US sends up to $4 billion dollars annually to fund Israel’s military, to ‘fight’ a people without a state and without a military, FYI], so I don’t think Hamas is targeting Jews. They are not.

Hamas is in a very clear fight for survival of the Palestinian people in their own [indigenous country], within the landmass that is [currently] known as Israel.

Biden quote: “I also spoke with President Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president…”

Abbas the Palestinian Authority President is not the recognised leader in the Gaza Strip. He is the recognised leader in the West Bank, but not the Gaza Strip. They have two very different forms of government.

So, what the president is saying here without saying it, is that he is speaking to the Palestinian Authority who does not represent the actual body of victims who are being attacked right now.

Biden quote: “The United States remains committed to the Palestinian people’s right and dignity to self-determination…”

This is a very important lie of omission here.

The president just said that he reiterated that American support to Palestinians is there for their right to dignity and self-determination. What he did not say is that they have any right to self-preservation, or to protect themselves.

The president has said that Israel has a right to protect itself. He is not giving the same permission to the Palestinian people. That is an important point in this conversation.

At no point during this address will you hear the president say that the Palestinians have any right to protect or defend themselves. He does not acknowledge them as a group of people. He does not acknowledge them as an oppressed people within the lands of Israel, and that is a sad and frustrating thing.

It’s what’s known as a lie of omission; he is not telling you the total truth. The total truth being that the United States does not actually support the Palestinian people in their fight against Israel. [Reminder: the USA sends up to $4 billion annually to arm Israel.]

(More under the cut)

Biden quote: “The assault on Israel echoes nearly twenty months of war, tragedy, and brutality inflicted on the people of Ukraine…”

So, here the president is starting to make a transition to compare what’s happening in Israel to what’s happening in Ukraine.

It’s important to me that you understand that this is a lie of influence.

The president is trying to make you believe that there’s a connection between what’s happening in Ukraine and what’s happening in Israel. They are two completely different types of conflict.

In Ukraine, you see an outside nation state [Russia] invading another independent sovereign nation state. That’s not what’s happening in Israel. In Israel you have an oppressed [indigenous] group that is launching an attack against its oppressor, and then you have the oppressor responding and going well above and beyond in terms of capability and response to the original attack. So they cannot be compared, even though in this address you’ll see that he continues to make comparisons to the two in a plea to the American people to support American interests in both conflicts.

While I am all for American interests and I understand that there is a great deal at play, at stake here, for the United States [$4 billion annually, money that could’ve been used on American healthcare), I want to make sure that we highlight this lie of influence because this is not actually an accurate statement. It does not reflect what’s happening in Ukraine in any way. It’s a separate conflict carried out for separate reasons in a different way.

[Again, this is basic facts and history summarised from an American perspective, and yet we are at a point in the misinformation campaign from the Biden administration that these basic factd and corrections to Biden's lies NEED to be said. So please share this.]

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soapskneebrace · 1 year

Note

What do you think Soap's relationship dynamic is like with the others in the COD universe?

In general I think he gets along with everyone—we see in his very first scene that he’s friendly with the nameless marines they take to Al Mazrah, and from there on he is always making an effort to interact with everyone he encounters.

He respects Price immensely (as evidenced by a dialogue option during Alone, no less). I suspect Soap interacts with Price a little less casually than he does with anyone else in the 141; like Gaz, he’s a junior officer, has not been serving as long, and has a lot to live up to in terms of the captain’s reputation. That’s not to say he won’t take the piss out of Price when the opportunity strikes (being cunty to each other is, again, a Scottish love language), but he won’t look for an opportunity.

Of course he and Ghost get along very well. After Mexico, they probably orbit around each other a lot. You don’t go through something like that together without becoming friends or fuckbuddies. The two of them can be caught playing cards, working out, and eating together very regularly. Soap is definitely the first one to visit Simon’s home when they’re both on leave. The drabness probably horrifies him.

And Gaz is definitely his friend. They’re close in age, about the same in experience, and there is of course a friendly little rivalry going on between them, seeded by their competing test scores and fed by lighthearted machismo. I think Soap is well known to the Garrick family not long after he and Gaz are recruited into the 141, and Soap’s mom and Gaz’s probably even trade baby photos. If Ghost isn’t around, Soap will look for Gaz to hang out with.

