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evielmostdefinitely · 5 months

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scorned earth |young!coriolanus snow x capitol!reader|

prompt: the last stop on your honeymoon tour of the districts, leaves coriolanus to show you parts of his past, making new memories with you. based off this ask from the other day :)

contains: smut 18+. dark!possessive!coriolanus. mentions of corio's past. dom/sub dynamics. skinny dipping, semi-public sex. pinvsex. mean-ish!coriolanus.

“Where are you taking me?” You looked around at the tall trees, the sun peaking through the branches onto the moss covered ground. Your hand in Coriolanus’, fingers intertwined, letting him lead you through the thicket of trees.

“It’s a surprise, my love. I told you.” Coryo’s eyes were bright, daring with excitement. Turning back to look at you over his shoulder, the sun caught in his baby blues, making your heart skip. “You trust me, don’t you?”

You melted at his words, smiling softly. “Of course, I do.” You whispered, letting him tug you through the forest. “I-I’m just worried about snakes, or bears, or-”

“-I won’t let them hurt you.” Coryo smiled, squeezing your hand. The pistol resting on his hip offered some comfort to you. “That’s why I’m going first.”

You’d blame it on the warmth of the day, hot but breezy, as the reason you were so flustered at his words. The heat in your cheeks, tingling up your spine. District Twelve was the last stop on your tour, the last stop on your honeymoon. Coriolanus insisted on showing you around, to some of his favorite spots from his Peacekeeper days. After putting the town on a strict lockdown- you weren’t sure why he did it, but you didn't dare question it- he dragged you out here.

“This is…” You looked at the water, sparkling from sunlight, and the greenery all around it.

“Breathtaking isn’t it?” Coriolanus’ arms found your waist, chin tucking over your shoulder. The breeze fell between the two of you, fresh air, not smoggy or stuffy like the polluted city air of the Capitol.

“It is.” You nodded, hand sliding over his biceps, leaning back into his touch. “How’d you ever find this?”

Coriolanus paused for a moment, heart skipping a beat at the thought of her. He wouldn’t tell you about her, not now, at least, it was your honeymoon. “We used to come out here on our days off.” He said instead. It wasn’t a complete lie, he supposed.

“Stay in that cabin, sometimes, when it would rain.” Coriolanus pointed to the cabin, a little more worn than he remembered, a lot colder looking too.

You turned, smiling at the sight. “That’s… This is very nice.” You grinned, head tilting back to meet his gaze. You looked pretty like this, Coryo decided, under the bright District Twelve summer sun.

“Would you like to go swimming?” Coryo smiled, hand brushing over your hip, squeezing it gently.

“Swimming?” You giggled. “In what, Coryo? I didn’t pack any swimwear.”

“Do you think they have swimwear here?” Coriolanus scoffed lightly, shaking his head at you. “Just go in your undergarments.”

“Coryo.” You blushed, looking around like there might be others to overhear. It was so improper, you were surprised he even suggested it.

“Or just go without anything on.” Coryo rasped, his crotch grinding lightly into the fat of your ass. Your body jolted with electric heat, grabbing at his arms. “No one’s out here, darling. I won’t mind.” His breath was hot on the shell of your ear, leaving you shivering at the thought.

Your hands trembled lightly with excitement, pushing down the straps of your dress, gaze on Coriolanus. He grinned proudly as you stripped, your eyes on him so obediently- just as he trained you to be. You were bare, arms covering your most private parts, standing in front of him on the small dock.

Coriolanus followed, slinging off his slacks, his shirt, grinning at you with that familiar, wild look in his eyes. It made your heart flutter, his gaze animalistic, roaming all over your body.

“I’m going to throw you in.” Coriolanus growled playfully, though his eyes were primal.

“Don’t you dare, Coryo.” You pointed at him, walking back on the creaking dock. “Coriolanus Snow, I swear-”

Coryo lunged at you, laughing at how you shrilled, your scream bouncing off the trees, the mockingjays echoing it through the breeze. Your bare feet padding against the wood, ass jiggling with your run, taunting him. You skidded to a stop at the edge, whipping around to look over your shoulder. Coriolanus pacing towards you, arms reaching out for you, eyes narrowed with a primal sense that had you reaching your arms out in instinct.

“Coryo, no!” Your squealing pleas were cut short, his hands on your waist, slinging both your naked bodies into the lake water.

Cool water plunged around you, hands clawing at Coriolanus even under the murky water. You surfaced, a large gasp of a breath, hands hitting the rippling waters with a panicked fury. You could swim, sure, but not very well, especially not when you were thrown in unexpectedly.

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you.” Coriolanus hummed, hands pulling you into his wet chest, bobbling with you through the water. You crawled up his back, legs wrapping around his waist, hugging him tightly to you.

He could feel your heart beating on the back of his chest, your pebbled nipples from the cold water pressing to his back, making his cock lurch with lust.

