#and one of them is this police officer who was killed in a conspiracy thing so basically yugo doesnt know how to defend himself but

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

Demonology: Part Two

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.2k

Summary: What makes someone evil? The things they do or because of what’s inside them? If children are born innocent, at what point does evil enter them? Everyone’s beliefs and faiths are tested on a religious level.

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there are any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated

x

"What happened?"

"I think there may be a third victim. We have ligature marks, the Spain connection, and scuff marks under the bed," Emily says.

"Y/N?"

"All I saw were five people in Patrick's room all dressed like priests. Three of them were physically holding Patrick down while one of them performed the exorcism. There isn't evidence to show foul intention. It looked like a real exorcism."

"Hotch, it's weird, but there's no way to physically connect dehydration, a heart attack, and an aneurysm," Derek says.

Hotch looks at the ground in thought, and his eyebrows furrow in concern.

"What's going on?"

"We've had a complaint. JJ's trying to smooth it over with DC police, but we haven't been invited to the case."

Hotch leaves and Emily turns to Derek with anger in her eyes.

"That's how you have my back?"

"Prentiss, I'm trying to protect you."

"I don't need protection."

"Hotch just said he got a complaint, and he didn't come down on you. Do you realize that? You just dodged a bullet. We have to approach this just like we do any other case."

"Emily, you're too close to this case."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"You're grieving over your friend dying. You want to see a connection where there may be none."

"That woman couldn't even use Patrick's name. She could only say, 'my fiancé' because she's convinced something else died in that room that night."

It's the way she said it that has you shocked.

"Emily!"

She walks away without another word. Hotch is watching from his office where Rossi is also, and you walk over to them to talk about Emily's behavior. You haven't talked to Emily directly about this, but you've been observing her the whole day. There is something she is hiding about all of this and she won't get anywhere if she doesn't come clean about it.

"Can I talk to you both?" you ask and knock on the door.

"Come in."

"Look, Emily is desperate for answers about her friend. He died and she won't accept that it could have been a heart attack. I'm really worried about her."

"Keep an eye on her. You can read her better than I can," Hotch says.

"You got it."

"As far as the police are concerned, there is no open murder investigation," JJ says and walks into the office. "We have no reason to be investigating if they're not."

"They're right. All we have are three men who died of three very different natural causes."

"We're just going to drop it?" Rossi asks. "Y/N says she saw five people performing an exorcism."

"Dave, do you really believe we're dealing with someone trying to exorcize demons?"

"It doesn't matter what I believe. Possession, mental illness, exorcist, unsub? Who cares what's true? People are dying."

"He's right, Hotch. This isn't about religion. It's about evil. We attack it with analysis and diligence. I think we should be looking at the churches."

"All hail the mistress of information," Penelope announces her presence. "I got a posting from a web bulletin board by Matthew Benton to create a support group for people who felt betrayed by their faith."

"That explains how the three men came together."

"It gets better. The week the three of them were in Spain, the services at Santiago de Compostela were canceled when the priest there died."

"How?"

"Heart attack, but if you listen to the conspiracy chatter, there is a strong belief he was killed to interrupt services during the height of the pilgrimage."

"How?" JJ asks.

"Their best guess is some kind of gas, sarin or VX, something that wouldn't show up in an autopsy. It could induce stress and cause a heart attack."

"Now we have a motive," you say, "with a potential MO. An eye for an eye."

"Without an invitation from the police, I cannot authorize an investigation. This has to be kept quiet."

Emily is talking to someone by her desk, and based on her expressions, she knows the man. Rossi looks at you and nudges you to follow him, so you let him lead you down to where Emily and her friend are.

"David Rossi and Y/N, this is John Cooley. He was also a friend of Matthew."

"I'm sorry for your loss. Is there anyone he associated with out of the ordinary? Anyone overtly religious?"

"Not that I'm aware of. I've been doing my best to retrace his steps, but I still haven't come up with anything."

"Can we buy you a cup of coffee?" Rossi asks Emily.

"Yeah. I will call you if I hear anything," she says to John. You're not sure why Rossi wants you here, but you can read her better than anyone. Rossi gets both of you coffee, but instead of drinking it at the coffee shop, he takes you two to an abandoned house that's been fenced off. "There are nicer places to take a girl for coffee."

"Have you ever seen The Exorcist?"

"Yeah."

"The real case started right here. The fire department actually burned down the house themselves. The authorities referred to the boy as Robbie Doe. He's still in the DC area today."

"Why did you bring me here?"

"A whole lot of effort went into destroying the house of a kid who probably had onset Schizophrenia or Tourette's Syndrome."

"I'm sorry, I'm not following you."

"You're sure Matthew was murdered. So, what's the story?" Emily immediately becomes closed off, and she can barely look at you. "If you don't want to explain, that's fine but if you do, then I'm all in."

"I can leave if you don't want me here."

"No, it's fine. I'm sorry for what I said back there. You didn't deserve that."

"It's okay."

"Matthew knew the bible inside and out, and he started to question everything. We moved around a lot when I was a kid because of my mom's postings. It was hard to get accepted, and when you're fifteen, that's all you want. You'll do almost anything."

"You got pregnant, did you?" Rossi asks.

"Yeah."

"Was Matthew the father?"

"No. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't tell my mom. Matthew suggested I talk with our priest. He said that if I had an abortion, I wouldn't be welcome in his congregation."

"What did you do?" you ask.

"Matthew found a doctor and took me there. He stayed with me the whole time. That Sunday when we got back to Rome, he held my hand and walked me into the church. Father Gamino actually stopped his sermon, Matthew told me to hold my head up, and we walked to the front pew. He and Matthew just stared at each other. It was like a battle of wills, and then suddenly, Father Gamino went back to his sermon. Matthew saved my life. He made me feel like I was worthy of love and friendship."

"That's when the anger and questioning started, didn't it?"

"Yeah. He started doing drugs, and when that melded with his religious questioning, you can understand why his parents were afraid he was possessed by something evil. It's my fault that Matthew's life unraveled." You get tears at her story because her grief and emotions roll over to you. "You of all people should know how I feel."

"I do." You bring her in for a hug and rub her back soothingly. "Nothing you say or do will change how I view you, how much I respect you, and how much I love you. I am here for you through anything you want to come to me for."

"Thank you. I appreciate that."

"Garcia uncovered some information. It's possible Matthew and the others killed someone in Spain," Rossi lays it on the line.

"No. I don't believe that."

"I'm just saying if we keep pushing, you have to be prepared for what we might discover."

"I need Matthew to rest in peace. I owe him that," she sighs.

"Then let's give the profile."

"The police haven't invited us in."

"We're not giving it to the police. I believe we're trying to catch a priest who is killing people who he believes to be 'not right' with society. The profile will only do us good if we give it to other priests."

Rossi's friend he visited earlier, Father Davison, gathers all the priests he can in the local area to hear this profile. One of these people knows who your unsub is, and you hope they will come clean and prevent him from killing others. Some aren't too happy to be here, but Father Davison quickly eases their concerns.

"As I was saying to the agents, this is a topic on which we usually agree to silently disagree."

"We respect that," Emily states. "We are not here to examine your beliefs in demonology or exorcism, but we are operating on the theory that the person responsible for these deaths does believe."

"We believe the inciting incident was the death of Father Raul del Toro in Galicia, Spain four months ago."

"How so, David?" Father Davison says.

"There's someone who believes that the death was actually a murder."

"You're not suggesting that this is some kind of retribution, are you?"

"Even a priest can have a psychotic break. He may be under the delusion that he is working for God. The man we're looking for would be obsessed with the event in Galicia. He believes he's fighting evil and may very well have followed these men here to Washington. We also believe that one of the exorcisms took place over enough days for the victim to die of dehydration."

"If I may," Father Davison interrupts, "an exorcism is like a prize fight. It's completely draining, both physically and spiritually. Now, if this man truly performed three rituals within the last few weeks, he would need medical care."

"Is there somewhere he would go?"

"Anything less than a working hospital would be too dangerous."

You and Spencer make eye contact since you two are thinking the same exact thing. You two excuse yourselves from the meeting to call Penelope who is eager to help.

"Garcia, it's Reid and Y/N."

"Speak boy and girl wonder," she grins.

"I need you to run Catholic hospital records. Look for any admissions for exhaustion immediately following Patrick Cavanaugh's death."

"Typing as you speak. I need more."

"Run the same search for the days following the first two deaths," you add.

"Oh, I sense a cross-check in my future."

"Do you have anything?"

"Father Paul Silvano. Currently at St. Agatha's Hospital in room 214."

If Paul is your unsub, then he must know the Feds and police are closing in on him. You're not sure how this is going to go which is why you, Rossi, Emily, and Spencer head to the hospital to talk to him. Four people are enough to overtake him if he decides to try anything. When you get there, Paul is completely calm and collected. He's packing up his things since he's being discharged right now. He doesn't seem too concerned with the Feds coming to him,

From the first sight of him, you know he's the unsub. You can see Thomas, Matthew, and Patrick through him. Their spirits and energies attached themselves to him like a parasite.

He murdered them.

You nudge Rossi and give him two nods to let him know you have your unsub.

"Are you Father Paul Silvano?"

"Yes."

"Were you present at the Deaths of Thomas Valentine, Matthew Benton, and Patrick Cavanaugh?"

"I've been expecting you."

"He asked you a question," Emily glares.

"Yes, I was present."

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say--"

"Guarda nel cassetto del tavolo dietro di te," he says in Italian.

"What did he say?" Spencer asks.

"He wants you to look in the drawer." You walk past them and open the drawer to find papers inside. Upon further examination, you see what these papers truly are. "What is it?"

"It's diplomatic status. He has immunity."

He can't be held liable for a violation of the law in this country. The Italian government must have granted him this when he came over here. It doesn't matter if he has it or not. He was present for all three murders, which makes him a witness. It doesn't seem to bother him when Rossi and Emily take him back to the BAU to be questioned.

In fact, he's as calm as can be. He truly believes he can't get in trouble for whatever he's doing. Emily is fucking pissed at this because she knows he killed her friend, and it's quite clear to everyone else. Not only was he present, but he has immunity which makes him look like a guilty man who is only protected by a piece of paper.

Emily is inside the room with him alone since she requested that you, Rossi, and JJ are outside watching them talk.

"Explain to me why you were the last person in the room when three men died."

"I'm a priest. I was there for them spiritually."

"They weren't on their deathbeds."

"Not physically."

"Did you kill them?"

"No."

"But you're not sorry any of them are dead?"

"Physical death is always sad, but now their souls are in Heaven. For that, their families have peace."

"His record is spotless up until four months ago. There's no history of mental illness. He even got invited to say mass at the Washington National Cathedral," JJ says.

"What happened four months ago?"

"It doesn't provide any details. It just says he took a sabbatical for personal reasons. Four months ago is when that priest died in Spain. It looks like he lobbied the Vatican for a diplomatic posting but they refused. After that, he took the world hunger mission from the Italian Government, which brought him here with immunity."

"Where's Hotch?" Rossi asks.

"He's on the phone with the State Department."

"Gather the others. I'll be there In a second."

JJ leaves and you turn your attention back to Emily and Paul.

"Did you know the priest who died in Galicia?"

"Father Del Toro and I were at seminary together. That's where I met him."

"Did you know that Matthew Benton and the other men were in Galicia the week he died?"

"Yes."

"Do you believe they committed murder?"

"I was contacted by a family member. He was frightened. He told me his real son never returned home from that trip. I said that I could help rid his child of evil."

"What did you tell the other family members after you watched their sons die? That it was God's will?"

"I never laid a hand on anyone with malice in my life."

"Then explain these deaths to me."

"Rossi, she's too close to this," you say. "She shouldn't be questioning him. He killed her friend, and she is grieving. She needs to take a step back."

"You know the power of evil. You've been fighting it a long time. The storm is almost over."