He definitely is still in contact with Rudy. Based on my headcanon about Soap’s ethnicity, I think Soap is very happy to connect with someone with whom he can share a common culture. They email back and forth, and I think when free time magically aligns they’ll group up online to play GTA or something. Rudy and Soap speak to each other in mixed Spanish and English, with more Spanish making it into Soap’s vocabulary after every conversation.

And Soap definitely wishes he could interact with Alejandro more, but that man is a force of nature with zero free time. Soap admires Alejo deeply, holding him in high regard for his dedication to his service. It is a different kind of respect than he has for Price; Price is present, solid, a pillar of support and advice that Soap can have comfortable faith in. Alejandro, though, is almost mythical in stature, his deeds made all the more legend by his inability to stand still long enough to insist upon their mundanity. Soap’s standards for himself have been set higher after fighting alongside Alejandro Vargas.

Bonus: Laswell secretly scares the shit out of Soap, but he will never admit it. CIA spooks are so anathema to Soap’s boisterous, exuberant personality that he never knows how to react to them, so he tries to simply stay out of their way.

#answered #soap #john soap mactavish

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ifcpltd · 13 days

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babykittenpeach · 2 years

Link

https://88vgld.com/ for more details

#us cma course #us cma #cma #us cpa #us cpa course #enrolled agent #Enrolled Agent Course Online #enrolled agent course #Online CIA Coaching Classes in India #cia #cia course #cia course online #cia course india #certified internal auditor

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chiefkidthing · 1 year

Photo

Best us cpa course online in india

#us cpa course #US CMA #cma course #enrolled agent #certifiedinternalauditor #cia course #acca course online

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kingjaffejoffer · 2 years

Note

How come you keep your pictures of yourself private

Imma give you a very simple and quick answer. But also a long answer.

Simple: back in the day I was wildin out on Tumblr but also just starting my career and I (wisely) decided to just be anonymous for professional reasons. Over the years there was never any reason to reverse course.

I apologize for the length, waste time at your own peril.

Long Answer: You have the nerve to wonder why someone would want to remain anonymous In the year of our Lord 2022 when we see clear evidence or strong indicators that:

1. Big Tech and the govt harvest, sell, and use our personal information for all kinds of reasons we don't have the facts to give informed consent to. Also, just from working in this industry I have reasons to distrust it.

2. Social media is so important to law enforcement and the govt when it comes to controlling and spreading information and ideas that they're banning their rivals' platform in fear of the damage it causes. That alone should be an indicator to most people not to view social media as whimsically as they do. (more links, more links, the CIA invests in startups)

3. Social media isn't good for your health. It doesn't make you feel good about yourself. It makes you value the wrong things. Even *internal studies* done by Facebook - where they had every reason and incentive to make themselves look good - acknowledge the ill effects of using it. On social media it seems like people get sucked into this game of trying to keep up and make their lives seem great. Peacocking. And I just don't wanna do it. I try not to. (links)

4. Attention Culture has consumed us. Everyone wants to be seen. Everyone wants to be famous. It's considered completely normal for people to get online and just lie about shit all day, humiliate themselves (or other people), anything for engagement. A nigga will go shit in the lobby of the FBI right now if he was certain it would put him on.

Point being...

There's a lot of reasons the average person would look at all this shit and be like "nah, I'm good".

You should be asking why more people aren't like this. There really isn't a ton of benefit to volunteering your information on the internet.

My view of social media is probably a little different than the average person because of my time in the industry. Like if you work at an app, let's say Twitter for example. Using Twitter as an employee is pure hell. Because you know how everything works. Before Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter didn't sit on Twitter all day because it's fucking unhinged, it's impossible. That alone lets me know this nigga Elon is on drugs.

But more broadly in my case, working in social media is like loving Wendy's chili but then you got a job at Wendy's and after making the chili yourself you never really enjoyed it as much as you once did, if you even ate it at all.