“Don’t you dare let go of me.” You hissed, nails digging into his shoulder. “There’s no telling what’s in this water. I can’t even see the bottom.”

“Oh,” Coryo taunted, chin hooking over his shoulder to grin at you. “Might be a monster, hm? Might come up and bite you.” His fingers pinched the fat of your ass, you squealed in his ear, feet pushing up on his hips, dunking him slightly.

He sputtered, water, feet kicking steadily under the water to keep you both afloat, wiping the droplets out of his eyes. Your pouting face greeted him once his vision cleared, brows creased in a deep furrow. “That wasn’t funny.” You grumbled.

“Oh, don’t be pouty with me, darling. I was only teasing.” Coriolanus’ hands found your waist, pulling you around his body so you rested on his hips, legs still tight around him in a vice. “You know I wouldn’t let anything hurt you, petal.” He muttered, cupping your jaw gently.

It was a rare pet name, but by far your most beloved, which is why Coriolanus used it so sparingly. Only when he was especially in love, when he wanted you to know.

You ducked into his kiss, your own hands on the back of his head, pulling you closer and closer to him. His lips moving on yours, noses brushing, teeth gnashing in a positively sloppy makeout. It felt exhilarating to be doing this in public, showing such crude affection outdoors, even if no one else was around.

Coriolanus’ hand on your hip, squeezing gently, sliding under the water up your back to cup your breasts under the water. You giggled breathy into his kiss, legs tightening under the water. Coriolanus tipped you into the kiss, dunking you under the water accidentally.

You sputtered, coughed at the water invading your nose, glaring back at him. He grinned cheekily, squeezing the fat of your left ass cheek firmly under the water. “Maybe this isn’t the best idea.” He hummed. “Far easier in the bathtub, I’m finding out.”

You blushed, shoving his shoulder playfully. “So what then? On the banks? Like animals?”

Coriolanus’ eyes left your gaze, darkening at what he saw past you. You could see the change in them, that crossed over to something sinister and dark, it made your stomach flip with thrill, anticipation.

“No,” Coryo’s eyes met yours, lips curling in a sinister smile. “I have a better idea.”

“That’s it, that’s perfect, my love.” Coriolanus grunted, head tipping back into the hardwood of the floors.

The floorboards squeaked beneath you, with every rise and fall of your hips. Your hair was still damp, as was his, bodies still soft from the water that hadn’t been wiped away. His hands pawed at your breasts, squeezing them with every roll and rise, riding him in the small cabin.

His mind flooded with memories, memories of before, everytime he looked around. The dark day he didn’t want to remember, a dark time before you. Coriolanus felt guilty, thinking of her while you were on top of him- his wife. So he did what he could to keep his mind from wandering, pawing at your breasts, grabbing at the fat of your ass, but he swore- swore he could hear the mockingjays singing that same song over and over.

“Wait, just a- hold on, darling girl.” Coriolanus grunted, pressing on your hip to stop you.

“What?” You panted, chest rising and falling sharply. “What’s wrong?” You muttered, purely lust drunk, your eyes told him so.

Coryo smiled, cradling your jaw gently, pulling you to him. Your body folded over his, lips on his, kissing him passionately. Coriolanus flipped the two of you, rolling you lightly onto the wooden floor, the floorboards groaning at the shift. His hands cupped under your knees, pressing your thighs forward, letting you hook them over his shoulders while he bottomed out in you, smug at how your eyes rolled back.

“C-Coryo,” You whimpered at the sudden change of pace, his hips snapping and rolling into you sharply, cock spearing that spongy spot that had your eyes rolling back, mouth falling open dumbly.

Coriolanus’ pace didn’t stop, fucking you nearly barbarically, at a punishing pace. You hadn’t expected it, truthfully, he normally saved this type of sex for when you’d been bad, when you needed to get fucked like this. Maybe he needed it. Something about District Twelve had him off, but you didn’t pry.

“Look at me.” Coriolanus growled, hands pushing into your hips, fingertips curling so sharply you knew there would be bruises.

Your eyes fluttered open, glazed with ecstasy from every punctuating jab of his cock into you. “Who do you belong to?”

You were confused, mind dwindling away, thoughts following them. Coriolanus tapped your cheek lightly, hard enough to get your attention, eyes snapping obediently back to him. “Answer me.” Coryo repeated through gritted teeth, his pace not letting up, not once. “Who do you belong to?”

“Y-You.” You shuddered, body rolling with another wave of pleasure, thighs trembling around him.

“Say it again.” Coriolanus spat, reaching forwards, hand cupping your cheeks, squeezing them between his fingers so your lips puckered. “Who do you belong to?”

“You, Coryo, you. You- oh!- it’s only you. Only you.” You babbled, tears leaking out of the corners of your eyes as your orgasm consumed you. He didn’t stop, squeezing tighter around your cheeks.

