#but like really the American political scheme is ridiculous

[justanotherbeggar]

I went into AP government thinking being president might be kinda cool and I walked out never wanting to even consider “politician” as a possible career

#:/ #school #ap government #politics #but like really the American political scheme is ridiculous

[jmdbjk]

Leave him alone.

Don’t come in my asks and drag the members. Especially Jungkook. 

I’ve been thinking about Jungkook a lot lately, I suppose because he has been absent. Like you, I’m wondering what he’s been up to. And in the last day or so with Calvin Klein trending and the excitement over a possible new partnership with them, has just kept Jungkook in the front of my mind even more. 

This JKxCK thing is not just a fantasy of wanting to see him half naked but it’s the excitement that he’s possibly found a fashion designer that suits his mood, his sense of style and matches his creativeness. 

Calvin Klein is a classic American designer usually noted for elegant clean lines and understated design and I can see JK pulling that off really well. Calvin Klein is known to be “every-mans clothing” because of the accessibility and is easy for regular people to wear. All values that seem to align with JK’s unassuming sense of self. 

Something else Calvin Klein is famous for are their underwear campaigns. If Jungkook chooses to show us some skin well yay for us! And if he doesn’t, that’s fine too. However, I am certainly not expecting a full blown CK underwear campaign starring Jungkook of BTS. Except there was this, remember?

And to say Jungkook doesn’t know what he’s doing because “why would he choose Calvin Klein over Givenchy, Gucci, Versace or some other European brand?” Well, we really don’t know if he’s actually chosen Calvin Klein yet. Nothing is formal yet, there’s not been any announcement so, for all we know, it still may not be true. 

But to say he doesn’t know what he’s doing is just evidence you are not paying attention to Jungkook. 

His brother owns a clothing company. Jungkook was involved in the company until a few years ago when he had to step down because some assholes tried to make it look like he was backhandedly promoting his brother’s brand. This was proven to be unjustified accusations.

Graffitionmind’s style is very similar to the things we usually see Jungkook wearing: easy-fitting unisex pieces with or without simple graphics. I’m sure he had a hand in developing some of the designs because his Artist Made Merch zip up hoodie had a similar feel.

Jungkook is smart, he is kind and polite, he’s not the loud attention seeking type, he’s not going to cause a scene, he’s going to quietly work and everything he does will be superlative because he is very talented but he is also very modest. Many of these qualities are the same ones that we find in Jimin. As far as we know, Jungkook’s doing his thing and being creative and making his own decisions.

For the other Anon in my inbox saying that Jungkook needs to stand up for he and Jimin’s relationship, and this idea you are putting forth that Jungkook is some kind of person that he really isn’t? Spineless? Weak? Unemotional? A pushover? Anon, you haven’t been paying attention. I think that NOT acknowledging the ridiculousness online shows a lot of restraint and maturity. Totally ignoring it is a sign of him not wasting time on things that don’t matter in the big scheme of things. 

Why can’t he even just hit that little heart on Jimin’s posts? Boo, just because you want it ain’t gonna make it happen. Stop keeping score. Get over it. Jimin’s Instagram posts are work. Jungkook’s Instagram posts are work. Just because they don’t hit that little heart on each other’s work on social media doesn’t mean there’s trouble in paradise...

Knee-jerk reacting to everything people say on the internet is an exercise in futility. Is all the ranting online the reason we don’t see Jungkook or Jimin online anymore? Could be, because why do they wanna subject themselves to that kind of lunacy? They know what their truth is and don’t have to prove it to anybody. 

Another frustrated anon... I know it can be frustrating when you want someone to speak up and tell everybody they’re wrong about something you feel strongly about or care a lot about and I understand you feel helpless and you want to help them. You want Jungkook and Jimin to come out and say everything’s fine. But we just have to trust them. Every time we see them they look fine. Are they as loud as they have been in the past? No. Look at what circumstances they are faced with now, things are different now than they were then, there’s a lot more expectation of them these days. Things have happened in the past 3 years. BTS is bigger than ever. And now they’re about to be faced with enlistment.

We see them on Welive, Run BTS, Bangtan bombs and episodes. Nothing’s changed. There are obvious signs if you just look. Gravitating to each other, always hanging back together. The way they talk to each other. 

Just because you want them to shout it out louder doesn’t mean they need to or even should, in order to satisfy your own insecurity. 

Like other bloggers, I feel like I am repeating things over and over. 

I realize some of this frustration/anger/insecurity comes from Tae recently mentioning Jungkook‘s name during his last live. But Jimin mentions Jungkook’s name too. I’m sure the cult vilifies Jimin because of it, so what’s the point in getting upset over it? If you are only in it for the shipping, you will end up disappointed because Jimin and Jungkook are real human beings, not characters in a fanfiction. Learn to curate your timeline to rid yourself of drama.

Maybe JK really was playing games with Tae and his friends, and, so what? it was obvious that they were online gaming... you could hear them through the speakers, and then Tae said in the interest of not hearing any of them curse because they made a mistake in the game, he went and turned the volume off. I don’t see what that has to do with Jimin and Jungkook though. If Jin wasn’t away in the army, he could have been part of their gaming group as well, and before he went, maybe he was!... WHO KNOWS!

I know everyone seems concerned about Jimin and Jungkook because we don’t see what’s happening and again I want to say we need to trust them. The fretting is getting out of hand. 

The anon who is obsessed with Jimin living alone, being single... stop ... this apartment of Jungkook’s where he’s been doing his lives ... maybe he does live there… some of the time. 

I understand many of your points of view originate from a more traditional mindset where couples live together, are seen together, are very publicly affectionate or do/say things that make it obvious they are together.

I’m still a vastly different thinker from many of you when it comes to Jimin and Jungkook in that they could be together and not live together. Their living situation and their lifestyle is not what we would customarily think of how people who might be sleeping together would behave. I really and truly would not be surprised to learn that they maintain separate residences. I will not be surprised to learn that the ones that we think they live in are not the ones where they actually live. 

Yet I think there’s a very good chance that if they don’t actually live together, they still spend quite a lot of time together, and not just at work, because you can’t know the details of all the popular culture things they mention all the time without familiarity. These two probably do not spend hours texting each other details about TV shows and memes and what not. Who has time for that? They certainly don’t. They watch these things and see these things sitting next to each other (together, bam) how else could they be on the same wavelength in so many instances when it comes to details they think are funny? They have too many inside jokes that imply they spend A LOT of time together.

Tying this in with Tae’s online gaming session... Jimin has said things about Jungkook’s gaming habits... he knows about them because he’s sitting nearby while Jungkook is gaming. 

But why would they maintain two residences if they are together? Think about that... think about the society they live in... think about the circumstances surrounding them... they are global entertainment superstars. Cameras are pointed at them at all times. If they were to be spotted on the street, the cameras will fly out of peoples’ pockets just so they can get some sort of proof that they saw world famous BTS. I reiterate! Jimin and Jungkook are not like us! 

But why does Jungkook go out to eat so often by himself and we know about it? Boo, dude’s gotta eat and believe me, instant ramen everyday ain’t it sometimes. What are you expecting them to do? Pop out to the Outback Steakhouse every Friday night for date night? Jimin AND Jungkook together? Be real. Jungkook isn’t stupid. 

Why does Jimin talk about going home and not having anything to eat, he must be single. Does it need to be said out loud that couples who both work high pressure jobs commonly find themselves in a situation where one of them works late, comes home and has to fend for themselves or your partner is on a business trip or working long hours and you have to stay at home and figure out what to eat by yourself? Or they are both busy working on their solo endeavors and see each other when they can! Please, people, think beyond your own little world. 

At this point in time and yes, I’m gonna say it, with military service looming, they aren’t gonna flaunt what might be happening between them. I beg you, please employ some critical thinking skills. They are very much keeping anything on the down low. 

Y’all made me rant today. One too many pokes in the wrong way made me ramble and jesus, so many words came out! 

Jungkook is out there sculpting his body for some artsy-fartsy thirsty underwear pics, riding his Harley to and from work, in his Calvin Klein jeans and ponytail. And you want to nitpick Instagram likes?!? LEAVE HIM ALONE!

#jungkook #jimin #jikook #kookmin #minkook #we all miss our muscle bunny #jungkook will appear soon #i feel like a borken record #carnivore bunny #if we're lucky nothing will come between JK and his calvin klein jeans #except maybe jimin #pjm1 is coming #i am looking forward to some original jk songs too

[frostyreturns]

Frosty Ruins "Here Comes Peter Cottontail 1971"

Just like with Christmas and with anything Christian there is going to be a culture of trying to shift focus away from Christ and onto some goofy nonsense that has nothing to do with it. For the celebration of Christs death and resurrection we have…the easter bunny, painted eggs and chocolate. And now this year we also have the government tranny holiday trying to steal focus.

Now with Santa and all that I understand it and am ok with it more because it still ties in with the theme. Jesus was brought gifts so we bring each other gifts…santa is based on a saint who brought the poor/orphaned presents and the whole idea of giving is consistent with Christian values…it makes more sense. With Easter it's just a whole bunch of totally unrelated nonsense. Rabbits have nothing to do with Christ or the celebration, painting and hunting for eggs also have nothing to do with anything, even the name Easter has nothing to do with Christ. However It's a bunch of nonsense that if people choose to do it as part of their celebration of course there's nothing wrong with that. I've said before I'm totally ok with coopting other celebrations and integrating with other things…Easter is more of a celebration of spring, and even spring can be reflected in the resurrection story. So I personally get nothing from the easter decor and the non-Christian easter traditions but I don't begrudge anyone who does. Even as a kid I wasn't really into the aesthetics of easter…I liked that we got chocolate but that was it.

What I do like however is a good Rankin Bass holiday special, so in this instance I was willing to give it a chance. Though the rudderless nature of the story has the characters all seeming ridiculous. I'm not sure why the host is a leprechaun man, or why there's a caterpillar that's also a frenchman, or why one of the charactes is a hat…like just a hat. I mean is it possible to be more removed from the meaning of the holiday than jewish people writing a song for a french wormguy to sing to a rabbit about painting american flag eggs for july 1st? Almost sounds intentionally far removed doesn't it? The only thing that would make it more obvious of a subversion attempt was if it had witches in it or something…oh wait it does.

The premise for the secular easter story is so thin this story has to contrive a time travel scenario and then borrow and interpose the facets of easter into all the other mainstream holidays. The irony that the villain at one point tells Santa (who yes is also in this) to stick to his own holiday is palpable. I wasn't a fan of the throwing all the holidays in a blender thing and never have.

The plot is too goofy and not even in a magical cartoon kind of way…it's almost like a reflection of politics, they are trying to decide who the new easter bunny should be. One of which is a child hating ass hole who hates easter and wants to ruin it and ruin their home and way of life. So of course they have to follow their constituion and let this guy have a chance even though absolutely nobody thinks they would be a good easter bunny and they cheat to win. Actually it's a perfect metaphor for politics.

But one of the funny parts of the story is that part of the villains scheme to ruin easter is to declare rabbits and chicks will no longer be the symbols of the holiday and instead they would have to make it "spiders and octopuses"…and I'm just here like…ok, that's not any less arbitrary than rabbits and chicks why not?

I do love the stop motion animation style and some of the visual gags are excellent. I'm totally indifferent to the music though. It's not bad, I don't have anything negative to say about it but I also don't particularly like it, so I guess I'll just say it's not for me. I know some of the music was very memorable for kids who grew up with this movie...but mostly it's just the last titular song they remember.

One of the things that most bothers me about this version of the easter bunny is the way they depict the easter bunny as openly approaching children and offering them eggs in person. It kind of ruins the idea of the easter bunny hiding chocolates and stuff, it didn't even get easter egg hunting right…like that's the one solitary interesting thing about the secular easter and they fucked that up. There's no magic or mystery for kids. They just have to… go oh this is a make believe story because on easter I've never seen an acual bunny handing out eggs directly to me so it must be made up. And the way he goes about trying to give them out for other holidays by just making shit up is also annoying and makes the main character less sympathetic.

It was also really weird how they stuffed in a romance thread into the last 10 minutes of the movie with a character they just introduced us to. Overall I'm comfortable saying this was a bad movie with a few small redeeming qualities.

C-

0 Jesuses/10

#here comes peter cottontail #easter

[sapphia]

The people who hate left-leaning video essayists like Jenny Nicholson and Lindsay Ellis on this site really are the pinnacle of respectability politics and call-out culture. It’s not enough for them that they just don’t like their takes or their style or them as creators, they have to justify it morally by attacking these people for “problematic” things that are a) incredibly minor in the grand scheme of things and b) obviously not emblematic of who they are as a person/personality.

In anti communities, people criticise Jenny Nicholson for being a racist because She ships Reylo, (which is another example of an interest that is unnecessarily moralised and really isn’t inherently problematic) despite the fact that she is a massive proponent for diversity in SW, including championing Rose Tico and the Finn/Poe ship.

I’ve seen a lot of criticism for Lindsay Ellis over her Twilight video where she fails to criticise Twilight for its racist depiction of Native Americans. But that wasn’t really the point of the video - it was much more about addressing the sexism in the twilight hate and she isn’t obligated to address every element. It doesn’t make her racist for not talking about something. And while you could point to that as evidence that she is uncaring of race issues in general, again, her vocal support for racial diversity and diversity in general really belies that fact. Yet these are the main points people cling to, which is just ridiculous.

The arguments are weak and the “problematic” behaviour pretty minor. But it’s not about whether or not these people are racist - it’s about an obsessive need to morally justify every opinion you hold as a person. It’s not enough to like a show, you also have to add that it features x representation and therefore is progressive and good. It’s not enough to dislike content - you have to find a reason why they’re morally bad.

And this obsession with finding moral justification of your subjective opinion is ultimately about respectability politics - not only does that person want to seem morally right and “woke”, they want to shame other people into sharing their opinion not through genuine criticism or analysis but by finding moral fault, because respectability politics demands that other people cannot like “problematic” content or creators.

In other words, it’s faster to try and make people hate a thing you think is bad by convincing them it’s problematic than it is to actually critically evaluate the content. Nevermind the fact that it’s okay to just not like stuff. It’s okay to look at content and go “that’s fine but it’s not for me”. Not everyone needs to hate things you hate, and things you hate dont need to be proven to be bad in some way.

Idk just a thing that bugs me, that appearing good and decent and progressive matters more than accuracy or subjectivity, and that it’s so common to manipulate innocuous things to further your own pointless ends.

#jenny Nicholson #lindsay ellis #respectability politics #fandom #tumble culture

[angelicamerlinbarnes]

THE GREAT GATSBY TUA AU

(please understand that by AU, I mean they share an incredibly small amount of things in common with the original source material which I barely remember BUT the “story” takes place in the setting of the film) (not to be misleading or anything :p)

(BEWARE: abuse, murder (including of children), gangs, violence, death, tragedy, drugs, alcohol, schemes, mentions of non-con, honestly if you can think of it it's probably in here, this one is very very very dark, be careful <3, okay guys, enjoy..., etc.)

(If you can handle watching Umbrella Academy, this will be fine for you.)

Is this entire thing based off that one interaction in season two when Klaus bails Ray out of jail?

No. No, of course not.

(DISCLAIMER: That photo is not mine.)

