#a century of swindles

[good-soupmens]

Ik the good omens fandom has different takes on God as a character, but I like the idea that she DOES have an ineffable plan, and Heaven is doing their absolute worst job carrying it out.

Most angels never talk to God, and they're usually selfish, they don't do the right thing (only what they're told), and it's even possible they're working under a corrupt power (like the Metatron). I like that theory because Metatron IS the barrier between God and the angels. He could easily lie to them and change plans, and we the audience know that "friendly old man metatron" swindling Aziraphale is not what he seems.

But from the beginning, we see inconsistency. Crowley falls from heaven after asking questions/hanging out with the wrong group while Aziraphale is allowed to lie about the flaming sword and change Heaven's plans. God can see how much he cares about humans and the earth by his actions (Crowley being the same), which makes me think that him getting away with it is intentional, not inconsistent or neglectful. ESPECIALLY if Aziraphale and Crowley run heaven and hell respectively in season 3. They have the power to change things, just like they stopped the world from ending the first time. I think Crowley and Aziraphale ARE the ineffable plan.

Their love could bridge the gap between opposing forces in a way that it couldn't if they were both angels. After all, both heaven and hell think they're doing the better thing while they're both not. Crowley and Aziraphale are the best of both sides.

If bringing them together was God's plan, it'd be a powerful story for queer Christians!! A lot of us have been hurt by the church, but we hold on to God's love, which doesn't fail us. We stay in a religion with a history of fighting queerness not because we're all brainwashed, but because we wholeheartedly believe in a God that loves us. Sometimes I see good omens' heaven as an analogy for toxic churches, and I'd love nothing more than for Aziraphale to realize heaven is working against God. Not to mention God using a gay couple to save the world/save heaven from corruption?? I'd kill for that storyline

Secondly, Aziraphale's devotion wouldn't have been for nothing. If God was awful the whole time, it defeats the times he and Crowley reached out, and the moment in the GOs1 finale where Crowley says, "what if you're going AGAINST God's ineffable plan?" to Gabriel and Beelzebub. (It'd almost defeat the purpose of her being the quirky narrator following their story, too.)

Even Crowley, never fooled by "heaven is all good" calls for God in his time of need ("God listening? Show me an ineffable plan.") (Possibly when he reaches to the sky in order to stop time) (Calling for God before Satan in the burning bookshop) (Looking up and muttering "God" after realizing Aziraphale is going to leave him in s2)

Lastly, after the trauma that both Crowley and Aziraphale went through, with Crowley falling and Aziraphale coming to terms with heaven's corruption (and both being mistreated by their side) it'd be nice to have been for a reason. They have every right to grieve and be angry for all that they went through, and the centuries that they weren't supposed to love each other, but I believe the series will end on a positive, sweet note, like the rainbow after a storm.

Like Job, they're losing almost everything (their relationship as it was, the bookshop, and the life they carved out), but they have each other. I think they'll lose everything to save EVERYONE, and in the end, the reward will top the pain. No holding back, no forces hunting them down, just them together after a PAINFULLY long time with everything they'd wanted.

We know that God doesn't get around to answering many questions, but her speech to Job was in part to say "trust me"

She laid the foundations of the earth. She made every living thing. Job couldn't see past the destruction of his life, but she has a plan. Job is a valuable human being, but he doesn't have the power and knowledge of God. God will share her plan when he can make a whale. Otherwise, he can trust that "Most things are fine in the end"

*Aziraphale voice* That's ineffable!

#ineffable husbands being the ineffable plan PLEASE #again. God being a good character in the end would mean a lot to queer christians like myself #and for the amount of times that ineffable is thrown around. it turns out ineffably #I'd like another reason to hate metatron also. I would love plot-wise for him to be the main villain #I also NEED Aziraphale to be right about some things. he was wrong for leaving Crowley but he should know what he's doing #his actions should be more important than “he's just brainwashed” #Crowley deserves reconciliation and a purpose for his pain #“it is not good for man to be alone” (God creating eve) parallel with putting aziracrow together #god good omens #good omens meta #metatron good omens #good omens season 3 #good omens theory #good omens #ineffable husbands #good omens season 2 #crowley #aziraphale #aziracrow #good omens spoilers #crowley good omens #ineffable plan #queer christian

[kirkenovak]

I’ve watched the Dungeons and Dragons movie too many times for it to be healthy and I decided to make it everyone else’s problem.

Honor Among Thieves/Dreamling crossover?

The Endless exist in the DnD setting but they don’t concern themselves with the affairs of gods and mortals, they just ARE. They exist outside the planes and influence all of them, albeit in different ways. They aren’t worshipped and usually aren’t well known.

Dream and Death do their visit to the mortal realm and meet Hob Gadling, Dream and Death have their bet and Hob becomes immortal. Now, in the DnD, unnaturally long lives aren’t that unheard of. There are elves who had already been adults when Hob became immortal, who are still alive. Arguably, Hob could pass himself off as a weird half-elf hybrid and no one would be too surprised he’s been knocking about for several centuries. But a human that not only lives long but doesn’t die? At all? No matter the manner of death, no matter the damage done to him, he just gets up again and keeps on trucking? No. That’s not normal. That shit’s weeeeeird. You don’t want to be advertising that unless you want every evil wizard warlock lich sorcerer and whathaveyou knocking on your door. So Hob still has to hide.

He of course still meets Dream every 100 years in the inn (every paladin and cleric with divine sense in the area does a little >_>). He still pretends to be his own son. He still does hundreds of different things. He still has a fight with Dream that causes Dream to walk out on him. He still buys the White Horse and waits for Dream. Dream is still captured by Burgess, a mighty wizard who really REALLY wants to conquer death but doesn’t want to be an undead because yuck.

Meanwhile, Xenk Yendar has met Hob in his travels several times already and is absolutely not buying the “I’m his son, I’m the son’s son, I’m the son’s grandson” excuse but Hob seems harmless, commits no evil acts (that Xenk knows of *coughscoughs*) and doesn’t register as anything otherworldly or undead so Xenk leaves him alone. That is until he walks into The White Horse one day, sees Hob for the first time in years and immediately senses that this is a temple, the land is consecrated, this man is the priest. The problem? A priest of what exactly? Normally it’s not really his business but given that Hob is a bit shady to begin with, it just doesn’t seem right. He asks Edgin for help, after all, who better to charm and swindle his way into Hob’s good graces and get some answers than a professional conman/thief/ex-Harper/bard who just doesn’t do magic, no seriously, what’s the deal with that.

This is where Ilmater decides to intervene. Sure, normally he wouldn’t stick his Devine nose in the matters on the Endless but he is the god of suffering, and both Dream and Hob are suffering, albeit in different ways. He sends his favourite paladin a vision of Dream and Hob, who then confines in Edgin and his crew and so, the DnD version of the fishbowl heist is born!

Starring: Xenk, the hottest paladin in existence; Edgin the spell-less bard; Edgin’s barely concealed lust for Xenk; Doric the most OP wildshape in existence; Simon the Sorcerer (no not the game, the game is great tho. Available on iOS. Try it. Starring Chris Barrie of the Red Dwarf fame as the voice of Simon. It has a sequel too tho not as good); Hob Gadling, the immortal but he can’t reveal he’s immortal and also has no idea who Dream is or what his true nature or even name is… wow he’s kinda useless in this setting and nobody trusts him; and Holga the carrying everything on her broad shoulders.

#dungeons and dragons #honor among thieves #the sandman #dreamling #xedgin #Hob gadling

[redrobin-detective]

Recent ATLA Fics I’ve Read

What is says on the tin, stories that I’ve read over the last month that I loved and wanted to share. Some of them are new, some old, some popular, some not but I’ve enjoyed them all and want to recommend them. As a heads up they’re either gen or Zukka.

In the Soft Light by CHSfic and VSfic

As the newly appointed cultural liaison to Northern Water Tribe, Zuko is the first Fire Nation Citizen to step foot inside the city's walls in nearly a century. He's determined to prove himself—to the Fire Lord and to his father—even if the Water Tribe's spirit-touched prince seems to want nothing to do with him. Moon Spirit Sokka, Zukka and Katara/Yue.

Healing Balm by burglar_bird

"Prince Zuko," Iroh began, but the prince wasn't having it. He stormed away and before he knew it he was in his quarters, flinging sparks from his fingers and hissing steam. When that passed, he aggressively lit his meditation candles and tried to calm down. It was difficult because unlike combat meditation came easily, which added insult to injury. Gentle flames licked the air and formed in his palms as well. They were warm and soothing, unlike how fire was supposed to be. Instead of stinging his skin with small burns, the flames numbed the scraps on his palms and the aches in his joints. He knew that by the time his meditation ended he would feel invigorated and new.

His heart burned with shame; no wonder father had discarded him. There was no greater disgrace than having a son who was a healer.

Zuko’s Evil Eye by exectutivedoughnut

Zuko is given a new chore to perform, which he does - to the best of his abilities. But just because he’s losing a fight with a needle doesn’t mean he’s blind (or at least, not blind-blind).

The Good Vanilla by Haircrescendo

Sokka’s beautiful friendship with Zuko doesn’t start with breaking Dad out of jail. That’s just what he tells people.Sokka’s beautiful friendship with Zuko started the day he realizes that he knows how to cook.Feat. breakup cake, an attempted assassination, and eating out of the pan like dirty heathens. Zukka

Blue by blacklipscurse

Iroh insists they create a new life and identity in Ba Sing Se. Zuko wants nothing more than to bide his time until his next opportunity to return home, until he realizes ‘Lee’ can get away with things Zuko never could. Zuko dons the mantle of the Blue Spirit again only to lose his focus when the Avatar comes to the city. This time, however, his attention is drawn to the annoying Southern Tribe warrior. Zukka.

WitchofEndor literally everything by them.

I’m obsessed with While Mighty Oaks Do Fall  and have read it no less than 3 times.

High Sage Kenji blesses Fire Prince Zuko with the resilience of the reed, who bends in the wind and never breaks. When he is done, Fire Prince Ozai narrows his eyes, seemingly displeased by this blessing. But Kenji does not speak for himself; he is only a vessel. 

The newly-crowned Fire Lord Ozai offers his firstborn son to service in the temple. This turns out to be a catastrophic mistake.

But also Life in Eden 

Her daughter is five years old when Ursa realises what she and Ozai have been doing to their children. By each choosing one to bestow with their approval, they’re pitting them against one another. Perhaps Ozai is doing it on purpose, but Ursa isn’t. She resolves to heal the damage she has done. In which Ursa tries to be a better parent to Azula, and it doesn’t change very much. And then, quite abruptly, it changes everything.

where the stars do not take sides

When Azula is nine, she becomes an only child. She hears the Fire Lord call for Zuko's life, and in the morning, her mother and brother are gone. Azula may be young, but she isn't naive. She knows what happened to them.