“You’re all mine. Mine. You belong to me, you got that? Not anyone else.” Coriolanus growled, his thrusts faster now, leaving you no time to recover. You whimpered at the sensation, the sensitivity.

“You’re never leaving me, either. You got that?” Coryo snarled. Your eyes had glazed, looking at the wood ceiling above him, half heartedly pushing at his arm.

Coriolanus’ hand pulled your chin back to him, stilling suddenly, still deep inside of you. “Look at me.” He sneered. Your eyes fluttered to him. “You’re not leaving me, ever.” He held your gaze, his wild eyed one peering back at you.

“Say it.” Coryo demanded. You whimpered, his hips pressing further into you, filling you more- you didn’t even know he still could, you felt so full already. “Say it!’

The sheer possessiveness, his tone, a chilling edge that had you shuddering. “I-I’m not going anywhere.” You whispered, voice caught around the lump in your throat. “I’m not going anywhere, Coryo, staying with you.”

“Forever?” Coryo hated how needy he sounded, but he doubted you noticed, not with the way your lip was trembling, eyes glazed.

“Forever.” You repeated, squeezing his wrist lightly. “Forever with you. Only you.”

Coriolanus dropped himself over you, face buried in the crook of his neck to breathe in your sweat soaked scent, rutting into you like a mutt in heat until he was spilling, presseed deep inside of you, milking his load into you.

The walk back to the train was much slower this time. You clung to Coryo, legs wobbly and unsure, his arms wrapped around your back. It was silent, the chirping of the birds, the breeze floating between the leaves, your only sound.

Coryo left you later that night, tucked into the bed, pressing a kiss to your head. You didn’t pry as to where he was going, and he was grateful for that. You didn’t ask why he smelled of smoke when he came back, why he was just as ravenous as before, which he was even more thankful for.

As Coriolanus left you, meeting with the General over the Peacekeepers, leading them back through the thicket, he thought of her. Her smug grin, her in his mother’s shawl, how she’d just left it- left him. He thought he’d never recover after Lucy Gray. Then he met you. How you treasured every gift, only looked at him, craved him the way he did you.

You wore his mother’s ring with pride, and he knew she’d be pleased with you.

Which is why he had to kill all of his past before you.

Kill the woman who wrecked him, the girl who took his heart and shredded it, made it jagged for your hold.

And as the cabin burned, scorched under the starry night sky, Coriolanus was pleased knowing his last memories of the cabin were with you instead of her.

Knowing that part of him was ash like the wooden cabin was now, soot mixed with the soil of District Twelve.

Coriolanus returned back to you, holding you as close as he could in his arms, skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat. You were his, and he was yours. Now until forever.

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targaryenluvs · 4 months

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— CHARITY

pairing: dark!president!coriolanus snow x fem!wife!reader

summary: president snow was praised for his love and devotion to his wife, a cripple. if only they knew how you’d ended up that way.

warnings: violence, basically torture, unhinged coryo, obsession, forced marriage, short fic

a/n: based on this request, this is actually insane

what an angel he is.

the capitol viewed your dear husband as nothing short of a saint. an amazing president, an even better husband. of course they all knew about you, his dear wife, the one who swept him off his feet.

the start of your marriage was torture enough for you, having been forced into it by your parents. all they could talk about was what a sweet man coriolanus was. how accomplished he was. it didn’t matter what he’d been in the past, he had built himself up again and he was undeniably coveted by many. you should be thanking him for choosing you.

yet you couldn’t help but feel annoyed.

you’d already told him you weren’t interested. you weren’t charmed by the copious amounts of gifts he’d sent your way. the poetry books that you were sure you’d never talked about to anyone else, only written of in your journals and read at home. the pretty dresses and jewellery but the only gift you’d accept of coriolanus’s was his absence from your life.

and he couldn’t handle it so he went over your head and enticed your parents.

you hated him with your whole soul and every bone in your body whilst he worshipped you. “you look gorgeous, fit to be my wife.” you stood in front of him, hand in hand, wedding dress donned and ready to marry.

you wanted to punch him in the face yet you held your breath, and smiled at him as well as the guests, of which you knew only a few. he kept you restricted, as if on lockdown in your own home. he was like a leech, feeding in your happiness and you’d been sucked dry. coriolanus was the worst possible thing that could’ve happened to you and you wouldn’t let him win.

so you ran.

you’d made it about a few steps down the street before his sleek black car pulled up, his driver walking around to you whilst you backed up, all the way against the tall, black bars of your home. prison.

“did you think you’d get far? that i’d let you? you are my wife, my responsibility, you are here for me. i was trying so hard to give you space, to let you adjust and you took advantage of my generosity.” his words were filled with spite, each word piercing your skin.

he was truly insane.