(Gatsby) Klaus Hellbyes is the mysterious and charming host of all the hottest parties of the decade, and the richest man on the American East Coast. He’s always playing Lana Del Rey (trust me, she wanted to live in either the 20’s or 60’s, I’m just doing her a favor) and Audrey Hepburn movies (let’s move her to the 20’s too, why not?). He fought in the first World War, and fell for Dave on the front lines. He had to leave Dave behind after he was severely injured, and he’s lived with the overwhelming regret and guilt ever since, constantly trying to distract himself with interesting people and pretty things. This has made him plenty of enemies, and even more people who consider him a lawless businessman, a prince of Satan, a lying rascal. He doesn’t care about manners, they say, he’s aloof, he’s naive, he’s unprofessional. Truth is, Klaus is dangerous - really fucking dangerous. He’s smart, far smarter than he looks, and knows how to use his experience with drugs and alcohol to his advantage, his hands shaky around a wine glass but never a gun. He’s poisoned plenty of people for getting in his way, or for daring to try and reveal his secrets, or for jeopardizing his carefully cultivated lifestyle. He’s savvy enough to use rumors to his advantage, and even stirs up and spreads a few himself. Everyone thinks he’s sleeping with a million women, because he’s always “away on a business trip” every time his lovely wife, Mrs. Floura Hellbyes, is home. (She’s just him in really, really good drag, honestly. What morons. He knows what people will say about him being unmarried at his age - he’s not an idiot.) Klaus lost Ben some thirteen years ago, separated from him in the craziness of the war’s assignments, and he’s been searching for him ever since, longing for his beloved friend’s company. But Klaus’ most well-kept secret is not his poison, or his habits, or his sham marriage or his business or even his Ben: his largest secret, by far, is Diego. Diego Towblaerman, who he met at one of his parties a few years ago and flirted with over white wine for hours. Diego Towblaerman, who wears salmon suits and dumb fedoras and probably plays the saxophone when Klaus isn’t around, to be honest. Diego Towblaerman, who Klaus keeps a secret apartment home with in the crime-ridden Bronx next to a hotel with too-thin walls that always smells like cigarettes. Diego Towblaerman, Klaus Hellbyes’ greatest love.

(Nick) Ray Chestnut has been a recluse ever since the war, writing novels in the privacy of his own home. He moves from Queens to the cottage next to Hellbyes’ mansion, desperate for further solitude, and publishes countless political pamphlets and exposés anonymously and under pseudonyms (which are getting more ridiculous by the year. God, he needs to find some inspiration). The cottage is at his disposal due to his cousin Jill’s husband Ben, whose groundskeeper Luther lived there until he left to join te police force in the city. Ray is known to be honest and forthcoming, always wearing what seems like his Sunday best no matter the occasion (hats, suits, manners, the works). He meets Klaus Hellbyes after being invited to one of his parties, and finds Klaus to be mystical, magical, mythical, mysterious… beyond this world. He can’t describe it, but he’s drawn to Klaus’ alluring company - he’s sweet as honey, yet his words sting like a bee’s poison. Klaus is crazy: Ray finds actual, real poison in his garden, harvested from the thorns of the rose bushes in the very back. Klaus once kills a man in front of him, shooting him in the head without a second thought, his eyes never flickering. And Ray is terrified, but damnit - Klaus introduces Ray to the most brilliant woman he’s ever met: Allison Charmors. And when Ray is one of the only ones left alive after the whole fucking mess goes down, he marries Allison and moves into Klaus’ mansion, left to him in Klaus’ alarmingly short will. With all of Klaus’ wealth the lawyer leaves a letter, addressed to Ray from Klaus, which explains that Klaus is on the run, but that he’s found love and is happy now, at home with his long-lost family, finally. Home at last, my friend, he signs the letter, and Ray thinks that the whole thing reads like a wink. What an odd, humorous man.

(Jordan) Diego Towblaerman is a cold and dangerous man - at least to anyone he won’t protect. He gets into brawls with Luther in downtown bars, Diego being the reason Luther left Ben’s estate, as he kept visiting and he and Luther antogonized each other so terribly that it was made clear one would have to go. Diego remains good friends with Ben, but is hesitant to help Klaus reunite with him, worrying that perhaps Klaus’ high expectations, built on tainted memories, will be shattered upon meeting the real Ben. (Impossible. A silly notion, really. One’s soulmate can never disappoint them.) Ray is unsettled by him, which Diego finds amusing, and Allison is undaunted, which he finds refreshing. Lila is his younger sister, but she ran away from home when they were seventeen and he evades her advances now, knowing the kind of black market business she’s involved in and wanting to steer clear. Too many rumors surround Diego already - he’s “part of a gang”, “the devil’s servant prince”, “in line with Al Capone” (I know Capone worked out of Chicago, I don’t care), “sleeping with Hellbyes’ wife”... there’s just so much to deny. (Though in a way - a sick, twisted, hilarious way - he kind of is sleeping with Hellbyes’ wife…) Eudora is his best friend, and presumed wife - they’ve never confirmed it, but they never deny it either, and Diego shows up to every single one of Klaus’ parties with her on his arm. But first and foremost, Diego’s time, attention, and love belongs to the effervescent goddess that is Klaus Hellbyes: his whirlwind romance, his unofficial husband, his angelic murderess… forever.

(Daisy) Ben Sixten is the alluring, sarcastic, kind, gentle, absolutely adored millionaire of the East Coast. He’s known as the Gentleman in White, or the Ghost, for disappearing at odd times and only really wearing white suits or gowns (though only in the privacy of his own home, of course, this does take place in the 20’s). He dances often, and laughs all the time, and fights bigotry and discrimination with passive-aggression, his eyes cutting and his smile mischievous. His wife Jill is a sweet companion, but prefers to keep to her own rooms, wearing only yellow as she writes countless stories, articles, and poems. (The Lady in Yellow, writing her debut novel Bodice of Blue. What a concept.) (Ben is sure to leave her a rich widow when he dies. She has plenty of green and gold to pay her way forward in the journalism business, and the last name Sixten to get her into any club or publication. Her civil rights work changes the world. Her protegé’s writings win the queer community rights and medical care before AIDS can kill even a thousand people.) Ben yearns for the sea, and to be reunited with his long-lost love Klaus, who he knows is now deeply involved with Diego Towblaerman, even if Diego refuses to admit it or introduce them. (When Klaus finds out Diego has been hiding Ben from him, the rift that opens between them is almost too monstrous to stitch back up.) (Almost.) As it seems, Ben and Klaus were not meant to have this lifetime together: Reginald finds Ben in Klaus’ bed, alone, and shoots him dead with six bullets to the chest. Ben’s last word is a hopeful cry of Klaus’ name, and Klaus kills Reginald in cold blood for it, never the same kind, laughing man Ben loved again.

(Myrtle) Sissy Cooper was the daughter of a rich family and betrothed to a kind man she genuinely cared for, but the night of her last ball as an unmarried woman, she got drunk enough to take off with some of her girlfriends. They ended up in a bar way down in “Ash Town”, and Sissy was taken advantage of by a man named Carl, becoming pregnant with his child. When her parents found out, they disowned her and sent her away, refusing her charity or kindness, and she married Carl without a wedding and had Harlan nine months later. None of her old friends stayed in touch, appalled by what had happened to her, and even those who she made friends with after the fact often giggled and gossiped about her misfortune (which they called her “stupidity” and other assorted demeaning terms). When she meets Vanya, who lives in Manhattan, she falls in love with her and the way she doesn’t look at Sissy like she was lesser for anything. They begin an affair, and fall even deeper, but that all ends when Vanya dies. After her death, Sissy goes mad, drowning her son in the bathtub in her grief and then hanging herself in the living room. It’s all over the papers, and Sissy Cooper becomes known as a “woman in white” (a kind of supernatural spirit borne of women whose husbands wronged them and so they killed themselves and their children in retaliation). Five pays for her and her son’s funerals, and they are buried beside Vanya in his backyard, together for eternity. Reunited, at long last.

Lila Pizzano (real name: Lila Towblaerman) joined the Handler’s gang when she was just sixteen, and ran away from home after her first kill at seventeen. She’s been doing shady business ever since, strutting around in tight black dresses and metallic suits that reveal too much, fedoras and diadems nestled in her dirty hair. She’s considered a mistress of poison, and often receives a supply from Klaus’ rose garden, who knows her as Diego’s sister and doesn’t mind offering a bit of support. (Diego doesn’t know this, of course. He and Klaus never discuss business. But Lila is all too aware of her brother’s choice to marry Klaus Hellbyes for secret, illegal love, and so she takes advantage of her generous brother-in-law and never considers him an accomplice in her many, many murders. Klaus is a good person, with a good heart. He doesn’t need Lila’s serpent-like nature infecting him like a venom.) She does deals with Five sometimes, when the Handler’s too distracted to watch her closely - she respects him a way most people can’t imagine feeling of a gangster, and he respects her in a way most men can’t imagine doing of a woman, so it’s all the same in the end. But she spends most of her free time at Eudora’s bar. She’s loved Eudora since she was nineteen, and they’ve been lovers for going on maybe seven years now, meeting up in hotel rooms Diego’s money pays for whenever they can. (Not that he knows of it.) When her brother disappears and she’s bloody and bruised from her last fight, she goes home, where she picks up the phone to call Eudora, but instead, the phone rings in her hand, and she picks up to Diego’s gruff voice telling her the love of her life is dead. Lila marches straight down to the station and turns herself in, if only to glimpse Eudora’s beautiful, perfect body one last time, even if her lovely, unbreakable heart is no longer beating beneath that once-unblemished chest, now forever scarred with bullet wounds. Bastards, Lila thinks. She wanted to be buried in a sleeveless red dress.

Eudora Patch is a bartender at Patch’s, a speakeasy where all the fat guys named Ted come to drink and smoke cigars while dancing with girls in tiny slips named Frances. She runs the place, and owns the place, but doesn’t tell nobody that, knowing none of them would buy drinks from a woman. She wears suspenders and collared shirts with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and the top few buttons undone, because guys always pay a bit more if they think they’re gettin’ something more with their whiskey (which they never do). She stalks around in tight khaki pants with two pistols on either side of her waist, her simple black heels banging against the hardwood floor like warning shots. Her hair is always perfect and she never smiles, and nobody asks her to because the last asshole who dared went home with three broken bones and a concussion. She’s a damn fucking good shot - she’s got a whole stash of different kinds of guns stashed beneath her counter and she always wins at darts. She likes wearing fedoras when she’s out, and trench coats when it rains. Whenever she goes out on Diego’s arm, playing the part of his perfect, sweet wife, she wears gold and white dresses and luscious furs and beautiful diadems and expensive gems. Her lipstick stains the cheek of everyone she greets, and she’s wondered sometimes if she should actually marry Diego just for the hell of it, just to get it out of the way, just to complete the fucking ruse, but then she sees Lila across the bar, eyes imploring and glimmering, and she shakes the fantasy away. She makes a series of different coded hand motions to help her figure out whose drink she should poison - a lot of mob bosses and criminals come round these parts. But eventually all good things must come to an end, and Eudora’s lovely little life is no different. Her bar serves Five’s unfettered alcohol, and when the Handler finds out about this she sends something like fifty men to burn Patch’s to the ground. Eudora stands tall until the end, taking down every single one of them gracefully, and is heading out the door leaving a graveyard in her wake when Hazel and Cha-Cha emerge from her bathroom and put twenty bullets in her back. (Diego’s the one who finds her. He swears he’ll end the Handler’s horrible reign, and kill her and all her fucking people, but then Klaus steps up behind him, having already called the police, and takes his hand. He tells Diego they have to run if they ever want to be safe, and Diego kisses him, knowing it to be true. He calls Lila on a payphone in the rain and tells her, through tears, the truth: Eudora’s dead. I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry. Goodbye.)

Vanya Blueseven plays violin for all the assholes who were lucky enough to be born with gold in their mouths instead of dust. Vanya grew up in Ash Town, and only got out because she was playing violin at the bar the night Sissy wandered in there and had Carl seal her doom, and Five saw her. He offered her a job, and she took the chance to get out, to get away from all that shit. (Five still pays her for her music, though Klaus already pays her plenty and Five never even stays long enough to hear her to play anyway.) She lives in a depressingly empty apartment of greys downtown, in Manhattan, and travels by ferry to Klaus’ house every weekend for his seventh party of the week. She always wears a pressed white suit with coattails, and a top hat like a fucking magician because Klaus thinks it’s funny and Vanya likes to make him laugh. She stays at Klaus’ house a lot, having a guest room of his that’s unspokenly her own ever since she showed up at two a.m. soaking wet and he pulled her into his arms and never asked for an explanation. She knows about his husband, has met him; Klaus has Diego over often enough. Vanya keeps his secret, because she has her own: Sissy Cooper. Vanya isn’t an idiot - she knows that the longer their affair lasts, the deeper she’ll fall, and the more painful it’ll be to leave. But she sets her eyes on the green horizon and hopes for a happy ending, Sissy and Harlan’s hands clutched in hers. False hope’s gotta get her somewhere, right? (She wakes with a start when Reginald raids the house, the sun barely peeking through the windows. She sprints for the backdoor in her nightgown, hearing Klaus’ sobs ring in her ears, and makes it as far as the woods before slamming into a hard, unforgiving chest. She stumbles to the ground, and looks up at a stone-cold Carl. No, she sputters, her shaking hands up. Please. Carl’s hands wrap around her throat and she doesn’t remember a thing, but Five reads about it in the newspaper after the fact: the murder of Vanya Blueseven and the suicide of her killer, Carl Cooper. He sighs, takes a sip of Scotch, and has her buried beside Sissy and Harlan in his backyard. It’s for the best, he tells himself, and tries to believe it.)

Allison Charmors is a famous actress, always in a red dress and smiling like all the world is alive at her beck and call. She wears flowers all over her and has enough sharp wit to intrigue a man, but never enough to intimidate him. (At least not at first.) She writes and directs every film she’s in too, but she keeps that a close secret, knowing that they’d never be successful if people knew a woman was producing them. It is the 1920s, after all. There are plenty of rumors surrounding her already - she nearly married politician Patrick Liesel before leaving him for a secret lover, who nobody ever found out the identity of. There were no prime suspects for awhile either, as she mostly hung around only her make-up artist, Natalie. (They’re in love, but never speak of it, and soon enough Allison loses Natalie to deportation, when the Italian girl is whisked back to her country after she was arrested in the Palmer Raids, though she’d done nothing wrong. Allison tried to write to her, but soon became swept up in taking care of her new baby, borne of either her lover or Patrick - there was no way to tell. She kept Claire a secret, and does still, even six years after this all went down.) She started frequenting Klaus’ parties some three years ago, and now considers him a good friend, leaving Claire with him as a niece sometimes and having tea with him, his husband, and his violinist (a lovely woman, that one). The two of them make business deals, beneficiary to both of them: he helps her cover up her film brilliance and involvement, and she never denies that rumors that her lover is the illustrious Klaus Hellbyes, as affairs are rampant nowadays and Klaus’ “wife” doesn’t convince every stupid brute who comes rolling through these parts. Klaus introduces her to Ray, his new friend and scheme, and Allison falls for him instantly, lured in by his kindness and passion, and the way he treats her like an equal both in heart and mind (and a superior in body, of course). She proposes to him the day Klaus disappears, and marries him in Klaus’ old mansion, moving there after he leaves Ray his entire estate in his will. Claire lives with them as their “adopted” daughter, and Allison stares out the window sometimes, wondering over her old lover, but never wonders for long - Natalie’s letters come daily now, her own husband Jamison and their own twin sons Mattias and Alessandro coming with her to visit. Eventually, Allison convinces herself, Claire will grow up and marry Mattias and Alessandro will become a pirate and travel the sea, and Natalie will move back to New York and Allison can see her every day again, in that incandescent way she can no longer see Luther, who still plagues her mind without rest or mercy. Oh, Luther. Luther. I’m sorry.