He says something in Italian to her, and she responds in the same language. Rossi doesn't comment on what you said. Instead, he guides you out of the room and over to the briefing room where everyone else is.

"What'd he say?" Spencer asks.

"He claims he was invited by the families, and he has them believing their loved ones are in a better place."

"They're all devout. The people they loved were troubled. With his stature, it's either believe they're in a better place or live with the guilt."

"It doesn't matter. We can't arrest him," you sigh.

"Can we deport him?"

"Probably not. It's crazy. Diplomatic immunity wasn't intended to shield people from murder charges."

"Why doesn't Hotch bypass the State Department and go straight to the Italian Government?" Penelope asks.

"He'll lose his career. The State Department won't risk the potential embarrassment. They'll shut us all down."

"What do we do now?" Spencer asks.

"Did you check his papers with ICE?" you ask Penelope.

"Yeah. His diplomatic status runs till the end of the month."

"That's weird. He told Emily 'The storm's almost over'. Forget priests. Think unsub. He's a believer. He deals in certainties. In his mind, he has a job to do, which doesn't end until the end of the month. The storm's almost over."

"There's another victim on his list."

x

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​​​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fan fiction #criminal minds fan fic #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fluff #criminal minds angst #criminal minds series rewrite #series rewrite #cm season 4 #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fan fic #spencer reid fan fiction #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid angst #spencer reid x reader

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Pitch for Resident Evil 9 (IX):

The Campaigns

1) Jake Muller and Sherry Birkin

2) Carlos Oliveira and Javier Reyes (new character)

3) Alice (new character) and Ashley Graham

/

The Plot

In 2023, Ashley Graham, who is now serving as the United States’ ambassador to Brazil since the events of RE4, visits the city of Rio de Janeiro to attend a conference with Brazil’s president Jose Ferreira. During the conference, terror strikes as the city falls under a bioweapons outbreak. With Ashley trapped, Ingrid Hunnigan contacts Leon S. Kennedy for another rescue mission, but much to her surprise, Leon has gone “off the grid” for reasons unknown (Leon’s story is reserved for the DLC).

Due to Leon’s absence, Hunnigan contacts two other allies to retrieve Ashley; DSO agent Sherry Birkin (recommended by Leon) and C Op Esp operative Carlos Oliveira (only because he was already in Brazil). Sherry also recruits freelance mercenary Jake Muller to help her out.

However, upon arriving at Rio de Janeiro, Sherry, Jake, and Carlos get separated by a zombie horde. Carlos, while on his own, joins forces with police officer Javier Reyes, who was the sole survivor of his unit.

While all this is happening, a woman named Alice wakes up at the bottom of a waterfall. She has lost all her memory, which she assumes happened when she went down the waterfall and hit her head. While wandering around the area, she stumbles upon a destroyed campsite that seems to have been bombed to pieces. Alice then finds a fatally wounded survivor who tells her only one thing before dying; “find Ashley Graham, Alice”. Despite not knowing what that means, Alice sets out to find this Ashley, hoping by doing so, she’ll unlock her memories.

So, RE9’s story can be broken down to this; Jake and Sherry looking for Ashley, Carlos teaming up with local cop Javier after being separated from the group, and Alice teaming up with Ashley despite not knowing who she is and why she’s important.

/

The Campaign Plot Twists

1) Jake and Sherry learn that there is a terrorist group called the Weskerites that are dedicated to accomplishing the late Albert Wesker’s goals. The leader, Raven Romero (imagine Harley Quinn if she was a Resident Evil character), reveals to them that the Weskerites assisted the masterminds behind the outbreak. Raven manages to escape the city despite Jake and Sherry’s best efforts to kill her (Raven becomes a recurring villain in future games).

2) Carlos and Javier learn that President Jose Ferreira was part of the conspiracy behind the zombie outbreak in Rio de Janeiro. They learn that he was planning on using the event as a false flag operation to ensure his re-election since he had become massively unpopular (something along the lines of blaming foreign terrorists for the outbreak). Jose is killed by Carlos and Javier after he injects himself with a Tyrant-type virus that was given to him by the actual masterminds.

3) Alice and Ashley learn that the Connections (the group that Mia Winters was part of) supplied the virus to the masterminds. The Connections’ representative, a South Korean drug trafficker named Oh Jin-seok, reveals that the reason why the outbreak happened was that the Brazilian military bombarded their camp (the destroyed campsite that Alice woke up to). When Ashley and Alice asks Jin-seok who bought the virus from Connections, that’s when we get the MAIN plot twist.

/

The MAIN Plot Twist

Oh Jin-seok reveals that the masterminds are a man named Solomon…and his sister Alice. That’s when Alice remembers who she is; her full name is Alice Saddler and she is the granddaughter of the late Osmund Saddler. She and her older brother Solomon are the new leaders of Los Illuminados, which we learn has been slowly rebuilding themselves after the events of RE4.

Alice and Solomon formed the plan with the Weskerites, the Connections, and President Ferreira to start an outbreak in Rio de Janeiro. The reason; to avenge their grandfather. The only reason why they chose Rio was because they timed it with Ashley Graham’s visit to the city. They also assumed that by putting Ashley in danger, they could lure Leon S. Kennedy out as well. All this death and destruction was solely to kill Leon and Ashley for revenge.

However, at some point, Alice had a change of heart. Deciding that the deaths of thousands just to avenge Osmund Saddler wasn’t worth it, Alice tried to stop the operation. Unbeknownst to Alice, the Brazilian government had already found out about the Saddlers’ plans. This led to the destruction of the Connections camp and Alice being thrown down a waterfall and losing her memory.

(NOTE: The reason why the Brazilian government found out about Los Illuminados’ plans is also explained in a DLC)

The finale is a confrontation with Solomon Saddler, the game’s true main villain. Alice, Ashley, Jake, Sherry, Carlos, and Javier all have to work together to stop Solomon in a multi-stage final showdown. Solomon is, of course, defeated and the outbreak is eventually put under control by the combined efforts of the Brazilian military, Blue Umbrella and the BSAA. The game ends with the six survivors being flown out of the city, with Ashley promising to Alice that they can put her in the witness protection program.

/

DLCs

1) For my Family: Set 3 years before RE7, Mia Winters and Oh Jin-seok are sent by Connections to deal with a minor outbreak caused by one of their clients. Mia and Jin-seok later learn that the outbreak was deliberately caused by Alice and Solomon Saddler to test the viruses. At the end of the DLC, we cut to a few hours after RE7, with Mia in an interrogation room with DSO agents. She agrees to become an informant in exchange for the safety of herself, Ethan, and Rose. With Mia Winters’ intel, the US government informs the Brazilian government about the Saddlers’ operation, leading to the bombardment and Alice losing her memory.

2) Off the Grid: Taking place simultaneously with RE9, Leon S. Kennedy goes off the grid in order to help Ada Wong with a mission in Papua New Guinea. Ada had tracked down one of Albert Wesker’s abandoned lab sites and needed Leon’s help to infiltrate it. At the end of the DLC, Leon and Ada learn that this facility was holding the corpse of Steve Burnside (from Code Veronica), which has been well-preserved. Ada then ponders if they can revive Steve.

/

Special Notes

1) Alice, in case it wasn’t obvious, is loosely based on the Alice from the live-action movies.

2) I imagined the game to be a third-person shooter along the lines of the remakes (and The Last of Us).

3) The 3 campaigns are distinctly different from one another in terms of gameplay; Jake and Sherry have special powers / Carlos and Javier are normal people / Alice can fight while Ashley only has defense since she’s a noncombatant.

4) Technically speaking, despite the return of several previous characters from different installments, this game is a direct sequel to RE4.

5) Raven Romero and Oh Jin-seok survive the game. They become the new “Big Bads” of Resident Evil, similar to how Albert Wesker was the Big Bad up until RE5.

6) Raven Romero’s name is a reference to George A. Romero.

#resident evil #alice resident evil #ashley graham #sherry birkin #jake muller #carlos oliveira #leon s kennedy #ingrid hunnigan #osmund saddler #re4 #albert wesker #mia winters #ethan winters #rose winters #steve burnside #capcom #biohazard #ada wong #resident evil franchise #resident evil games #resident evil series

[clay-cuttlefish]

I'm finally done. 738 issues in mainline canon, and they're all sorted. My great burden is off my chest.

Except for the roughly 150 issues outside mainline canon, fiftysomething episodes of TV, handful of youtube videos and animated shorts, six movies, and two podcast seasons.

Then I'll be free.

Send help.

Batman: Urban Legends #14

This is, imo, the best take on conspiracy theorist Vic. He's goofy and overdramatic, but he's doing it to get a reaction out of Bruce.

It's short and silly enough that it doesn't get grating.

Choosing to believe that he found out Bruce's identity because Ollie forgot that he can't firstname Bruce in Checkmate meetings.

I Am Batman #11-14

It's really fucked up that Renee's both a cop and the Question, actually! That's not any better than her being a cop! I do not get why this story doesn't see that!

It keeps laying out the reasons that policing is fundamentally broken but then walking it back to go "oh but Renee's a good cop" when she's not! She's not even the mythical Good Cop! The entire reason she's the Question is because she was not a good person on the GCPD and she wasn't able to fix the system!

Renee using her understanding of how the police protect themselves to push back against them is a good idea, and then nope never mind the anarchists are the murderers actually. Cannot believe Lonnie died for this shit.

This handoff sucks so much. Vic and Renee got an entire series to explore what Renee and Hadiyah do in two pages, and while I actually quite like the idea that Hadiyah's a closely guarded enigma with connections to people she really shouldn't know, two pages? Really? The event tie-in is more important? Couldn't have spread this out even a little bit more? Also Renee's motivation sucks but what else is new.

GCPD: The Blue Wall

This wants to be Gotham Central. It's not.

I'm being unfair. There's worse copaganda on the list, and Gotham Central is absolutely copaganda that fails to meaningfully engage with a lot of these elements, but it just keeps circling back to Gotham Central while dodging that Renee knows how she handled policing making her a worse person: she quit, and she started looking for the truth.

Look I have a lot of very complicated feelings about this, but the commentary on a spreadsheet assembly readthrough is not the place to do it.

From a strictly Renee perspective: it hauls her development all the way back to where it was right after Half a Life, has a police officer who's realized he's a bastard working for a corrupt system go evil and kill her brother, and has her acknowledge the futility of reform from the inside but doesn't actually have her quit.

Batman: Urban Legends: #21

I don't know how the hell you can write a comic about Renee's guilt over the lives she ruined while a police officer and the way the police system makes people worse and prevents reform from the inside, then end it by having her decide to become the commissioner. The argument for why that doesn't work is on the page.

I Am Batman #15

What did Dark Crisis even do? I thought the multiverse was already back? If not, the fuck was going on in Lois Lane???

I Am Batman #16-18

NOBODY!!!

I really love Nobody as a name. Extremely in the spirit of the Question for her to see one opportunity for a quip and latch onto it forever.

Yes it makes talking about her prone to devolving into a shitty Who's on First bit but so does Question and I think that's funny.

I like that Hadiyah's out there doing her own mysterious Question-flavored thing. Sure, I wish Renee didn't push the mask onto her, but reinvention after rough origins is kind of the Question's thing. Maybe she'll turn it around, or fade into obscurity until a different author picks her up, or become a recurring side character, or DC'll implode again and she'll get caught in the canon reshuffle. Who knows! Nobody does!

She's got a cool design and a few solid hooks - I'm interested to see if she sticks the landing in the next couple years.

Lazarus Planet: Legends Reborn

I still don't like her being the Question and a cop, but it's less bad when she's using her Question skills to chase a horrifying magic apocalypse monster.

It's solid. Not a fantastic characterization, but this is recognizably Renee as the Question.

Detective Comics #1069

Ram V. Please. Make this pay off. I beg you.

Aside from Renee looking at her Question mask, there's a blonde guy in a blue suit jacket who punches a soldier and then gets his shit wrecked, so maybe that upcoming Tec Question story is actually about how Vic's full of demons.