“generosity? generosity? you forced me into a marriage and expect me to kneel down and kiss your feet for this? for me to not fight back? i have never loved you nor will i coriolanus.” you were a cornered animal, only being able to lash out, bad mistake. the sun reflected off of the crowbar in his hand, twirled between his hands as he stepped out of the car, you were shrinking into yourself whilst he grew taller.

a selfish man stealing the oxygen you needed, the freedom, and now, your abilities.

“how many times must i correct you, it’s coryo darling.”

the unspeakable pain broke your heart, your throat raw from the shrieking and screaming. eyes stinging at the touch of a hand, puffy and sore. blood drawn from your lips tasted metallic and odd, yelling seemed to do nothing so you resorted to biting down on anything.

he’d shattered your legs.

you’d never walk again.

you’d have to rely on him.

you were confined to a wheel chair for your life.

he now controlled where you went.

you’d never be able to move on your own.

in your desperation to escape you’d overlooked and underestimated coriolanus’s obsession for you. he knew the second you’d stepped out of the home, either he was waiting for it or was always ready to come home. whether it was a trap or just bad luck, you were stuck.

most of panem viewed your husband to be an absolute angel, he could have remarried, he could have turned you away yet he stuck by your side, ever the supportive partner. how lucky you were! the rest of them saw you as a chore, someone undeserving, unable to provide for your family. he was a nice man.

you were just charity.

#hunger games x reader #coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus snow x fem!reader #dark!coriolanus snow x fem!reader #dark!coriolanus snow x reader #yandere!coriolanus snow #yandere coriolanus snow x reader #hunger games fic

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mostlysignssomeportents · 10 months

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The "religious liberty" angle for overturning the overturning of Dobbs

Frank Wilhoit’s definition of “conservativism” remains a classic:

There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

Conservativism is, in other words, the opposite of the rule of law, which is the idea that the law applies equally to all. Many of America’s most predictably weird moments live in the tension between the rule of law and the conservative’s demand to be protected — but not bound — by the law.

Think of the Republican women of Florida whose full-throated support for the perfomatively cruel and bigoted policies of Ron Desantis turned to howls of outrage when the governor signed a law “overhauling alimony” (for “overhauling,” read “eliminating”):

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/this-is-a-death-sentence-for-me-florida-republican-women-say-they-will-switch-parties-after-desantis-approves-alimony-law-34563230

This is real leopards-eating-people’s-faces-party stuff, and it’s the only source of mirth in an otherwise grim situation.

But out of the culture-war bullshit backfires, none is so sweet and delicious as the religious liberty self-own. You see, under the rule of law, if some special consideration is owed to a group due to religious liberty, that means all religions. Of course, Wilhoit-drunk conservatives imagine that “religious liberty” is a synonym for Christian liberty, and that other groups will never demand the same carve outs.

Remember when Louisiana decided spend tax dollars to fund “religious” schools under a charter school program, only to discover — to their Islamaphobic horror — that this would allow Muslim schools to get public subsidies, too?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/louisiana_n_1593995

(They could have tried the Quebec gambit, where hijabs and yarmulkes are classed as “religious” and therefore banned for public servants and publicly owned premises, while crosses are treated as “cultural” and therefore exempted — that’s some primo Wilhoitism right there)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-francois-legault-crucifix-religious-symbols-1.4858757

The Satanic Temple has perfected the art of hoisting religious liberty on its own petard. Are you a state lawmaker hoping to put a giant Ten Commandments on the statehouse lawn? Go ahead, have some religious liberty — just don’t be surprised when the Satanic Temple shows up to put a giant statue of Baphomet next to it:

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/17/639726472/satanic-temple-protests-ten-commandments-monument-with-goat-headed-statue

Wanna put a Christmas tree in the state capitol building? Sure, but there’s gonna be a Satanic winter festival display right next to it:

https://katv.com/news/offbeat/satanic-temple-display-installed-at-illinois-capitol-next-to-nativity-scene-menorah-decorations-snake-serpent-satanic-temple-springfield-christmas-tree

And now we come to Dobbs, and the cowardly, illegitimate Supreme Court’s cowardly, illegitimate overturning of Roe v Wade, a move that was immediately followed by “red” states implementing total, or near-total bans on abortion:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/15/paid-medical-disinformation/#crisis-pregnancy-centers

These same states are hotbeds of “religious liberty” nonsense. In about a dozen of these states, Jews, Christians, and Satanists are filing “religious liberty” challenges to the abortion ban. In Indiana, the Hoosier Jews For Choice have joined with other religious groups in a class action, to argue that the “religious freedom” law that Mike Pence signed as governor protects their right to an abortion:

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/21/legal-strategy-that-could-topple-abortion-bans-00102468

Their case builds on precedents from the covid lockdowns, like decisions that said that if secular exceptions to lockdown rules or vaccine mandates existed, then states had to also allow religious exemptions. That opens the door for religious exemptions to abortion bans — if there’s a secular rule that permits abortion in the instance of incest or rape, then faith-based exceptions must be permitted, too.