Luther Armstrong became a cop after he left his post as Ben’s groundskeeper, and he’s not sure he made the right decision, if he’s perfectly honest. He sees how corrupt all these policemen are, the way they talk sleazy about women witnesses even though they’ve all got wives at home, the way they treat the made-up men who come in here with limps and hickeys and too much lust in their eyes, the way they treat the tired old fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters with darker skin than the cops’ve got. He met Allison during a questioning after she got arrested for punching a director who allegedly assaulted her, and he was the only one who believed her, winning her respect. They had a whirlwind romance, though their affair remained intensely private, as she remained engaged to Patrick. She left Luther the same day he bought a ring, having received a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity all the way in California. He knows she’s got back since then, he does read the paper, but both of their lives have invariably changed, and no matter how much he adores her still, he knows their time together is over. Since their falling apart he’s married a jealous redhead named Stacey, who scoffs and bitches every time he watches all of Allison’s movies and cries, and who refuses to accompany him to Klaus’ parties every weekend, when he goes looking for the woman he still dreams of. He remembers how much she loved him - that was never in doubt. The morning of her supposed wedding to Patrick she showed up on his doorstep, soaking wet in her dirty and frumpled wedding dress with mascara running down her face. She kissed him stupid while Stacey played secretary at work, and they spent the night together, rekindling their passion with laughter and wine. But in the morning, she found his wedding ring and left him a letter saying she’d always love him, but he’d never see her again. Then she fled, and Luther slipped into depression and alcoholism, no longer watching her movies if he could help it. Now, he follows Reginald without question, despite his immoral code and brutish cruelty, and he goes to Klaus’ parties to get drunk and gets into fights with Klaus’ loyalest friend, Diego, who thinks he drinks too much. (Ha. What does he know?) Klaus puts himself between them often, always siding with Diego though he clearly cares for Luther, and Luther always leaves in a worse mood than he came in, though he still keeps coming. He meets Vanya once at a diner and never speaks to her again, though she acted as the violinist at his wedding to Stacey. He offers information to Five, who’s a good kid despite all his murders, and Five treats him like a child even though he’s the (far) younger of the two. When Luther is finally lucky enough to meet Allison again, it’s at one of Klaus’ many many parties, all of which have started to blur together for Luther at this point. She pretends she’s never met him, stunning in a tight red dress and standing proud beside Klaus’ friend Mr. Chestnut, and Luther hates him, even though he seems perfectly kind. Allison steps towards him, her skirt riding up just enough to show the knives hidden in her garters, and she smiles, shaking his hand. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Armstrong, she tells him, her eyes like steel, and Luther falls in love with her all over again. (Not that it matters. Her heart is Ray’s now, and probably someone else’s too if Luther thinks about it too hard, and Luther isn’t around to know anyway. He’s sent to Eudora’s speakeasy with a hoard of cops the same night as the Handler’s men close in on the place, and she shoots him without mercy along with all the others as the raid carries on, though they met at one of Klaus’ parties and hit it off. She has no time for his life; nobody does. At his funeral, Stacey is absent and so is Allison, having moved on with Ray and forgotten Luther ever existed. Stacey was having an affair with a mob boss named Rob anyway, and figures she may as well make good on her acceptable widow years, running off with him to be his sugar baby as he fucks over immigrants in Queens and the

Bronx. Luther isn’t missed. He’s just another casualty, just another face in the crowd. Will you remember him?) (No. Don’t lie.)

Five di Sappears is a mystery man - everyone knows his name, but he always comes to town under the ruse of a homeless child named Aidan rather than the ruthless killer of a businessman that he is. He’s been an orphan since the Handler killed his parents when he was five, which is when he claims to have been made who he is today, therefore claiming the name Five for himself and shedding any remaining reigns of childhood. He runs the Handler’s largest rival gang, and his cronies follow him because he’s a cold-blooded murderer and they know it. He plays beggar mostly, hanging outside of Agnes’ bakery, but stays at Lila’s when it’s too goddamn miserable outside to survive. He protects who are known as the Six, and no one else - no one knows why, least of all him. But they matter in some sick, twisted way, and he won’t let anybody hurt them if he can help it. (At the very least if somebody does, they won’t survive.) (I think you can guess who the Six are.) He runs his business mostly out of Coney Island, where his parents met, and hides his alcohol in the pink prize bunnies there, his guns in the blue and his drugs in the purple. He has a rainbow bear named Dolores that he carries everywhere; she fits right in the pocket of his trenchcoat or under his hat. He has killed people who have dared to insult or comment on her… It’s a problem. Five sneaks into one of Klaus Hellbyes’ parties once for a business deal, and finds himself in conversation with the man himself, and his affectionate friend, Mr. Towblaerman. Klaus and Diego end up acting the part of Five’s surrogate parents, quite by accident really, and for the last few weeks of his public existence, Five parades as Aidan Hellbyes, the adopted son of Klaus and Floura Hellbyes. His own mansion is unsafe, for now - people have found out where he lives, dangerous people, and he needs to hide away for awhile. His play-acting fathers have no issue with him inhabiting one of their bedrooms for as long as he needs, though they never ask him directly to stay. He sneaks Dolores into their bags when they go on the run, writing them letters for months that he never sends as they settle into their new home. He moves back into his own mansion, burying Vanya and Sissy and Harlan in the backyard beneath the daisies. He has Jill over for tea often after Ben dies, and she always seems confused as to why he has any interest in her company, but Five only answers her questions with cryptic phrases and useless idioms she can’t decipher, like a jackass. But he leaves her his mansion when Klaus and Diego return for him, having found Dolores in the folds of their bags and heading straight back home for their son the moment after. Half of his Six are dead, and he cannot bring them back or save those remaining, so he gives up, fleeing with Hellbyes and Towblaerman to wherever they wish to take him. His final act in New York is to bail Lila out of her jail cell, leaving her behind with only a nod of thanks and a smirk as he disappears without a trace, true to his name. (Lila takes up shelter at Klaus and Diego’s old secret apartment. She marries a soft gay man named Theo Peterson who doesn’t mind watching Allison’s films with her or holding her in the night when she whispers Eudora’s name through tears in her sleep. It’s not a good life, but at least she doesn’t have to kill people anymore. Dora would be so disappointed.) (In the Cayman Islands, Five stands on a marble balcony with a glass of wine and wonders if Eudora would be disappointed in him, then decides it doesn’t really matter anymore and dumps the glass of white into the sea for the skeletons below.)

Leonard Peabody-Jenkins is a shady businessman, the kind who’s involved in pyramid schemes and black market shit. He works with some of the biggest mob bosses in the world, having travelled all over the world for meeting after meeting. He’s a fierce alcoholic, and a violent one at that - he’s beat Vanya more than once. They were married when they were young, “in love” before he showed his true colors and she found her thoughts lingering on women’s bosoms rather than men’s packages, but they barely see each other anymore, as he’s always away on business and she hates him. They share an apartment, but never a bed, and neither of them minds it that way, though they keep the flowers in the sill of the closed window fresh and bright to keep up appearances of a happy marriage. When he finds out about Vanya’s affair with Sissy, he puts plans in motion to kill the wretched woman who’s stolen his wife from him, but when he shows up at her house with a loaded gun he finds the job already done, her husband absent and her son dead in the bathtub, the woman herself hanging from a noose in the living room. He calls the police and plays the part of the traumatized witness, fake-crying as much as he’s able, and heads home with the gleeful intent to tell Vanya the woman she loves is dead. Instead, he finds an empty house and a newspaper detailing that Mrs. Vanya Peabody-Jenkins has been found dead of strangulation in the backyard of Klaus Hellbyes’ mansion, the suspect being Carl Cooper, her lover’s husband. (Though that last part, of course, is left out.) Finally freed from the rusty and heavy shackles of his marriage, he throws some things into a suitcase and opens the door to flee, only to find himself staring down the barrel of a gun. At the other end is a pale skinny boy whose eyes glint like flares in the distance. “Who are you?” Leonard asks, and the boy takes the time to smirk before emptying the cylinder into his chest. (Seven bullets. How fitting.)

Grace Rehtomtoborlanoitome (she’s French?) is Diego and Lila’s mother - they’re adopted, obviously, because she’s unmarried and has absolutely no interest in any men or women whatsoever. No one’s questioned her for it, because they’re fucking terrified of her - and because she never sticks around long enough to be suspicious of anyway. Currently she’s grifting people in the Cayman Islands, housing Klaus and Diego in her sprawling mansion home. She’s thinking she’ll head to Italy next; maybe buy Juliet’s house in Verona, and stay there eternally. She used to live in New York, to be close to her son and his family, but it wasn’t for her. Though she loved her life as a Broadway star, Reginald would come over for tea too often, asking her too many questions about Diego and his (secret) husband that she never answered, instead offering him vague and aloof conversation. (She loves to be passive-aggressive.) (She also wears top hats and lingerie to these lunches, because Reginald always seems morbidly discomforted by it and she lives to make him as miserable as possible.) So she fled, not wanting to slip up and jeopardize her son’s carefully cultivated facade. (Not that he needed any help to fuck it up, apparently.) She writes him letters as often as she can, telling him he will always have a home with her, should he wish it. Ben would often write to her, asking after Klaus, because he knew about his and Diego’s involvement and had found nothing but deadends with Diego. Grace always told him that if he’d just come to visit her, she’d tell him where Klaus was, but he never showed. She doesn’t learn about his death until Klaus and Diego come home to her, bringing their trouble with them. She reaches out to Ben’s wife, Jill, and Jill spends a week at Grace’s home, listening to Grace’s cryptic advice and wise answers to Jill’s every befuddled question. When Jill leaves, Grace’s last wisp of advice is to have tea with Five di Sappears whenever he invites her, even if he does so under the moniker Aidan Hellbyes. Though Jill isn’t sure why, she agrees, and waves goodbye from her carriage while Grace stands stoic in the doorway beside her butler Pogo, pensive and kind. After Jill’s departure, Grace cuts her family off from every part of the world they’ve ever known, hauling them all to Verona and settling them there. There, Klaus and Diego settle with Five, who they’d retrieved from New York while Grace conversed with Jill, and adopt a daughter named Aidy, who is as dangerous as her parents and brother, her eyes glinting always. Grace locks herself in her study with her granddaughter at least once a day - she has much to learn, and Grace has much to teach her. God pray for the world.)

Reginald Hargreeves is New York’s police chief, and the cruelest man you’ll ever meet. He’s a childless widow, and has been having an affair with the Handler for years, one with absolutely no emotional baggage because both of them are absolutely incapable of feeling love. He enjoys drinks with Pogo on the weekends and always carries an umbrella, which is a disguised poison gun he uses for assassinations. He often has tea with Grace, and proposes to her at the end of every visit, though she never says yes. (And she never will, you absolute rat bastard.) But the reason Reginald terrifies so many is his unusual penchant for hunting queers. Not just arresting and beating those he finds, no - hunting and killing them. He murdered Ben, who didn’t sleep with his wife once and loved Klaus more than anything. He ordered the raid on Eudora’s speakeasy when he saw her and Lila kissing in the rain, even though he used to be a regular customer of hers. He once threatened Vanya so terrifyingly that Klaus actually bothered to show up at his doorstep to tell him off. He’s seen every single one of Allison’s shows and hunted down Natalie at one of her burlesque shows (she’s poor, she’s got side jobs) to bring her in after he found out that she loved Allison, but she got away from him just in time. (He would still be hunting her, if he had survived. Allison never finds out.) He hunted Klaus and Diego so ferociously and so cruelly that they nearly broke apart out of fear for each other’s safety, not that that would’ve stopped him - Reginald doesn’t believe in mercy. Neither does Klaus anymore, it seems, when he shoots Reginald in tears from the balcony, staring down at the still-warm body of the love of his life. (Leonard tipped him off. The slimy asswipe was willing to tell Reginald anything for a bit a cash.) The only person who ever scared Reginald was Five, who would never back down or give in to Reginald’s assault. Fat lot of good that did - Five’s family is dead, and all at Reginald’s filthy fucking hands.

The Handler (real name: Alusru Alleurc Dlawlednirg) (she’s German) is the leader of New York’s largest gang. Hazel (lazy alcoholic still pining after the wife who left him on their wedding night) and Cha-Cha (always knew her soulmate was violence, they’ve been together since she was eight and murdered her parents in their sleep with her dolls, the Handler likes her spunk and manipulates Cha-Cha’s psychopathic tendencies for her own personal gain) both work for her, and the Handler makes good use of that, sending them after anyone who threatens her in the slightest. She’s sleeping with Reginald too - hey. She’s just bored. The Handler doesn’t feel anything but sick satisfaction, and even then only when she’s crushing her enemies’ skulls beneath her stiletto heels. Lila is her adoptive “daughter”, and her little plaything - so easy to manipulate. All the Handler has to do is call her “sweetheart” and the thick child comes running. How moronic. Anyway - Five is her mortal enemy. The one she stays up late killing things for. The one she has a million different ways to torture. The one she’s chased ever since she found out he was still alive. Five di Sappears. Disappears. What a fucking joke. Look, okay, here’s the story: Aidan Alone’s parents owed the Handler some money. And the Handler didn’t know they had a son, okay, but she didn’t mind - she took him in, tried to raise him as her own. She trained him, called him Five when he asked for it, didn’t argue when he insisted he was a boy despite his body, she - she spoiled him. But he didn’t take to training. He was volatile, violent, and not in the fun way - he’d killed half her men before she finally gave up. That night, at dinner, he leapt across the table with a savage war cry and tried to kill her with a fork; he managed to carve out her eye and fuck up half her face before Lila tugged him off. The Handler shrieked, telling her to kill him, kill him, and Lila nodded, dragging the catatonic Five away. The Handler thought that was that, that it was over… instead, she finds out eight years later that Lila had let Five go. (She won’t kill kids, she says. The Handler rolls her eyes. Bullshit.) Five, as it seems, is the Handler’s demon: she’s stuck with him, and he’s intent on dragging her straight to hell. He’s changed, apparently - she sees him begging outside a bakery one day and steps inside to ask the baker who he is; Aidan, the baker tells her, and smiles. He’s a very kind boy. The Handler’s head whips around just in time to catch Five smirking at her through the window, ten years old and holding the hand of a soft-looking girl in a plaid shawl. He smirks, and winks, and the Handler boils with rage; he’s gone when she blinks. The Handler shoots the baker dead in frustration and storms out the door; five months later the baker’s alcoholic husband came asking for a job. (Hazel, the Handler thought, huh, and gave him one.) But Five, the little bastard, he just doesn’t stop. By the end of the year he turned thirteen, her gang is in shambles at his hands, most of her followers dead or deserters after the Patch Raids. She’s sipping straight from a bottle of aged red wine with her mascara still running down her cheeks in spades when Five shows up, his hands in his pockets and a comfortable smirk on his face. Five, she greets him, and his eyes twinkle. He pulls out a gun and points it at her head. The name’s Aidan Hellbyes now, he says, and she grins, defeated to the point of derangement. She leans up, pressing her forehead to the barrel of his gun. Shoot, she says. He smiles, tilting his head. No thanks, he answers, and drops the gun to the ground nonchalantly as he starts to walk away. She screams, his insolence the final straw, and has her own gun out in a flash, the trigger halfway pulled when barbed wire wraps around her throat from behind and she shrieks, spasming with pain. She collapses to the ground, clawing at her throat and lost for air. The last thing she sees is Five, smirking as he stalks back towards her with a fork… and Lila, standing at his side with barbed wire

scars on her hands.