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mariacallous · 3 months

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In his continued quest to become either the president of the United States or else a very interesting footnote to someone else’s reelection, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has enlisted a number of celebrities and influencers. On Tuesday, he expanded those ranks, confirming to The New York Times that he is “considering” NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura for his vice presidential pick; Politico reported that he’ has also “approached” Senator Rand Paul, former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, and motivational speaker Tony Robbins.

But it was Rodgers and Ventura who drew the most attention from the press, and it’s their roles in the information ecosystem who most signal what Kennedy is doing. Outside of their careers in the NFL and WWE, Rodgers and Ventura are known for, respectively, promoting anti-vaccine views in conversations with sports podcasters and Joe Rogan, and promoting politically contrarian, occasionally conspiratorial views on cable TV and Substack. By publicizing his interest in them, Kennedy is making overtures to a very specific potential voter: the highly online and politically disaffected young man.

Kennedy, an environmental activist turned anti-vaccine superstar, is already running an extremely online campaign; as WIRED noted recently, the candidate is omnipresent on Instagram, podcasts, and Substack and has used influencers as proxies who will deliver his message to his niche bases. Over the past few months, Kennedy has been seen hanging out with snowboarder Travis Rice, naming a young and persistently bleached-blonde TikToker and aspiring musician named Link Lauren as a “senior adviser” on his campaign, and appearing at a Bitcoin conference.

Online is a comfortable environment for Kennedy, a dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy theorist who has promoted anti-vaccine views since 2005. Beyond his many and virulent anti-vaccine campaigns, he’s been especially willing to engage in conspiracy theories that are likely to go viral, most notably suggesting that the CIA may have assassinated his uncle, John F. Kennedy, and promoted long-debunked and extremely dangerous junk science about AIDS not being caused by HIV. He has also tried awkwardly to engage with the conspiracy theories about dead pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, on whose private plane he rode at least twice. In December he said that Epstein’s flight logs should be released, and tweeted, “I’m not hiding anything, but they are!”

His efforts to appeal to both a conspiratorial base and a more mainstream voting bloc have been occasionally clumsy, but persistent—and by shoring up his base among young men, who will be increasingly important this election year, he appears to be figuring out how to bridge that gap. One enormous help was, of course, his own appearance on Rogan’s podcast, where the two engaged in three hours of long-winded conspiracy theories about vaccines, 5G technology, and ivermectin, among Kennedy’s other greatest-hits talking points.

Kennedy’s interest in speaking to very online, purportedly “anti-establishment” spaces also means, necessarily, that the people he’s speaking to have a demonstrable overlap with the so-called manosphere, the broad group of bloggers, podcasters, influencers, and grievance-peddlers speaking to young men. Choosing to align himself with figures like Aaron Rodgers—a mainstream football star who has promoted increasingly fringe beliefs, and declared himself to be very brave for doing so—is an excellent way to appeal to the Venn diagram of young men and the conspiracy-curious, says Derek Beres. “It completely makes sense for what he’s doing.”

Beres is an author, speaker, and podcaster who’s one of the cohosts of Conspirituality, which looks at the overlap between New Age and far-right movements. In that role, Beres has observed Kennedy at close range for years and says, “One of the things that I don’t think is talked about enough but is really smart on RFK’s part is he’s been mobilizing fringe communities since he announced his presidential run.”

Neither Rodgers nor Ventura are what you would call politically serious choices; Rodgers has never held elected office, while Ventura hasn’t in 20 years. Neither man speaks to a base that Kennedy hasn’t already hit; in that role, Paul and Gabbard would make more political sense.

Instead, Kennedy is front-loading two men who the young male voter might find in a late-night TikTok or Instagram scroll and who are known for their own fondness for indulging in conspiracy theories and misinformation. Rodgers is best known lately for making misleading claims about being "immunized for Covid,” later revealing that he was taking fake homeopathic “vaccines,” and for appearing to suggest that late-night host Jimmy Kimmel might appear on a list of Jeffrey Epstein’s associates, for which Kimmel instantly threatened to sue him. He has also become a repeat guest on Rogan’s podcast; in his most recent appearance in February, he nodded along as Rogan claimed that Covid was created in a lab. On Wednesday, it was also reported by CNN that he’d shared Sandy Hook conspiracy theories privately, including in 2013, to Pamela Brown, one of the journalists bylined on the story.