Detective Comics #1072-1074

Nocturne is worth reading for its own sake, it fucking rules, and this is so promising. Cmon, Renee! You can do it! Get out of the character reversion black hole!

DC's Ghouls Just Wanna Have Fun

A good little Halloween-themed Question adventure. She solves a mystery, gets a cape, it's cute and charming. Sort of kiddy but in a good way.

I'd call the art adorable but I think that's the wrong impression. There are some very cute panels, but also some excellent detail work and a great sense of movement. I really like it.

I love that her internal monologue is marked with a hat.

You know what? Things are looking up. It's easy to get depressed about the state of Renee, but it's only actually been about two and a half years in the Bad Zone, and that's... not that bad by DC standards? Sucks to live through, but as far as I can tell there was only one author actively invested in regressing her characterization, everyone else was just going along with that. With Ram V writing for Tec, I'm not enough of a fool to be confident, but I think the odds are decent that the worst has passed.

#clayposts #clayreads #the question #vic sage #renee montoya #hadiyah dc

[hopeymchope]

The riveting, disturbing world of 'Babylon'

I just finished the anime 'Babylon' from 2019, and my mind was all kinds of messed up by it. Honestly, after all the horrific and edgelord-y crap I've seen in anime/manga, it's sort of comforting to know that I'm still capable of being shaken and unnerved by some of this shit.

The title is generic AF, so let me give you a brief overview: Babylon is 12-episode anime series adapting a trilogy of novels by Mado Nozaki. Note that these are full-on novels, not light novels — but they aren't available in English as of me writing this. So for that reason, I can't speak to how adapting each novel into four half-hour episodes was handled. I'm sure that numerous cuts had to be made. I can only speak to what I know of the novels from other people who've read them. I'll get into some of that a lot later on.

The story focuses on Japanese public prosecutor Zen Seizaki, who starts out the series investigating false advertising at a pharmaceutical company before stumbling into a conspiracy that initially seems to be manipulating his city's politics. But Zen digs deeper still, and he finds it's far worse than just that. Countless lives are on the line, and humanity's shared moral compass faces a huge possible shift that appears to be occurring naturally... but the spread of this new perspective is, in actuality, FAR from natural. One character likens the events to "ideological terrorism," and that strikes me as a pretty good summary. Ultimately, the antagonists are technically — at least in all visible senses — moving within the confines of the law to enact their intentions. In that case, what can government authorities, lawyers, and police do to stem the tide?

The series doesn't try to argue that government authority is 'innocent' or 'incorruptible' in ANY way... but it does seem to believe that figures of authority USUALLY play by the established rules of legality. .... At least in Japan.

So hey, let's start up front with some exciting news: It's an anime about adult characters living adult lives and doing adult jobs! And despite that, it's not an office romance, NOR is it a romance between an adult and a teenager or ANY of that stuff! Shit — this isn't even a comedy! That puts 'Babylon' somewhere around "EPIC" in terms of anime rarity. Every episode begins with a content warning and a suicide prevention hotline number. That should give you some fucking idea of how dark we're going here. But the primary focus of 'Babylon' isn't revealed until the very end of episode 3. So... I'll give you the chance to bow out right now if you don't want to know the exact nature of the threat. It's hard for me to discuss it in too much depth without spoiling it. I won't spoil anything OTHER than the major subject matter revealed at the end of episode 3, though!

You still here? The content warning hints at the most important component of the story: The central focus is on suicide. Specifically, is suicide inherently immoral? Or should people have the right to decide when their lives end? Is there any gray in the middle of that? Etc. Suffice it to say that there's a major trigger warning for suicide in this series. Not only because characters kill themselves with disturbing regularity, but because there are also multiple scenes that are just long philosophical debates about when suicide is or isn't moral... as well as who or what defines the guidelines of our personal and societal morality, is there any such thing as pure good or pure evil, etc.

And I'm not complaining — these scenes are really interesting! Although characters do tend to take WAY too long to bring up really obvious aspects of these debates for my taste. Like, when someone raises the question of why suicide is illegal, it takes multiple episodes of off-and-on chit-chat before someone cracks wise about how you can't exactly prosecute or arrest someone who commits suicide FOR OBVIOUS REASONS. I'm not sure why that wasn't the FIRST thing to come up, but I guess I just think differently than this author. (FYI: Another character points out that the matter of 'legality' extends to whether police and emergency services are compelled to stop/respond to possible suicide threats, if you're curious how the ongoing debate is justified.)

Some of the heady debates are portrayed via trippy-ass visuals that only we, the viewers at home, can see. Which is kind of goofy, but it's an interesting way to keep things from becoming too static during the philosophical discussions.

Clearly, they're not shying away from tough topics. But the side in favor of allowing people to commit suicide is hardly playing fair, either. They're forcing the issue in the worst possible way: Controlling people to kill themselves, convincing fucking CHILDREN to kill themselves, and more. So as a viewer, you obviously WANT them to lose the debate. But they aren't entirely arguing without merit, either. That's part of what makes it so disturbing: Sometimes they make some horrible kind of sense.

The elements that make the series discomforting aren't just in the subject matter discussed or in the touchy debates. The primary antagonist (or... are they?) is... oof. How can I describe them without spoiling anything about their identity and what they do? Suffice to say that their abilities border on supernatural, and as the series progresses, those abilities become increasingly impossible to counter. Apparently they are framed as being explicitly NOT supernatural in the novels, but in this anime, they appear to lean closer to being some kind of superpower — a really gross and upsetting one.

To make matters worse, before we see this antagonist fully utilize their abilities, the experience of being on the receiving end of their powers is compared to fucking rape in a way that... really made me feel like it was justifying objectification of human beings - even underage ones!!!! - as nothing more than sex objects. Like, it actually PISSED ME OFF. But... look, I gave the show some time to justify its bullshit, and I'm glad I did — that conversation became much less offensive in retrospect, after we learn/see a lot of said antagonist's true nature. (Note that I said it became less offensive. It is still disturbing as all hell, which is the intended response.)

You can tell that I'm STILL trying to avoid a lot of spoilers in this thing. There's just so many twists and turns, and it's consistently extremely compelling stuff. I don't know that they entirely stick the landing on this bird, though...

There's just too many questions left open at the end for my taste. Too many hanging chads. What are the motivations of our antagonists? One of them — the one who appears on-screen the most — at least appears to be the "just want to watch the world burn" type, though even THAT is pretty unclear. And the other major antagonist is kept mysterious for the entire run! They serve as a major figurehead for a pro-suicide movement, and we have no flippin' idea what their motives are! Furthermore, the series ends on what could be called "ambiguous" at best or "a goddamned cliffhanger" at worst.

And there are no more books! The author has written other books since completing this trilogy and has given no indication of ever intending to go back! It just... leaves us there, twisting in the wind!

KNOW THIS: The post-credits scene in the last episode was made up for the anime by the anime production team. Nothing like exists in the original novels or the manga or anywhere else. You might as well consider it non-canon. Which is great news, because it sucks all the life out of the preceding confrontation.

But even with all that baggage, I can't say I wasn't riveted. I can't stay I don't recommend it, honestly. It's very well done up until that point. And I don't even completely hate the ending! ... Maybe I just hate the post-credits scene, I guess. ..... No, WAIT, we sit through multiple episodes of a character pondering their position on the suicide issue, only for their big moment of revelation to be... LITERALLY THE FIRST THING I THOUGHT OF AS A COUNTER-ARGUMENT TO THE VILLAINS. So that. Yeah. That kinda sucked.

But the actual climactic scene? The final moments? They're engrossing... and open to interpterion in a way that isn't without merit!

Oh, and consider this: The manga version of the story? It ends on the second novel, concluding with a much happier version of the events that wrap up that part of the story here. There is no third novel — that final part where the stakes become global never arises. Sadly, I don't think the manga adaption has ever been translated into English. But if you find a scanlation or something, let me know! I'd like to see the happier ending. At least I'd feel more closure than I got here.

#babylon #babylon anime #anime reviews #ai magase #Zen Seizaki

[eschercaine]

Part 1

The note is written in a black pen on a brown cafe napkin.

Sorry for listening, Nyra, but I happened to be sitting nearby. And while your friend Alicent may not understand what you’re feeling, she is right. You should have somewhere to come home to, and you should move forward. Sorry for listening, again.

At first,At first, she thought it to be a sick joke. she thought that a random stranger who had the same handwriting wrote it, but she caught up with the name that was written: Nyra.

Three people call her by that name: her parents and Uncle Daemon.

But how is that possible? He’s dead for five years. How could a dead man walk into her school's coffee bar unnoticed and give her a piece of advice from beyond the grave?

Unless... he’s still alive.

But, again, how? He’s buried six feet underground.

Back at home, Rhaenyra barged into his old room, which was closed off by her father to preserve his memory, and rummages through his papers. Documents, memos, birthday cards.

She returned to her room and pasted it on her “conspiracy board,” along with the napkin she took from her pocket, finding any inconsistencies in the lettering.

They all matched.

Rhaenyra let out a sad chuckle. “‘You should move forward.’ Really, Daemon?”

Two days later, without sleep, she compiles a few clippings of newspaper articles regarding the accident and pasted them on the board. Something’s not right, Rhaenyra thought.

She remembers it too well, the day of the accident, because it is when time stopped for her. Rhaenyra was with her friends when she received the news. With Alicent’s encouragement, she reached the hospital and sees her parents were already there. Her father was weeping uncontrollably. Daemon may have been a pain in his arse, but he's still his little brother at the end of the day.

At first, she couldn’t believe it was him. Before her is a corpse beyond recognition. No silver hair, no pale skin, no anything that could discern it was him. The police said that the car exploded after the crash, resulting in the body being burned horribly. Thanks to the forensics, they confirmed that the body was, indeed, Daemon.

It is painful for them, but they had to accept the fact that he was gone.

The police quickly shut down the case after that. They did not catch the perpetrator of the crash, despite an officer informing them that they had caught the car’s plate number in their surveillance camera.

Something’s not right.

At the uni, there has been gossip about a man in a trench coat prowling the school grounds at night. Rhaenyra scoffs at that, thinking it was just an alumnus or a former staff visiting the school to pick up their things. But then she recalls the serial killer case on the news and the victims attending the same school as hers.

Rhaenyra gained access to their school’s surveillance camera with her “she needed it for her journalism” excuse. And there, she spotted a man in a trench coat. However, Rhaenyra can’t get a good look at his face because the screen started acting up.

And it always happens whenever the man is in the frame.

She should investigate it more.

• • • • • •

Club Meleys is going well. As it should always be.

Three months and no one had been looking for him since he dropped that note on her check.

Good. As long as no one has found out he’s still walking around, he’s fine. No rule has been broken.

Scanning the crowd, he spotted a black-haired man with an unkempt beard walking toward him. Daemon waved a hand at him.

“Is it alright to meet here?” asks Luthor as he sat on a stool beside him.

“Yes,” Daemon answered. “After all, this establishment is mine.”

It belonged to him once his sire, the man who killed him, relinquished the nightclub’s ownership to Daemon as a welcome gift. The place also serves as a haven for other vampires like him; they can feed or, even, kill their unsuspecting prey without anyone noticing.

They are welcome, as long as they don’t cause any trouble.

Largent slowly hands him a small USB flash drive. “Everything you need is in here.”

Daemon couldn’t help but scowl. Is he mocking him? He can’t use electronic devices the same way again. Of course, he still knows how to use them. Yet, whenever he touches one, the screen flickers before going black. When it comes to cameras, his distorted image is shown on the screen, so he had to look out for those little things. “I can’t use a laptop or computer, for fuck’s sake,” he grumbles.

“Oh. Even a mobile phone?” he asked.

Daemon hums. “Even mobile phone.” Then he took a sip from his black tumbler, containing blood. For all anyone knows, he’s just enjoying a cool, refreshing drink.