Which makes it all the more surprising when Azula tracks the Avatar down and fights his group of peasant friends, only to find herself staring into an eerily familiar face.

The Sweetheart Swindle

In which Zuko’s advisors won’t stop harassing him about suitable candidates for Fire Lady, and Zuko’s friends hatch an ingenious plan: pretend courtships.

illustrate the remnants of the life I used to live

Zuko's soul marks have been regularly burned away since before he knew what they meant. He knows that he cannot be loyal to his father and his nation while also being loyal to a soul family, so he doesn't look for them. Unfortunately, that means that he doesn't know when he's found them. 

The Family You Choose by TunaFishChris

Some people are born with soulmarks. Zuko has them, but his grandfather burned them off because they "make you weak."

Team Avatar has a few things to say about that.

Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry by orphan_account

(“You’re not sleeping,” Mai says softly. “How’d you know?” Zuko asks.

To be honest, he’s kind of gotten to the point where he’s surprised that anyone can perceive him outside of his necessary functions- he exists solely to sit in council meetings and shoulder the blame for genocides and famines and the suffering of one-hundred years. Doesn’t he?)

The war is over, but the fallout is just beginning. And where lightning strikes, thunder is bound to follow.

Divergence of Destiny by Fernandidily_yo

This is his life now, here on this ship, serving tea with Uncle and the crew. Traveling the world and staying far, far away from the ongoing war.

The Jasmine Dragon is Zuko's home.

Meeting the Avatar does not change that.

It changes absolutely nothing.

  (Until, inevitably, it does.)

this love burns so yellow (becoming orange and in it’s time, exploding) by meliebee

Ten months after Zuko is crowned at seventeen, he faces his first coup. 

With Agni on Our Side by fanficreader5

After the fateful Agni Kai, instead of sending him off on a ship, Fire Lord Ozai decided to remove his son's title and relegate him to being part of the Palace staff.

Zuko's pretty sure he's going to go back to being Crown Prince any day now.

Just a few more days.

And then the Avatar and his companions are captured.

What We’re Given series by Haircresendo

Started out as a “What would happen if Zuko happened to rediscover sky bison while searching for the Avatar?” and turned into something more than that

#atla #atla reccs

[metalheadsforblacklivesmatter]

I should say this because it's apparently not common knowledge.

Romani people aren't people from Romania.

Romanian people are people from Romania

Romani people are a nomadic group rich in culture found all across Europe. Usually comprised of brown skin and dark brown hair.

Based on language, culture, and history, it I'd guessed that Romani people originated from Northern India and migrated towards Europe between the 5th and 10th century (which is a really long fucking time ago).

And the g-slur often associated with Romani people is a slur and was attributed to the Romani people by people that lived in England because it Perugia stood for "Egyptian" but they attributed everyone of that complection to that word (which is now considered a slur because it was used to associate Romani people with thrives and swindles)

"Romani" is what that consider themselves in they're own language.

-fae

#romani #romani people

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A link-clump demands a linkdump

Cometh the weekend, cometh the linkdump. My daily-ish newsletter includes a section called "Hey look at this," with three short links per day, but sometimes those links get backed up and I need to clean house. Here's the eight previous installments:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

The country code top level domain (ccTLD) for the Caribbean island nation of Anguilla is .ai, and that's turned into millions of dollars worth of royalties as "entrepreneurs" scramble to sprinkle some buzzword-compliant AI stuff on their businesses in the most superficial way possible:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/08/ai-fever-turns-anguillas-ai-domain-into-a-digital-gold-mine/

All told, .ai domain royalties will account for about ten percent of the country's GDP.

It's actually kind of nice to see Anguilla finding some internet money at long last. Back in the 1990s, when I was a freelance web developer, I got hired to work on the investor website for a publicly traded internet casino based in Anguilla that was a scammy disaster in every conceivable way. The company had been conceived of by people who inherited a modestly successful chain of print-shops and decided to diversify by buying a dormant penny mining stock and relaunching it as an online casino.

But of course, online casinos were illegal nearly everywhere. Not in Anguilla – or at least, that's what the founders told us – which is why they located their servers there, despite the lack of broadband or, indeed, reliable electricity at their data-center. At a certain point, the whole thing started to whiff of a stock swindle, a pump-and-dump where they'd sell off shares in that ex-mining stock to people who knew even less about the internet than they did and skedaddle. I got out, and lost track of them, and a search for their names and business today turns up nothing so I assume that it flamed out before it could ruin any retail investors' lives.

Anguilla is a British Overseas Territory, one of those former British colonies that was drained and then given "independence" by paternalistic imperial administrators half a world away. The country's main industries are tourism and "finance" – which is to say, it's a pearl in the globe-spanning necklace of tax- and corporate-crime-havens the UK established around the world so its most vicious criminals – the hereditary aristocracy – can continue to use Britain's roads and exploit its educated workforce without paying any taxes.

This is the "finance curse," and there are tiny, struggling nations all around the world that live under it. Nick Shaxson dubbed them "Treasure Islands" in his outstanding book of the same name:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780230341722/treasureislands

I can't imagine that the AI bubble will last forever – anything that can't go on forever eventually stops – and when it does, those .ai domain royalties will dry up. But until then, I salute Anguilla, which has at last found the internet riches that I played a small part in bringing to it in the previous century.

The AI bubble is indeed overdue for a popping, but while the market remains gripped by irrational exuberance, there's lots of weird stuff happening around the edges. Take Inject My PDF, which embeds repeating blocks of invisible text into your resume:

https://kai-greshake.de/posts/inject-my-pdf/

The text is tuned to make resume-sorting Large Language Models identify you as the ideal candidate for the job. It'll even trick the summarizer function into spitting out text that does not appear in any human-readable form on your CV.

Embedding weird stuff into resumes is a hacker tradition. I first encountered it at the Chaos Communications Congress in 2012, when Ang Cui used it as an example in his stellar "Print Me If You Dare" talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njVv7J2azY8

Cui figured out that one way to update the software of a printer was to embed an invisible Postscript instruction in a document that basically said, "everything after this is a firmware update." Then he came up with 100 lines of perl that he hid in documents with names like cv.pdf that would flash the printer when they ran, causing it to probe your LAN for vulnerable PCs and take them over, opening a reverse-shell to his command-and-control server in the cloud. Compromised printers would then refuse to apply future updates from their owners, but would pretend to install them and even update their version numbers to give verisimilitude to the ruse. The only way to exorcise these haunted printers was to send 'em to the landfill. Good times!

Printers are still a dumpster fire, and it's not solely about the intrinsic difficulty of computer security. After all, printer manufacturers have devoted enormous resources to hardening their products against their owners, making it progressively harder to use third-party ink. They're super perverse about it, too – they send "security updates" to your printer that update the printer's security against you – run these updates and your printer downgrades itself by refusing to use the ink you chose for it:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

It's a reminder that what a monopolist thinks of as "security" isn't what you think of as security. Oftentimes, their security is antithetical to your security. That was the case with Web Environment Integrity, a plan by Google to make your phone rat you out to advertisers' servers, revealing any adblocking modifications you might have installed so that ad-serving companies could refuse to talk to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

WEI is now dead, thanks to a lot of hueing and crying by people like us:

https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/02/google_abandons_web_environment_integrity/

But the dream of securing Google against its own users lives on. Youtube has embarked on an aggressive campaign of refusing to show videos to people running ad-blockers, triggering an arms-race of ad-blocker-blockers and ad-blocker-blocker-blockers:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/where-will-the-ad-versus-ad-blocker-arms-race-end/

The folks behind Ublock Origin are racing to keep up with Google's engineers' countermeasures, and there's a single-serving website called "Is uBlock Origin updated to the last Anti-Adblocker YouTube script?" that will give you a realtime, one-word status update:

https://drhyperion451.github.io/does-uBO-bypass-yt/

One in four web users has an ad-blocker, a stat that Doc Searls pithily summarizes as "the biggest boycott in world history":

https://doc.searls.com/2015/09/28/beyond-ad-blocking-the-biggest-boycott-in-human-history/

Zero app users have ad-blockers. That's not because ad-blocking an app is harder than ad-blocking the web – it's because reverse-engineering an app triggers liability under IP laws like Section 1201 of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which can put you away for 5 years for a first offense. That's what I mean when I say that "IP is anything that lets a company control its customers, critics or competitors:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

I predicted that apps would open up all kinds of opportunities for abusive, monopolistic conduct back in 2010, and I'm experiencing a mix of sadness and smugness (I assume there's a German word for this emotion) at being so thoroughly vindicated by history:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

The more control a company can exert over its customers, the worse it will be tempted to treat them. These systems of control shift the balance of power within companies, making it harder for internal factions that defend product quality and customer interests to win against the enshittifiers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

The result has been a Great Enshittening, with platforms of all description shifting value from their customers and users to their shareholders, making everything palpably worse. The only bright side is that this has created the political will to do something about it, sparking a wave of bold, muscular antitrust action all over the world.

The Google antitrust case is certainly the most important corporate lawsuit of the century (so far), but Judge Amit Mehta's deference to Google's demands for secrecy has kept the case out of the headlines. I mean, Sam Bankman-Fried is a psychopathic thief, but even so, his trial does not deserve its vastly greater prominence, though, if you haven't heard yet, he's been convicted and will face decades in prison after he exhausts his appeals:

https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/sam-bankman-fried-guilty-on-all-charges

The secrecy around Google's trial has relaxed somewhat, and the trickle of revelations emerging from the cracks in the courthouse are fascinating. For the first time, we're able to get a concrete sense of which queries are the most lucrative for Google:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/1/23941766/google-antitrust-trial-search-queries-ad-money

The list comes from 2018, but it's still wild. As David Pierce writes in The Verge, the top twenty includes three iPhone-related terms, five insurance queries, and the rest are overshadowed by searches for customer service info for monopolistic services like Xfinity, Uber and Hulu.

All-in-all, we're living through a hell of a moment for piercing the corporate veil. Maybe it's the problem of maintaining secrecy within large companies, or maybe the the rampant mistreatment of even senior executives has led to more leaks and whistleblowing. Either way, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the anonymous leaker who revealed the unbelievable pettiness of former HBO president of programming Casey Bloys, who ordered his underlings to create an army of sock-puppet Twitter accounts to harass TV and movie critics who panned HBO's shows:

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/hbo-casey-bloys-secret-twitter-trolls-tv-critics-leaked-texts-lawsuit-the-idol-1234867722/

These trolling attempts were pathetic, even by the standards of thick-fingered corporate execs. Like, accusing critics who panned the shitty-ass Perry Mason reboot of disrespecting veterans because the fictional Mason's back-story had him storming the beach on D-Day.