For his part, after Ventura was governor, he had a show called Conspiracy Theory on the outlet TruTV. Clips from the show still occasionally go viral, especially ones purporting to show that the pandemic was “planned.” He then had a show on Russian state-backed news outlet RT America, which focused on purported American hypocrisy wherever he could find it. In a slightly awkward fit for Kennedy, Ventura also decried people who refused to wear masks early in the pandemic. (Kennedy spent a lot of time incorrectly but predictably claiming that mask-wearing was useless and in fact harmful.) Now, Ventura has a Substack with his son, where he delivers political commentary and wrestling stories, a move he claims he made after RT America unceremoniously dumped him for decrying the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

And most importantly, both Ventura and Rodgers—as outsize and slightly eccentric sports figures—are heroes largely to young men.

Kennedy, Beres says, “is playing culture war politics,” where someone like Aaron Rodgers would make sense; it’s part of his appeal, Beres says, to the mostly male-dominated online body-optimization space. In addition to doing shirtless pushups (in jeans, for some reason), Kennedy has also made numerous appearances with Aubrey Marcus, a fitness influencer and motivational speaker who has been one of his most enthusiastic proxies. The two men are appearing together this weekend at the grandiosely named American Wellness Summit, a Kennedy campaign event just outside Austin, Texas, where the cheapest tickets are a $1,500 campaign donation.

“We’re in a cultural space where you have Donald Trump, who in the past said that exercise depletes your body,” Beres explains. “Then you have a big conversation around Biden’s age, which the right has been pushing and which has been effective in terms of their propaganda. And then you have RFK, who works out at Gold’s Gym and has been spotted there hanging out with Andrew Huberman,” an astonishingly popular neuroscience podcaster. “The optics alone are going to appeal to a young male crowd.”

For his part, Donald Trump has made his own bid for the young male vote’s affections, showing up at Sneaker Con to hawk $400 Trump-branded shoes, signaling his support for Bitcoin, getting (somewhat) into football, and showing up at a UFC match, where he mainly made headlines for appearing to ignore his own grandson. Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, meanwhile, recently got a coveted endorsement from a coalition of 15 Gen Z and millennial voting groups. But as an MSNBC opinion column noted last month, opinion polls seem to show Kennedy with a slim lead among voters 18–34. And as Gallup noted in January, Biden’s favorability ratings among young and non-white adults has fallen since he became president, while Kennedy has “majority-level favorable rating” across all major gender, race, and age groups. Gallup’s Lydia Saad noted that Kennedy could “appeal to that segment of voters who are resistant to Biden but are also not sold on Trump.”

Kennedy has enjoyed, however, some base of support among women for quite some time. The anti-vaccine movement is powered in large part at the grassroots level by mothers who wrongly believe that their choice to vaccinate their children led to them having conditions like autism; women can often be seen crying, cheering, and frankly swooning when Kennedy speaks in front of those audiences. One of his other prominent campaign proxies is an enormously popular celebrity and lifestyle blogger named Jessica Reed Kraus, better known by her online handle Houseinhabit, who is stumping somewhat equally for Kennedy and Trump. (Kraus, too, went viral for involving herself in two high-profile trials, once claiming that Johnny Depp had confided in her during his defamation trial against Amber Heard, as well as“covering” human trafficker and Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal trial in a fairly sympathetic way.)

Despite that preexisting base of support, Kennedy has done very little to speak further to women, especially young women. After speaking at a recent libertarian forum, he declined to tell The Washington Post whether he would protect abortion access and said initially that he hadn’t read a controversial Alabama IVF ruling. (He later said he had reviewed it and “wholeheartedly” rejected the ruling.) He has said he would support a 15-week abortion ban and later said he wouldn’t, and he has called abortion “a tragedy.” Amidst all this waffling over a core issue affecting young women, he found time to meet with an anti-child-support advocate who presents it as a “war on men,” which was then released as part of a Blacks for Kennedy promotional video. (In his attempt to court Black voters, Kennedy did speak with a panel of women in Atlanta. Politico reported that the meeting was coordinated by Angela Stanton King, a former Blacks for Trump proxy who was pardoned by the former president in 2020 for a previous felony conviction.)