“That’s unfortunate,” says Luthor, slipping the flash drive into his pocket and rummaging through his leather bag. He produced a brown folder with several articles inside. “There. Everything you need is right there,” he declares.

Daemon took the folder and peered inside. He’s not wrong. His meticulous research always helps him a lot. Now, all he had to do is to figure out the culprit.

Daemon claps Luthor on the back. “Excellent job.” Then points to the several drinks behind the bar. “You can drink whatever you like.”

“Oh. I don’t have enough money,” Luthor says softly.

He laughs, clapping Luthor on the back again. “Don’t worry. It’s on me.”

“Well… I-I would like a martini, please.”

For a long period, the two men spent the entire night chit-chatting until Luthor, finally drunk, stood up and packed his things, bidding goodnight. Daemon requested the nearby bouncer to escort him to the exit.

Once Daemon saw him leave, his eyes darted to the dancefloor, packed with bodies gyrating to deafening techno music, with flashing red lights. Several of them were making out without any care in the world.

Music beats hard against his body. Nobody notices or if he breathes or not, and Daemon wonders if maybe this is what eternal life should mean. The freedom to dance, to party, to drink, to love all night. Forever.

And amongst the crowd, Daemon spotted familiar faces.

Alicent, Laena, Laenor, and…

Fuck.

He gulps nervously.

Rhaenyra.

What is she doing in here?

#house of the dragon #hotd #hotd au #vampire au #daemyra #rhaenyra x daemon #daemon x rhaenyra #rhaenyra targaryen #don't mind me #just writing a fic

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary87

12/7-8/2023

thursday - friday

“Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?" "Yes." "All like ours?" "I don't know, but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound - a few blighted." "Which do we live on - a splendid one or a blighted one?" "A blighted one.” - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles

as my girlfriend was hiding from being shot, she was hiding in the dark with her colleague, she checked her email because as people were unsure if the shooting was still taking place, or even that the man had been shot by police, someone who must have had the alert, and had access, to the registry of everyone teaching interdisciplinary studies, their emails, to send this message (credit to roberto lovato on twitter):

she did not receive this email, instead she had received one saying that the landlord is not going to be renewing any leases at this apartment complex, and that we will have to move by march.

the shooter was eventually shot by police, but no one knew for sure if it was multiple people. this was circulating, sent to me by my cousin:

he told me to listen to the police scanner, so i did. they were clearing every room, slowly, it took them hours to get to where my gf was, and along the way, anyone who stepped out, anyone who tried to flee, was pointed at with a rifle, held up by pigs, basically. the terrorism did not ever end for any of them, all at the brink of pissing themselves because they didn't want to scare a police officer and get killed. one of my gf's colleagues had a rifle pointed at him while he was trying to go piss, and they called him a straggler, and told him to fuck off, basically.

there was, simultaneous to the shooting, someone being arrested in a hotel, near campus, this seemed related to people online i think, but i never got a clear vision of what that was. all there is now, is one dead shooter, only attacking the business school building, specifically hunting down faculty after being told they would not hire him. he also sent out poisonous letters, it seems, to faculty of old schools he worked at, and places that also refused to hire him. he posted the content of the letters online. they aren't worth reproducing, i guess, they are wildly misogynistic, at the same rate, he seems to have been driven insane by academia, and pushed towards reactionary tendencies by being useless to help anyone really or accomplish anything in terms of making it not a special kind of hell. he accuses multiple people of fucking their students, he calls himself a genius constantly, he is paranoid of marxists, and on his website he also has a lot of writing re: conspiracy theories, he liked alex jones. overall, he was terrified and disgusted. he believed people he worked with were doing things like seeing child prostitutes in thailand, using work resources for csa materials. i don't know how much of that is paranoia directed at someone who might have been gay (this kind of accusation is common to level at gay people, as we see especially now), he even accused who i assume might have been lesbian coworkers of having their students give them head, or if this is somehow, a little real. i know these things do happen, teachers using their students. favors for sex between faculty, too. incapable of confronting the material causes of the hell we are in (actually dealing w/ marx intellectually/trying to understand) this particular business teacher/economist doubled down on the capitalist fantasy of meritocracies and conspiracy to account for his failings.

there is little sympathy, but there's something unpleasantly complicated about how he got to where he got. he was desperate for work, to cling to a life i guess. he took issue, and tried to kill faculty in the business school.

the police relocated many students out of their dorms, into a giant stadium, i don't know why, i guess to hunt for any potential other gunmen.

we saw my friends last night, after all of this, and we did fun stuff, but this other shit is still here, the unsurety of our housing, the guns, the police, but whatever i guess, right.

it's crazy seeing parts of the world act like this is all unreal. there is a massive amount of faith in the hyperreal, which maintains its existence, i wonder if baudrillard ever mentioned that. i don't recall, but in the semantic processes, the image making, the visions, the map that exceeds the territory, or the map which gifts us our territory, there is massive faith in those laws and processes, the positivity always, a super-ideal reality, there is only the heavensent, and so, tragedy, horror, abjection, are either absorbed as highly intentional events which seek to make something of humanity, or untrue totally. horror becomes either plan, god, or nothing at all.

everything defused, and at the center, the police managing, keep information blurry, they themselves not wanting to believe anything other than the activity they are engaged in is helpful, problems are imagined to keep the policing going, upwards, upwards, upwards. they do not realize it is all death, sinking into static images forever, no great upheavals, even the shooter is under this order, he doesn't realize that this is what he hates.

anyway, anyway, anyway, i don't know.

i don't think we live in a place where people are supposed to be, if you care about anything, there is only a terrible grinding, and not knowing. i've had nightmare about my girlfriend being killed like that. i'm so dependent on her. i don't know what i'd do. i don't like the world, i think maybe, i can admit, i don't like a lot of people. it's awful to say, i think. but everything is going to make me sick. hearing about teachers trying to keep school running like normal are so disgusting, and idiotic. the normal cannot disappear. people dying just has to be normal. there is no war on the public, there never was, new ways to die, urban hazards, there is nothing to see other than antibiotic responses to disease, and it's okay to see it.

the rodeo is in town, as she was taken to the stadium, she was taken thru barbed wire, and led in a snake-shaped path or something by a guy in army gear with an ar15, probably, and ended up somewhere in front of a barbecue food truck. there were cowboys milling around. as people were hiding in the dark i was watching the horses from our window, and the alarm and its robotic voice said words, they weren't even scared of it anymore, no whinnying. nothing.

it woke me up, i didn't think it could be that, my girlfriend told me it was and i didn't even ask if it was what i thought it could be. i don't know. she was in the dark, her colleagues argued, some at least, they were all horrified about this happening. obviously. nothing will happen, though. we are all going to collectively deal with the fact, and forced to act like this is not a fact, creating a quiet misery that we will either forget or use as staging grounds for a horrible kind of birth, of what i can hardly say, tumorous sadness i guess, that we now live in a world where this will never be taken back, and that there is no response possible, at least at the level of each of us alone. together, what could we do, all there is in my heart is the wish for a world wholly different.

i can't get over the email she received, and that we are unsure of what will happen. all either of us have done is live/survive, it feels like some kind of punishment.

i know it's not the whole world, and that landlords are especially shit. it's just extreme, i dunno, it feels like this is reproduced everywhere, on every level. maybe i am just winded and weak.

i am craving some sort of punishment, i just want to be ended but i want it to be funny i guess. that makes me greedy/selfish, i can't stop wanting it though. i just want to be exploded. tortured and left on the side of the road. right now is just that without the fun parts (possibly puking, blood, being connected to my body).

instead i am just distantly afraid.

an intolerable heat, i guess.

yesterday we saw the christmas lights at this chocolate factory. that was nice. it was very pretty, my gf saw these angel ornaments, all lit up and stuff, and she said they're like the ones in fwwm, to take me away, she meant it in a sweet way, but it made me realized all over again what that scene means to me, and how i felt then, just wanting to escape all of this awful stuff. but it's sad, i want to be here for her. i wish we could go away forever. into a life that is not shoved into various unrealities at all times.

anyway, look at these sprites from despiria.

i'm tired, now, so

byebye!!!!!!

[cyarsk52-20]

F12: 5 Ex-Memphis Cops Who Beat Tyre Nichols To Death Have Been Indicted By Federal Grand Jury

Jason "Jah" Lee

Source: Memphis Police Department / Memphis Police Department

Tyre Nichols is dead because of the violence enacted by the five little pigs that you see above. Their comeuppance is on the way.

The five officers, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr., and Justin Smith were already facing state charges in Tennessee for Nichols’ death but today, their potential consequences have been exponentially increased. According to CNN, all five “men” have been indicted by a federal grand jury for killing Nichols in addition to federal civil rights, conspiracy, and obstruction offenses.

We love to see it.

“Officers who violate the civil rights of those they are sworn to protect undermine public safety, which depends on the community’s trust in law enforcement,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. Garland added, “The Justice Department will continue to hold accountable officers who betray their oath.”

Related Stories

We don’t care how much melanin is in their skin, these sell-out negroes deserve the harshest and most brutal punishments allowed by law and no racial solidarity can absolve them of their crimes. The language of the federal indictment does not bite its tongue in describing the “unlawful assault” of Tyre Nichols and the way in which the blue lives “willfully deprived” an innocent Black man of his inalienable constitutional rights “to be free from an unreasonable seizure, which includes the right to be free from the use of unreasonable force by a police officer.”

While several attorneys chose not to comment, at least one defense lawyer sounds like he’s a bit of a panic regarding how to represent his client…

“This is going to cause us to change gears a little bit. This adds another layer of things that we’ll have to look into and investigate,” Blake Ballin, defense attorney for Desmond Mills, told CNN, reacting to the federal indictment. “We have been expecting this federal indictment and it does not change Mr. Mills’s position,” Ballin said in another statement to CNN. “As in the state case, Mr. Mills maintains his innocence. He will turn himself in on the federal indictment and continue to defend himself against all allegations in both the state and federal court systems.”

Lock all of their sorry a$$es up and throw away the key. Oh, and make sure they reside in the general population with the men that they likely had locked up under dubious circumstances.

#heartbreaking 💔 #black lives matter #important #tw: discrimination #true crime #topic: discrimination #tw: oppression #youtube #topic: oppression #blm #blue lives don't matter #blue lives dont exist #black lives movement #black lives have always mattered #black lives are important #black lives fucking matter #blue lives matter #stop police brutality #blue lives murder #Youtube #police brutality #defund the cops #defund 12 #defund police #tw: racist #topic: racism #topic: racist #tw: racism #topic: police brutality #tw: police brutality

[itsmemateinnit]

Whitechapel series 1 press pack

Rupert Penry-Jones is Detective Inspector Joseph Chandler

Rupert Penry-Jones is quick to point out that DI Chandler, his character in Whitechapel, is no hero.

“He doesn’t have all the answers.  He doesn’t know how to fix everything.  He doesn’t kill the bad guy and save London like Adam in Spooks,” explains Rupert.

“He’s a bit less of an action man and a bit more cerebral.  He doesn’t really like the sight of blood.  Chandler is the total opposite to Adam in that way; he finds the whole thing quite scary.

“It was actually really nice to play someone who was not an action man for a change.”

Describing his character Rupert says: “DI Chandler is basically a fast track policeman.  They call them ‘plastics’ in the force.  He is destined for great things at the higher end of the police force but has to go through the ranks and work a little in each of the departments; get his feet wet.

“Whitechapel starts with him being given his first murder case which all concerned think is going to be a simple domestic.  But of course it turns out to be a serial killer. So he ends up on this investigation having to muck in a lot more than he expected and realises he enjoys policing rather more than just sitting behind a desk.

“He is a slightly obsessive, compulsive, asexual guy.  You get no insight into his personal life at all. It is all work with him.”

At first Chandler sits uneasily among his new colleagues; a rough and ready East End station.