The pushback against corporate bullying is everywhere, and of course, the vanguard is the labor movement. Did you hear that the UAW won their strike against the auto-makers, scoring raises for all workers based on the increases in the companies' CEO pay? The UAW isn't done, either! Their incredible new leader, Shawn Fain, has called for a general strike in 2028:

https://www.404media.co/uaw-calls-on-workers-to-line-up-massive-general-strike-for-2028-to-defeat-billionaire-class/

The massive victory for unionized auto-workers has thrown a spotlight on the terrible working conditions and pay for workers at Tesla, a criminal company that has no compunctions about violating labor law to prevent its workers from exercising their legal rights. Over in Sweden, union workers are teaching Tesla a lesson. After the company tried its illegal union-busting playbook on Tesla service centers, the unionized dock-workers issued an ultimatum: respect your workers or face a blockade at Sweden's ports that would block any Tesla from being unloaded into the EU's fifth largest Tesla market:

https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-sweden-strike/

Of course, the real solution to Teslas – and every other kind of car – is to redesign our cities for public transit, walking and cycling, making cars the exception for deliveries, accessibility and other necessities. Transitioning to EVs will make a big dent in the climate emergency, but it won't make our streets any safer – and they keep getting deadlier.

Last summer, my dear old pal Ted Kulczycky got in touch with me to tell me that Talking Heads were going to be all present in public for the first time since the band's breakup, as part of the debut of the newly remastered print of Stop Making Sense, the greatest concert movie of all time. Even better, the show would be in Toronto, my hometown, where Ted and I went to high-school together, at TIFF.

Ted is the only person I know who is more obsessed with Talking Heads than I am, and he started working on tickets for the show while I starting pricing plane tickets. And then, the unthinkable happened: Ted's wife, Serah, got in touch to say that Ted had been run over by a car while getting off of a streetcar, that he was severely injured, and would require multiple surgeries.

But this was Ted, so of course he was still planning to see the show. And he did, getting a day-pass from the hospital and showing up looking like someone from a Kids In The Hall sketch who'd been made up to look like someone who'd been run over by a car:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/53182440282/

In his Globe and Mail article about Ted's experience, Brad Wheeler describes how the whole hospital rallied around Ted to make it possible for him to get to the movie:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/article-how-a-talking-heads-superfan-found-healing-with-the-concert-film-stop/

He also mentions that Ted is working on a book and podcast about Stop Making Sense. I visited Ted in the hospital the day after the gig and we talked about the book and it sounds amazing. Also? The movie was incredible. See it in Imax.

That heartwarming tale of healing through big suits is a pretty good place to wrap up this linkdump, but I want to call your attention to just one more thing before I go: Robin Sloan's Snarkmarket piece about blogging and "stock and flow":

https://snarkmarket.com/2010/4890/

Sloan makes the excellent case that for writers, having a "flow" of short, quick posts builds the audience for a "stock" of longer, more synthetic pieces like books. This has certainly been my experience, but I think it's only part of the story – there are good, non-mercenary reasons for writers to do a lot of "flow." As I wrote in my 2021 essay, "The Memex Method," turning your commonplace book into a database – AKA "blogging" – makes you write better notes to yourself because you know others will see them:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

This, in turn, creates a supersaturated, subconscious solution of fragments that are just waiting to nucleate and crystallize into full-blown novels and nonfiction books and other "stock." That's how I came out of lockdown with nine new books. The next one is The Lost Cause, a hopepunk science fiction novel about the climate whose early fans include Naomi Klein, Rebecca Solnit, Bill McKibben and Kim Stanley Robinson. It's out on November 14:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/05/variegated/#nein

#pluralistic #hbo #astroturfing #sweden #labor #unions #tesla #adblock #ublock #youtube #prompt injection #publishing #robin sloan #linkdumps #linkdump #ai #tlds #anguilla #finance curse #ted Kulczycky #toronto #stop making sense #talking heads

[copperbadge]

hi sam! do you have any recommendations for good sources of info for someone who'd like to learn more about cons and con artists? Any format is fine, books, podcasts, youtube, whatever, i'm just having a hard time finding a good source that really digs into and examines the actual techniques and 'mechanics' so to speak.

It is a little bit tough because of course most scammers are also self-embroidering liars :D And my education was very patchwork. For specifically cons and con artists (outside of art crime, which generally doesn't touch the con world directly) I'd advise starting with "Titanic Thompson: The Man Who Bet On Everything" by Kevin Cook, which is a biography of one of the early 20th century's most preeminent con men; it's a good tale but it also demonstrates the general life trajectory of con men, which can be pretty grim. Most cons end up in prison, and even those that don't or that get out tend to die poor and alone, because they can't stop scamming.

The Mark Inside by Amy Reading is one that I don't remember vividly but I did write a review of here, and I think it's another good starting place. (All the links following are to reviews I did.) If you've ever watched The Sting, which is a movie about con artists and also kind of a good primer, it's based on The Professional Thief by Edwin Sutherland, which is an anthropology of professional crime in the early 20th century. While technically it was written less by him than by an anonymous contact of his in the criminal underworld, that doesn't mean it's accurate per se; we only have that writer's word that any of it is true, so again, read skeptically.

I'd have to look up which piece it was because there's been a lot about her, but if you give Doris Payne a google she's another great example of a fascinating person who is just a giant liar. She paints a very vivid picture of her own career, but if you read about her later years you do realize that she's still conning everyone (she attempts to swindle at least one journalist working with her) and has nothing to show for her career, which may be a pack of lies to begin with. A lot of her stories have been fact checked and found wanting. I'd read up on the life of Victor Lustig as well; he's most famously known as the man who fraudulently sold the Eiffel Tower (twice) but I don't have a good biography offhand.

In your reading you will probably run across Han Van Meegeren, who forged Vermeers and ripped off the art world with them, then was tried for colluding with Nazis because he sold Nazis many "Vermeers" -- he had to paint a Vermeer while in prison to prove he'd forged the ones he sold the Nazis. This is a charming story but until very recently it was not widely noted that Van Meegeren was ABSOLUTELY A BIG NAZI HIMSELF. I was suckered by the story for years and I know most people were, so if you encounter media about him that does not include this fact, and you're interested in his story, look for newer scholarship.

There's a tangentially related book, "Where The Money Was" by Willie Sutton and Edward Linn, that is the semi-autobiography of a bank robber and it's very fun and funny, so despite not being directly about crime, I'd recommend that one.

The Napoleon Of Crime by Ben MacIntyre is a biography of the man who Moriarty was purportedly based on; it's sort of related rather than direct, but I recall enjoying it and there's a fascinating example of the VERY rare times when art heists are for a specific piece rather than for a specific goal.

There's a podcast called Scam Goddess that I found...enjoyable and informative, but also not very well-researched. In particular some of the earlier episodes are really poorly fact-checked. That said, she reads out letters from people writing in to discuss their scams and she talks about a lot of famous scam stories, so as long as you listen with the knowledge that she's neither a researcher nor an expert you should be okay.

Provenance by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo is what I'll close with, because it's about the interplay between art crime and con artistry, but it's also a strong argument for not valorizing cons; it's a documentation of how a couple of criminals out for nothing more than a quick buck really fucked up the entire system by which we authenticate art, and did insane levels of damage to genuine art scholarship. This isn't a little guy punching up against millionaire art collectors or fat cat museums, the way the narrative is often framed; art crime like this, involving forged or altered provenances, really harms art historians and the study of art.

I think the study of confidence crime and art crime is absolutely fascinating. There's a lot to learn about social engineering and society itself. But I think if I can impart to you one piece of wisdom, it's that con men are never, ever out for anyone but themselves and have no qualms or hesitations about hurting you to get what they want. The romance of con artistry often fools journalists and sophisticated researchers as well, so it's very easy to get swept up in it, but you should approach the entire genre with the attitude that everything you read has a 75% chance of being a charming work of total fiction.

On that note -- you may enjoy the short stories of O. Henry, some of which are about confidence men; I can't recommend specific titles but his fiction is very enjoyable generally, at least in my opinion.

#con artists #crime #scams

[macaronis-telegraph]

Queer WWI Literature

This is a very niche and limited category, so I’ve been trying to throw together a list of what I can find out there for anyone else who might also be interested. What follows are all books that contain LGBTQ+ rep of any kind, that also involve the First World War as a central theme.

Titles with an asterisk* are the ones I have personally read, and would be more than happy to talk about/answer any questions about their content/rep!

Written in the 20th Century

Alf, by Bruno Vogel (1929)

Despised and Rejected, by Rose Allatini (pseud. A.T. Fitzroy) (1918)*

Lads: Love Poetry of the Trenches, edited by Martin Taylor (1989)

The Memorial, by Christopher Isherwood (1932)

My Father and Myself, by J.R. Ackerley (1968)

The Prisoners of War: A Play in Three Acts, by J.R. Ackerley (1925)*

The Regeneration Trilogy (Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, The Ghost Road), by Pat Barker (1991, 1993, 1995)*

A Scarlet Pansy, by Robert Scully (1932)*

Strange Meeting, by Susan Hill (1976)

Written in the 21st Century

The Absolutist, by John Boyne (2011)

Across Your Dreams, by Jay Lewis Taylor (2016)

Alec, by William di Canzio (2021)

Ashthorne, by April Yates (2022)

Awfully Glad, by Charlie Cochrane (2014)

Bonds of Earth, by G.N. Chevalier (2012)*

The Boy I Love, by Marion Husband (2005)*

The Daughters of Mars, Thomas Keneally (2012)

Eleventh Hour, by Elin Gregory (2016)

The Fallen Snow, by John J. Kelley (2012)

Fighting Proud: The Untold Story of the Gay Men Who Served in Two World Wars, by Stephen Bourne (2017) – (I know I said fiction, but I’m going to leave this one here anyhow)

Flower of Iowa, by Lance Ringel (2014)*

The Great Swindle, by Pierre Lemaitre (2013)*

The Indian Clerk, by David Leavitt (2007)

The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing, by Mary Paulson-Ellis (2019) *

In Memoriam, by Alice Winn (2023)

The Lie, by Helen Dunmore (2014)

The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters (2014)

A Pride of Poppies, short story collection published by Manifold Press (2015)

Promises Made Under Fire, by Charlie Cochrane (2013)

The Shell House, by Linda Newbery (2002)*

Spectred Isle, by K.J. Charles (2017)

The Stranger’s Child, by Alan Hollinghurst (2011)

The Warm Hands of Ghosts, by Katherine Arden (2024)

Whistling in the Dark, by Tamara Allen (2008)*

Wild with All Regrets, by Emma Deards (2023)

The World and All that it Holds, by Aleksandar Hemon (2023)

This is a dynamic list, which I will continue to update whenever I find something new. If you know of anything that isn’t on this list and needs to be, please let me know!