In a way, Beres says, Kennedy is campaigning more as an influencer than as a politician, displaying his lifestyle and his connections in a way that would also appeal to an isolated, online male crowd looking for models of how—and who—to be: “He nails an image,” Beres says, “that a lot of people don’t understand they need a lot of money and connections to acquire.” In the end, promoting a controversial athlete and an ex-governor turned blogger as vice-presidential picks may not signal a coherent political vision. But it does show an enormous hunger to engage with online spaces where the young and disaffected men gather, and wait to be shown the way.

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rare-language-resources · 1 year

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Need resources for learning a rare language? Here's where I suggest starting.

A guide to finding (free) resources for those with niche target languages.

Wikibooks! -> https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Subject:Languages

Wikibooks my beloved. There are books for a LOT of languages here, unfortunately not many of them are complete. It's always worth checking through though! Books are sorted by continent and completion. As far as I know, there's no standard template for these books, but most all of them are formatted like textbooks, with lessons, indexes, exercises, etc. Books might be slow to update but most of them aren't dead projects.

Omniglot! -> https://omniglot.com

This ugly little website is SO helpful for finding resources for a ton of languages. Unfortunately it's kind of hard to navigate, so I'd just search up "[target language] omniglot.com" and the page for your language should show up. Scroll to the bottom and boom there should be a list of resources for learning. This site also has some fun stuff like a list of proverbs in various language. I'd recommend browsing it for fun sometime :)

Youtube! (duh?)

Maybe this is a little obvious, but it's worth mentioning. Try searching stuff like "learn [target language]" or "[target language] lessons". Don't be discouraged if there aren't a lot of results though, that happened for me!

WIKTIONARY!! (my beloved) -> https://www.wiktionary.org

This is a big ol' multilingual online dictionary!! In my experience, most words/entries have an IPA transcription and declension/conjugation chart (if needed). Sometimes words even have audio files to go along with them. Wiktionary has a pretty handy way of categorizing stuff, too. Typically, there's a "Category: [Target Language]", and in that category there will be various sub-topics like phrases, colors, words for body parts, and even vulgarities (really this site has it all!). I might make an in-depth guide on how I use wiktionary at some point because it has seriously been such a lifesaver for me. Also see if they have a frequency list for your target language. Wiktionary sometimes has lists of the 1000(+) most commonly used words in a language. It might not have it for yours, but if it does that can be very helpful for learning vocab.

Tumblr!

Not always fruitful, and definitely not always easy to search, but this place has some hidden gems if you keep an eye out for them. Try searching basic tags like the name of your target language in it's language (sorry that's poorly phrased... I mean like if you're learning Turkish search the #Türkçe tag rather than just #Turkish). This is handy for finding content in your target language. Recently I found a link to a site that has a bunch of free dubs of cartoons and animes done in my target language. I've also found comics done in my target language. Also, just reading what people are posting in that language is helpful and a fun way to immerse yourself in the language. As long as the memes have words you're learning!!

Anki (and flashcard sites in general)!

A free app for mobile (though with free there's a limited amount of time you can use it daily). Anki lets you search for public decks that others have made for learning your target language. Even if you don't find a premade deck, I recommend keeping it around because this app is great for making flash cards. They have an integrated format for foreign language vocab but it basically fills in with Google Translate, so just watch out for the accuracy with that. Besides Anki try searching other flashcard sites like Quizlet (though you might need to pay for that now? not sure). Generally, searching "[target language] flashcards" into google will have some good results.

The CIA (well, Foreign Service Institute) -> https://www.fsi-language-courses.org/fsi-language-courses/, https://www.livelingua.com/fsi/

Free textbooks made by the American government to train spies and ambassadors? Released to the public? For free? Wowza! Admittedly a lot of these are pretty outdated, but a free textbook is a free textbook. If your target language isn't on one of the sites I linked, try googling "[target language] FSI course", "[target language] FSI pdf", etc.

Well that's all I can think of now but I might edit this later. Feel free to add on :)

Good luck to everyone trying to learn a niche language, I feel your pain!! Remember that there's always more stuff if you dig hard enough! Happy studying and hope this helps!!!

#guide #langblr #language learning

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