Dolores Quinmanne was a poet and a dreamer, and Five’s partner in all things. They met on the streets as children, and had been banded together ever since, sticking it out no matter how cold or miserable they got. She always wore a shawl and her hair was always in tatters with her dress; Five stole her a moonstone necklace once, and she wore it every day. He was always kind to her, always her favorite person - he’d always give her the bigger portion of whatever food they lucked into and cut her hair when she needed it. He’d curl around her when it rained and she’d hold him when it thunderstormed, and she kept him close to her heart, her name stitched over his own in permanent ink. Sometimes Agnes would let them sit inside her bakery when it was too cold and they’d play cards in the corner; Dolores was always, without a doubt, known as Aidan’s greatest companion. She gave him a rainbow bear on his tenth birthday, and he never named it, at least not while she was alive. She died in front of him, writhing and in pain. It lasted five minutes before she was cold in his arms, her eyes wide open and her mouth a gaping maw, like The Scream. Five has vowed revenge on the Handler for her death - the doctor said it was sickness, a seizure, but Five knows better. Though not enough, it seems - he’d know the truth if he’d only taken the time to take a closer look at the last soft bun Dolores ever ate, still warm from Agnes’ oven. Arsenic isn’t so easy to smell, but he should’ve known that sprinkle of white dust wasn’t sugar. (He keeps the moonstone from the necklace in the sweetheart grip of his favorite pistol. When he leaves to make a home with his family in Italy, he leaves the pistol behind, but puts the moonstone in the rainbow bear, stitching it back together over the heart. He thinks that maybe they can speak now, like this. Maybe Dolores, angel that she is, can hear him still.)

PLAYLIST: "Reach me a rose, honey, and pour me a last drop into that there crystal glass." (title from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby)

BITE - TROYE SIVAN

LET ME GO - HAILEE STEINFELD, ALESSO, FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE, WATT

IMMORTAL - MARINA

BROOKLYN BABY - LANA DEL REY

CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS - TAYLOR SWIFT

LOVE - LANA DEL REY

BACK TO YOU - SELENA GOMEZ

AFTERLIFE - HAILEE STEINFELD

OFF TO THE RACES - LANA DEL REY

FINALLY // BEAUTIFUL STRANGER - HALSEY

FOREVER (... IS A LONG TIME) - HALSEY

BACK TO BLACK - AMY WINEHOUSE

MONTERO - LIL NAS X

TULSA JESUS FREAK - LANA DEL REY

SHAMELESS - THE WEEKND

HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEARTS - MELANIE MARTINEZ

LOVER OF MINE - 5 SECONDS OF SUMMER

LOVE STORY - SARAH COTHRAN

COSMIC LOVE - FLORENCE + THE MACHINE

BABY - MADISON BEER

PARTNERS IN CRIME - FINNEAS

NUMBERS - THE CAB

HIM & I - G-EAZY, HALSEY

EARNED IT - THE WEEKND

STRANGE LOVE - HALSEY

GOLD RUSH - TAYLOR SWIFT

QUEEN OF THE NIGHT - HEY VIOLET

SHAMELESS - CAMILA CABELLO

HOW TO DISAPPEAR - LANA DEL REY

SIX FEET UNDER - BILLIE EILISH

I CAN’T GO ON WITHOUT YOU - KALEO

UNSPOKEN - WELSHY ARMS

COWBOY LIKE ME - TAYLOR SWIFT

BROKEN BONES - KALEO

VOR Í VAGLASKÓGI - KALEO

ARSONIST’S LULLABY - HOZIER

AU VOLANT - ELSA & EMILIE

DON’T BLAME ME - TAYLOR SWIFT

EVERY DAY A LITTLE DEATH - FROM “THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO”

MORAL OF THE STORY - ASHE

ALL EYES ON ME - BO BURNHAM

YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL - LANA DEL REY

CONEY ISLAND - TAYLOR SWIFT, THE NATIONAL

WILLOW - TAYLOR SWIFT

TOLERATE IT - TAYLOR SWIFT

NO BODY, NO CRIME - TAYLOR SWIFT, HAIM

GOOD 4 U - OLIVIA RODRIGO

WAIT FOR ME - FROM “HADESTOWN”

EPIC II - FROM “HADESTOWN”

CINNAMON GIRL - LANA DEL REY

HURTS LIKE HELL - FLEURIE

GIRL WITH ONE EYE - FLORENCE + THE MACHINE

EVERYBODY KNOWS - SIGRID

CASUAL AFFAIR - PANIC! AT THE DISCO

SEVEN DEVILS - FLORENCE + THE MACHINE

LIKE LOVERS DO - HEY VIOLET

BURY A FRIEND - BILLIE EILISH

DYNASTY - MIIA

RED - TAYLOR SWIFT

CAN’T PRETEND - TOM ODELL

START A WAR - KLERGY, VALERIE BROUSSARD

LOVE IS BLINDNESS - JACK WHITE

THE DAY BEFORE YOU CAME - MERYL STREEP

LOVELY - BILLIE EILISH, KHALID

SNOWMAN - SIA

1950 - KING PRINCESS

TIME TO SAY GOODBYE - ANDREA BOCELLI, SARAH BRIGHTMAN

HOAX - TAYLOR SWIFT

SAME SOUL - PVRIS

AFTER YOU - MEGHAN TRAINOR

DANCING WITH YOUR GHOST - SASHA SLOAN

THE LAST OF THE REAL ONES - FALL OUT BOY

ARE YOU TEN YEARS AGO - PVRIS

GOT YOU ON MY MIND - NF

SUMMERTIME SADNESS - LANA DEL REY

CHEMTRAILS OVER THE COUNTRY CLUB - LANA DEL REY

LOLITA - LANA DEL REY

WILD AT HEART - LANA DEL REY

NEVER BE THE SAME - CAMILA CABELLO

FOLLOW YOU - BRING ME THE HORIZON

IS THERE SOMEWHERE - HALSEY

BEAUTIFUL - CAMILA CABELLO, BAZZI

OUTLAWS - ALESSIA CARA

EASY - TROYE SIVAN, KACEY MUSGRAVES, MARK RONSON

CORNELIA STREET - TAYLOR SWIFT

COME WHAT MAY - FROM “MOULIN ROUGE”

SEVEN - TAYLOR SWIFT

YELLOW LIGHTS - HARRY HUDSON

OH MS BELIEVER - TWENTY-ONE PILOTS

PLEASE NEVER FALL IN LOVE AGAIN - OLLIE MN

ACHILLES COME DOWN - GANG OF YOUTHS

BLOOD // WATER - GRANDSON

HURT INCANTATION - ANNAPANTSU

GOD KNOWS I TRIED - LANA DEL REY

WHERE’S MY LOVE (ACOUSTIC) - SYML

I HAVE QUESTIONS - CAMILA CABELLO

THIS LOVE - CAMILA CABELLO

HEATHER - CONAN GRAY

WILDEST DREAMS - TAYLOR SWIFT

KISSAPHOBIC - MAKE OUT MONDAY

LOVER. FIGHTER. - SVRCINA

PSYCHOTIC KIDS - YUNGBLUD

ALL OF THE STARS - ED SHEERAN

WICKED GAME - DAISY GRAY

HOTEL CALIFORNIA - THE EAGLES

FROM EDEN - HOZIER

DIE A LITTLE - YUNGBLUD

LOVE AND WAR - FLEURIE

TALES OF DOMINICA - LIL NAS X

ANYONE - CAMILA CABELLO

HAPPINESS IS A BUTTERFLY - LANA DEL REY

#tua #the umbrella academy #the great gatsby #f scott fitzgerald #kliego #klaus &x ben #allison x ray #eudorla #alluther #vanya x sissy #five &x dolores #hazel & cha cha #hazel x agnes #the hargreeves & friends #this is super fucking dark and i'm not even sorry #enjoy #have a nice day y'all... #have a nice day. #*cackles and thunder in the distance* #goodbyeeeeee!!!!!!!

[ingek73]

Fairytales for fuckwits: Meghan, a children's book, and the school bully tactics of the British tabloids...

Piers Morgan's obsession with Meghan Markle continues, while Mike Graham appears worried there may be too many big words for him to understand.

Mic Wright

May 6

On May the 4th, there was a great disturbance in the force, as if thousands of tabloid reporters and talk radio pundits cried out at once: The Duchess of Sussex had announced she was writing a children���s book.

Since the earth-shattering news that Meghan has written a story about the relationship between father’s and their sons — apparently based on a poem she wrote for Prince Harry — the tabloid press and talk radio stations have gone into meltdown.

The Sun has managed to crank out seven hysterically-pitched stories on the announcement since it dropped — the book isn’t out until June 8th — with each more unhinged than the last:

MEG TO PAPER Meghan Markle writes children’s book inspired by Prince Harry and baby Archie about ‘bond between father and son’

MEG-A MOVE Meghan Markle’s first priority should be mending broken relationships with royals not writing kids’ book, expert claims

SOUNDS A BIT WOODEN ‘Schmaltzy’ Meghan Markle ‘on dodgy ground’ with kids’ book celebrating fathers ‘after own bust-up with dad’ says author

DOUBLE DUCH Meghan Markle accused of copying her kids’ book The Bench from another story – but author defends her

NOT WRITE Piers Morgan slams ‘hypocrite’ Meghan Markle for kids’ book on ‘father-son bond’ after ‘ruining Harry and Charles’ ties’

'RIDICULOUS' Meghan Markle using Duchess of Sussex as author name ‘laughable’ after she wanted to cut Royal ties, says royal expert

CUT PRICE Meghan Markle’s kids’ book has price slashed already at Amazon and Waterstones

You’ll notice that Piers Morgan — a man who has turned one drink with Meghan after which he claims she “ghosted him”, which took place in 2016, into a five year and counting obsession — gets his own story there. That’s The Sun filleting Morgan’s spittle-flecked Daily Mail column on the book for its own news piece.

Morgan, who trails his columns on Twitter like they are exciting new releases rather than the tabloid equivalent of a letter scrawled in faeces forced through your letterbox, dashed out his thoughts on The Bench with the indecent haste of a man running along while his trousers fall down.

Image description: “Twitter avatar for @BreeNewsome

DEFUND & ABOLISH POLICE, REFUND OUR COMMUNITIES

@BreeNewsome

Piers Morgan’s obsession with Meghan Markle is genuinely disturbing. He’s really just using the guise of journalism to be a public stalker and harasser.

May 5th 2021

1,414 Retweets10,252 Likes”

-

Beneath a typically screaming Mail headline — How the hell can Meghan 'I hate royalty but call me Duchess' Markle preach about father-child relationships when she's disowned her own Dad, and wrecked her husband's relationship with his? — Morgan howled:

… she continues to cynically exploit her royal titles because she knows that's the only reason anyone is paying her vast sums of money to spew her uniquely unctuous brand of pious hectoring gibberish in Netflix documentaries, Spotify podcasts or children's books.

Of course, her equally cynical publishers don't give a damn about any of this shocking double standard.

Forget the fact that Meghan had a good degree of personal fame before she ever met Prince Harry, Piers Morgan accusing anyone else of being a cynical fame chaser is beyond parody. From his earliest days as a gossip hack, Morgan has muscled into pictures with the rich and famous, desperate to be someone.

When Meghan was willing to indulge him, he showered her with praise, but once she stopped taking his calls, he turned into the Tinder match from hell. That he has been married to his second wife, fellow controversialist columnist Celia Walden since 2010 seemingly did nothing to dampen his obsession.

Having repeatedly interviewed Meghan’s estranged father Thomas Markle — another man aggrieved because a woman would rather not spend time with him — Morgan sneers:

If she really cared about father-child relationships, she'd take a chauffeur-driven limousine on the hour-long trip to see her own father who's never even met either Harry or Archie.

It’s projection again: Piers Morgan’s ego is so egg-shell thin that after Meghan decided that one drink was more than enough, he’s spent 5 years seeking revenge and convinced that he’s been wronged, just like her ‘poor old dad’. That’s the ‘poor old dad’ that insists on talking about his daughter to journalists at every possible occasion.

At the end of an article that implies Harry and Meghan contributed to the death of Prince Philip — he died of natural causes — and rants on about “the woke”, Morgan ends with this:

But then as we've seen from her gruesomely self-interested behaviour during a pandemic that's caused so much devastation and pain to billions around the world, Meghan Markle doesn't really care about anyone but herself.

Remember, the Duchess of Sussex’s only ‘crime’ here is to write a children’s book which people will be free to buy or ignore with equal ease. But, as ever, Piers Morgan treats the news with all the proportionality of a US drone strike.

The real story here is about how Morgan — the bittiest of bit-part players in the narrative of Meghan and Harry’s lives — is so desperate to upgrade his place in the cast list that he will rant and rave to stay relevant. His departure from Good Morning Britain came after his last stream of invective about Meghan and he knows this schtick gets him the attention and money he craves.

Image description: “Twitter avatar for @MariaLRoach

Maria Roach

@MariaLRoach

Meghan Markle inside the tiny space called Piers Morgan’s head. #duchessofsussex Tap Dance GIF by Miss America

May 5th 2021

122 Retweets1,619 Likes”

-

Aside from Morgan’s column, MailOnline has published 9 other news stories on or related to the book announcement. The most telling of them is one that links the Duchess of Sussex’s book to another one… by the Duchess of Cambridge.

Headlined Bookshelf battle royale! Kate Middleton shares a glimpse inside her Hold Still photobook just a day after Meghan Markle unveiled her own £12.99 children's story, the story unsurprisingly treats Kate with kid gloves while continuing to imply that Meghan is the kind of person who would make gloves out of kids if it suited her devilish schemes.

There’s no shade thrown at the Duchess of Cambridge for revealing further details of her book just hours after Meghan’s announcement. Instead, the story — lavishly illustrated with images from the book — gushes:

The Duchess of Cambridge has shared a glimpse of her photography book Hold Still ahead of its release on Friday…

… Kate, 39, a keen photographer, launched a campaign during the first lockdown last year to ask the public to submit images which captured the period.

It even includes a mention of an image of a BLM protestor saying:

Over the course of the project, the Duchess shared a number of her favourite images on the Kensington Royal Instagram page, including a Black Lives Matter protester holding a sign reading: 'Be on the right side of history.'

If Meghan had done the same she would have been decried for “supporting extremists”. Remember the contrasting way their mutual taste for avocado was covered?

15 Headlines Show How Differently The British Press Treat Meghan Markle Vs Kate Middleton | Bored Panda

Over at The Daily Telegraph, Spiked alumna Ella Whelan offered her thoughts on a book that isn’t released until next month under the headline Meghan Markle’s fun-free children’s book may put an entire generation off reading, which makes it sound like a grimoire full of dark magic rather than a gentle children’s book about kids and their dads.

Just as with the Mail’s story on Kate’s book, it’s worth imagining what Whelan would say if the Duchess of Cambridge had written The Bench. Look at the following section…

It reveals something of the political superficiality of Harry and Meghan’s activism that an “inclusive” book would use the military father as its promotional message. Perhaps it’s a cultural thing, but if my kids have to read about soldiers, I’d prefer Hans Christian Andersen’s tin version rather than the woke posturing of a former royal.

… and notice that because Meghan is the author including a father who is in the military is “political superficiality”. If Kate had written a story that featured an analogue for Prince William — who also spent time in uniform, though in less dangerous circumstances than his ‘spare’ brother — Whelan would likely deem it a ‘touching tribute to their love’.

Similarly, Sarah Ferguson — the ex-wife of Prince Andrew, top Yelp! reviewer for Jeffrey Epstein’s houses and noted avoider of FBI questioning — uses the title Duchess of York on her many execrable children’s books.

Now that Meghan is the tabloid’s new monster in the monarchy, Fergie’s antics are pointed to as a positive with her books flattered even as Meghan’s as-yet-unpublished book is panned.

Image description: “Twitter avatar for @talkRADIO

talkRADIO

@talkRADIO

Meghan Markle is releasing a new children's book about father-son relationships.

Mike Graham: "It's so juvenile. This is somebody who acts like she's still in high school... it's not exactly Tennyson, is it?

@mrmarkdolan | @Iromg Image

May 5th 2021

36 Retweets221 Likes”

-

Over on talkRADIO, Mike Graham — a melting mass of expired meat — ranted about a children’s book, worried perhaps that it will contain too many long words. Speaking to his colleague, Mark Dolan — Dennis Pennis without the charm — Graham crowed:

It’s so juvenile. This is somebody who acts like she’s still in high school… I don’t have anything against her for any particular reason, other than she’s a bit too American, you know. She thinks everything is just great and cheesy. Rhyming the words ‘joy’ and ‘boy’. It’s not exactly Tennyson, is it?