#wwi #queer fiction #lgbtq books #queer lit #queer literature #lgbtq literature #historical fiction #booklr #book recs #queer wwi fiction #world war one #world war 1 #the great war #lgbtq

[cassberry]

(Some links if you want to watch 3rd Life or Last Life first! EDIT: And here is Limited Life! )

Welcome one and all to the life series soulmate AU season! I seem to have got into the habit of making a new one of these whenever the new season is literally just around the corner. And I use them as an excuse each time to re-watch the life series and to ramble about it lmao

Now thankfully the core mechanic this season of soulmates made collating this guide 1000% easier then 3rd or Last Life. With a few exceptions, soulmates tended to stay side-by-side the whole session. Now don't get me wrong although some perspectives can be interchangeable, they are all a great watch! I have just put the POV I believe to show more of whats happening on the server or an incredibly important moment.

WARNING: Once again an incredibly long read more where I expound at length why I chose these specific POV's lol enjoy!

SESSION ONE

Grian - I'm keeping with tradition and recommending Grian first because in all honesty his first episode is a fantastic watch. Between the reveal of who his soulmate is and various shenanigans, this episode was so much fun.

Cleo or Scott - Cleo and Scott probably see most of the server trying to find their soulmates so either of these POV's are fantastic.

Pearl - Pearl bounces between groups for quite a bit of this session, so she's great to get a good look at multiple dynamics. However, its the last 5 or so minutes of her episode that really set in motion some of the leading conflicts of the season that you don't want to miss.

Etho - Just a fun episode honestly! His soulmate reveal with Joel is so freaking funny and I called it my 3rd Life post that when Etho and Joel team up, they just become little gremlins lmao I think they spend half the episode giggling.

SESSION TWO

Impulse - The Real Housewives of the Mid-Century Modern Home is a totally true and totally real show that happened during Impulse and Bdubs episodes this week. They are happily married and will prove that fact by breaking up every other couple on the server.

Scar - With a combination of swindling and major arson, Scar really does do it all this session.

Scott - The interpersonal drama this season is amazing and Scott being right in the middle of it makes this POV a great watch.

Tango - Absolutely not related to another POV this session, but making the Ranch out of wood was probably not a good idea in the long run.

SESSION THREE

Big B - The drama between Big B and Ren this session is so juicy. Between secret soulmates, Scott testing their relationship and [SPOILERS] becoming the first reds on the server, I don't know how they survived as long as they did.

Jimmy - Along with his soulmate, Jimmy and Tango welcome a beautiful baby boy into the world this week and probably cause the most chaos I've ever seen in the life series.

Martyn - Man, he is really bad at maths.

Pearl - Being the lone wolf (heh) of the season, her POV is great to get an outside view on events.

SESSION FOUR

Joel - I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard at the beginning of an episode before. Also fishing rods are to OP, mojang needs to nerf them before they claim even more lives lol 

Cleo - So much happens this episode, its ridiculous. But Cleo has a good blend of chaos and calm.

Ren - The most elaborate plot to kill others never seems to be as good as just a weapon in the end. 

Martyn - As Martyn is inviting everyone to a pool party, he probably sees most of the server, so he is great perspective to see what everyone is up to.

BONUS: watch Scar’s POV around 26:10 for the ultimate badass moment.

SESSION FIVE

Scar - Scar goes through it this week. I really can’t say much more without major spoilers but oh boy, this is an exciting POV.

Etho - The boat boys have wayyyy to much fun being red this session.

Jimmy - At this point I think there is someone out there has a personal grudge against him lol also if you want to see a fandom go nuts over a Ferris Bueller quote, watch the end of Tango's video.

Big B - Just a good solid episode and the ending is actually tragic.

SESSION SIX

Pearl - The most essential POV of the season. Heartbreak! Betrayal! Just general badassery! It's all here and its all amazing!

Bdubs - Gives a good overview of the Red Alliance and the chaos that happens when a group of people have nothing left to do but hunt others down.

Cleo - Watching her and Martyn try and outrun the reds is so incredibly stressful. Watching her turn red is so incredibly satisfying.

Grian - After he kicks the bucket due to... reasons, he sticks around in ghost form for a bit. Also his credits honestly makes me a little emotional.

In Summary...

And that's it! This season was incredibly short due to the shared life mechanic, however it was no less amazing than the others. Can I just say the fan content that came out of this season has just blown me away. It's just all so damn good.

Also I had someone ask why I do it this way rather than just recommending specific POV's to watch all the way through. It's really because I believe the best way to watch a Life season is to binge all the POV's of one session at once, completely break down over the sheer amount of content and then move onto the next week lmao just like as if it was live!

But really, there is something magical about watching multiple perspectives of the same event one after another that just gives the life series its charm. You see everything there is to see and then your anticipation for the next session is super high which just makes the experience so much more exciting. Anyway I hope this helps you on your Double Life adventure!

#double life smp #dlsmp #trafficblr #mcyt #life series smp #i really like making these ^-^ #there is something so fun about putting this together #please excuse me if there are any mistakes #its so late here i need to sleep lol #berry.posts #long post

[raindrop-on-a-spiderweb]

Sending love to one of the best writers on ao3 😘💕 I check your page frequently and wanted to ask about the things that you enjoy doing or aspire to do

Hi Anon, it's so sweet of you to send this ask to ask after me. Rest assured your words are appreciated on this end; thank you from the bottom of my heart and top of my soul 🫂 I'm very glad you think highly of my work even after so long, and I'm so so sorry I haven't had any new content in such a long time. But I am hard at work on a oneshot that will definitely be published before the next chapter of Samarra, so the well won't stay dry for long! The summary is “A jaded prison nurse must come to rely on a man she hates and fears in the midst of a deadly prison riot.” I started writing it in the ward; it's based off of the Moundsville Penitentiary which is an especially spooky place I've been to–an old 19th century prison made of towering stone turrets, eerie high ceilings, and rusted iron cells packed together like pigsties. I'm hoping to get that atmosphere across; it's about ⅔ of the way finished so good progress is being made!

Well I enjoy writing, most of all, but I've already talked about that in detail a thousand times so I'll spare you. I love reading, of course (I just finished “The Five”, about the victims of Jack the Ripper, and it's a fascinating bit of history and an incredible and horrifying look at Victorian-era industrial Britain). I love exploring the mountains with my cats trotting along beside me and photographing what I find. In all honesty I'm a bit of a trappist–I rarely see people except hunters and cashiers, and most of my time is spent alone with myself or my dad. But each day is an adventure when you're in nature and each season brings primordial and beautiful changes– I collected watercress the other day and found the downy remains of a fawn. 

I love watching old movies. My dad and I were watching Laurel and Hardy last night and I swear it holds up a century later. Before that we watched King Rat, which is one of his–and my–favorite movie; about two men stuck in a Japanese prison camp and the Machiavellian and underhanded ways they survive there. The book is particularly good too, and the epilogue about rats devouring each other has haunted my dreams for a long time. 

On the same subject, a series that I highly recommend is called Tenko, which is very similar to King Rat, except the prisoners are women. It's so grueling, realistic and enrapturing; I've never seen anything that so squarely focuses on women's experiences, relationships with each other, the hardships they face, and how they struggle to survive together in a thankless, deprived environment. The backstabbing and despair that comes in their darkest moments, the love and support in which they uplift each other with, their mistrustful and uneven relationships with their captors that occasionally erupt in friendships and affairs–and all the episodes are on dailymotion, too!

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x74u4fi

I like dreaming most of all. So many of my story ideas come from my dreams. The worst thing in the world is waking up and trying to catch the stray strands of the dream slipping through your fingers. It's amazing to live so many lives–good or bad–inside your head. Sometimes when I wake up, I feel a sweeping, palpable sense of relief that I don't live in the world I conjured last night, and sometimes I wish I could just claw myself back into my brain and live in that little pocket world for the rest of my life.

I do not aspire to much. I don't really have any base wishes but to keep writing and live til 70. We all have our hopeful fantasies, of course, and when I finally do get Ragnatela on Amazon Kindle (Microsoft Word is trying to swindle me out of one hundred and fifty American dollars to use their dogshit platform, and since the manuscript is half-edited, I'm afraid to lose my formatting if I switched to a free program like Libreoffice) maybe it will get some attention. 

I still intend on writing on Ao3 until the day I die, though. Even with its unsavory content I have such a soft spot for its unrestricted freedom of speech and prose. Plus I don't want to give up talking to you guys and goofing off in the comments ☹️ I also aspire to stop drinking. I'm sure I've already shaved a few years off my lifespan with my tippling habit. But when one day is much like the other, is there much point in extending it?

I aspire to travel around the United States more. I took a trip through the Deep South to visit Savannah and it was enrapturing; something I will remember for the rest of my life. Rusted-out cars felted in green moss, skinny, grazing horses in windswept fields, peeling roadside signs advertising tent revivals, clownish golliwogs behind still windows of cafes, forgotten tugboats half-sunken into lagoons, highway strip hotels where craggy hookers peered at you suspiciously from their fold-up chairs, and derelict cemeteries separated between Union and Confederate. It was just post-Irma and we were often the only tourists at any of these places. The effects of the hurricane were stark and obvious, with the land in a state of shock before any official agencies came to clean them up. I remember boats crashed into the harbor and grandfather trees felled in front of opulent antebellum homes, and the sea churned brown and murky when we trekked to the beach. The sense of desolation, and not only from the hurricane, was chilling–but I loved being there and loved being swathed by the kudzu and history. My mother is very ill and before she dies we might make up briefly and take a trip to New Orleans together and explore rural Louisiana; I'd always wanted to write a story set in New Orleans. Louisiana is a fascinating state with its mixture of Napoleonic and Creole influences; and I've always been drawn to the grand, decaying tombs of New Orleans as much as I have been to the odd Francophone swamps and their hidden dialects and traditions. And one day I would like to go way, way out west and explore the Gold Rush ghost towns. All the mines where I am are filled-in, so I would like to venture underneath the earth just once. 

Most of all, I aspire to be alone, and live by myself for the rest of my life, far away from town, somewhere in the mountains like where I am now. I wish I didn't have to see another person for the rest of my life. Being alone with myself is bad enough, being with others is intolerable.