But, as Rupert explains, the relationship between him and his men does develop during the series.

“To start with Chandler and Miles, his sergeant played by Phil Davis, absolutely hate each other. For Miles particularly, Chandler is everything he dislikes about the modern police force.  But gradually they find a mutual respect for each other.”

Ripperologist Edward Buchan is another stumbling block between the two officers.

“Chandler likes Buchan from the start.  He respects his ideas and thoughts on the case and they end up being good friends.  Miles thinks he’s an idiot and a liability.”

Rupert says that the prospect of working with Phil Davis again was one of the things that attracted him to the part.

“The first thing that hit me was the script - a real page turner.  I was totally gripped by this modern telling of the Jack the Ripper story.  And I loved the relationship between Chandler and Miles.  Even more so as Phil is an old friend from when we made North Square together, so that was an added bonus.”

Rupert admits he knew very little about the original 19th century Ripper before doing his research.

“To be honest I didn’t even realise he hadn’t been caught,” confesses Rupert.  “I thought they caught the suspect in top hat and tails. I never realised that there was this huge conspiracy story going around.

“I found the research very interesting.  I didn’t realise how gruesome it all was though.  They really were the most awful murders.  He did terrible things to those women, even eating bits of their bodies.  He was the original serial killer.”

Many of Whitechapel’s pivotal scenes were filmed at night.  Rupert recalls: “You can’t get very close to many of the original murder scenes but what was strange was while we were filming these big scenes we would see the actual Ripper tours walking past the sights. It was a bit surreal.”

“The night shoots were extremely gruelling on everybody.  All the London boroughs have different curfews so we would only be allowed to film up to a certain time – some would be 10pm, some midnight and so on.  It meant you couldn’t get a good run at the night shoots and we were always having to change our hours.”

But perhaps the toughest part of the role for Rupert was remembering the dialogue littered with names and dates and locations…

“When I was discussing all the victims I had the art department put up a big storyboard behind me. I used it as a prop to emphasise my speech but also as a prompt for remembering the names of the women who were killed.  I had it all up there behind me to reference if I got lost.

“I find all that line learning rather tiresome but lines are easy to learn if the dialogue is good.  And this was compelling.”

#whitechapel #whitechapel itv #text

[nikoalasblog]

activism & protest!!

This week’s topic is about activism, protest and digital citizenship. Before I continue, let me explain what is activism and what it means to be an activist. According to dictionary.com, the practice of taking direct action to further political or social objectives is known as activism. Supporting a certain cause (or set of causes) or opposing it can both be considered forms of activism. Direct (and persistent) actions are used in activism, including protests, lawsuits, petitioning, campaigns, and strikes. An activist is a person who takes part in activism. The term "activist" suggests that these actions are consistently carried out and that the activist is perpetually engaged in their cause. On the other hand, the term "protest" refers to a display of disapproval or dissatisfaction in public. Protests are frequently held in opposition to issues such as a country's involvement in a war, particular government policies, or acts of injustice. A close synonym for protest would be demonstration. These protests are frequently held in public places by those who wish to openly express their discontent in order to raise awareness of their cause and exert pressure on the government to implement change. A protestor is a person who takes part in protests. One of the most well-known global protest is the Black Lives Matter protests.

An international social movement called Black Lives Matter (BLM) was established in the US in 2013 with the goal of ending racism and anti-Black violence, particularly when it manifests itself in the form of police brutality. Black Lives Matter is a movement that opposes the unjust killings of Black people by police (Black people in the United States are considerably more likely to be killed by police than White people) and calls for society to regard Black lives and humanity equally to White lives and humanity. The BLM expanded more when George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, was declared dead in May 2020 after Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, had knelt on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes despite Floyd's repeated claims that he was struggling to breathe. Massive protests were then sparked by the widespread distribution of a bystander's video of Floyd's final moments in places all over the world and in the United States (The Editors of Encyclopaedia, 2022). Many people at this time started to change their profile picture to a fist to show their support of the movement (as seen in the picture above). It was a very heartbreaking period for people.

Has any fandoms you’re involved in been a part of any protest or acts of social activism?

Not really. However, there has been a recent controversy with Kanye West, an American rapper and fashion designer. The reason why I am mentioning him is that I happen to enjoy and like his music. But I was not surprised when I heard about this controversy since he tends to be involved in many controversies and has done many questionable things over the years. After making online anti-Semitic remarks and then doubling down on them, Kanye had his access to his Twitter and Instagram accounts restricted. This caused significant outrage and debates over whether it was time to ultimately “cancel” him (Bowen 2022). At his YZY runway show during Paris Fashion Week in early October, Ye wore a "White Lives Matter" t-shirt and dressed many Black models in attire bearing the same message; the Anti-Defamation League has connected the phrase to the Klu Klux Klan. The rapper made a number of inappropriate remarks in a 45-minute "Drink Champs" podcast episode that aired earlier this month, which actually had a negative financial impact on him and his business partners. West stated on the show, "Even if I use anti-Semitic language, Adidas won't fire me. What's next?" Additionally, he contended that George Floyd's death was caused by a fentanyl overdose rather than by police brutality. Additionally, he repeated a number of antisemitic conspiracies, expanding on them in later interviews. Later, West vowed to "go death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE" on Twitter. Businesses have been under pressure to retaliate against Ye for his antisemitic remarks. Brands like Adidas, The Gap, Instagram, Twitter and Balenciaga, even his lawyers and ex-wife Kim Kardashian and many other brands and celebrities have boycotted and terminated partnerships with him (Maruf 2022). Kim Kardashian, who everyone knows was married to Kanye for eight years and has four children with him, has also openly acknowledged and severely condemned her ex-husband in a tweet. Kim declared on her Instagram Stories that hate speech is never acceptable or justifiable. Kim said and I quote "Hate speech is never OK or excusable. I stand together with the Jewish community and call on the terrible violence and hateful rhetoric towards them to come to an immediate end". And yet, Ye's bipolar disorder diagnosis, which he initially discussed in 2016, complicates the "cancellation of Kanye". Mental illness can become serious and have an effect on behaviour if not taken care of, but for the past several years, a lot of individuals, brands, and other celebrities have been torn over the question of whether or not Ye's worrisome outbursts and rants about politics can be explained by his condition (Bowen 2022).

That sums up this week's blog post! Thank you for making it this far <3 See you in the next post.

References:

dictionary.com, definition of activism, dictionary.com, viewed 9 November 2022, <https://www.dictionary.com/browse/activism>.

dictionary.com, definition of protest, dictionary.com, viewed 9 November 2022, <https://www.dictionary.com/browse/protest>.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia, Black Lives Matter, Encyclopedia Britannica, viewed 9 November 2022, <https://www.britannica.com/topic/Black-Lives-Matter>.

Bowen, C 2022, All of the celebrities and brands vowing to boycott Kanye following antisemitism remarks, Cosmopolitan, viewed 9 November 2022,<https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a41764688/kanye-cancelled-yeezy-adidas/>.

Maruf, R 2022, Corporate America is cancelling Kanye West, CNN Business, viewed 9 November 2022, <https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/10/25/business/kanye-west-business-antisemitic-comments/index.html>.

#mda20009 #week 6

[archangelmacaron]

NTMF College Au Chapter 12

I may have another off day for updates this weekend (I only started ch 15 last night) to try to catch up with myself but I think you will all enjoy 14 very much, so it should be fine :D I'm trying to take my time and make sure everything I write makes sense and there's no giant plot holes; mysteries and motivations are hard! I'm pretty sure I have it so anything that doesn't make sense isn't supposed to at this point. Hopefully the only big OOC stuff is either things I intentionally changed due to characters being older and (hopefully) more mature, and/or having different life experiences, or that it takes place over like four days, so development just speeds right along! Thanks as always for your comments I love them so much.

-

Oscar leaned back in the armchair, shaking his head. “That's... a lot to take in, Noel.”

“It certainly feels like more than a single day's events, that is for sure.” She looked at the two swords now resting in the man's lap, wondering when and how he'd gotten permission to carry them as campus security. She then glanced at Fugo, still slumped in his own armchair. He was glaring at Caron, who was standing with his arms crossed as he leaned against the wall—and was also glaring back at him. She sighed. This part in particular is a rather ridiculous situation...

“The books on the ceremony won't be in the library, though.” Oscar had a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Oh?” Caron asked, raising a brow as he turned to the other man. Fugo made an obscene gesture at him that he couldn't see, and Noel gave him a scolding look. He wrinkled his nose and shrugged at her, sinking deeper into the chair. He let out another small cough. He really did not seem to feel well.

“A few weeks ago, all of the forbidden tomes from the archives were moved, and I'm sure anything on the ceremony would have been taken, too. I was one of the guards who accompanied the people moving them. Didn't look like much was left behind.”

“Why where they moved?” Caron's eyes were narrowed suspiciously.

Oscar shook his head with a shrug. “Dean Burrows requested it. But I'm fairly sure they were all moved to the performance hall.”

“I wonder why... Are they protected there?” Noel asked, tapping her chin.

“I think they're all locked up in one of the offices. But you're the first student I've seen to express any interest in them, so I guess they're safe enough. After all, the average person can't read devil languages.”

Eh? Devil languages...? —Oh! Noel almost slapped her own forehead. Of course... that is why they did not need to be under heavy security...

Caron will be able to read them, I hope. I do not know why he would be interested if he could not. But now is not the time to wonder!

“I'll need to get there next, then... It's only about twenty minutes' walk, is it not?” She stood up, once more taking much longer than she would have liked. Prosthetics aside, she was feeling exhausted.

Oscar shook his head. “No. Not tonight. You saw that the police are out as well as campus security. You'll have to wait until tomorrow. It's too risky right now. Besides, you're probably exhausted.”

“Well, yes, but we cannot work during the day time, and besides that, I... have a time limit,” Noel confessed. “I was told that if I did not willingly withdraw on Monday, I would be forcibly expelled.”

“That does complicate things a bit, but my advice stands,” Oscar replied.

“You're right... it would be foolish for me to try to break into a second school building right now.” She sighed. “I suppose it was a bit naive of me to think that I could resolve the entire situation this quickly...”

Have I even truly thought this through? I said I wanted answers to the mystery, but that isn't all I was hoping for, was it. It isn't simply that I want to find out why there was a conspiracy to remove and even kill me; if I am honest, I also wanted to be reinstated in good standing—even to be the ceremonial pianist as I should have been.

And now that I know that this has been going on for a long time, I also want justice for those that were cheated out of a bright future, and even more so for those that were murdered. I want answers for them, too.

I am truly a greedy woman...

Caron looked over at her. “I can go without you. You can stay here and rest—assuming this is a safe location.”

The last comment was punctuated by quite a side-eye towards the other men. Oscar glanced at Fugo, then back to Caron. “Unless you mentioned it to anyone else, only us and Jillian should know that she's here at our house. She should be fine. Fugo and I won't be far, and we can also take my bike if you think we'd need to get back here faster.”

Caron nodded thoughtfully, touching his face again. “I do not particularly trust either of you, but Noel does, so I will reluctantly accept her judgment on that point. With that mobile telephone, she can contact you the moment anything goes awry. I can—“

Noel finally interjected. “What—no, absolutely not!"

Caron seemed to frown at her. "Don't be—"

"I'm not being precious. I hate to draw further attention to my mistake in letting Jillian know where I am, but what if Spica follows her?”

Caron made a sour face. “That... is indeed a valid concern.”

“Besides that, I will not permit you to take on all the risk on your own.” She frowned at Caron, and he responded with a truly offended look.

“'Will not permit' me? Absurd. As a Great Devil, I will do whatever is necessary to solve this mystery regardless of if you permit it or not. Have you forgotten that we made a contract—“

“Did you, though?”

They both turned to Fugo, who had sat up and was glaring at them both. Noel tilted her head.

“What do you mean?” She looked back over at Caron. The devil seemed unexpectedly tense.