Ah yes, that famous children’s author, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, known for such devastating rhymes as this one from The Lady of Shallot: “She left the web/ She left the loom/ She made three paces through the room.”

I’m not saying The Lady of Shalott is rubbish — though I do still hold a grudge against Tennyson after some very tedious teaching in high school — but that focusing on one rhyme in a poem is an easy trick if you want to say its shit. That Graham cannot see the irony in decrying writing a children’s book as “juvenile” is just one of the reasons he’s employed by a station with less than 1% reach.

Image description: “Twitter avatar for @NadimJBaba

Nadim Baba

@NadimJBaba

Piers Morgan ranting about the one who got away in 5, 4, 3.......

Media Guardian @mediaguardian

Meghan wins copyright claim against Mail on Sunday over letter https://t.co/cJZTgDMvgz

May 5th 2021

1 Like”

-

There’ll be a new round of these columns, stories, and talk radio segments when the book is released, particularly as The Mail on Sunday just lost the second part of Meghan’s copyright claim against it.

There’s nothing that either Meghan or Harry could do that wouldn’t drive these rats in a sack rabid. If they did nothing, they’d be called lazy. When they make things, take jobs, or really say anything the very media that benefits hugely from stories about them scream that it’s a cry for attention. And yet Piers Morgan regularly pissing himself in public is “commentary”.

#meghan markle #prince harry #duchess of sussex #duke of sussex #piers morgan #brokenbottleboy #toxic tabloids #uk press

[nanigma]

Fates Reexploration Part 3: The bastard and the fish

These are taking a bit longer than I’d want them to, but I hope you guys are still along for the ride!~ I decided to leave this at one chapter, because it was pretty long compared to the last two. Can’t believe I’ll be seeing my Hoshifam in just one chapter (well two in one case, but you know). Sadly, I didn’t catch any pictures of the later half of the chapter for some reason, but I am going to talk about it a little still.

Anyway...

“Hahahaha”

Interrupting your dad as he is watching his favourite sitcoms is always awkward.

Seriously though, I do think Garon is pretty entertaining in how much he chews the scenery. This guy doesn’t have time for moral ambiguity and sometimes that’s just more entertaining.

“Uh! E- Elise, you.. you are too carefree...”

Says the guy who just got smacked to his knees by his little sister while wearing plate armour.

“This is supposed to be a test for that. The whole thing would be meaningless, if you were to help”

And here we have Iago Macbeth in all his slimy glory. Still a Shakespeare reference, but the localization is arguably closer to his actual role in the story as the scheming advisor. 

Also his speech is perfectly polite, but his voice actor still makes it sound like the most vile garbage you’ve heard. Truly a talented guy.

Okay, so this guy is named Ganz originally. It was changed to Hans, presumbaly, because that’s an actual German name and Nohr is meant to be vaguely central-European. As a German though, both names amuse me.

Ganz is one letter away from the German name for a goose (Gans). Hans is like naming the big, ugly bandit guy Bob and then expecting you to take him seriously. Not that he is much to speak about in the first place, but you know what I mean.

During this scene, lightning flashes on the screen and it’s honestly pretty atmospheric.

This guys’s Japanese name is Mozu. He was renamed into Omozu, because the villager girl Mozume had her name shortened. Which is because... idk. They seem to have wanted to make Hoshidan names less complex to pronounce, though I do not see how Mozume was a dealbreaker for American audiences, but Shigure wasn’t. And then they added an extra syllable to this guy’s name too.

Idk, sometimes the localization renames seem well-thought out (Iago) and sometimes it feels like someone threw a dart at a board to see where it landed.

And here we have Saizou. His speech is usually short and to the point. Very militaristic in it’s efficency. The only exception is when he talks to the members of the Hoshidan royal family, where he is very polite and reverent. ... The royal family except Kamui (yes, he is very polite when talking to Aqua actually) that is. Here he just refers to them as “Kisama” which in English is usually translated as something like “You bastard!” since it’s very rude. (don’t use it in everyday life as an insult unless you want to be laughed at though, because it’s an antiquated term usually confied to entertainment media.) Granted, Kamui is just a enemy to him at this point.

However, he still isn’t very polite to them after joining them, talking to them like they are just another member of the army. You’d think he’d be more respectful, considering how strongly Ryouma feels about Kamui being his family, but oh well.

And here is where my images cut off. I’d like to mention that Jakob Joker fricking died on me during this chapter, forcing me to redo it up to that point, because I put the game on classic. I got too used to turning back time and have become so careless with my units. lol

Anyway, Lilith pops up to save you from Ganz, turns into a dragon fish and then teleports you to My Castle for the first time. Despite all the ridiculousness, I appreciate how customizable it is. Garreg Mach changes little, even after the timeskip, besides some rubble. This gives me more of a sense of progression in the story, the more I can expand.

----

Well, I really look forward to the next chapter. Hopefully I’ll actually remember to take more pictures. Consider sending me a ko-fi if you like my work! 

#nanigma translates #fire emblem fates

[frostiifae]

getting really sick and fucking tired of people criticizing others’ engagement in the voting process 

there is no justification i will harbor for not voting

i do not give a shit what you think of the candidates. guess what i don’t like them either. vote anyway.

“but lesser of two evils just reinforces the existing system of oppression! ratchet effect!” ok sure. your logic is fine. what’s the alternative? you don’t have one, you pathetic little bitch, because if you did, you would be talking about it, instead of shaming other people for exercising what little power they DO have in front of them because it won’t accomplish your goals. all YOU’RE doing is sitting around whining at other people to come up with a revolution already because you’re not willing to start one yourself. 

but guess what! even if we DID some wild scheme to overturn american politics, and i was planning on participating I WOULD STILL VOTE BIDEN. there’s no reason not to! i can do the bare minimum to ensure a better future than the alternative, and then go back to protesting and fighting the existing system of oppression. engaging with it doesn’t equate to condoning it don’t be ridiculous.

if you’re worried about people not being radical activists, maybe antagonizing them for doing the most they believe they’re capable of isn’t a good idea, you idiots

#feyranting #i am VERY tired of this shit on twitter #these are the people who kept me informed during the height of BLM protests and i appreciated that a lot #but at this point it's becoming like. your view of politics is childish and stupid and you are doing more harm than good #Blease Grow Up

[bellalikeskitties]

lapdog ☾

pairing: mark lee x reader

you, the prime minister, are loved by your country for being a successful and admirable politician. the president does not agree, sending hitmen after hitmen to kill you. so your team decides to give you a bodyguard. a very not normal one too.

word count: 2.2k+

genre: politics au, bodyguard au

a/n: this’ll be a little long ^^ i had fun writing this. i based it off of those superm photos of mark

You entered the room with a bang. Two pairs of eyes going to you. “I do not need a bodyguard. This is ridiculous!”. Jungwoo sighs. “Madam (y/n). As much as we don’t want to go overboard with our hiring. You need a bodyguard”. Haechan, the youngest of your team, watches the exchange and swears he could see sparks flying. “Too many assassinations attempts have occurred in the last month. Besides, if the wind blew too hard you’d tumble to the floor in an instant”. You let out a soft groan before setting yourself in one of the cushion seats.

You were the youngest prime minister of your semi-presidential system country and as far as everyone knew; the president wasn’t a fan of that at all. You and the president aren’t on good terms. He thought choosing you would organize the parliament to side with him, but he was wrong. A young, radical, and female leader; all the things the president did not want. 

The president had tried to drive the parliament to remove you and even spread fake rumors about you. But the public absolutely adored you. Ever since you gained the title, the country was moving towards a better future. So he used a more unconventional method. 

“President Jung must really hate me to have 15 hitmen target me”. You settle back and Haechan places an ice pack over your eyes. You thank him silently while you push your heels off your feet. He always knew just what to make you calm down, but you would not withdraw. “Mr. Kim, I do not need a bodyguard”. He sighs, sitting in front of you. “Just trust me, Madam (y/n). The demand for one is stronger than ever. The people need you and your ability. We can’t have you die a year after you were elected”. Haechan agreed. You lift the ice pack off your eyes and peek at them. Jungwoo’s eyes looked like they were on fire, while Haechan looked like he would faint.

After a small staring contest, you lean back. “Fine”. They both sigh and high five. “But does it really need to be him?”. You point at the boy in the room’s corner. He was beyond quiet while he followed you. He doesn’t even make a single sound as he walked and wouldn’t let you leave his sight. 

Both boys hold their chests in shock. “Since when was he here?”. Haechan whispered to you and pinch your nose. “Since I came in. He’s been treating me like a child the whole day! Opening doors, holding my things, and pushing buttons for me”. You glare at them and they look at each other in confusion. ”Isn’t that better?”. You stand up and your bodyguard moves to your side. Kneeling, he grabs one of your heels with one hand and your foot in the other.

You look to Haechan knowingly and he couldn’t help but nod. “I don’t even know your name and yet you’ve touched my feet like it was nothing”. Finally, he looks up to meet your eyes. “It’s Mark, Madam prime minister. Mark Lee”. He stands up and you notice how tall he was compared to you. He bows a bit and you felt your eye twitch. “Oh, so you can talk”.

Staring at the two men behind him, you cross your arms. “This, this is what I’m talking about. Rather than a bodyguard, he feels more like a babysitter”. You move to the door and pass the ice pack to Haechan. “The charity Gala is tonight, right? If the president, presumably, tries to kill me again, and Mark-” you point at him, “-you do your actual job. Then I won’t bother you about him anymore”.

With a huff, you exit with Mark following you closely. You peer behind you to watch him. Mark wasn’t that tall actually. It was you who lacked in that department, but his build and posture made him feel like a giant. He let off a dominant aura and you, yourself felt threatened when he knocked on your door that morning to escort you to the office. You wonder just where Haechan and Jungwoo picked the fellow off. In a sudden motion, he pulls your body to him. “I’m sorry, Madam prime minister!". A girl bows at you and you wave your hand.

“No, it’s all right. I wasn’t watching where I was going”. She nods again before rushing away. You look down to Mark’s arms wrapped secured around your waist. “Relax, I won’t die from running into an intern”. He looks at you worriedly but still draws back his arm. You stare at him with interest. “So you can make that kind of expression too? That’s interesting”.

This time, you focus and view ahead of you as you walk. That was the first time he displayed some kind of face and it intrigued you. “Where are you from? And how old are you? Was it Haechan or Jungwoo who hired you?”. You reach for the elevator button but stop mid-way. Instead, you let Mark do it. “I apologize, Madam prime minister. I cannot share my personal information, but if it were to ease you. I am not from Korea and I am older than you are, Madam”. You hum and enter the lift. “Regarding my position, I was not hired. Rather, one of your acquaintances granted me the job”. 

A loud laugh escapes your mouth. “Acquaintance?”. You turn to him with a dark and cold face. “Mark, did the president hire you to kill me?”. Silence, Mark keeps a straight face. You couldn’t tell what he was thinking, all that you saw in his eyes was your own reflection.

The elevator dings and the doors open. Mark’s gaze tears away from you. Flashes of light cover your figure and you can hear the press yelling. “I cannot tell you who gave me this job”. He strips off his blazer and gives it a few shakes before covering you with it. “But I can assure you that it was not President Jung”. Your eyes widen in surprise as he puts his arms around you and leads you out. The sound of cameras blur out and you stare at Mark. His free arm was in front of both of you, pushing the reporters aside so you could leave the building. 

You were sure that this bodyguard scheme was one of Jung’s tactics, but you wanted to believe him when he said that. You felt as if you could trust that your life would be safe if he were there to protect it. “Madam prime minister! Have you finally hired a bodyguard because of President Jung’s threats?”. Mark opens the car door and you notice his grip tighten on you. You tap his hand and he looks at you. He looked genuinely mad, so you couldn’t help but provide him with a patient smile.

You slip the blazer off from your head, and you flash them your killer smile. “Yes. I have finally hired a bodyguard, but he most definitely doesn’t look like one at all, more like the main character in a drama!”. You chuckle and they laugh too. “I’ve been holding this matter off since I’ve been too busy with international affairs. Only now have I belatedly remembered to have a guard with me. He has no connection to President Jung at all”.

You pat Mark’s arm, his eyes trained on you and the crowd. “It’s sad that soon that public shall be awfully busy staring at my new guard rather than me!”. The press erupts with laughter once more. “The wonderful news is that we will now host the charity gala with full support from the American Government, gaining a new relationship with the United States. This is something no one in our government has done until today. With this monumental announcement, I assure you all that the future of our country is in skilled hands”. They all murmur, cheers, and claps fill the area. While you do the most political thing, smile, and wave.

Cameras move towards you as you step into the vehicle. Mark closes your door and jogs to the driver’s seat. He buckles up and you finally leave. Stepping out of your heels again, you groan and rub your temples. “The media is always faster than light, aren’t they?”. He glances at you from the mirror. “Yes, Madam prime minister. You did very well”. You stroke the back of your neck and check your watch. “Thank you, Mark. Oh, and drop the ‘Madam prime minister’. (y/n) is all right, considering that we would spend most of our day together". He nods and continues to drive. “Yes, Miss (y/n)”. You close your eyes, silently practicing your speech for that night. 

What you had announced to the public was your secret tool. Jungwoo advised you to present it tonight, so the gala would have more impact on you and maybe embarrass the president who did nothing all this time. Now that you had just revealed it, annoyed you. You had to do something or the talk of tonight would be of how panicked you were. That’s what you hated. You were strong. You handled all your assassination attempts until now with ease. The country needed to know that their leaders were independent and reliable, not weak, and scared. 

You watch your reflection in the mirror. The matching diamond earrings and necklace made you look pretentious. The money they spent to buy them could’ve been used for better, more important things. Although you liked the silver dress, it was charming. “Mark are you ready? Let’s leave in 5". You exit the room and check your phone for messages. Not hearing his immediate answer, you look up. “Mark, are you all right?“.

His face was flushed, eyes darting from you to the floor. He changed from his plain button-up and brown blazer to a black suit, hair slicked back and shoulders broad. He looked quite handsome to you, so you couldn’t understand why he was a blushing mess. “Mark, are you not feeling well? Is the suit not to your liking?”. You press down on his collar, smoothing it out.

His entire body flinches and you raise your hand. “No. I mean, not at all, Miss (y/n). The suit is fine”. Straightening his back, he steps away so you could walk in front. “Good, I asked Haechan to give you a nice one. It looks dashing on you, Mark". You walk through the carpeted hallways. If you kept your ears open, you could hear the faint music that came from further inside. Again, you notice the quiet footsteps of a certain man. 

“Mark, where did you learn to do that?“. You beckon him with your hand and he comes close. As soon as he stood by your side, you slipped your arm in his. “Pardon me, Miss (y/n). What are you talking about?”. He shifts next to you and you keep your hand firm. “Walking so silently. Even a cat can’t walk like that. Are you from special forces or something?“. He clears his throat. “I cannot disclose any private informa-”. You snap your head at him. “Fine. Okay, I won’t bite. It seems I won’t ever be able to know anything about you". You huff and detangle your arm from his. 

You brace yourself. Breathing for a few moments while Mark watched you. You were, to Mark, an enigma. Your love for your citizens and your outstanding patriotism made you the perfect leader. The perfect smile, the perfect tactics, the perfect team; everything a politician could want, you had. You were kind to your people. So kind, that you poured your very being into them, but had no respect for yourself. In just the few hours that Mark had met you, he knew instantly. You overworked yourself to the core and cared for everything except you. You were selfless. You didn’t shudder at the mention of your own murder or assassination. Nor did you tremble from the weight of a thousand people. You were, truthfully, the ideal leader. 