Anyways, I apologize for my undue pleonasm, you caught me in a chatty mood 😀 Here's an excerpt from the newest prison one-shot:

Rhoda had met Jesse Fitzner her first day on the job. It was midway through her shift, and she was taking a lunch break and grading her sister Sherise's homework in her office. The day had started with a white-knuckle ride in early morning mist so thick she couldn't see the taillights of the car in front of her. Midway through her preliminary tour of the prison, an inmate had stuffed his toilet full of socks, which promptly overflowed and leaked sewage out of the cell onto her high heels. The hoots and jeers had made her speed up, trying to avoid the leering eyes of her future patients. And her introduction to the mental ward, by a younger but just as pessimistic Fawna, had not lifted her mood any either.

So there she sat in her office, snatching a moment of calmness and frantically scribbling corrections over Sherise's homework before her sister turned it in tomorrow. And then the door swung open.

A blond man poked his head in and briefly raised his eyebrows. He was wearing the omnipresent, drab gray prison uniform, pants and a sweatshirt rolled up to his elbows. "What are you up to?"

She flipped the cover of the notebook over.

"Going over my sister's homework. Is there something you need?"

"Passing on a message to Nurse Judson. One of the inmates wants to switch his blood pressure medication."

"Oh, she'll be back soon. I think she's–doing something with the prisoners. Just give her a few minutes."

"No hurry." He pulled the chair opposite her and sat down in it. "So you're grading your kid sister's homework? Shouldn't she be doing that herself?"

The man had thick blond hair that stuck up in back like a duck's tail, and very rosy cheeks. He looked like he had just shaven, by the nicks on his neck. 

"It's a long story. I should be–"

"I've got time. If this is your first day, you need to take some time to yourself to relax--else you'll end up in the infirmary."

Rhoda laughed. He had a nice smile and a nice manner about him–very jovial and friendly. It was refreshing to see a man who didn't stare at her like she was a piece of meat. "Well, my parents died when my brother and I were still young. Seth was seventeen, I was fifteen. He went to work so we didn't have to break up the family, and I stayed home to care for my little siblings, all three of them. It wasn't fun. I always wanted to do more for them than what I was stuck with, so I'm making sure they get good grades and go to good colleges. That's why I got this job in the first place, to put some back for their college funds."

"That's real decent of you. I don't know a single woman who would go so far for their family. You'd best be proud of yourself. Where's your brother now?"

"He's working out of state in Pennsylvania. He found a good woman and has a concrete contracting business now."

"You got yourself a man?"

"Never saw the need. Someday, maybe, when I'm lonelier."

"Working here for a few years will train that loneliness for a man right outta of you." 

They both laughed at that, and Rhoda felt her tensed muscles begin to relax. "I didn't catch your name."

"Jesse Lee Fitzner." He reached across the desk to grip her hand. For being such a small-built man, he had a crushing handshake.

"Rhoda Ames. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"I knew a few Ameses when I was on the outside. Where your folks from?"

"Beckworth, west of here."

"Oh, you're bullshitting me. I have folks from there too. You don't know a Harry Fitzner, do you?"

"Harry who used to run the car repair shop?"

"That's him! My uncle. He retired a few years ago. His lungs got to him. Too much time in the mines."

The door slammed open again. An elderly prison guard, who had greeted her rather abruptly upon her hiring and who had a hard and wrinkled face, was standing in the doorway. When he saw Jesse, his face grew harder. "What are you doing here, inmate?"

Jesse raised his hands, still not moving from where he was leaning back on the chair. "Just dropping off a message for Nurse Judson."

"Next time, leave the message with Nurse Ames and promptly return to your cell. There's no reason for you to be here actin' so friendly."

To Rhoda's mild disappointment, the guard grabbed Jesse by his arm and yanked him out, harder than he needed to. Before he was escorted out, Jesse tossed a glance over her shoulder and winked at her. "Rhoda, you're a young lady, and I'm a bit of a spring chicken myself. I think we would get along real well outside these walls."

Rhoda couldn't help the giggle that bubbled up from her throat. She felt lightheaded. She was a rangy and abrupt woman with a working tan, and hadn't much experience with men flirting with her.

When Jesse was marched out, Rhoda stood up and grabbed her peaked nurse's cap, girding her loins for the next shift on the ward. While she was counting medications, the elderly guard–Miles–came in again and shut the door behind him. She flinched, expecting a dressing-down on her first day of work. I wasn't fraternizing with the prisoner, was I? Am I… am I gonna lose my job?

He sat down opposite her. "You ever hear that tale 'bout the lady and the snake?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to–"

"Old story; old, old story. One of them Aesop stories they wrote when people was still in togas and carved words in stone. A woman was walking home one day when she saw a frozen snake lying on the side of the road. It begged her to save its poor little self, this little creature of God. So taking pity on it, the woman brought it home and warmed it by the fire between her breasts. And as it thawed, it bit her breast. 'Oh, why would you do such a thing? Your poison will kill me,’ she wailed. And the snake smiled and said, 'You knew I was a snake before you brought me into your house.'"

Rhoda stared at him, puzzled. "I don't understand."

"You know what that fellow did to get in here? Fitzner was top dog in a motorcycle gang outside of prison. A real nasty one. He ordered a contract killing on a rival gang member. They snatched the poor fellow when he was leaving a bar. Hung him from a tree, broke his legs with doublejack hammers, used him as target practice with their sawed-offs, cut his dick off and shoved it in his mouth, then left and let him choke on it and bleed to death for the rest of the night. He was out, too, far out in the mountains, and they only found him weeks later when a hunter stumbled on him. One of the killers snitched on Fitzner in exchange for dropping a drug felony sentence he was staring at. That snitch went into hiding and changed his name. Two days after Fitzner was taken to this good penitentiary, he was found with his head beaten in, in a dry creek bed."

Rhoda's head began to spin in slow whirls. Her hand where Jesse had shaken it grew very clammy. She remembered his bright smile across the desk, his dark eyes, and felt bile and vomit churn in her throat.

"You both were talking for a while, I noticed. He's good at prising information out of people, Fitzner is. A boyish smile and a few good words and he can make both men and women melt like butter on yer tongue. See? Now he knows who you are, and where your folks live. Now he can get to you."

Rhoda tried to talk, but her tongue was paralyzed. She looked down and wiped her sweaty hands on her knees.

Miles got up and went over to the door. He looked out of the window set on top, and his hard face relaxed. He seemed much older in that moment, more wrinkled and exhausted.

"You'd best be careful of him, Nurse Ames. He's a bad 'un. I'll be glad to see the back of him."

As it turned out, Miles retired later that year and it was Jesse who saw the back of him. 

And Rhoda became very wary of him from then on. Whenever he saw her in the hall, in the chow line, in the infirmary, he smiled at her and tried to make small talk. She ignored him, or was curt with him.

Unfortunately, he seemed to take that as an invitation.

#personal #asks #writing

[anthonycrowley]

canon azcrow from shadwell’s perspective must be fucking bonkers imagine trying to swindle two dudes who you think have nothing to do with each other for half a century only to find out in your 70s that they are immortal celestial and infernal beings who are working together to avert the apocalypse. and then a few years later you get an invitation in the mail to their wedding.

#text #my post #mobi #gomens #and that’s not even getting into how in 1967 shadwell and crowley fu-

[memecucker]

One of the things I really liked about Jennifer Michael Hecht’s book Doubt is how she doesn’t take the perspective of “history of explicit atheism” but more “history of people questioning accepted truths derived from religion” and this definitely includes the long history of antitheist literature across the globe but isnt synonymous with it.

For example you’ve got Rabbi Levi Ben Gershon from the early 1300s and you would not for a second say he was a “critic of religion” but he did say lots of things critical of recieved religious traditions including critiques of supernaturalism that some people today might believe were ‘impossible’ for a medieval person to conceive. For ben Gershon, God had created the world and intended reason to be the mediating factor between humans and creation. This meant that to assert things contrary to reason as the truth was something that went against the will of God. So ben Gershon went through scripture and for basically every supernatural event described beyond original Creation was actually either allegory or use of a literary metaphor or just a plain natural phenomenon that happened at a very fortuitous time eg; there are plenty of recorded instances of rivers or wetlands spontaneously drying up due to purely natural phenomenon like rockslides, drought, unusual low tides etc and something like that must’ve been what happened with the parting of the ‘sea of reeds’ in Exodus; or that when Joshua is said to have “stopped the sun” this was a literary description of the subjective phenomenon of ‘time slowing down’ in the heat of something like an intense battle. And you can see how ben Gershon’s ideas and questioning of tradition translated to other fields such as how he developed the first refutation of heliocentrism based on empirical observations (basically observing apparent brightness of Mars against the epicyclical model and realizing Ptolemaic predictions did not match his observed data) and this was roughly 300 years before Galileo did it and ben Gershon didn’t even have a telescope

And then you have people like the poet and philosopher Abu al-Maari from 11th century Syria. Unlike ben Gershon, al-Maari was absolutely hostile to religion and unambiguously made it clear he was speaking about all religions and faiths. Whereas ben Gershon provided a theory of prophethood that true prophets are actually people of extreme wisdom basically “super philosophers” rather than people who are injected with unique “god knowledge” (a view that wasn’t atypical in that time), for al-Maari a prophet is a different word for charlatan. Religion was something invented not by people in general, but as a tool to be wielded by tyrants to trick and swindle people into following them and handing over their wealth. I think it was al-Maari who said something along the lines of religion is what happens when a lie needs to be spread by blood. Al-Maari’s focus on how religion is a tool used by an oppressive ruling class against the oppressed masses gives some echoes of European critiques of religion such as from Karl Marx but that’s over 900 years later. And if ben Gershon’s skepticism towards supernatural explanations goes against stereotypes of what was “possible to think” in Southern France in the 1300s then al-Maari’s vitriol and fierce condemnations of religion would be even more impossible to imagine as they came from someone from Syria in the 1000s as his writings go against even more entrenched stereotypes.

Almost like if you unquestionably accept traditional narratives and buy into stereotypes you get a much stupider picture of the world or something.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Glass Onion (2022): Mixed company, mixed feelings

This movie is very Current Year, even though it finished shooting in 2021 and is set in May 2020. One minor joke early on; Blanc plays Among Us during lockdown, because he's so bored.

I am not making that up.

I had the same issue with the first movie. I wasn't sure what all the Topical References™ added to the movie. And I know we love to say that great art is timeless.