Some of the challenges to abortion rules seek to carve out religious exemptions, but others seek to overturn the abortion rules altogether, because the lawmakers who passed them explicitly justified them in the name of fusing Christian “values” with secular law, a First Amendment no-no.

As Rabbi James Bennett told Politico’s Alice Ollstein: “They’re entitled to their interpretation of when life begins, but they’re not entitled to have the exclusive one.”

In Florida, a group of Jewish, Buddhist, Episcopalian, Universalists and United Church clerics are challenging the “aiding and abetting” law because it restricts the things they can say from the pulpit — a classic religious liberty gambit.

Kentucky’s challenge comes from three Jewish women whose faith holds that life begins “with the first breath.” Lead plaintiff Lisa Sobel described how Kentucky’s law bars her from seeking IVF treatment, because she could face criminal charges for “discarding non-viable embryos” created during the process.

Then there’s the Satanic Temple, in court in Texas, Idaho and Indiana. The Satanists say that abortion is a religious ritual, and argue that the state can’t limit their access to it.

These challenges all rest on state religious liberty laws. What will happen when some or all of these reach the Supreme Court? It’s a risky gambit. This is the court that upheld Trump’s Muslim ban and the right of a Christian baker to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. It’s a court that loves Wilhoit’s “in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

It’s a court that’s so Wilhoit-drunk, it’s willing to grant religious liberty to bigots who worry about imaginary same-sex couples:

https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-gay-marriage-website-real-straight-man-supreme-court

But in the meantime, the bigots and religious maniacs who want to preserve “religious liberty” while banning abortion are walking a fine line. The Becket Fund, which funded the Hobby Lobby case (establishing that religious maniacs can deny health care to their employees if their imaginary friends object), has filed a brief in one case arguing that the religious convictions of people arguing for a right to abortion aren’t really sincere in their beliefs:

https://becketnewsite.s3.amazonaws.com/20230118184008/Individual-Members-v.-Anonymous-Planitiff-Amicus-Brief.pdf

This is quite a line for Becket to have crossed — religious liberty trufans hate it when courts demand that people seeking religious exemptions prove that their beliefs are sincerely held.

Not only is Becket throwing its opposition to “sincerely held belief” tests under the bus, they’re doing so for nothing. Jewish religious texts clearly state that life begins at the first breath, and that the life of a pregnant person takes precedence over the life of the fetus in their uterus.

The kicker in Ollstein’s great article comes in the last paragraph, delivered by Columbia Law’s Elizabeth Reiner Platt, who runs the Law, Rights, and Religion Project:

The idea of reproductive rights as a religious liberty issue is absolutely not something that came from lawyers. It’s how faith communities themselves have been talking about their approach to reproductive rights for literally decades.

The Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop (I’m a grad, instructor and board member) is having its fundraiser auction to help defray tuition. I’ve donated a “Tuckerization” — the right to name a character in a future novel:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/clarion-sf-fantasy-writers-workshop-23-campaign/#/

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/11/wilhoitism/#hoosier-jews

[Image ID: Moses parting the Red Sea. On the seabed is revealed a Planned Parenthood clinic.]

Image: Nina Paley (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moses-Splits-Sea_by_Nina_Paley.jpg

CC0 1.0 https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en

—

Kristina D.C. Hoeppner (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/4nitsirk/40406966752/

CC BY-SA 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

#pluralistic #religion #frank wilhoit #petard #gender #religious freedom #1a #abortion bans #dobbs #roe

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reality-detective · 1 year

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"Marines Were Freed from a Secret Jail That Were Brutally Tortured by Feds"

The six U.S. Marines freed from a secret federal jail said their captors—a mix of FBI agents and private security—tortured them relentlessly, deprived them of food and water, and forced them to defecate in 5-gallon buckets that got emptied only once a week.

As reported previously, U.S. Special Forces on March 8 liberated six Marines the federal government held without trial at a clandestine warehouse-turned-prison in suburban Long Island, New York. The feds had arrested the six for protesting peacefully outside the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Once freed, they were taken to Womack Army Medical Center, Fort Bragg, and treated for maladies and injuries sustained in captivity. This included dehydration, lacerations, puncture wounds, and burns. Alas, one Marine’s wounds were so severe that he went into septic shock and had a leg amputated below the knee.

When debriefed at the hospital, he said their jailors kept them on permanent lockdown in separate cells spaced far enough apart so they couldn’t communicate with one another. He recounted the harrowing ordeal of his arrest. Feds, he said, arrested him off-post near Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, then handcuffed and blindfolded him before driving him to a nearby airport or airstrip. He knew this because the feds put him aboard a small turboprop aircraft. During his debrief, he said he could hear propellers spin up minutes before the plane took off. His abductors shackled his ankles and fastened him to a seat. He was punched in the face several times and called a “traitor” during what he guessed was a two-hour flight. When the plane landed, he was struck a few more times, then, still blindfolded, put in a vehicle and driven to an unknown destination. He tasted blood in his mouth from being pummeled so hard and often and eventually lost consciousness.