“Mark, you need not stay by my side tonight". The words flew past Mark. His eyes focused on you, he had to. He noticed how frail you looked at that moment. Your hands were shaking, but your voice was clear. “I apologize, Miss (y/n). I’m afraid I cannot follow your orders. I will be at your side the entire evening". You laugh. “Of course. I’ll just let you follow me around then. Well then?“. You point to the front of you and he nods. As he pushes through the doors, you finally hear the music and the chatter clearly.Although it stops as you step into the room, you grin. 

“Welcome everyone to the annual charity gala!”. You scan through the crowd until your eyes meet another’s. “I thank everyone who came to celebrate this event. Especially you, president Jung". He bows to you and you respond. “Jaehyun, thank you for taking the time to be here". 

You see his eye twitch at the mention of his name. “Not at all, (y/n). It’s lovely to see you today". You suppress your laughter. “I won’t be taking your time any longer. Let’s enjoy tonight!“. Applause fills the room and you turn back to Mark. 

“Mark le-”, you giggle and something inside you clicks, “No. Shall we?

My dearest lapdog?”.

~

hewwo. how was it? i sorta want to make a part 2. 

anw follow me for more ^^

#nct 127 #mark lee #mark lee scenarios #mark #nct imagine #mark imagine #mark scenarios #nct mark #nct fic #nct au #nct #mark au #mark fic #nct bodyguard au #bellalikeskitties

[antoine-roquentin]

America is in a full-blown economic depression, but Democrats are anxious about whether fixing it will cost too much. In the most recent economic rescue package — one the party itself admits is only a "messaging" bill, since it already gave away most of its leverage — Democrats scaled back their student loan forgiveness program and axed an idea for economic stimulus that would continue on autopilot for as long as the crisis lasts, because of scary possible estimates of the cost.

It's hard to describe just how blinkered this is. It's like a man who is drowning in the middle of the North Atlantic worrying about how flammable his clothes are. But there is a big reason aside from Democrats' knock-kneed cowardice this happens — the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which informed Democratic leaders they would produce big price tags for both of the above programs. But as we'll see, their analysis is garbage. This agency exercises a tyrannical control over the parameters of spending discussions in this country, and slants them heavily towards austerity. Democrats should close their ears to this nonsense.

To begin, the CBO "scores" legislation by estimating its budget cost over a 10-year window. Right out of the gate this is a misleading way to do things. When thinking about the price of something, logically what one should consider is the qualities of the item relative to one's ability to pay. That requires additional thought in the case of the government, because it has the best credit in the world, and borrows in a currency it can print. For some proposed federal program, therefore, the wise place to start is not the headline figure of required spending, but the size of spending relative to the whole economy.

Instead the CBO window leads to reporters writing stories citing the 10-year figure without that critical context. ObamaCare has "a price tag of $848 billion over 10 years," wrote Robert Pear and David M. Herszenhorn in the The New York Times in 2009. Sounds pretty big! But what they didn't say is that total economic production would be something like $175 trillion over the same period, meaning the total spending would be on the order of one half of one percent of GDP — a minor program, in other words. (Mysteriously, military spending almost never gets the 10-year treatment in mainstream reporting, which would produce eye-popping sums. Instead one year is the standard.)

This practice in turn leads to absurd policy gimmicks to rig the 10-year window and make programs appear cheaper than they are. Most of ObamaCare's implementation was delayed for four years to keep the 10-year spending under $1 trillion. This led to four years of pointlessly delayed benefits, and allowed Republicans to falsely claim that the program's costs were exploding when later CBO estimates produced dramatically higher estimates (on the order of 1 percent of GDP) because they were including a whole decade of implementation. It's a ridiculous and childish way to design policy.

More importantly, it is basically impossible to predict the trajectory of either the economy or the price of state programs with any accuracy. The rate of interest on government debt, for instance, will hugely influence how much any program which ends up being funded by borrowing will cost. (The increase in the national debt during President Reagan's terms was almost entirely driven by interest payments.) But the CBO is not just wrong in a random fashion, overshooting sometimes and undershooting other times. Mike Konczal of the Roosevelt Institute has done preliminary work plotting CBO interest rate forecasts against what actually happened, and it turns out for 30 years straight they have consistently overestimated interest trajectories.

This means all their interest payment estimates produced over that time were wrongly inflated, sometimes by a lot. The CBO itself ruefully admitted this mistake in a 2019 publication. Whoops!

The way the CBO treats spending categories is also bizarre. As Jon Walker writes at the People's Policy Project, it treats private health insurance spending as either public or private based on an arbitrary definition of how heavily the market is regulated. If the regulations are lax according to the CBO's crystal ball and bird entrails (meaning the insurance isn't very good), then government-mandated private premiums do not count as a tax. If they are strict, then they do count. This places an enormous bias against any kind of root-and-branch health care reform, because no matter how you design the policy the CBO is going to produce a gigantic price tag.

The student loan forgiveness cost cited above is similarly weird, because the government already owns almost all the loans in the country. It could simply cancel them outright without spending a dime — indeed, President Trump could do this tomorrow on his word alone. There would be less money coming in from future interest payments, but if Congress were to pass some appropriation to compensate for this, the government would just be paying the money to itself.

Perhaps the most preposterous CBO estimate of late, however, is the one about automatic stabilizers. These would be some kind of rescue policy that would keep going until the economy was back up to full strength — like continuing monthly stimulus checks so long as, say, unemployment was above 6 percent and inflation was below 4 percent. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told reporters that she wanted to include something like this, but the threat of a big CBO score prevented her from doing so.

Nobody has a clue how long the coronavirus depression is going to last, which will determine how long stabilizers would be activated. So now we have the agency making up a score based on an arbitrary and probably wrong guess about how the economy is going to do, and ignoring the broader economic context at the worst possible moment. The thing about economic stabilizers is that they would almost certainly pay for themselves over the long term by preventing the economy from collapsing. In other words, their cost as a percentage of the economy will be negative, because without them output will be much lower. It's literally free money, and the CBO's cramped ideological perspective is preventing America from picking it up.

None of this is accidental. The CBO was originally set up in the 1970s by the late Alice Rivlin, a neoliberal deficit scaremonger who got her start as a sort of colonial viceroy over the District of Columbia, imposing austerity by fiat and coring out the city's political sovereignty. She positioned the CBO as a nonpartisan agency that would fairly adjudicate bills from both parties, and while it has produced damaging estimates about Republican bills, its bias is overwhelmingly against big social reforms. She inserted the agency in the center of budget politics as part of an ideological crusade against the national debt and social welfare programs, as David Dayen writes at The American Prospect. She's a person who worked with Paul Ryan on an appalling scheme to privatize Medicare.

It's hard to say whether or not Pelosi and company would behave any differently without the CBO — they could just be hiding their austerian preferences behind the agency. But this kind of thinking is going to do stupendous damage to a Democratic presidency if the party wins in November. If stabilizers aren't passed in the next few months, President Biden is going to burn up most of his political capital trying to get additional rounds of aid past Republican congressional obstruction. Democrats really need to stop worrying and learn to love big, beautiful programs.

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Six

Alexander was the best kind of regular. He was the curious kind. He would come to the shop, squint up at the chalkboard with those lovely blue eyes, and then finally choose the next thing on the list. If he was trying to be subtle about slowly working his way down the menu, then he needed some work. It was sweet, it was just not subtle.

But today, he’d come in and sat himself up at one of the tables near the window, an impressive scowl painted across that pretty face. (Alexander had some remarkably expressive eyebrows. You could read his mood with them alone.)

Which meant Magnus was spending his morning rush worrying about what exactly had set his favorite customer on such a sour path this morning. He spares a glance over while he steams milk for a matcha latte, and finds Alec staring daggers out of the shop’s front window. But there was no one out there. And Magnus was reasonably certain that Alexander wasn’t angry with Diego’s taco stand. 

What could make such a sweet natured man so sour? It wasn’t girlfriend trouble, Magnus knew that much, thanks to one memorable morning where a young lady gave Alexander her number and when she walked away, he looked at it like she’d handed him a raw mackerel. Boyfriend troubles, maybe?

Magnus hoped not, for his own selfish reasons. He could practically feel Bilbo’s eyes on him from across the shop. Yes yes, he knew he had to get on his side of the promise. No, he wasn’t going to do it right now, in broad daylight in an open tea shop, Bilbo Baggins. Stop judging. 

With the last customer of this burst gone away with their tea and their scones and their lovely pastries, Magnus slips out from behind the counter before his good sense could get the better of him. “Lovely day, isn’t it?” That felt like a good enough segue into conversation, given the fact that Alexander was currently glaring at a cloud. 

But much like the clouds would break this afternoon and the sun would shine through, that sour expression on Alexander’s face breaks apart and reveals the sunshine of his lovely smile beneath. A sheepish, nervous smile, but a smile nonetheless. “Uh..yeah. It is.”

That’s all the opening that Magnus needed. He slips into the seat across from Alec at the small bistro table, hands clasped in front of him. His nails were a gorgeous sea green, in keeping with the summer season. There was even a sheen of glitter built into the polish itself. Magnus was positively in love with the color. “How have you been?” Magnus has to resist the urge to jump straight to ‘what’s wrong?’ People didn’t like being called out like that.

“Oh, good. I’m good.” Alexander was a squirmer, when he was nervous. Magnus knew because he never saw Alec move around in his seat like a worm on a hook until Magnus was sitting across from him. It was flatteringly adorable. “You?”

“I’m wonderful, thank you.” And if he didn’t get them out of this cesspool of polite conversation, they might never get to the meat of the problem. Magnus only had so long until his next batch of regulars came in. A quick glance at the clocked showed him it was a little before 8:30. He had about twenty minutes for this conversation, tops. 

What a world to live in, when reckless and carefree Magnus Bane cared enough about a man’s opinion to schedule in time to talk him through his feelings between customers. Bilbo was probably cackling into his dough right as they spoke. The bastard. 

“So why don’t you tell me why you’ve been sitting here, looking like the most handsome thundercloud I’ve ever laid eyes on?” So maybe that was laying it on a bit thick. But Alexander was a sight for sore eyes on any day, effortlessly gorgeous. It was enough to take someone like Magnus, who spent half an hour in front of the mirror every morning, feel jealous. 

Then again, getting to lay eyes on that effortlessly handsome face every day was enough to push the jealousy back and replace it with a four letter word. 

Lust. The word was lust. Not the other “L” word, which Magnus was going to avoid the damned plague. 

Alexander stutters for a moment, blue eyes huge and wide before he gives up, laughing at himself as he turns his eyes back to the window. “Yeah, sorry about that. I’m not trying to bring the mood down or anything.” Alec’s accent was all New York, and before him, Magnus would have never thought that was something he would find attractive. 

An English accent was lovely. An Irish accent was enough to make a man weak in the knees. Magnus himself had a personal weakness when it came to French accents. But in the grand scheme of American accents, New York wouldn’t be anywhere near the top of the list. Or at least, it wouldn’t have been before Alexander. 

There was something about the way he spoke, the same kind of effortless charm that went with his finger combed hair and his (truly hideous, it was a marvel) worn out sweaters. Magnus has always loved a sharp dressed man. But there was something so incredibly genuine about Alec Lightwood that it had made its way under his skin, and he couldn’t get free. 

“You don’t bring the mood down.” Far from it. Seeing Alexander was often the highlight of Magnus’ day. “So go ahead and tell me what’s on your mind.” Magnus cups his chin in his palm, watching Alec through the fan of his lashes. He was never going to tire of the way Alec’s eyes darted down to his lips when Magnus spoke. It was the kind of thing that could make a man’s ego get too big. 

Not Magnus, of course. He was the very picture of...there was no reason to even finish that ridiculous sentence. Magnus was fantastic, and he quite appreciated it when other people thought he was fantastic as well. 

“It’s just that my sister is getting married.” There was that scowl again, dipping across dark brows before it disappears. “And I’m happy for her, really. But she’s having this whole big party about it, and there’s dancing.” Alexander says dancing the way someone else might say bamboo spikes under fingernails. Like it was torture. 

“And you have to dance?” Alexander nods, like a man on his way to the gallows. “So what’s the issue here? Do you not have someone you want to dance with?” Is it cruel to hope that Alec doesn’t have a date he wants to dance with? “Or is it that you don’t know how to dance?”

Alec’s little smile tugs up further on one side of his mouth than the other. Gods, he was a sight. “Both, honestly.”

Both. Which means that Magnus had not one, but two chances to whirl his way into Alexander’s life outside of this little table and the shop around it. This was a chance to see Alexander out in the world, to be a part of his life and not just set dressing. 

“I could teach you.” That absolutely came out too quickly. But this was a blue moon of an opportunity. It would only come around once. So Magnus had to take advantage while he still could. “I used to teach dance. I lived in Spain for a year or two.” Magnus had lived all over in his time. It would honestly be faster just to tell him the places that he hadn’t lived, rather than go through his spiel of all the places he’s called home over the years. 

“Salsa. Flamenco. Even a little ballroom dancing and waltz, which I’d imagine is what your sister is going to want for her party.”

Alec was watching him with wonder on his pretty face. Magnus has to resist the urge to preen. That wouldn’t go well with the whole humble teacher act he was going for here. “How much do you charge by the hour?”

Now that would be a lovely innuendo and segue if this was Magnus looking to climb Alexander like the lovely willow tree he was. But Magnus had to admit to himself, and only to himself, that his feelings were involved in this mess. He didn’t (just) want to give Alec the night of his life. He wanted to stick around for breakfast in the morning too. 

“No charge.” Magnus waves away the protest he can see building on Alec’s lips. He wasn’t the type of man who enjoyed handouts. There was a pride to him, beneath all that rakish charm. “I haven’t taught in ages. I wouldn’t be up to par for being paid anyway. But I can dust the rust off and you can learn enough to cut a rug and make yourself the envy of your sister’s wedding.”

Alec makes a sour face, and Magnus can’t help but laugh. “Fine. I can dust the rust off and you can be a perfectly passable dancer and not draw any undue attention to yourself at your sister’s wedding. How’s that sound?”

Alexander’s shoulders soften and droop down, and the smile he gives Magnus is equal parts relief and something more playful. If Magnus wasn’t already aware how much trouble he was in, then he would have figured it out right at this instant. Because he was in Trouble with a Capital T. “That sounds great, Magnus. Thanks.”

There were people milling outside of the door that the tea shop shared with Bag End Bakery. Two women with big cat’s eyes sunglasses were checking their phones, and their watches, respectively. They were waiting for someone. Which meant in the next few minutes, they’d be coming inside to order, and it would be back to work.

Magnus looks back over at the clock. 8:50. How did time manage to fly by so fast when he was talking to Alec? It was like magic. 

But all good things must come to an end. “How about you can come by here after close. We can move the tables out of the way, and we have a nice wood floor to practice on.” Magnus plucks the napkin out from under Alec’s cup, pulling the pen from behind his ear so he could start to scribble down his phone number.

“For now, wear something comfortable tonight. Something you can move in. Basketball shorts and a t-shirt or a tanktop are what I usually practice in. And wear the most comfortable pair of tennis shoes that you have. We’ll lay the ground work before we get you practicing in the shoes you’ll be wearing at the wedding.”

Magnus writes his name beneath the number with a flourish, and in a moment of pique, he draws a heart on a balloon string next to his name. He even draws the little square in the corner of the heart balloon, like it’s catching the glint of the summer sun on it’s plastic surface. If his intentions weren’t clear before, this would make them neon bright. Hopefully. 

“Here.” He slides the paper napkin back over to Alec, looking over his shoulder as the women spill into the shop, chattering among themselves like a gaggle of sparrows sitting on a wire. They would be ordering from Bilbo and then they would make their way over to his side of the shop. Time was up. 

“Tonight. 8pm. I’ll be here.” 