But as someone who actually does read a lot of old, public-domain, popular books, many  had topical social issues in them. Heck, the first Doc Thorndyke book is about fingerprinting, which was cutting edge science at the time, and even makes a self-depreciating joke about it's inspiration, Sherlock Holmes.

I've enjoyed the odd Clancy or Connelly or Cussler or Cavanaugh or Patterson thriller. And those tend to be pretty topical. (obnoxiously so, in one case) Not to mention my love of the Vorkosigan Saga, which was so progressive in the 80s it's still progressive now.

I've also seen stories that had poorly integrated topical issues and much better-handled ones in the same show. The same episode, even.

So I don't know why the political stuff in the two movies rankled. I'd say my issue is "politics I disgree with", but I just mentioned enjoying a book series which is clearly waaay to my left.

Heck, both movies are blatantly inspired by Agatha Christie, and I distinctly recall topical stuff in my mum's old copy of *Third Girl*.

Like, literally the whole plot.

I read it a long time ago, but I think I'd still enjoy it.

Other, less important criticism. And spoilers.

-Blanc intially felt like a caricature, which was very different from the way he appeared in the first movie. turns out that's deliberate. He later says he was playing up the folksy Southernness.

Even though he's an internationally famous detective who lives in a $10,000,000 Park Avenue penthouse.

Don't ask me about the high-waisted pants, the cute little scarf around his neck, or the 19th century bathing costume he wears to the pool. Apparently his style in this movie was partially Daniel Craig's idea.

Also, he's gay.

It's not made explicitly clear during the film, and the guy he's living with could be a roomie or friend or assistant, but Johnson confirmed it. I'm not sure what it adds to the film, except an explanation for the scarf.

And also some irony when Birdie flirts with him, even though he's famous and probably publicly known to be gay. Heck, just his visible discomfort in those scenes would be irony enough, whether or not he liked women.

Miles Bronn -possible shallow Elon musk parody --he’s fooling people w/ fake genius, when he's really just a charismatic idiot. And one who gets swindled, possibly. -There's one bit of irony. Early on, Miles guests on his private island get a COVID vaccine. It later turns out Miles is an idiot.

Since the movie takes place entirely in May 2020, the implication is that Miles should know it's basically impossible to develop a proper vaccine in just a few short months.

Cough.

The actual main protagonist isn't Blanc, it's Cassandra "Andi" Brand and Helen Brand. Andi is a tech genius who Miles ripped off. And also murdered. So her twin sister Helen, a teacher, steps in.

Anyone familiar with the Trojan War is probably going "hey, wait a minute..." Did I mention that this takes place on a Greek island in the Aegean Sea? Which has Troy on its borders?

And the first things we see in the film are tantalizing wooden boxes?

Helen poses as Andi with Blanc's help, so they can investigate the murder and figure out which of Miles friends, “the Disruptors”, killed Andi.

Both Brands are played by Janelle Monae. A famously left-wing singer and actress, whose biggest film role was in the movie Hidden Figures, where she played one of a team of black women in STEM forgotten by history.

And in this movie, Monae plays two hidden figures, eclipsed by white men. One maliciously, one charitably.

Birdie --Birdie is an idiotic middle-aged singer who keeps getting cancelled because she does dumb stuff. -She sexually harasses Blanc. This is possibly why Blanc's gay, to make it extra ironic. -She's introduced at a party during lockdowns. When she arrives at the island, she wears a completely decorative facemask.

-Birdie prides herself on her honesty. In this case, it means she's inconsiderate and narcissistic, with no filter. Which makes it kinda ironic (or something?) when the day is saved in the end by a combination of lies and truth.

Duke -Dave Bautista plays an alt-right mra. Supposedly.

-He supports a girlfriend and his mother, who abuses him. He's  three or four times mom's size. He goes "Mom, I told you not to interrupt when I'm recording!" and she physically slaps him. Not even any ramp-up, she just does it.

She also tries to disrupt his call with his friends by "helping" him solve Miles' puzzle box, right up until it's done, and she stops caring.

So the show decided to mock MRAs by...making one a male victim of domestic violence and emotional abuse from a woman.

And from what I saw on Youtube, plenty of people didn't notice the irony. In fact, I found an official Netflix short of the scene, and the comments were glad he was getting "put in his place" because he politely asked him mom to let him do his job.

Also, remember when I mentioned how Birdie sexually harasses Blanc?

This movie includes two examples of the exact sort of issues MRAs talk about all the time.

-I know he's supposed to be a parody, but of who, exactly? jordan peterson? andrew tate? Pewdiepie? All of the above?

I think they even got some alex jones in there when they mention how he sold pills. Specifically, "performance" pills for men, made from rhino horn.

-Duke carries a gun near his crotch at all times for most of the movie. Specifically, an underpowered Tokarev, I've read. On top of the abuse, he also self-cucks himself so his GF can try and pillow-talk Miles into supporting Duke's next endeavour.

Subtle.

And while I was looking up the gun, I found someone on /r/liberalGunOwners saying "well, maybe it's supposed to look Russian because he's pro-Putin like a lot of right-wingers?"

That's possible, but it would be a really obtuse reference in a movie chock full of really blatant references.

-Also, there's something a tad ironic about a supposedly (alt-)right influencer being a large, muscular, tattoo'd Hispanic man. Unless that's supposed to be a tan.

Claire -Claire is a left-wing, environmentally friendly politician. She wears beige, and always looks terrible (to Katheryn Hahn's frustration). She's also a hypocrite.

Some TVTropes editor: it's about progressive politicans that gradually turn conservative.

No, the message here isn't "conservatives bad". It's "hypocritical left-wing politicians are bad". And I'm not sure about the "left-wing" part.

Duke is a hypocrite because he self-cucks for advantage, and is also physically abused by his tiny little mom. Claire is just a straight up liar, as politicians often are. There's a contrast between his performative peacocking in every aspect of the way he presents himself, and Claire's beige cold mess.

I'm not kidding. That was the stated intent of her costume and makeup.

-claire calls duke an MRA. I'm not sure if the writers were wrong, Claire's wrong, or Duke actually calls himself an MRA in-universe. He's certainly a traditionalist, which MRAs usually aren't. He also wants women to get back in the kitchen, which MRAs usually don't.

And finally, there's Miles’ No 2., tech wizard Lionel, who spins Miles' straw - or napkin ideas - into gold. In fact, he spends most of the movie with a gold wishbone pin on his lapel. GEDDIT?

Duke is a right wing tradcon MRA who cares about physical appearances even though he has a bad social rep, Claire is a left-wing progressive with a terrible physical appearance and a good social rep, Birdie is an idiot who keeps saying un-PC things, and Lionel is the smart guy, who is apparently more or less apolitical.

Also, the movie has obvious inspiration from Christie's "And Then There Were None". And maybe Clue. Or Among Us.

Or all three.

#knives out #glass onion #netflix #tv #television #personal #writing

[thewriterthatghostedyou]

Shadows and Scars

Chapter 26

Two chapters in two days?!?! I’m as surprised as you are. I forgot how fun it was to write this series, and hopefully I’ll get more time to write during break. I hope you enjoy this chapter! I know I’m enjoying where this story is going. 😉

Enjoy!

Trigger warnings: it’s an interrogation and death so there’s that, attempted kidnapping?/ non con? It’s a few men being grabby, and death and violence.

Never beta read so all mistakes are my own, and formatted on my phone so hopefully the formatting isn’t screwed up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aleksander’s POV

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Have they talked?” He asked, evenly, striding into the dungeons.

“A lot of lies. But Volkov hasn’t said a word. Ivan’s with them.” Zoya responded.

The two men were both chained to heavy wooden chairs in the middle of the large room. The shooter seems to look exhausted, sweat clinging to his whole body and head hunched over. Volkov, on the other hand, was just smiling maniacally.

“I’ve been swindled. Hoodwinked.” The shooter pleaded. Volkov snorted and shook his head at that.

“My guards told me that they caught you fleeing the scene of the crime.” He accused.

“Yes, I followed them.” He turned his head to look at the man next to him. “All of them, but-“

“Followed whom?” His voice dropped lower.

“Him, and these people. They come from the other side of the fold. From the start, they seemed, just a bit off to me, so when they left our stage at the fete, I followed them to see what they were up to.” He breathed heavily to catch his breath. “And at the time that I walked into that room, they were gone and…” He huffed a nervous laugh. “Saints, it was unspeakable. So- so I ran-“

“How much of that is true?” He demanded, making eye contact with Ivan.

“He did cross the fold with the others. The rest were lies.” Ivan said as he gave a menacing stare to the shooter.

“What?” The shooter squirmed in his seat nervously. “That’s- No-“

“Your heart gives you away.” Volkov said from next to him. Watching the entire scene with subdued interest.

Aleksander stiffened at the sound of his voice. This is the man you thought was so important? So admirable? He’d deal with him later.

“Do you know we keep records of everyone who crosses the fold?” He said evenly.

The man in the seat opened his mouth to talk, but Aleksander spoke over him. “For the winter fete, we had ambassadors from Kerch, Novyi Zem, the Wandering Isle, but you didn’t pass with them, did you? No. You and your crew, you have another way.” He spat the word crew out venomously.

“I don’t know what you mean. I-“ The man stuttered.

“He does.” Ivan said simply.

“I’m an entertainer!” The man shouted desperately. “Oskar. Oskar Krepkov.”

He didn’t even need to look at Ivan to know the man was lying. It was a trick he had plenty of time to master over the centuries.

With one smooth movement, he strode over and ripped up the sleeve of the man’s shirt. There on his shaking wrist were fifteen tally marks.

“Well.” He said slowly. “This is certainly entertaining. You are the conductor.” He moved his face closer to the conductor’s as he spoke. “Arken Visser, are you not?” His voice became dangerously low as gripped his wrist tighter before shoving himself off of him.

“You smuggle Grisha out of MY PALACE!” He whipped around and yelled at him. “You help them abandon the war effort.”

Arlen’s face grew serious as he dropped his act. “No. I deal in legal indentures, I don’t mess with Grisha.”

“Lie.” Ivan said lazily.

“I don’t need him to tell me.” He spoke mockingly. “I had a spy. Nina Zenik. Ring any bells?”

Arken’s face morphed into an angry scowl. “Nina?”

“Last report we had from her was that she’d be crossing the Fold with the conductor and three rogues from Ketterdam.”

Arken’s face fell as he knew there was no way to talk himself out of this.

“What their mission was, she didn’t know. She was waiting to meet you all. Now poor Nina.. has not been heard from since. Might that have something to do with you, Mr. Visser?”

“No.” He breathed out instantly. “I don’t!” He looked at Ivan to confirm what he had said, which he did with a small shrug.