“I can't help but notice your earlier story lacked a lotta detail on that point. So, Noel, do you actually remember, specifically, making a contract with him? What he agreed to do, what he said he'd take?” Fugo asked. His eyes met, and didn't leave Caron's, as he spoke to her. She could almost see sparks of animosity flying between them.

What does he mean, do I remember...? I-I was drunk, so of course I do not remember the specifics, but... that's the only reason why Caron is helping me, isn't it?

“What are you implying, demon?” Caron asked, his voice dangerously soft. He was no longer leaning on the wall.

“You know for damn sure exactly what I'm implying, devil.”

Noel looked back and forth between the two. Well I do not, so would one of you please explain it?!

I fear asking this out loud would only cause a greater argument...

“Would you care to say it directly?” Caron's stance had changed ever so slightly.

Fugo sat up more, and Noel saw him flex his fists. “Shouldn't you be the one saying it—no, admitting to it?”

The trill of a cel phone interrupted them before she could. It was Oscar's. He glanced at it and stood up. “Both of you. Stop. Fugo, we need to head back.”

“You sure that's a good idea?”

“I am. We share at least one goal with them right now.”

Fugo's glare moved to his brother. “How do you figure?”

“We all need to hide the truth of what happened at the library tonight. We need to be sure that the police don't look too deeply into the type of fire that occurred, or we'll all be in trouble," Oscar continued. “Fugo's already been under investigation for suspicion of being a demon once. If they think the fire has inhuman origins, and Fugo was known to be patrolling the area... I don't know that I can throw them off a second time.”

“I didn't know that,” Noel said, her eyes wide. Fugo made a face, but didn't refute his brother's claim.

That's right... they have a strong motive to prevent the truth from getting out. Even though whatever devil Fugo dealt with is long gone, if they find out he is a demon he is sure to be imprisoned.

And I would be, as well... I had not even considered that. If they originally were going to settle on expulsion, wouldn't imprisonment also be an acceptable outcome? And once there, it would be easy to arrange an accident for me...

As for what would happen to Caron... he'd almost certainly be killed on sight...

She shivered as she looked at him standing rigidly before her. The thought made her feel ill.

“And as for us, we are still unaware of how deep the conspiracy runs. Right now, it doesn't seem like you are a publicly wanted person. Given that Spica is trying to find you, I'd posit that they are still trying to eliminate you quietly. However, if you could be linked to an obvious crime such as arson, the entire student body, as well as the police force, would have a motive to search for you.” Caron touched his face as he thought. “Your associates would be questioned, and I'm sure this house would quickly be searched, which would bring them back to the demon hiding here. So our goals align.”

“I ain't hiding—“

“That all makes sense, even leaving aside the simple fact that I trust Oscar and Fugo both,” Noel interrupted. “Fugo, even if you cannot trust Caron, surely you understand that he does not wish to be found any more than you do, and the more trouble I am in, the more danger he is.”

Fugo grimaced again. “I don't like the idea of leaving you here alone with him.”

Noel found herself frowning again. “I have been alone with him for quite some time now, you know.”

She glanced over at Caron and was a little surprised to see he looked a bit amused again, then she thought on her exact words and internally sighed. I said something foolish again, it seems...

“Fugo, we have to. I have some ideas on how to throw them off the trail, but I need your help. Noel, Caron, we have two guest rooms, one at the top of the third floor stairs and then the second floor on the left. We'll be back at around five AM. We can talk further then. Fugo?”

Fugo slowly stood up, his eyes still narrowed at Caron. He flicked them to Noel. “Noel, take the one on the second floor. It locks.”

He walked out of the room without saying anything else, coughing slightly.

Noel and Oscar exchanged a look. The man shrugged. “Sorry, Noel. He's really worried about you. We don't have time to explain what happened to him, but he has a pretty solid reason not to trust devils.”

“You do not trust them either. You do not need to pretend.” Caron stood up straight, dusting himself off. “I appreciate that you have not been outright hostile.”

“A devil almost killed my brother, and he's suffering the way I did as a kid now. It's harder on him. He's active, I wasn't.” Oscar met Caron's eyes evenly. “So no, I don't really care for devils either. But just like she trusts me, I trust Noel.”

“Eh?” Her own eyes widened again as her friend's eyes moved to her. They were calm and serious. “Why...”

“I know it's not impossible for you to put your trust in the wrong person, Noel, but I trust your instincts and believe your story. If you're choosing to trust this devil, there's a reason for it, right? So I'm going to believe in you, that you know what you're doing.”

“Oh... thank you, Oscar.” She felt a little warm at the compliment, but her anxiety was too high to truly appreciate it. “Will Fugo be all right, though? He seems to be having a lot of trouble breathing...”

Oscar's face twisted with worry. “He should be if he takes it easy. We don't really have that option right now, but I'll try to send him back early if I can. If they realize he's having issues from smoke inhalation, they'll know he was at the library for longer than simply discovering the fire with me. We've been passing any wheezing off as irritation from the sudden temperature drop today. We need to pretend everything is normal, and finish out our shifts to avoid more questions, and work on a cover up all at the same time.” He sighed. He looked more exhausted than he always did. Noel made a troubled face. I wish they had not been brought into this... it is clear they already have their own concerns.

“Oscar, c'mon!” Fugo yelled from the other room.

Oscar looked at Noel one more time. “If you need me, you know how to contact me.”

Noel gave a small smile. “Please take care, and thank you for your hospitality.”

Caron nodded at him, and Oscar returned the gesture, turning to go. “Right. We'll see you in the morning.”

“Oscar Dressel.”

The man stopped, looking back. Caron met his eyes evenly.

“I will not harm her. You may have my word as a Great Devil on that.”

Her heart thumped as she looked at him. A devil's word... it seems to be something he takes very seriously.

Oscar looked at him a moment longer, than nodded. “Yeah. I got that feeling, but I appreciate it.”

He left without saying anything more. Noel waited until the back door shut before turning to Caron. “Wh-what on earth was that all about?”

“He was kind enough to allow us to hide here, and so deserved reassurance that I am not going to take advantage of his hospitality to harm you.”

“You have no reason to,” she said, sighing as she sat down on the sofa. “And you have had plenty of opportunities before now, and have not chosen to take advantage of them, so I am choosing to trust that things will continue along that way.”

He sat beside her—too close, but she was almost used to it now—and looked down at her. It was another expression she couldn't quite understand.

After a moment, he asked, “Do you trust me, Noel?”

She blinked, looking up at him. “I... I had not truly thought about it...”

“Then please think on it now.”

She slowly searched his face. The black, pointed shape and crimson eyes didn't tell her anything she didn't already know.

After a long moment, she sighed. “The truth is... I don't know. I... I might be naive, but I truly don't think you're going to harm me. However, beyond that...”

I don't know if I can believe everything you've told me. Like what Fugo was implying... that we might not really have a contract... I'm afraid to ask.

Why am I afraid to ask?

She shook her head, looking away. “Sorry, that was not what you asked... I cannot give you a clear answer right now.”

“I have not always been able to give you clear answers myself, so I consider it fair play.” She looked back up at him as he spoke again. “Noel... I want to tell you something important now.”

“What is it?”

He met her eyes again. “I am lying to you.”

Is that truly something one should admit to so casually?!

“You... are?”

He didn't break eye contact. “I can't tell you what about. But even so, I want you to trust me.”

Eh??

Her heart was taking off again. She clenched her hands. “Caron, I'm not... I'm not sure how that's supposed to work...”

“You are a creative and determined woman, Noel. I hope you can hold onto the paradox of trusting an admitted liar, at least for a little while longer.” He looked over her face a moment longer, then turned away to face the fire again. “I will tell you the truth as soon as I am able. I can promise you that.”

“I...” She bit her lip as she looked at his elegant profile. “Caron, I—“

Her phone began to trill, and then there was a knock at the door. She read the text quickly, then looked back up at him. “Oh—Jillian is here! Um...”

“Take her to the dining room next door. I will remain here until you call for me.”

She nodded as she carefully began to stand—only for him to stand first, and take her hands to help her up. Her heart pounded again as she stood next to him. He didn't release her hands for a moment. His were warm, and soft, and so much larger than hers, but in a way she no longer found threatening. “And we... we'll talk more later, okay?”

He nodded, sitting down and turning back towards the fire. He closed his eyes. “Of course.”

Noel hesitated, not sure what exactly came over her, but she took two small steps closer to him.

I don't understand.

I don't really know anything about you, and you just told me that you're a liar. We have two different sets of rules that we live by, with barely any overlap... but you were willing to break yours for me.

And so I... I can't say that I trust you, but I...

He opened one eye, looking up at her with an unreadable expression, but a question clear within it.

I...

She was sure her expression was just as vague as she reached out and gently touched the side of his face, just as he had done to her earlier. She held it there for a moment, enjoying how soft it was. Both his eyes met hers now, calmly regarding her.

“Even if I can't trust you, Caron... I'll believe in you for now.”

He closed his eyes again and nodded. “I can ask of no more of you.”

She nodded and left to answer the door, holding her hand to her chest as if to hold in the warmth.

#fanfic

[realasslesbian]

Gonna get on my Australian politics for a minute here, but the entire media narrative irt That Shooting and how anti-authoritarians are responsible for it is actually getting kinda ridiculous.

But firstly, lemme just express my sympathy for those two fresh outta the academy cops and the innocent old man who died at the hands of these legitimate lunatics. Because I ain’t defending that. What I’m complaining about is the inaccuracy and disingenuity of laying the blame for this sorry situation (and every other sorry situation of the past couple years) squarely at the feet of anti-authoritarianism. 

There is good fucking reason to have a healthy dose of anti-authoritarianism in this country. Increasingly over the last decade our government have be doing some very shady things and quietly bringing in a lot of very invasive laws. For example:

The Greenfields Foundation and all the subsequent fake charities whose sole purpose is to funnel Australia tax-payer dollars directly into the bank accounts of politicians

That time Australia withdrew from widely ratified international treaties so it could take East Timor hostage for its oil fields, and even went so far as to plant listening devices in the East Timor Prime Minister’s office, and when one of Australia’s spies snitched to the East Timor PM about it (bc apparently that was too evil even for an ASIS spy), instead of showing any remorse Australian authorities aggressively pursued that spy and his legal team, even raiding their offices and homes so they could destroy evidence

The ongoing situation where people who are assessed to have incapacity irt their finances (which is often a very flimsy assessment in itself) have their estates taken over by the Public Trustee who then force these unfortunate souls to live in poverty while the government frivolously spends their money, banning them or anyone else from speaking publicly on it, and ignoring/deliberately making it difficult to prove return to capacity

The entire Robodebt Scandal wherein people forced to live in the abject poverty afforded by welfare payments were then deliberately shackled with fake debts by authorities and forced to pay money they did not in fact owe on pain of jail time, a lot of people (myself included) still have not been released from these fake debts

Speaking of arbitrary jail time for Robodebt victims, statistics show that women are twice as likely to be jailed for ‘welfare fraud’ than men and that the ‘welfare crackdown’ (aka the Robodebt Scandal) is pretty much solely responsible for the huge inflation in Australia’s female prisoner population

The continuing wrongful imprisonment of Kathleen Folbigg who was falsely accused of killing her four children and is now halfway through a forty year jail sentence with no signs of authorities intending to release her, despite evidence having since proven her children died of natural causes

And what about the new and extensive laws which punish ‘unauthorised protesting’ with YEARS in jail, especially if any coal mining companies were inconvenienced

That time an Australian politician got upset when a comedian made some jokes about him so he had plain clothes federal police abduct said comedian from his home, assault his mother and his dog in the process, load him into a black car and drive off, and this was all perfectly legal and actually the politician then went on to successfully sue this comedian for defamation

*not an exhaustive list, there’s definitely more

So, as you can see, there is plenty reason to be questioning the Australian government. And yet the primary narrative irt this shooting and any other situation that might make authorities look bad is to blame it on the conveniently faceless boogeyman of ‘crazy extremist anti-authoritarian anti-vaxxer right-wing conspiracy theorists from the US’. Despite that being such a fantastical mash-up of conflicting ideologies, that’s what the media are going with for a strawman (probably at the behest of the government who in fact can utilise gag laws and imprison journalists who don’t comply). 