Feeling especially bold, Magnus reaches over once he stands and pats Alec’s hand. His skin was warm, and soft. Lovely. Every bit of that man was lovely, and Magnus was in so very deep over his head. 

“You be here too.” That’s a playful little waggle of his finger in front of Alec’s nose before Magnus darts back behind the counter, calling out to the women that had broken away from their group at the pastry case to head his way. 

#ch: magnus #polyfacetious | alec #v: expats row #queued #carlota's christmas drabbles

[safflowerseason]

veep rewatch 3.01

Some New Beginnings

aka - The One With the Book Tour 

Richard! I love Richard. I love what he brought to the Veep ensemble and I love that the dumbest, purest person in the ensemble ended up as the sidekick to the other dumbest and most vile person in the ensemble. I didn’t mind that he suddenly had a doctorate in American constitutional law or whatever (it’s not like being an academic means you are a functional adult with practical life skills), and even though his rise to the presidency in S7 is patently stupid, I just love his bumbling, relentlessly positive, and super literal approach to life. Sam Richardson is great. 

“I call it Some New Beginnings because it’s plural!”

Now begins the reign of Kathleen Felix Hager, who immediately injects more life into Selina and Amy’s business wardrobes. We won’t really see the change until the next few episodes—Selina always wears a red dress in the premiere, and Amy’s at a wedding where she can’t wear a monochrome skirt-suit or a shirt-dress—but still, it’s very exciting!! And KFH does manage a slight departure with Amy’s formalwear, which has previously tended to dark colors and conservative necklines. This turquoise dress is the brightest and lightest color we’ve seen on Amy so far, and she looks stunning.

As discussed previously, I appreciate that the costume team did not feel the need to vacuum-pack a clearly post-baby Anna Chlumsky into some Spanx underneath her dress, or choose a looser dress for her to wear. The dress is very well-tailored and they’re not trying to hide anything—every newfound curve is on display. Meanwhile, Dan looks very good in his totally-not-intentional matching suit and not at all like Amy’s boyfriend. It’s not like he’s standing next to her in pictures and sharing the cost of a wedding present and making jokes about the fact that they’re basically married. What a ridiculous notion. 

Mike: See what everyone's gifting us? Some New Beginnings, Our Next American Journey. Dan: Really well written…by me. (He’s offscreen for this line, but I love this little aside…one day I’m going to write a one-shot where Dan writes Selina’s book. Ugh, Writer!Dan...so hot.)

Amy: Selina’s never been away without us this long before.  Dan: I guess this is what it’s gonna to be like when our kids go to college too, huh, sweetie?  Amy: Yeah, dream the fuck on, Dan.  Dan: You know I'm only being nice to you because I know that Selina's gonna make me the campaign manager. Dan’s version of being nice to Amy is teasing her about their future children. I cannot. This whole exchange is just too much for my heart now. (Also, what a ballsy thing to say while Amy is ostensibly dating another man. Dan must be feeling very confident in his relationship with Amy at this moment.) 

His unhinged impatience with Hughes not announcing is some neat foreshadowing that he’s going to be a terrible campaign manager. 

I enjoy Mike and Wendy’s relationship…Kathy Najimy is lovely and funny, and she and Matt Walsh have a fun chemistry. She has a kind of smooth composure to her manner that’s a good contrast with the more frenetic energy of Selina’s staff. 

I like to think part of the reason Dan snarks at Amy for not having a second phone is that he really just wants to be scheming with her at all times. 

Selina: So, these rumors, right? I'm getting Maddox. What are you getting?  Richard: I…I’m not getting a huge amount, if I'm being honest. Selina: Hey, Richard, no offense— Richard: None taken. Selina:—you’re a catastrophe.

In general, Iannucci Veep is better at marking time than Mandel Veep, but seriously…when is this wedding happening? We know it’s been two months since the S2 finale, in which both Selina and Amy appeared to be wearing clothes appropriate for mid-late D.C. spring (long sleeved dresses on both of them). So if it’s two months later, does that mean we’re in May-June? The end of June can be hot in D.C., but everyone is walking around outside dressed like it’s a pleasant spring day. Furthermore, the timeline is complicated by Episode 2, when it seems like we’re suddenly in early autumn…but also, Mike is on his honeymoon and Jonah has clearly just been fired! So WHEN is this wedding?! (Some of this confusion is obviously influenced by the uncontrollable dimensions of filming on location, such as weather…) 

Love how Ben goes straight to the minibar in Selina’s suite. 

Ben: So where’s the team?  Selina: They’re all at Mike’s wedding…I kind of miss ‘em. *phone rings* Oh, it’s just Gary, press ignore. 

Dan and Jonah’s scene in the bathroom made me actually kind of miss their DC bro antagonistic energy. I can’t believe they shared no scenes together in S7!

First mention of Bill Ericsson…considering how many political flubs/bone-headed campaign decisions Bill actually makes in the series, he doesn’t exactly live up the all-knowing ice-god of strategy reputation they give him in the beginning. (My blog is basically an anti-Bill Ericsson blog now, sorry.)

Dan: You keep a second phone there? Hypocritical…and horny.  Love Reid Scott’s eyebrow arch on this line. 

Jonah: “Team Veep goes into meltdown as Sec Def Maddox news breaks”….And upload the money shot. Sue: I hate how he learned English from pornography. 

Richard: Ma’am, if you need any help with your campaign, I'm real good in a high-pressure situation. Selina: Really? In what sense “good”? Richard: Well, I was all over that book line thing.

It is intriguing how…active Dan is in this episode compared to Amy, or to be more specific, how his actions are highlighted by the script in a way that hers are not. He manipulates Jonah to get the ball rolling on the President’s announcement, runs back to the White House to witness/further exacerbate the fallout from that, actually asks Selina to make him the campaign manager, and in general is just furiously scheming all over the place. And it’s all explicitly tied to his desire to be the campaign-manager. Meanwhile, Amy is Hendrix-texting and presumably dealing with the Maddox news in some way, but we don’t really see her doing it. This will be a trend to follow in the first half of the season…some interesting gender dimensions to trace, for sure. 

Kent: Don’t go interrupting any major sporting events! Unless it’s golf. 

Jonah: I’ll be back! I’m gonna be back as the fucking President. Jonah Ryan, 2026!  Staffer: That’s a midterms year, Jonah.  Jonah: Well then I’ll change it!

I tend to think that Jonah’s career as a politician was a Mandel-era idea, but I do wonder with this line what Iannucci’s team of writers had planned for the character, if they also saw Jonah as an actual campaigning politician rather than just representative of the scuzzy underlings who populate D.C.

If it’s day six of the book tour, it makes you wonder how long Selina has been separated from her team. In light of Amy’s comment, it’s interesting to think about the logistical ramifications of it…six days feel like a stretch for Selina to be without her full staff, especially Gary and Amy. Not to mention Dan would want to gloat on the road about the success of “his” book. Were they just all on the book tour with Selina and then flew back to DC for a quick weekend wedding break? That would explain why they all appear to arrive together, at the very least. 

“The seven foot mouth” is maybe my favorite Jonah insult of all time. 

Amy’s drunk dancing is so cute! (In contrast, it is literally impossible for me to imagine Dan drunk dancing.) 

#veep rewatch #3.01 #veep season three #some new beginnings #the seven foot mouth #dan x amy #selina meyer #dan egan #amy brookheimer

[violetsystems]

#personal

My connection is super trashy this morning much like the cards I’ve been dealt in life these days.  It seems like my actual turn in whatever game is in play gets ignored more blatantly.  I found an old USB on the shelf cleaning a couple of days ago.  On it was a copy of Rise of Skywalker, Ninku, and Blade Runner.  I’ve watched Blade Runner a thousand times and never picked up on the chess game.  Bishop to King Seven.  A famous move I made the link to in a post here only countered by forking in tandem with the opposing knight.  The Immortal Game.  Sometimes if you really believed you were living in a simulation there’s magic moments such as that.  To me it’s really just the poetry of my life I live with nobody else gets but me.  I write about it sure.  I listen to Steely Dan all day too.  Nobody wants to hear from men right now I get it.  Especially Jerry Saltz and the neoliberal elite.  But that’s where I came from.  And judging from the dead responses on LinkedIn when it comes to networking, people would rather forget I even existed.  I feel like sometimes I get the hint and most of the last three months has been hobbling away from that.  My generation was the first generation after the boomers to be forgotten about.  We were in constant rebellion at the sheer audacity of how we were supposed to live.  Subsequently we were never really designed to rise up from under that thumb unless we were part of the family.  And the one thing I’ve learned from the tax hell I look at every day in my financial planning is that families definitely have more opportunities to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.  I’m an only child.  Never been married.  Never had children.  Mentored enough people to know I’d be a good father.  But overlooked, ridiculed and shunned enough to feel like I’m worthless.  Ironically for the first time in my life, I’m worth something on paper to a bank and a credit union.  Possibly to the companies I still hold equity in.  But for me it’s a very unique situation to be in.  Painted in a fucking corner with nobody to tell you what to do other than your better judgement.  I don’t wonder if my plan for the next year is right for the long run.  The long run has been just that.  Twenty years of my life just vanishing in a blink.  People eerily waiting for you get the hint.  Appalled at the audacity, like Terrell when Roy Batty confronts his maker.  Why can’t I live?  Everything out of Terrell’s mouth is an excuse.  Replicants were made to serve not made to last.  Every last inch of life has been accounted for and speculated against.  Terrell and the makers coo that you should feel great joy you have a purpose in their eyes.  And yet I’ve seen things you humans wouldn’t believe. I’ve seen everything in my old office disappear into the trash without any real confirmation.  I’ve seen friends I helped through thick and thin respond cold, callous and on some sort of script fearing legal action.  I’ve seen barely anyone but my neighbors between grocery drop offs.  And most likely they’re just nosy. 

Everyone makes sure they are in proximity of me when I crack and open up to the world.  This is still people’s assumption.  That I’m looking for new friends after all of this.  That my vulnerability can be further speculated on.  That I can still be trapped.  After sitting here with no closure listening to people’s problems but having my own go completely unnoticed.  Much like the replicants in Blade Runner, I have no prime directive other than to walk around and look cool in military upcycled gear.  I check my LinkedIn notifications to look for jobs.  There are some bright spots.  Mostly in China.  Everything else is a team of salesmen and recruiters looking for desperate contractors to overhaul IT departments they bought after laying off entire staff.  It’s the equivalent of getting back into the market like a scab.  All the salaries are the same for these kinds of jobs.  And it would be a lateral move with no pay increase.  These are for profit jobs.  I spent twenty years in a non profit with barely a cost of living raise.  That was the salary I achieved.  Nielsen Gallup polls and artistic corporate analysis has stolen everything from me, including my non profit salary and made it the new normal.  I was barely able to escape any sort of lifestyle creep including debt.  I chewed my way out of it alone.  Made to feel undesirable and worthless.  Received a few lump sums after the reduction of force.  And the markets are beating the war drum out there like the best thing to do is to put it all back in the hands of corporations that won’t look me in the eye to hire me.  All the while, people pretend that I’m not real enough to talk to.  I’m a ghost that conflicts the lies people hope no one uncovers.  An inconvenient truth to even myself.  And this is where the politics stop for me.  I have to live like everyone else.  America is on a collision course with everything these days.  Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a shining light of hope for getting out of the clutches of disturbing Christian White men who treat money like a whip.  Mitch McConnell is already dancing on her grave at this point.  These people have no shame.  Trying to push a supreme court candidate before the elections to further their political agenda.  An agenda that has nothing to do with respect for freedom unless it benefits their interests and way of life.  The American dream in this respect is and has always been a total lie.  To be betrayed by it and left for dead is something I have already learned from.  And my grand chess move is the same as it was a few weeks ago.  In the meantime I sold all my blizzard stock to buy IBM while they partner with London fashion week.  Even if the speculative value of my portfolio is trash, that trade confirmation went through loud and clear.  We all have different values in America for sure.  But the people who bought and lobbied their way into offices have little value to me.  

The way things look for me, I will be sitting out until February at the earliest.  I’ve budgeted myself out with health insurance.  The premiums are fucking outrageous and I had a chance to open enroll two weeks before I was let go.  I could have softened the financial burden if somebody would have just let me know.   If I would have had any lead time I would have made some different decisions.  But after twenty years, I was treated in a way that sent a real message.  One that nobody seems to be able to carry the weight of other than me.  It’s a unique situation.  Capitalists would love to shower praise on it as being the spirit of entrepreneurship.  But we all know that’s some Ayn Rand survival of the fittest bullshit.  There’s two choices.  You either believe the pyramid scheme and give up your money, power, and influence for the greater agenda.  Or you get ostracized.  Generation X in America was always an alienated group.  Maybe we were the first to realize how we were being scammed.  Some of us got dropped out of the nest and cracked.  The Kurt Kobains that succumbed to heroin and suicide.  The ground wasn’t very soft during those times.  A stable job seemed like an accomplishment.  Truthfully there are jobs out there that require over ten years of experience.  It’s a nice option to have.  A resume that actually looks like you’ve done something even if nobody wants to acknowledge you even existed.  But when I look around for answers in this city I find very little.  I have a safe place to stay for awhile without having to do much.  I got approved for a license for Ableton Live.  It’s the first time I’ve owned it.  I spent last night replacing the SSD in my laptop with a terabyte drive with faster read and write speeds.  With the ram upgrade I can do video and audio on the fly without blinking.  I write in my sleep and I communicate organically throughout all of this.  I’ve had to own my struggles and pain time and time again only to be buried.  And at this point, my friends down here realize my side of the story more than most.  And I’m sure it feels hurtful and hopeless to know what I’ve been through doesn’t mean all that much because I’m a Steely Dan fan.  The truth is people will grasp at straws to throw stones in a glass house.  Capitalism is a self destructive behavior.  There’s not enough to go around to feed the hungry shareholders, the investors, the financiers, the lawyers, the useless aspects of society speculate on paper currency and not human spirit.  We end up confronting it sooner or later.  And the answer we get is simple.  Bishop to King Seven is checkmate.  You have no more moves.  And I’m done hearing the excuses.  I have won the game.  I am simply waiting for your concession.  If I have to wait all winter, please know that I’ve burnt enough bridges to stay warm.  Hate to throw cold water on the plans to keep me obsolete.  My incept date passed a long time ago.  And while most of my past is lost in the rain, I am at least still human enough to cry.  Make no mistake I shed no tears for winning. <3 Tim

[dickwheelie]

@ciguierre​ suggested on the Discord server that I write a ficlet about Aziraphale trying coffee, which turned into a discussion about the boys going to Starbucks, which turned into this. Thank you for the inspo Cig!

Disclaimer: I love Starbucks, and I went there basically every day while I was in college, but because of that I also know that Starbucks absolutely belongs to Hell.

____________

Contrary to popular belief, Starbucks was not a human invention. (Nor were any two-tailed mermaids involved.) While the original locally-run coffee shop founded in the charming and often damp American city of Seattle, Washington in the early seventies was a quite human family business, the Starbucks Company that grew from such humble (read: marketable) beginnings was a result of the demonic forces of Down Below, as one would say in polite company.

Specifically, it was a result of the demonic forces of Crowley.

Crowley had always liked coffee, ever since the strange effects of the coffee bean had first been discovered by a young Ethiopian woman during a primitive version of a game of truth or dare. While he wasn’t necessarily after the effects of the drink, he did enjoy the taste, and although he preferred tea he wouldn’t say no to a nice, hot, strong brew of black coffee.

Crowley hadn’t turned Starbucks into an international brand because he liked coffee, however. He’d done it because he’d envisioned, prophetically, as it turned out: the long lines, impatient customers, frazzled employees, too-expensive drinks, confusing cup sizes, terrible brewing methods, tasteless pastries, and above all, below-average coffee that would soon cloud the early-morning skies with evil all over the globe. Crowley had only ever had one drink at a Starbucks in his lifetime, to test the results of his meddling in action. He’d ordered an Americano with almond milk and a shot of espresso, and it had been as horrible as he’d hoped it would be.