“See? I don’t know what happened.”

“My guess,” Aleksander started. “You struck a deal with these three thieves to kidnap Alina Starkov. But..” he leaned towards him slowly. “You have a stronger relationship with a certain West Ravkan general who has notions of ruling his own country.” With a small tap on Ivan’s shoulder, the man walked away quickly and Zoya followed without hesitation.

“So long as the fold separates him from us. So you made another deal. You put on a disguise. And you played at being assassin.”

“That’s right.” Arken said lowly. “The prize to bring her back to Ketterdam was a million, split four ways. But Zlatan offered me the same number.. to kill her. So.. give me half that. I’ll get revenge for you, I can get close to Zlatan.”

“No.” Aleksander said quietly. “I think I’ll handle that myself.” And with one smooth flick of his hands, the shadows that inhabited the dank cellar began to move and slithered towards him. He begged for his life of course. They always did, but that never changed the outcome.

Aleksander watched with a sick satisfaction as they crawled onto the man like snakes and began to force their way in his mouth and ears.

“Now. Mr. Volkov.” He spoke loudly over the sound of Arken gagged and choking on the shadows that went deeper and deeper into his throat and head. “I believe we have much to talk about.”

—————

Y/n’s POV

—————

“So are we just going to ignore the light seeping out of the trunk or…” Jesper gave a weird face as the four of you watched light spill through the locked trunk.

Kaz just rolled his eyes at him as a slight click was heard.

You all held your breath as the trunk cover slowly lifted and Alina climbed out quickly.

Jesper reached for his gun, but Alina wasn’t paying attention to him. Her eyes seemed you out, worry etched on her face as she took you in.

“We don’t want any trouble.” Jesper placatingly held out his free hand.

“Neither do I, so we’ll just be on our way. Y/n get behind me.” She whispered seriously.

“Let’s just all calm down-“ You were interrupted by the sound of Kaz’s cane hitting the carriage to block her escape.

“Clearly you both want out of East Ravka.” Jesper and the two others stayed still as Alina slowly stepped in front of you. “But we can help you.”

Inej nodded enthusiastically as Hesper continued. “We have a secure route through the Fold.”

“We’re fine. We prefer to travel alone.” Alina gave you another worried look before turning back to face the crows.

“Y/n you know Ruslan trusted us, you can too.” Jesper pleaded, turning his attention to you.

“I’m sorry,” you sighed sadly. “I can’t get caught again. I can’t go back there, neither of us can.” Your cane brushed against your leg as you gripped it tightly with both hands. “You need to let us go.”

“Don’t be rash, if you stick with us, everybody gets what they want.”

“We are not being anyone’s captive ever again.” Alina hissed out. “So step aside and let us pass.”

“I’m afraid we can’t let that happen.” Kaz finally spoke up, glaring at Alina in what seemed to be his usual fashion.

Before you could move, a burst of light flashed from Alina’s hands into Jesper, blinding him and Kaz. As the light disappeared, you noticed Inej covering her eyes before looking at Alina with reverence and holding her hands up in surrender.

“Let’s go.” Alina said, grabbing your arm and dragging you away from the carriage.

“Shit!” Your leg wobbled, unused to being without your brace as you hopped to catch up to her pace. “Alina I can’t run.” You heaved out, gritting your teeth in pain as the two of you ducked into an open alleyway.

“What do you mean? Where’s your brace?” She frantically whispered.

“It’s too noticeable.” You breathed heavily, as Alina stuck her head out of the alley and looked for the crows.

“We need to go. Now.” She whispered urgently. Taking you by the arms again, gentler than before. “Walk as fast as you can.” She led you out of the street and your eyes brightened as you noticed a stall selling cloaks.

“Wait.” Your coins dangled in your pocket as you hurriedly pulled them out and slammed them on the table. “We’ll take two of the black ones.” Alina gave you a small smile as she grabbed what you had paid for and wrapped one of the heavy cloaks around your shoulders.

“Good thinking.”

You discreetly pointed out Jesper ahead of the two of you, before taking her down another street corner. “This way.”

“Are you ok?” Alina blurted out.

You shrugged as the two of you continued slowly towards the outskirts of the town.

“I’ve been better. I’m not sure that treason is a good look on me.” You joked, huffing out a grunt of pain and trying to disguise it as a laugh.

“Why did you run?” Alina asked, securing her own cloak on and pulling up the hood.

“I haven’t been completely honest with you Alina.” You said softly. “I’m not just part of the General’s guard.” You paused as the two of you stopped when your breathing became too labored.

You squeezed your eyes shut before continuing. “I’m his whore.” You said sadly, trying to ignore Alina’s look of betrayal.

“I don’t know what he did to me, or why me, but somehow he can control my body and-“ You blinked away tears as you continued. “But that’s not the point. He has plans for you. And knowing him they can’t be good, I wanted to look for you, but I needed to get out. To be able to think clearly without him pulling the strings.”

“Is he?” Alina’s eyes widened as she backed away from you. “Is he still pulling the strings?”

You shook your head frantically as you noticed a small tear fall down her cheek. “No. I can’t feel him. Not anymore. Baghra said that the further I am from him the more control I have.”

“Please.” You begged, grabbing her hands tightly. “We need to go. If he finds us…” Your mind didn’t even want to finish the sentence as Alina nodded. Part of you knew he could have been good to you. But that part was the one that became complacent. That fell to his influence. That forgot what kind of a man he really was. What he had done to Anya. To Ruslan.

“Y/n.” Alina cupped your face with her hand and you blinked in surprise at the sudden warmth. “I won’t let him get us.” You briefly noted that her pupils dilated as she looked at you and you blushed at your close proximity. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

The two of you were shocked back into your surroundings as a man hobbled slowly towards your alcove and puked on the side of the street.

“Hey! Hey you!” He shouted, pointing to Alina. “So far from Shu Han, aren’t you?”

“We should go.” You said, forcing out a fake smile at the man before turning to head down the street.

You froze as the First army man grabbed Alina by the wrist and spun her back to face him. “Why don’t you come inside? You can bring your friend too.” He leered at her before dragging her towards the door.

Without thinking, you swung your wooden cane at his leg, as Alina punched him in the jaw.

“Hurry!” You caught yourself from saying her name as you gripped your cane like a bat as two more First army soldiers came to their friend’s defense.

Your eyes widened as one of them shoved Alina into the wall and tried to hit her head on the hard surface.

“She’s got some fight in her yeah?” The other man laughed at you as your heart beat rapidly in your chest. “We’ll at least you can’t run away.” He pulled up his trousers with a lazy smile before quickly lunging at you.

“Leave us alone!” You shouted, swinging at him with your cane, but missing as he jumped back to dodge it.

“I’m going to have fun watching you try to crawl away when I-“ You saw red as a bird launched itself at the man’s head, knocking him back with more force than you thought was possible for such a small thing.

He hit the ground with a dull thud as the man you attacked Alina screamed in agony as she shined her light into his eyes.

“Stop! After them!”

“Saints. We need to get out of this town now.” You said, grabbing Alina’s warm hands and letting her pull you away from the scene.

Perhaps if you had stopped to actually look at the bird that laid next to your attacker's head, you’d have noticed the sizable bullet hole through its eye.

#fanfic #reader insert #aleksander morozova #aleksander morozova x reader #darkling x reader #the darkling #darkling #shadow and bone #the darkling x reader #general kirigan x reader #general kirigan #the darkling x you #grishaverse #darkling imagine

[taiwantalk]

ok, putin's got more things to say. which means, putin landed somewhere. i'd imagine kremlin. it's all symbolic now for him, he'll milk the russian public's fear and sympathy and try to present himself as being forced to be both resolute and fragile. putin is going to paint himself as facing great adversity and that he's like the next coming of nevsky to fight off the enemy within.

it means he's going to use this opportunity to apply greater amount of retaliatory measures within russia like he did following the 1999 apartment bombings.

think about how apathetic and irrational russian civilians are. more than 300 died and >1000 injured and chechens won't take credit but russian public never once questioned chechens' motivation.

it was the russians who invaded chechnya in the 1st chechen war and chechnya just wanted russia to leave them alone. and yet, somehow russian public got swindled into believing that chechens were behind the apartment bombing when very likely their very own beloved putin who they shortly after the bombing had gotten their votes to be elected had orchestrated everything.

this apathy and irrational tendency to direct their conviction on some weaker neighbors regardless of evidence is one of the most unforgivable sin of russian people in general.

russian civilians may have more than half of their population wanting to remove putin, but they also were the very same population condoning first chechen war, electing putin, 2nd chechen war, georgia war, reelecting putin, and then condoning removal of term limit.

putin's authoritarian methods did not really reach the russian public until after 2008. so until 2012, russian people supported putin with affection instead of fear.

what i'm driving at is that it's time for people of russia to face their own demon and end this nightmare that is at their doorstep because of all the things that they had turned a blind eye to for the last 20 years. the horror won't go away and just stay in neighboring countries because the horror is within the russian politics and mindless military. true bloodshed inside russia is surely coming and the choices are entirely up to russian people to do something now or be even more catastrophic later.

ukrainians are already suffering greatly since 2014 for all the apathy of russian people. except this time, ukraine is fighting back after the new invasion on 2/24/2022. russian people need to collectively have the courage and wisdom to not let this window of opportunity slip away and end up like north korea for a century. the worst nightmare is not putin, but the next dictator who takes over.

#ukraine #russia #putin #prigozhin #taiwantalk

[cf8wrk4u-us]

Ok idea, the district kids and their potentional Guardians.

District 1 kids(Marvel and Glimmer): Ultra Magnus or Kup, either by Ultra Magnus strict nature or Kups story will humble them.

District 2 kids(Cato and Clove): Jazz or Mirage heck maybe even Starscream, both came from upper class before Cybertron fell to war so they can help break the kids out of their mindset.

District 3 kids(Calling them Chip and Wire): Soundwave, Shockwave, or Wheeljack. Techies have to stuck together

District 4 kids: Either Rodimus since he bonded with one of them, or Seaspray or Nautica

District 5 kids(Calling them, Jules and Watts): Jolt, a lesser known autobot with Electric powers

District 6 kids: Cyclonus, he's an alien jet he'd be so cool to them.

District 7 kids:

District 8 Kids: Swindle or Knockout, with Swindle trying to get them to but "authentic" 21st century clothing and Knockout just telling them hot Goss or making fun of Capital people's clothes.