He awoke in a decrepit cell that smelled like shit, its only furnishings a urine-stained cot and a 5-gallon bucket in the center of the cell. The guards, he said, beat the living daylights out of him every day—sometimes more than once a day—coming at him three at a time so he couldn’t adequately defend himself. One Morning four guards burst into the cell and tied his arms and legs to the cot, spread eagle, and they took turns stabbing him in the right leg with rusty pieces of metal, then cauterizing the wounds with an iron to prevent exsanguination. He guessed he’d been stabbed 20 or 30 times while the guards taunted him, saying other Marines in custody would share his fate. He said one guard urinated on his open wounds prior to them being cauterized.

The other five Marines told comparable stories, though their wounds were far less severe. They said they were fed only twice a week—stale bread, a few ounces of water, or a red liquid that looked like Kool-Aid but with bugs floating in it. One said the guard tried to feed him mashed potatoes with congealed gravy and tiny glass shards.

“These Marines survived the unsurvivable,” our source said. “There are more service members still in federal custody, not to mention the hundreds of civilians who could be dealing with the same torture. This is how the Biden regime treats combat veterans, as criminals, as domestic terrorists. We are working to free more of them.”

I'm sure we will hear about other experiences like this as the turmoil continues to unravel in our country. These sick fμcks think they are untouchable. I got news for you the deplorables will get the last say.🤔 I did not get any information about the perpetrators involved in these horrendous acts. My gut feeling is, they were executed on the spot.

#pay attention #educate yourself #educate yourselves #reeducate yourself #knowledge is power #reeducate yourselves #think for yourself #think for yourselves #think about it #do your homework #do your research #do your own research #question everything #ask yourself questions #ask yourself

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radioactivepeasant · 1 month

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Snippets Thursday: Meddling Mar (part 2 of 2)

(Jak is back from Haven and in so much trouble)

"Gate pass."

Two words, absolutely devoid of emotion, were all it took to shatter the facade of defiance Jak had crafted. Nausea churned his stomach, and he bit down on the insides of his cheeks until he tasted blood. He'd known there would be a price to pay. But this-

With a shaking hand, Jak drew the gate pass from his pocket and silently cursed the trembling limb for betraying his weakness as he held it out for Damas to take.

Damas didn’t look at him.

"Three weeks." His voice was a little too calm. Jak could feel anger underneath the words, waiting like vipers under the sand. "You left for three weeks without a word to me, to Phobos. To anyone. And in that time the only word from you I had, I had to get secondhand from Sig."

He didn't look at Jak.

"What have you to say for yourself?"

Jak tried to swallow around the boulder in his throat and wondered why this, of every scolding or reprimand he'd ever received, terrified him beyond words. He wanted to tell Damas that he'd tried to come back the first day, only to be stopped by the force fields. He wanted to tell him how Veger had paid for signal jammers around the walls, fearing that other city-states might take advantage of Haven's compromised capitol. He wanted to beg for forgiveness. But it all fell short, didn’t it? Pathetic excuses from a pathetic excuse for a hero. A runaway. A deserter, that's what he was.

Jak’s throat closed around his words, stifling them. He swallowed, felt the muscles of his neck tense and pulse. But the panic had a stranglehold on his throat and he just couldn't.

Damas wouldn't look at him.

Damas couldn’t see.

Look at me! Please, please look at me! he silently begged.

"Haven's-" Daxter's voice squeaked into the air between them, faltering and guilty. "They...made it real easy to get in and near impossible to get out. We got caught in the lockdown, just a couple hours after we got there. It wasn’t supposed to be three weeks. It wasn’t even supposed to be three days."

"And that somehow excuses you slipping out like thieves in the night, unsanctioned and unaccompanied?" Damas demanded, finally turning his eyes to them. "Do you know how many people were searching the city and desert for you? We did not even know you had made it to Haven until Sig went back to look for you! We feared Egil had taken you!"

Jak physically took a step back. Damas looked as though he hadn't slept in days. Deep, dark circles ringed his bloodshot eyes, and his face was haggard.

I did this.

He opened and shut his mouth uselessly, then fell back on SparSign on instinct.

"I didn't think-"

"You didn't think," Damas interrupted, "Full stop. Haven is a hotbed of our enemies, Jak, and you just walked into the vipers' den. I had no idea where you were! What if you'd been injured? Or arrested? Hm? What if they’d framed you for something else and tried to kill you?"

A little confused, but afraid to further provoke the man, Jak kept his head down.

"It's never mattered before that they tried to kill me."