(The Frappuccinos were not one of his. Only humans could come up with something so ridiculous and yet so popular.)

Despite all of this, Crowley was currently standing in a Starbucks. He was very upset to discover this, because even though he’d deliberately made the trip there, parked the Bentley out front, walked into the store, and had been standing in line for about five minutes now, he still couldn’t quite believe he had been talked into this.

He shot a glare at Aziraphale, who was staring up at the corporate-mandated seasonal fall menu in blissful ignorance. Aziraphale, out of all the beings in the Universe, was probably the only one who could have talked Crowley into this, and even then he had only just barely managed it. He’d promised to pick one (1) item, place his order quickly, and get them out of that place as soon as possible.

Aziraphale was not sticking to that promise.

“I’ll have the Pumpkin Spice Latte,” he was saying to the barista, who looked as though he would have rather been feeding his own limbs to an alligator than taking orders at a Starbucks. “No--no, wait, the White Chocolate Mocha Frappuccino. Or, no, the Dragonfruit Refresher. What is a Refresher? Is it like lemonade?”

“Angel . . .” Crowley muttered into his ear.

“Right, right, sorry.” Aziraphale smiled his most angelic smile at the barista, who, despite the fact that Aziraphale was objectively the worst customer to have in line on a busy day, actually managed to smile back. (He didn’t understand why, of course, but since it was the first time he’d had a reason to smile since his shift had started at 8 AM, he wasn’t going to question it.) “I will have the Pumpkin Spice Latte.”

Wonderful, Crowley thought. Something simple, quick to make, and then they could flee.

“. . . And the Dragonfruit lemonade. And the White Chocolate thingy I said earlier, that sounded delightful.”

Crowley massaged his temples. He loved Aziraphale with all of his heart, but sweet Someone, that angel was going to kill him one of these days.

“Oh, and one of those delicious-looking almond scones as well, there’s a dear.”

Crowley was going to drive home without him. He was. His feet weren’t moving, but he was absolutely going to do it, just you wait.

“What sizes would you like for your drinks, sir?” said the barista. Crowley fought the urge to curse him right then and there; it wasn’t his fault the sizes were confusing. In fact, it occurred to him, it was technically Crowley’s fault, but he quickly shoved the thought aside.

“Ah, medium, I think,” said Aziraphale. “All things in moderation, yes?” This was a phrase Crowley had never heard Aziraphale use or implement in his everyday life, and he suspected he was quoting something Gabriel had said at a meeting once.

The barista pointed up at the menu board. “We have tall, grande, venti, and trenta.”

“Ah. I . . . see,” said Aziraphale, visibly confused. “Which one is medium, then?”

“I guess grande would be medium, sir.”

Aziraphale’s eyebrows knitted together. “But grande means large in Italian, yes? And venti is twenty. Twenty what?”

Crowley had mostly tuned out of the conversation, but something had caught his attention, and his mind was slowly catching back up. “Wait. Trenta? What on Earth is trenta?”

The barista looked at him in surprise; he hadn’t said a word since he’d come grumpily slinking into the store behind Aziraphale. “It’s our largest size, sir. Thirty-one ounces.”

Crowley had never wanted so badly to take Christ’s name in vain before. He felt certain he hadn’t come up with that one. Once again, the humans had one-upped him in terms of acts of pure evil.

“I’ll just take them in grande,” Aziraphale said hastily, sensing that Crowley’s patience was wearing thinner by the second.

“Name?”

“Aziraphale.”

The barista Looked at him. It was the kind of Look that really earned the capital L. He scribbled something on each of the cups. Aziraphale paid without another word.

As they waited at a too-small and slightly dirty table for Aziraphale’s order to be called, Crowley asked, “Why’d you want to come here, anyway?”

“Newt told me about it,” said Aziraphale excitedly. “I was telling him about how I so enjoyed the coffee you made for me, and he said I should come here. He goes all the time, apparently, although Anathema won’t set foot in the place.”

“Smart woman.”

“He recommended the pumpkin spice thing to me, and told me with my sweet tooth, I’d be sure to love anything on the menu.”

“Huh.” That was probably true, at any rate. “You do realize this is one of mine, right?”

Aziraphale looked up at him, eyes wide with alarm. “Is it?”

Behind his sunglasses, Crowley’s own eyes widened. “Angel, I thought you knew. I mean, it should be alright now, Heaven isn’t exactly breathing down your neck anymore, and--”

Aziraphale was giggling. Crowley’s mouth snapped shut.

“You’re having me on.”

“Oh, my dear. I’m sorry, I didn’t think you’d be so upset. Of course I knew, it’s my job to keep track of your wily schemes, so I can thwart them.”

“You’re doing an excellent job of thwarting them now,” Crowley deadpanned. “You only bought twenty pounds’ worth of merchandise.”

“Well, it’s like you said,” Aziraphale said wryly, in that slightly devilish way that Crowley adored, “Heaven isn’t exactly breathing down my neck anymore.”

They were interrupted by a shout from the counter. “A falafel?” a second barista called out confusedly.

Aziraphale sighed and rose from the table. “I suppose that must be me.” He returned a moment later with a tray of three drinks and the bagged scone.

One by one, Aziraphale tried each item, and to Crowley’s disappointment (but not necessarily his surprise), he seemed to love every single one.

“The scone isn’t terribly good,” said Aziraphale through a mouthful of scone, which he was almost finished with, “but the rest of it is just delightful. I don’t think I’ve ever had lemonade with dragonfruit in it, but it’s a lovely combination.”

“Isn’t lemonade,” said Crowley, “but I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.” He meant it; if his angel was happy, he was happy. He just hoped that, if this was going to become a thing, Aziraphale would be willing to get Starbucks to go from now on. Or just miracle up a passable imitation at home.

They sat there for an hour while Aziraphale worked through his three drinks. Now that they weren’t waiting in line or dealing with confusing menu items, Crowley had to admit it wasn’t so bad to just sit in a Starbucks and chat with one’s companion. (Granted, that companion was Aziraphale, whom he’d be happy to sit and chat with inside of an active volcano, but the sentiment still applied.)

Aziraphale, for his part, was practically glowing with joy, and every frustrated writer and college student in that building felt a bit of weight lift off their shoulders.

Despite Crowley’s protests (“This is a Starbucks, Angel, not the Ritz,”), Aziraphale insisted on going back up to the counter when he was done and thanking each barista individually, by name, even if they’d forgotten their nametags. Though he’d tipped generously when he’d paid, Aziraphale dropped another twenty-pound note into the tip jar before he left. By the time Crowley managed to pull him away, the baristas were all smiling at him and waving goodbye. “Come again soon!” said the barista at the register, and found with surprise that he actually meant it.

“Leave it to you,” said Crowley as they climbed into the Bentley, “to leave a place of demonic influence looking like that.”

“Just doing my job,” Aziraphale said with a pleased little smile that made him look like an absolute bastard.

“Thwarting all my wiles.”

“Left and right, my dear.”

“. . . Aziraphale.”

“Yes?”

“What are you eating.”

“I . . . hadn’t quite finished the scone, darling.”

“ . . . Just . . . please don’t get any crumbs in the Bentley.”

“I won’t, dear.”

Crowley sighed, and floored it.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #ciguierre #listen I don't know anything about coffee but starbucks isn't coffee so it's ok #gwyneth writes

[whetstonefires]

You know back when Sleepy Hollow was big and I tried to get into it and failed, I had two main reasons for giving up after a few episodes, one of which I considered valid and one of which I considered dumb.

1) was that the way the power balance between Crane and Mills was written fucked me up because the normal expectation for this Rip Van Winkle supernatural monster procedural scenario is, she knows the world he’s trying to live in and he knows spooky stuff, and they take turns being the competent one, in their sphere.

But the show skated right past the fish-out-of-water flailing in favor of occasional jokes that were only sort of at Crane’s expense, and had multiple scenes in a row of him ridiculing her for not already knowing the things he did and agreeing with his opinions, and treated this as valid because she was the Clueless Normie.

Maybe they tipped it back later? I didn’t wait to find out.

but 2) I thought was just me being precious and persnickety about realism, and I’m now realizing it really wasn’t. Issue Two was the whole...Hessian...thing.

Like, I thought it was dumb that they were trying to spin The Hessians from the Revolutionary War into an apocalyptic cult of that name, by reason of they were literally People From Hesse With Soldier Jobs, they were the cannon fodder, they were being rented out by their government asdaflkjfdasdf that’s the opposite of masterminding anything okay. That was funny-dumb, though.

What upset me was the combination of ‘they’ve been here all along, since the 18th century, waiting,’ with this secret conspiracy after 200+ years of living in New York still having a distinctly German character. They had accents! After generations! The one chief conspiracy guy, who was like an evil demon they beheaded or something, was specifically presented as an immigrant piano teacher with a fluting accent and gentle body language.

(He had an excuse for having an accent because unlike the others he was an immortal undead being, but it was a modern German accent, and there was no inherent story need for the complicated German immigrant piano instructor cover story, because it was abandoned like fifteen minutes after we were introduced to it; it was purely for Infiltrating Foreign Spies flavor.)

And like, I thought I was being stupid, because you’re not allowed to object to what amounts to racist caricatures of Germans, right, because WWII. Pseudo-racist caricatures of Germans is an American cultural staple.

Except my problem wasn’t caricaturing Germans as such, though I’m not always happy about how that’s deployed; it was the fact that this completely nonsensical framing of how the fictional conspiracy was set up worked to normalize the idea that immigrants who fail to acculturate completely to Anglo-American norms remain a foreign, potentially hostile presence within the body politic. It’s Fifth Column logic.

Expecting us to accept that this scenario made any sense at all required expecting us to assume that that was a fundamentally coherent principle. That immigrants are a correct focus of suspicion if they hold themselves apart from the dominant culture they’re surrounded by, openly or in secret, and are probably scheming against it in some way. And this, in turn, further legitimized that idea by promulgating it.

Basically the way the Hessian thing was framed in those first episodes was not only structurally identical to the kind of conspiracy theories traditionally aimed at Jewish minorities, it closely resembled a lot of the prejudice recently experienced by non-white Muslims, and had a lot of overlap with the basis for persecution experienced by Asian and Hispanic immigrants to America, and their American descendants.

And making them Germans didn’t actually make that not messed up. It just made it not specifically racist against anyone in particular.

That was why I was so uncomfortable, and everyone who taught me to second-guess and disparage my own misgivings about things like this because ‘it’s just fiction’ and ‘stop being so picky about realism’ can go eat popsicles.

I can accept all kinds of counterfactuals if they don’t involve positing harmful basic schemas of how people work.

And this kind of anti-immigrant sentiment being baked into a Secret History themed show tied up with the Revolutionary War? Yeah, that was a valid thing to mind.

#independence day #anti-immigrant vibes #television #apparently my theme this week is Media I Consumed Years Ago #prejudice #subtext #American Revolution #Hesse #politics #i throw salt #racism #hoc est meum #wwii mention #america #anti-semitism #assimilation #immigration

[cctinsleybaxter]

Movies not moves sorry. Like films.

Ah! Well I’m into too many movies, but here are a few recommendations

The Bay (2012) is a found footage horror movie by the director of Rain Man that I’ve seen too many times (read: more than once.) It is trash but it is my trash; flesh eating isopods terrorizing a town in Maryland, a mix of terrible and transcendent acting, and weirdly scathing political commentary

Room 237 (2012) interviews four conspiracy theorists about The Shining (1980) at length. It’s a mix of actually useful film analysis and a proclamation that Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landing, and I love it not because I’m interested in the movie or any of these idiots, but because of the puzzles we’ll make out of anything

Modern Times (1936) is a slapstick comedy about a man and a woman just trying to make it through the end of the decade. It was the second Charlie Chaplin movie I ever saw growing up and still my favorite; I think it’s the most touchingly funny of his work

Submarine (2010) has what every bittersweet coming-of-age movie with nervous quirky boy protagonist wishes it had (Wes Anderson take notes and then fail to perform I hate you.) In all seriousness it’s a dramady with a simple plot that’s beautifully paced and filmed, just dive in

Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb (1964) is the only good Kubrick movie, and I’m not just saying that because I have a penchant for war satires. Okay well maybe a little, but the filming and dialogue is some of the best stuff we’ve got- made better by introspection of a wild ass time in U.S history (we all almost died!), and by Peter Sellers

El Laberinto del Fauno/Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)- a fairytale about a girl who goes to live with her mother and new stepfather at a vast country estate and, finding out that she’s a lost princess, sets about completing three tasks. This set in the regimental aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, so for every fantastic thing there’s an act of unspeakable sociopolitical or familial violence 

Panique au Village/A Town Called Panic (2009) is a very, very silly French stop motion animation picture about the misadventures of a plastic cowboy, indian, and horse and it makes me laugh every single time I watch it. Steven.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) is an adventure comedy about a kid and his foster father, escaping threats ranging from ninjas to grief in the New Zealand wilderness. It’s one of those movies that turns on a dime so quickly that by the end you’re not really sure what you were laughing at and what you were crying at, and that’s just fine

Monsters Vs Aliens (2009) is- do I even need to talk about this movie more than I have? It’s ridiculous, it’s stupid, the animation has aged poorly, it’s an American masterpiece, and I don’t think your parents liked me, and I think that jello gave me a fake phone number

Город Зеро/City Zero (1988) tells the loosely plotted story of an engineer called in to a very strange town that he can’t seem to leave. It’s probably the least accessible or even enjoyable of these movies but it is very much my cheese. We Live In A Society Soviet Republics

Mystery Train (1989) is a triptych of three very different stories, all set over the course of one night in Memphis, connected at their ends. We’ve got tourists, criminals, a ghost, and the two best hotel workers in any movie ever. I like anthology movies but think they’re difficult to pull off; this one goes above and beyond

Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) is a masterpiece. The characters, the story, everything comes together to make something traditional and new and fun and intense and hilarious and heartbreaking. Also I know there’s no one way for animation to be, but. Fellas

Love and Saucers (2017) shares the story of David Huggins. You may have seen his paintings floating around as ‘wtf’ clickbait, as he claims to have lost his virginity to an alien at 17 and fathered hundreds of alien children, but the artist is a very sweet and complicated man just trying to get by in the world. I highly recommend listening to him even if, like me and most others, you don’t believe him 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) appeals to a very weird form of nostalgia. The 70s update is better, but Cold War Edition is close to my heart as it was the first movie to ever frighten me. Melodramatic 50s acting mixed with everything moving so slowly is match made in heaven

The Death of Stalin (2017) is what it says on the tin; a movie about the questionable actions of Stalin’s Council of Ministers during and after his sudden death, and the dreadful repercussions of all of it. Oh, but it’s a comedy, we swear

Deathwatch (2002) is a direct-to-dvd horror movie set in the soggy monochrome trenches of WWI, where everything is either boring as hell or so over-the-top it’s ridiculous. I’m floored by how genuinely emotional most of the performances in this are, and I love horror movies where the setting is the villain rather than a boogie monster

Metropolis (1927) is a German expressionist film about a fucking dumbass!!!! The story is very standard (Aryan Christ Figure Hero meets The Girl One and they save humanity with their purity), but there’s also scheming with butlers, mommy-issues robot, the danse macabre, and too much eye makeup

The World’s End (2014) is a movie about self harm, facing change, growing up, and the power of friendship. It is set during a pub crawl, and is really just five men and Rosamund Pike screaming about lintels and saying fuck

#films #this ran long sorry i was going to keep adding more and had to stop asdfgh #i think 'movies bad' so often i forgot i actually like them #and sorry these range from genuinely helpful information to incoherent rambling #almost just summarized tdos with 'men get negged'- which is true and probably would have made an happy but isn't really useful #long post