Without free and open journalism to offer critical insight into how Australian authorities are at fault and could do better you get other explanations gaining traction. And, for certain demographics, these other explanations can seem more believable than the government-approved message. These are demographics who are often from low socio-economic backgrounds (most people living in those Tara bush blocks are living in poverty), are from First Nations backgrounds (the offenders had Aboriginal heritage), are extremely disenfranchised women (Stacey Train was being abused by the male offenders), or otherwise from various vulnerable demographics, aka the usual choice of punching bag for a government whose apparent sole purpose is to move money from poor people to rich people. These are people who know something isn’t right, have maybe already been victims of the government, but perhaps don’t have the education or resources to form an accurate critical opinion. So instead their opinion is ‘I can just not pay my traffic fines and violently defend my land because subsection SovCit of the US Constitution applies in Australia’ or whatever other crazy shit (which tbh as crazy as some of this shit is, the government cover stories are often even crazier, hence why we got articles about anyone without a sewerage connection being sus)

So when the Australian government has displayed such an obvious lack of transparency, when they keep making mistakes and trying to cover them up, and even when they can no longer hide they don’t show any remorse, no matter how blatantly evil the shit they’ve done is, then you can see why their favourite demographic of underdog punching bags might develop some reactionary views.

In any case, I think rather than trying to turn anyone questioning the Australian government into the new societal pariahs, a better use of journalist resources would be to seriously consider questions like:

a) how were authorities not aware of previous government employees, who posted frequently about their violent views, and who had been reported to police multiple times

b) what truth is their to the accusation that police had been ‘casing the joint out’, which probably resulted in the Trains deciding to fortify their property

c) who made the decision to send two rookie cops into a ‘routine’ missing persons check (as if there is such a thing lmao)

d) why are Australian authorities trying to purchase the property this took place on, and don’t tell me it’s gonna be a ‘beauty spa for stressed coppers’ when it’s surrounded on all sides by similarly anti-authoritarian preppers 

e) and while we’re questioning the government why don’t we start asking these type of questions BEFORE people start dying, not after, whether that’s irt police shootings or robodebt victims who committed suicide, or people dying of starvation in East Timor as a result of our government’s actions, or people rotting in prison cells despite being innocent, etc, etc, etc

Anyway, call me a right-wing anti-authoritarian conspiracy nutjob, I guess. But imo the Australian authorities are just as responsible for this situation as any ‘crazy hillbillys’, and if they actually stopped for a moment to consider putting the welfare of the Australian people before their profits then this and plenty of other bullshit might not have happened.

#auspol #anti-authoritarianism #also hello to the ASIS employee reading this

[wack-ashimself]

I'm not one of those people who believes everything is a false flag or every conspiracy is true. However this texas thing proves that if there's anybody who gets a gun and doesn't use it right it would be a police officer. Seriously read all this. From a friend.

'There's too many gaps in this Uvalde massacre.

The 18 yr old killer, Salvador Ramos, got into an argument with and shot his 66 yr old grandmother in the face yesterday morning. She was able to escape to a neighbor's house and call 9-1-1, and let the police know it was her grandson. Meanwhile, online, Ramos stated he had shot her. (Uhhhh...haven't a bunch of these social media platforms given law enforcement all these backdoors to view people's accounts?)

Dude drives recklessly and ends up crashing his car outside the elementary school. Per Gov. Greg Abbott, police officers working for the school district "engaged" Ramos. (What does "engaged" mean?) We hear nothing about body cameras, campus cameras. We hear nothing about police either checking if Ramos is okay, checking his person -- he's wearing body armor of sorts...is that not strange?? -- retrieving his car, whether they see his two assault rifles (and whatever other firearms, ammunition, and gear he had) in his car...nothing. What questions did the police ask him? Do they run his plates and see it's his grandmother's stolen car? What search did they do? But, the official police narrative of events advances to Salvador Ramos sneaking into the school building thru a backdoor after being "engaged" by police. HOW?!

By now, is there not a police alert out for the whereabouts of a "Salvador Ramos"? Are there no school cameras showing an unknown young man walking around with a gun? Are school police not concerned about the strange person who crashed a car outside their campus and now is missing?

So, anyway, Salvador Ramos is able to get into the school. He is seen by one school police officer, who again "engages" him -- doesn't shoot -- and the teen is able to advance into and thru the school to shoot children and employees at whim. Only then, school police along with local police and border patrol form a tactical team and enter the school, find Ramos, have a shoot out inside the school and kill him.

(Oh, and why were Border Patrol present you ask? Because Uvalde is within 100 miles of the border. But, really Border Patrol is notorious for hanging around places where undocumented families may be out of necessity, like schools and grocery stores, to catch them. So, they were present and one of their officers supposedly killed Ramos.)

With how much Texas invests in police gleefully, there's so many gaps in this story as to how and why this fool was able to evade law enforcement so easily and kill so many. So, please be mindful of the calls for increased police (of any and all types) that may come from this horrific event.

Police do not prevent or deter gun violence.'

#texas #gun #guns #shooting

[ajoytobeheld]

Pointless activity numero 10

May 7th, 2009

A new favorite activity of mine involves taking a old news story and trying to turn it into a Hollywood pitch. It’s pointless and harmless and is much like making things out of tin foil along to Blue Peter but then trying to eat the tin foil just to see what it feels like…Feels weird just in case you wondered.

Anyway here is my latest (and first) effort in a game I like to call “pointless activity number 8″ or “Hollywoodizing the news”

Firstly a Synopsis of The News Story: On the 21st of March 2009 Google’s “Street View” went online in the UK, this technology allowed people to take a 360 degree tour of 25 city’s from the comfort of their computer, however some images were removed for invading privacy laws including one showing a man coming out of a sex shop in Soho.

The Hollywood Pitch:

A one syllabled sexy yet scruffy man is on the run for his life, unwillingly partnered with his glasses clad sexy photographer ex girlfriend. One syllable has unwittingly found himself involved in a global computer conspiracy, which threatens to destroy the world….unless he can figure out how to put a stop to it. Its one man against “The Man’s” unquestionable thirst for consumerism in a world full of pain.

Brad/Buck/Ben is a sad mess of a man who eats noodles from a bin whilst playing World of Warcraft/Day of The Tentacle. He was recently fired from the world’s largest Internet server Noogle after he found their new product City View too unsavoury for his ethical code. He is a man with morals who is potential sexy. His best friend still works for them but the day after City View is launched he is brutally murdered and our hero is framed for the crime! 

The night before the brutal murder our hero was on the Noogle site and happened to noticed this odd looking guy coming out of his apartment building with a really big knife and a balaclava but he didn’t think much of it at the time but now…. it all makes sense. He tells the cops (Ed Burns with a wig) about the picture, but they don’t believe him, luckily he sent it to his sexy photographer ex girlfriend to check out (Kate Hudson in glasses.) However when she agrees to help him they both start getting framed! Bank cards bounce! There photos are in convenience stores! He has to cut his hair and have a shave! Oh he is sexy. 

They find the knife man, but he is dead!

The audience by this point will be like “NO WAY!”

Then the police turn up and although they escape Buddy tells Ed Burn’s he is so innocent. He doesn’t shoot him when he has the chance (it’s not like the fugitive, they can’t sue, the dead man has a knife not one arm, plus Ford owes me a favour). This makes whigful Ed Burns begin to think there is something fishy going on, and he starts investigating Noogle, and discovers it was invading privacy laws with City View…. 

Anyway our two hero’s end up finding out more info (someone approaches them in a diner whose wife was molested by Noogle and he wants to spill,) which leads them to the final showdown with Noogle’s boss.

He confesses everything, saying how they had to kill Ben’s friend because he was going to tell everyone about how City View was being used by the mafia/bank/ Richard Bacon/devil.

As the Noogle boss who is the guy who plays the farmer in Babe tells them his plan from behind his big office chair the police turn up, and the boss tells Ed Burns to shoot the guy, but Brad/sexy bespectled slut have e already put it up on twitter. Luckily Ed Burns is a follower of there’s, and he tells the evil boss that the game is up. He gets a shot in at Brad, but is shot by Burns first and falls out of the huge glass window of his office toppling 800 floors, shouting out “nooo!!!!!”/ “WHHHYYYY!!” or “That’ll do piggggg!!!”  as he plunges to his death. Brad lives and Burns and the girlfriend gather around his hospital bedside, and they made some joke, and then maybe the credits should have a song by The Fray.

 Sample dialogue from script:

“You have not been the same since she left.”

“I’m just an innocent man in a crazy mixed up world”

“I never stopped loving you, I just stopped loving what you had become.”

 Suggested Film Names

The City View of Death

Bad Technology

The Butterfly

Budget will be 500 million

Ellen x 

#2009 #ellen!blog #lc!blog

[breathetender]

added:: geoffrey mccullum from dontnod's vampyr. canon info can be found here, modern au under the cut. trigger warnings apply.

geoffrey grew up in ireland, a middle child in a full family which ran a farm in the middle of nowhere. geoffrey is YOUNG when his father comes home one night, not himself, and slaughters each member of the mccullum family, geoffrey only survives by hiding til the police can reach their isolated little homestead. his brother is killed in the confrontation with law enforcement.

alone and with a fragmented identity, geoffrey takes on a survivalist mentality as he lives through the foster system. bouncing from home to home, meeting other kids and knowing all his connections are temporal, he looks out only for himself. he's prone to odd behavior, sneaking out but not quite causing trouble, excelling at school and showing up in his bed before his foster parents could think to check on him. he says strange things, views events in an alien way, challenges assumed perspectives, and in general, is cynical.

eventually, he is adopted by carl. the gentleman was an ideal father on paper, holding a steady job at a local butcher shop for years, having a reasonably healthy social life. he was simply a man who never found the right woman but wanted a child to pass his inheritance to when he died. but carl never had intentions to be a FATHER. rather, he kept a quiet doomsday mentality and wanted to train a new soldier to brace himself for the end.

from the age of thirteen, he is raised in a household of paranoia. carl sees violence in every shadow, but steels them both to it. geoffrey attends school and football in the day, but in the night, he is taught combat, observation, living off the land, history and philosophy, negotiation— he is taught to THRIVE regardless of the circumstances. carl makes no attempts to be a parent, and never asks geoffrey to call him pa.

carl dies in one of the scenarios he hadn't prepared for: a car accident. geoffrey is left with his money, his BUNKER, and dozens of jars of freeze dried food. he donates the food, holds onto the deed for the land, and moves to the united states with a student visa. it's a hard journey to naturalize there, but he's got to be free of ireland, can't think of going back.

he's still paranoid, in his own right. he stews in conspiracy theories, he looks for patterns in what others neglect, and assumes manipulation is behind most of what he sees. college smooths some of his rough edges, but the "damage" is too deep in his being to be undone, and he's awkward in the eyes of others. he's seen too much, STILL sees more than others, and has no interest in playing the social GAMES that others involve themselves in. he's funny, and he can be charming, but he is always one moment away from saying something so strange that he'll seem out of place.

geoffrey earns a degree in history, heavily leaning into pre-law courses. he's been working in butcher shops through college to make ends meet but now, he sets up shop in a hole-in-the-wall office. he's proudly a PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR, putting all of his odd skills to use in hunting those he's hired to care about.

TLDR; geoffrey's family was killed by his father, orphaning him at a very young age. he spends some years in the foster care system and then is adopted by a paranoid doomsday prepper. after his adopted father dies, geoffrey moves to the united states and becomes a private investigator. he's a strange man, but kind, selfless, and intelligent.