"Because I didn't know you were there!"

Even Damas seemed surprised by his own cracking voice.

"You run from one danger to the next like you think it doesn't matter if you live or die. It. matters. Jak. You think you're the only one who suffers if something happens to you?"

Jak cringed. He knew he wasn't. Daxter was always there. Daxter was always in danger because of him.

And he'd left Spargus down one person for three weeks, which meant someone else probably had to do his share of the work-

And Mar was alone that whole time-

Shame, hot and acidic as dark eco, burned in his gut. It reached up with long claws to pin his lungs shut.

"I- I'm sorry. I'll go. I'm sorry," he signed, utterly dejected. "But don't make our brother leave. Don't blame him or Daxter for what I did."

"Go?" Damas demanded, stepping closer, "And where, exactly, did you think you would be going?"

oh gods, he's going to make me say it. He's going to make me pronounce my own exile-!

Jak couldn’t speak. He just gestured to the gate pass resting in Damas’s clenched fist.

Shock colored the king’s eyes for an instant, softening his face into something sadder. Wearier.

"You-" he seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "You think I- I'm exiling you?"

Jak kept his eyes on the floor and twisted his fingers into his tunic.

"I understand why," he answered, short and to the point.

A strangled noise startled him enough to drag his gaze upward, meeting Damas’s eyes.

"You-!"

He inhaled sharply through his nose and shut his eyes for four seconds.

Then he stormed down the steps and caught Jak by the shoulder. Before Jak had time to think, he'd been yanked into Damas’s arms, all but crushed against his chest.

Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't this.

"You stubborn, frustrating child-!" Damas croaked next to his ear. "Exiled?! After I spent three weeks barely knowing if you were alive, you think I would let you out of my sight?"

Jak stiffened. This wasn't what was supposed to happen. He screwed up, he got rejected until he earned some kind of redemption. That was the script life followed. He didn't have a script for this.

"Mar told us you-" Damas swallowed. Gritted his teeth. "You thought you had to lead enemies away from our walls. Alone! Have we done nothing to earn your trust, even after all this time?"

Jak couldn’t answer. He could barely move. He wanted to protest that he fought his own battles, that he didn't want his past screw-ups to come haunt his only real home. But his mind caught on Damas’s words and rang in his ears.

Mar

Mar.

He knows.

Jak’s jaw worked in silence, and his eyes darted left to meet the same panic in Daxter's eyes.

Damas pulled back and gripped Jak’s face between his hands, forcing his gaze back to him.

"Jak, I lost you once before. I cannot endure it a second time. If you will not heed caution for your own sake, then at least think of your brothers first. Think of Phobos and me."

What.

Tongue finally loosened, Jak choked on questions and only managed inquiring noises. A second time? What was Damas talking about? Why was he hugging him instead of yelling at him?

"I don't...I don't understand-" he tried to breathe around the tightness still gripping his lungs. "I don't- Mar told you?"

Damas’s eyes glimmered, the only evidence betraying how close to breaking down he truly was. "No, son," he said quietly.

The word seemed weightier than usual.

"I knew."

Jak pulled back. "You knew?! How long?!"

"In truth? The day I found you in the desert." Damas blew out a breath that was just barely shakier than it should have been. "I knew in my heart who I had found, but after two years I was afraid to believe it without proof. That proof came sixteen days ago."

Sixteen days. While Jak was gone, then. Damas had been looking for Mar before Jak had come from the past? Why? He was nothing like the Underground, so Jak couldn't imagine that he'd meant to use Mar's powers for his own gain.

Swallowing hard, he tentatively asked, "What proof?"

Damas looked away for a moment, reaching for something in one of his belt pouches.

"The results of a cheek swab when we found you. A...computer test. One that can show us the building blocks of a person's blood, and who their parents were."

He knows I'm Mar! Jak realized, and excuses and justifications crowded behind his teeth. He knows we aren't blood brothers-!

Having apparently found what he was looking for, Damas opened his hand and held it out to Jak.

An amulet of Mar, far older than the one Jak shared with his brother, lay on his open palm, and the last pieces began to click into place.

"I see you, Jak," Damas whispered. "You don't have to keep fighting alone."

"You're...you're one of us?" Jak asked, "Like, from the- the future?"

"One of you?" Damas laughed, a little brokenly. "I'm your father, you ridiculous boy!"

His father?!

In the secrecy of his heart, Jak could easily admit that he saw the man as a father-figure, if an idealized one. And as he and Mar had started to ease up and let Damas closer, he'd pretended sometimes that their relationship was more familial than mentor and student. He knew Mar thought of Damas -- and Phobos a little moreso -- as "his" grown-ups.

Had they, somewhere deep inside, remembered them? Was that bond instinctive, picking up something that had always existed? Or had they built it themselves?