District 9 kids: Honestly hard pick

District 10 kids: The Predacons, they'd especially love Razorclaw or Headstrong

District 11(Rue and Thresh): The Dinobots, mainly because I love the idea of Rue riding Grimlocks T-Rex mode

Katniss and Peeta: Megatron or Optimus

I really love this idea! I think you made a lot if great pairings for the tributes and ideas of their personality and names👍

If I have to be honest though I sort of limited most of the potential tribute partners to members of the Lost Light Crew and the tributes I do know.

While your list is good I'm happy to show you what I had in mind.

District 1 and 2 are basically pariahs among the bots and their fellow tributes, especially Cato. Yes, the crew understands that these tributes are basically a bunch of brainwashed kids who have been manipulated to be killing machines by the start of the game but it still erks a lot of them that when Rodimus gave them a way out they still chose to attack the humans. A 12 year old even!

Not that the Career tributes mind since. their equally as hostil at first. They're scared and anxious, because in their minds they blew it. My headcanon for how the Career Tributes are that the mindset and mentality is that you "Come back a winner or you don't come back at all". They were expected to die in that arena or come out a victor. Nothing else. But there all still alive and the games are ruined. Yes, through no fault of their own but they doubt that it'll make a good explanation to their families or trainers. Even if they do make it home the only thing ready for them is disgrace.

But there are some bots that try to be friendly or at least cordial with them. Like you meantioned Ultra Magnus is a firm and strict character that will get them in line, his attitude may be reminiscent to their teachers. He keep an optic on them but also make sure their equally attended to. He may not approve of their mindset but refuses to discriminate against them.

Megatron would be a surprising presence around them, given that he did threaten to vaporize the group back at the arena. But it stems mostly from his own complicated feelings. Because to him, these Career Tributes were so much like his followers during the early stages of the war. How many young bright-eyed Cybertronians came to him looking to change the oppressed system and better their station in life only for him to turn them into ruthless war machines? How many did he indoctrinate into his cause and convince anyone who wasn't apart of it to be there enemies. To Megatron, he was the Districts, manipulating his own people to be machines of war instead of agents for change. There are actions he didn't regret when it came to the war, but robbing the futures of the next generation was something that will always weigh on him. So , he will check on the Career tributes to make sure there handling everything well for the most part. He's the one to notice how agitated and hostil they were and thought to bring Rung

Rung is the next and by far the most significant figure to the Career Tributes, he's the one to really sit down with them and try to help them sort their emotions and thoughts about their circumstances. He doesn't have any bias towards them or their Districts, and he does his best to let them vent and just listen to their thoughts.

District 3 and 5 would definitely be great friends with Brainstorm and Preceptor, given that both those districts have a background in technology and engineering. The tributes would love observing some of their projects and inventions. Learning how they work.

Though Preceptor and Brainstorm are careful of what they show them and what information is given. Since the last time advance technology and knowledge was left to the humans it caused a whole mess of problems.

Obviously, the District 4 tributes would get along with Rodimus with how friendly he was to the male tribute, who I named Luca Alberts.

With Rodimus being a fishing enthusiasts they swap more stories and advice on the topic. Not to meantion to Luca, Rodimus is the coolest person ever! Rex and orange and captain of his own ship he's definitely someone the 12 year old looks up too!

But Nautica, too, could be someone they like, especially with her interest in marine biology. She had always heard Earth had an interesting ecosystem within her sea. But she be disappointed to know that the tributes haven't been past the coast because the Capital doesn't allow them away too far from the mainland unless it's for specialty catches. A far cry from when humans sailed along the sea for decades. Not to meantion because of the past war and pollution a lot of species are now extinct.

The Rodimus make a promise to Luca that when things get better he let the human take him to all his favorite fishing spots. Nautica says that she wants to explore the ocean with their help.

Members of District 6 aren't the biggest fans of travel, but when it comes to the bots vehicle modes and watching them transform they are immediately interested.

To be honest I don't know what pairs to make up for 7-10, I think overall most of the Lost Light Crew are friendly to the remains tributes and try to make them as comfortable as they can. While there are some who might not be comfortable with organics, there are some who are generally interested in humans and their culture. Swerve has a huge collection of human movies and thinks it's a tragedy that none of the tributes have seen them! He schedules a daily movie night and ask Rewind to project the films for him which he doesn't too. The tributes were never really exposed to media and entertainment like movies and TV shows, things like animation are like magic to them. Most things like that were reserved for the Capital people and for most of them, they didn't have the luxury of media given their poverish backgrounds and how most had to join their Districts industry to support their families. Being with Rodimus and their crew brought a break to there mostly labor focused life. Though they still worry about their families and friends and what their rescue from the arena means for them. Rung is brought in to help them process their concerns and overall trauma concerning the Reaping and their experience before the games.

As for District 8, I've thought of them a lot! Rue would be the apple of most of the crews optics! Especially that of Tailgate and Cyclonus.

Tailgate has never seen humans outside of Swerves films and can't get over how tiny and cute they are. He doesn't make the greatest impression after the humans are allowed out of the tank and he tries to hold one, marveling how much smaller they are to him. Most of the tributes ran from him but Rue stayed and badly said how cute she thought he was!

"I'm not cute! I'm fierce! " Tailgate objected, but from then on he always hung around Rue. He showed her different parts of the ship and carried her with on his hoverboard, the halls often filled with Tailgate and Rues excited cheers.

And when you have Tailgate you get Cyclonus. While the purple mech adores Rue too, he makes sure to remind Tailgate to please be careful with her as humans are fragile creature. Though Rue often test those boundaries.

Once Cyclonus was having a conversation with Tailgate only for the minibot to burst out laughing, confused Cyclonus realized that Rue had climbed all the way to his shoulder blade without him noticing. He immediately startled and snatched Rue in his shoulders scolding her and Tailgate how dangerous that was, that Rue could have fallen or got caught in one of the jabs in his armor and crushed.

Cyclonus and Tailgate are both taken aback at how Rue gushes over what a cute couple they are!

Despite her mischievous nature, Cyclonus genuinely does like Rue and is protective of her. This even extends to her fellow tribute Thresh, these two share a stoic nature and protective streak that comes with the understanding that their strength is what keeps those close to them safe.

Thresh also finds a surprising friend in Whirl. The cyclops bot thinking that Thresh was impressive with his strength for a human is and that silent attitude of his made him extra cool. Basically, Whirl saw it as a challenge to break through Thresh shell. It started with just gruff replies to the helicopters' questions, to warning against certain actions Whirl thought would be "fun," to finally being the reluctant voice of reason to Whirls shenigans. Given Thresh's background, he probably worked hard every day from an early age to help support his sister and grandmother. His district not giving him the option to have fun or just experience his youth. Whirl is chaos incarnent, and while that can be exhausting it brings out a side of Thresh he didn't know to how much he enjoyed participating in Whirls games.

Now we get to District 12! With Katniss and Peeta!

Because of Peeta's injury he and Katniss spent some time in the medbay with Ratchet. The medical comes off as gruff and stern but Katniss can't help but respect him. He reminded her of her own mother in his quiet concentration when it came to healing others. Ratchet does his best to assist Katniss in addressing Peeta's wound and in intent at making sure the teen is well treated.

Peeta often likes to joke or try to make friendly conversation with Ratchet though he's often met with a dry rely and orders to rest instead of chattering on. Not that Peeta is detered and keeps a bright smile while under Ratchets care.

Drift is another bit that Oeeta surprisingly gets close with, given the former visits Ratchets medbay to check up on the bot and interact with the two humans who have joined him there. He likes talking with Peeta and wishes him a speedy recovery, knowing Peeta got his injury while defending a younger tribute Drift sees Peeta as honorable.

Though things get awkward when Drift mentions how sweet it was that Katniss was treating Peeta and says that they have a beautiful story. Believing that the pair were getting closer romantically because of seeing Peeta's confession on the interviews. This gets a frown from Katniss and a sheepish look from Peeta.

After his recovery, Peeta is allowed out of the medbay he makes another friend in Ten. While Ten can't voice much Peeta sees a fellow creative spirit in him when shown the mechs collection of hand made figures and the flowers he's drawn on himself.

Peeta impresses Ten by drawing items on his armor skillfully, with the enthusiasm he never had when decorating his shops cakes and cookies. Tens more than happy to share his paints with the tiny human.

Going back to Katniss, there's another bot she gets close to and that's Megatron.

At the beginning Katniss believed Megatron was the same as his past self that attempted to take over Earth. Brutal and bloodthirsty but over time her expectations of him were dismissed.

Yes, he came off as cold and standoffish, but more than anything, he was respectful to all the tributes and was observant of their needs, even the Careers who again he had threatened to vaporize.

Seeing this Katniss finally asked him why he even tried with them, his response "Because there as much victims to this system as you and the rest are"

Slowly but surely, Katniss begins to hang out in the side lines with the former tyrant. She was never one for socializing and eventually just ended up spending time with Megatron more often then not. Just silently staying in each others presence.

To her surprise one day Megatron ask her about her district, that he understands that they came from a mining background and he admits that he came from a similar industry.

This takes Katniss by surprise, she could never imagine the "Emperor of Destruction" working in dusty mine shaft. They share their lifestyle experiences, comparing the disparaging life and workload of the miners, eventually the topic drifts to Katnisses father who died in a collapse.

"It probably didn't take them long to move you all to a new hole to dig." he chuckled dryly, but at Katniss silence, he backtracks. "Apologies.... I understand your grief, I too have lost many a friend to accidents in the mines"

Megatron admits to Katniss that even before the arrival to the arena, he and the crew had observed them through their network. He saw her volunteer for her sister so she wouldn't have been taken. And despite Rodimus's intervention, she very well could have saved her from death. He tells her she's an admirable human and sister.

Katniss might tear up and ask if she'll ever see her family or Earth again.

"I promise to do everything in my power to help you and the rest of the humans return safely home one day"

There's another bit on board that also seems to gravitate to Katniss, with how close she's getting to Megatron its no wonder that Ravage takes an interest in her.

Ravage at first makes Katniss and the other tributes nervous, being seen as a large wild animal at first. Startling them as he actually speaks.

But as he starts to wander near Katniss more Peeta starts to joke that Ravage is possibly mistaking her for "catnip" instead of Katniss, the girl is not amused.

#transformers #the hunger games #rodimus #megatron #rung #ultra magnus #rewind #swerve #brainstorm #preceptor #tailgate #cyclonus #ravage #ten #ratchet #drift #whirl #mtmte nautica #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #cato #rue #thresh

[citizenscreen]

"Love was his silent partner in the biggest swindle of the century!"

This weekend marks the 90th anniversary of the release of Alfred E. Green’s I LOVED A WOMAN starring Kay Francis and Edward G. Robinson.

#edward g. robinson #kay francis