#ooc #( geoffrey ) verses. #car accident // #murder // #prepping // #death // #paranoia // #doomsday // #uhh idk-- ask to tag #casually does not make him murder his brother in his modern verse .....

[the-firebird69]

There are several things wrong here what is everyone's oxygenating and can't tell and our son can. There's a few things today healing fast and some things that are going away little by little I was thinking an effort but he's going through it and a lot of other people are.

-lots of folks here don't like Tommy f and we despise him he had her son do that and it was not free man she's just doing his ass that I'm playing and his plan is full of crap that's too much for me I can't see him suffer anymore you don't have to go through it these days it's not really worth it too many people complaining of all sorts of stuff so we need to help people in ours and him

-there's a lot going on and we have people who are out of line I'm going to take care of her and we're going to use many methods but right now they should know that they are being surveilled that's right police and sheriff and multiple agencies have these people under surveillance and they're watching them restaurant the best like a Non-Stop horrible people they say summer reports went back today to the FBI so the CIA and more and it was minority foreigners most ly end up in the NSA and other government agencies including the office of the President stating that the conspiracy is real they need real intell and to go after it with gusto and they began a large scale investigation and Tommy f. Started the other day but now it's going on in a very large way and they're tired of it they received insults and threats as well and then going to shut them down tonight a huge bunch of them went out to several locations nearby Southwest Florida and they are to find out what the status is

Well tommy f did not send out any groups he knows the status and what their plan is. But there's a lot of people who did send groups to get information and they got a ton of it all over the world and they found out something these more like don't like us at all, there's a huge plan to get rid of us and the attack us, so they decided to do something. A large scale counteroffensive is beginning shortly. Globally. Hey listens all night so far and find them snickering and Charlie and laughing it almost anything that they would do and another reason so they're sending out operatives to get more intelligence and it's a deadly game.

Then go ahead and find out that Garth and his sister and their cadre were holding off social security to have him brought back to New York it was threatening for him to move to New York believe it or not it was starting to go well not for him but they had a job for him they would just extremely stupid and rude I didn't get any living expenses that they're ridiculous people okay his group are stupid people and they never give him money they're ridiculous it's like I needed $200 you dumb f**** is what he said on the way out he said all I need was a couple hundred bucks and you f****** stupid on the way down the stairs is going you're so f****** dumb feeling going to kill you a lot for this and he's saying it some Asian guy walks by and it was Jason he's saying what you saying I said these people are so cheap they want to give up their lives for $200 and he smiled a little and said probably you don't get it you will. And he said to him like your a minority stupid. The whole point is that they're the ones who held the social security off in North Oxford and they held it off for a couple months and she's still the director threatening social security and minority morlak come moving in. And Obama was already out at New Hampshire and people are wondering who it was then if it wasn't him some people say it was some people say it wasn't his son was trying to figure out if it was and the a****** is trying to say that he's carrying the weight it wasn't carrying anything he could hardly tell he was saying that, but behind the scenes they're breaking out of New Hampshire and they're helping to do it and it was Garth and yeah he was complicitous in the death of Ernie and Obama and because he's an idiot and he's going after his family he's messing with her son forever. It's important to note what he was doing there as it's important to know what he was doing in North Oxford and he was not making any better it's one of his doctors and he was having him take this green stuff which was clogging up his systems and he was known for the guy being the guy he does stupid things like that to our son it is a hazard and now he's going to get hazard pay and he's going to pay our son back everything that he took from him. These people are such jerks okay Garth and his company of a****** and they're going to get wiped out because they're the ones threatening the social security people find them doing it and he's going to publish

Thor Freya

Of course I know with us too it was and I know you thought about it too you thought about us and you're ridiculous that day but she thought it was funny she still does and it's not going to find it funny later it wasn't her Everest it was not her mistake or error it was bja and he did the whole show. And she gets it oh no another shooting bites the dust Mrs spengali, well I'm stuck in my Cape here hold on for a minute it seems that the assholes got it ready for me... If you're slightly smart or successfully go after you and spin golly is no different.. that was my son and that's what happens when it's near me it's pretty smart and these people who are Garth and company are not smart they're very mean to him they went down fisherman's village and they're telling people where to put it and stuff like that that sun said that you're creepy and you're spooky The Addams family but you're not Black Adam, and we went to publish now but seriously they are horrible they start screaming so what about your mother and stuff like that feels so what about you you're dead oh I know what you did that summer f****** morons but I can't figure it out but I can cuz that was Scott McCracken and you want to blame them for what you people did and it was on okay they're fighting down there and Max doesn't care

Gu Oya

No I don't care they're fighting this is ridiculous every conversation they have is nails you f****** retards need to leave especially you guys you're such a huge a****** I remember the conversation you weren't saying hardly anything just try to have patience with you and it's going well all right get the f*** out of here could hardly understand you you should have been shot right there the treasonous to the family not a nightmare that's all people have yeah your retard revolution the kids what happens then it's been really is you know what happens you get you all killed it sounds like the movies but that's exactly what's happening he got really mad so who I am talking about put this way you're a huge f****** dick to me right I know how it turns out I know what's going on sorry to tell you the truth about it so when you get here I can tell you how stupid you are so he got really mad he says these people died who won't affect us and he says so incredibly insane it's true they're all a. Bunch of jerks. You said you ride nobody you first and they are going first even these jackasses so he should publish because Garth and company are the ones who cut the social security off those are our findings and we found this because he was in New York he's never been in New York they just wanted to keep him there he did have a job for him they fd that up bad. Find out all of them died because of you returns from Garth, including you Tommy f. Even though you're different he knew all about you. He lived in my house and was talking and talking cuz he's riding and here they are the minority morlok not a ton of them, this day of the New York City and run the money scam and so they say and it's kind of doing that and we see come in and a bunch come down with some of them and they're not well liked this is going to make them hate it cuz they suck at it okay they're really terrible people you want to use him get stuff by extorting it and openly it's disgusting they're so freaking dumb this guy is going to get up and kill them. The only thing that Africa and threaten him. And a little changeling would change black and little a****** Paul d would be out everything, he changed in China and nobody knew it he said it must be the soy sauce and it was believe it or not and we lost him several times and he says hair is close you kind of knows about the hair in Africa. You learned it from Kathy and some substance that makes it curl. Here's a simple plan for simple people. Doesn't like you at all either having a few seconds don't do that don't do this out of my face you're a huge incessant a****** I don't know why I was released with you that was like the hardest thing I've ever done you're a huge puke this is our humming tools and threats all day long you get nowhere I looked up and I said I got to get this a****** out of here so find this apartment complex he thought he'd move to he'll move you in and he said look it's a holocaust house smells like s*** too meaning vinyl and s*** too by the way you left you there Wally and you're still an a****** it's a joke okay you idiot you're wrong and everyone hates you we don't care for you because of that he didn't want you to do that and didn't give you permission and now he's going after you with this post

Mac

[ammg-old2]

When I arrived in Moscow in February, the initial media circus had passed. Bryan Kohberger had been arrested six weeks earlier for the murders of four students—Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin—and the judge had placed a gag order on everyone involved in the case. The news trucks would return once the trial got under way, but for now things were relatively quiet. (Kohberger chose not to enter a plea last month, in effect pleading not guilty.)

I’d been drawn to the town, like everyone else, by the eerie facts of the murders and the still-eerier profile of the suspect, a former criminology student at nearby Washington State University. The details already in circulation were chilling. A car resembling Kohberger’s white Hyundai Elantra could be seen on surveillance videos driving by the house several times shortly before the attacks. Police linked his DNA to a leather knife sheath left on a bed, and his phone history suggested that he’d been near the house 12 times in the preceding months. Once I got to Moscow, however, I found myself fixating less on the crime than on its aftermath—the wreckage left behind when the media and the sleuths had cleared out.

Located on Idaho’s eastern border, Moscow is known around the state for a certain mountain-hippie vibe. Students joke that the town is permanently “stuck in the ’70s.” It has a lively folk-dance scene and an independent theater that shows classic horror films. Main Street is lined with brown-brick buildings that house quirky small businesses including Ampersand, a purveyor of boutique olive oil, and the Breakfast Club, known for its “world-famous cinnamon roll pancakes.”

But even months after the murders, the town seemed traumatized. No one wanted to talk about the case, on the record or off. When I introduced myself as a reporter, people recoiled. My efforts to talk with the victims’ neighbors were met with exasperation and anger. At one door, I found a sign that read simply, WE HAVE NO STATEMENT. LEAVE US ALONE. Eventually I resorted to writing apologetic notes with my phone number and leaving them on windshields and doorsteps. Nobody called.

At the offices of the University of Idaho campus paper, The Argonaut, I found a masthead’s worth of student journalists glumly disillusioned with journalism. Months of unseemly behavior by a scoop-desperate press corps had dimmed their view of the profession. They’d seen cameramen hide in bushes on campus, and reporters try to sneak into dorms. They’d seen TV correspondents shout hostile questions at teenagers still processing their classmates’ deaths as if the kids were prevaricating politicians. In one notably unsavory episode, a tabloid photographer tracked down one of the roommates who’d survived the attack that night and took paparazzi-like photos at her parents’ house for the Daily Mail.

Abigail Spencer, a reporter for The Argonaut, told me that she was struggling to square the heroic stories she’d learned in journalism classes with the reporters who’d invaded her campus. “We’re taught they’re all Cronkite,” she said. “They’re not.”

Haadiya Tariq, who was the paper’s editor, told me the rude behavior had helped her understand the wider antipathy toward the press. “No wonder people hate you,” she sometimes found herself thinking. She was alarmed by the extent to which professional news outlets appeared to deliberately stoke the online ecosystem of conspiracy theories about the case. The TV-news bookers always seemed so nice and thoughtful when they were asking for interviews. But once the cameras turned on, Tariq told me, the questions were invariably aimed at getting her to theorize about the murders in a way that might get traction in the true-crime forums. Experiencing this had helped her understand why so much of the coverage felt “weird or inaccurate or sensational”: “It is 100 percent trying to feed the audience, which is the internet sleuths,” she told me. “That’s kind of the dirty secret I’m starting to realize.” Perhaps more disturbing than the vulturous reporters or the vortex of TikTok speculation was the way the media and the sleuths seemed to encourage and sustain each other—their priorities converging in a vicious ouroboros.

Meanwhile, some unlucky Moscow residents were still struggling to reassemble their lives after becoming main characters in murder-related conspiracy theories. Rebecca Scofield, a history professor at the University of Idaho, was suing the TikToker who’d accused her of plotting the students’ murders because of a (completely fabricated) love affair with Kaylee Goncalves. (The TikToker denied any wrongdoing, and police have said that Scofield was not a suspect.) Friends of a recently deceased Afghanistan veteran were fending off ghoulish speculation on social media that he was involved in the crime.

Jeremy Reagan, a law student who lived in the victims’ neighborhood, became a target when he gave a handful of TV interviews about the murders. Sleuths studied his body language and parsed his facial expressions.

“It reminds me of Ted Bundy when he would talk about murders,” one observed.

“Very disconcerting,” another said.

Soon, they started mining Reagan’s Facebook profile for clues. A bandage on his right hand was treated as especially incriminating—how did he cut himself? Same with a four-year-old Facebook post that mentioned a rave. “Guys at raves ‘chase women’ and ‘do drugs,’ many things to note,” one sleuth deduced. “The girls partied, he mentioned that. Did he try to party with them? Did he actually party with them? Was he turned down by them?’”

Reagan, hoping to clear his name, volunteered to take a DNA test. The police never named him as a suspect. But the online sleuths kept digging—even contacting his friends for intel—and the menacing messages from strangers kept piling up. Reagan started carrying a gun.

“Just having it on me gives that extra sense of security,” he said in a cable-news interview. “Especially now, where the cybersleuths may or may not come.”

#current events #crime #journalism #true crime #internet #social media #conspiracy theories #sociology #psychology #2022 university of idaho killings #usa #idaho