Jak wanted to apologize -- for leaving, for not explaining, maybe for existing in this form and not his childhood shape -- but what came out of him was only a noise. Soft, pained. He squeezed his eyes shut as if that would help him keep his jaw clenched.

"Oh, oh-"

Damas pulled him close again, shushing him as if he were a child.

"Oh Jak."

His voice was hoarse, and full of pain.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I waited so long for proof. I should- I should have confronted you the first time I saw you using Mar's sign name."

He pressed Jak's head against his shoulder and held him tightly. "I'm- I'm sorry I made you think you might be sent away. I was- You scared me, Jak. I thought I was going to lose you before I could find out if you knew-"

Over Jak's shoulder, Damas looked down at Daxter and sighed. "Thank you," he said, "for going with him. If you say you got caught in a lockdown, I- I believe you, Daxter."

"You...do?" Daxter asked in a very small voice.

He didn't know what to feel. Relief? Confusion? A bitter envy?

"You've never given me a reason not to trust you," Damas answered simply.

Daxter swallowed twice. "So uh...does this mean you ain't mad anymore?"

Damas scoffed wetly. "No, I'm furious. But I'm so relieved that you're both safe."

He arched an eyebrow, though the stern look was softened somewhat by the tears in his eyes. "But. As the oldest, you should know better than to sneak out like that. You're as grounded as Jak is."

"Grounded?!" Daxter sputtered.

"So grounded." Damas nodded. "You two aren't- aren't getting this gate pass back for weeks."

Jak wanted to protest, to tell him all the responsibilities on his shoulders that required him to be able to go back and forth between cities. But he couldn't catch his breath long enough to form even a syllable.

He had a father. They had a father. Parents. That wanted them! All of them! But he didn't deserve it! Especially not now, after deserting the way he had!

"M- m- Mar?" he finally managed to force out.

Damas shushed him again and clicked his tongue. "He's alright. He's with your mother."

Your mother.

"I'm- I'm not...him, the right him-" Jak tried to warn Damas -- he ought to have known, he'd seen what Jak was like-

Damas’s arms trembled against his back.

"No. I don't want you to be your brother. Be you. Be my reckless, impudent, war-sage son, as you are." He gave a choked sob, wrapped partway around a chuckle, and added, "Though perhaps- perhaps so that I can sleep at night, a bit less reckless?"

#fic prompts #writing prompts #jak and daxter #dadmas #king damas #jak and daxter au #free day thursday #dadmas angst #someone finally gets through to jak about people caring about him #meddling mar #meddling mar au #jak and daxter mar

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1americanconservative · 5 months

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Anti-Israel protesters attacked the DNC yesterday.

They forced a lockdown of the Capitol.

They pepper-sprayed cops.

Congressional reps were trapped in their offices.

This is more of an INSURRECTION than 1/6 ever was.

When do the arrests and hearings and show trials begin?

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periwinckles · 1 year

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Letters from New Panem - It would have happened anyway

Thump.

If Rye throws that ball to the wall one more time I’m smacking him in the head with it. This is our third day of lockdown and we are all sick of it as is, but there is nothing else we can do. We were told to wait after all.

On the 74th Reaping day, when all the district was gathered in the main square to send two more children to slaughter the sirens sounded before anything else happened. Alarmed faces everywhere, not knowing what to do. After a couple of minutes, Mayor Undersee ordered everyone home, calling for an instant lockdown, and told us to wait for further instructions by our tv sets. Half an hour later we got a 2 minute report claiming the Capitol had fallen, and the President was dead. We were told to wait for further information. That was 3 days ago.

Thump.

“Rye, knock it off, will ya?” Dad snaps, obviously annoyed.

Being trapped in your own house is getting on everyone's nerves. First day was easy. We baked as usual, and kept our routine. Second day it was obvious that we wouldn't be able to open the bakery, so no use in baking. Third day and we are considering breaking the lockdown just to get rid of all the excess bread, before it all goes inedible.

“I’m telling ya Dad, Peet and I can sneak around after dark, no one will catch us” Rye is now throwing his tennis ball in his own hand while he makes his case.

“Besides, everyone has been inside their homes for three days. What if we don't hear anything else from the Mayor, or the capitol for a week? A month? Who knows who might be starving by now?”

His eyes meet mine at the mention of “starving” and he knows I know who he is referring to. Of course I don't want her to starve, which will inevitably happen if she isn't allowed to leave her house to go hunting. We both come to a silent understanding: today we are distributing that bread after dark, even if my dad doesn't allow it.

“Just let me think for a second, boys, maybe if we…”

“Dad! DAAAAD!”

Wheat comes running down the stairs to the bakery kitchen, where we are all seated, and all eyes are on him.

“The tv is on again!”

We run up the stairs, bread baskets and tennis ball forgotten on the kitchen table. Mom is already sitting on the couch in front of the tv, her eyes hard on the tv set, as an image of mayor Undersee appears on screen.

“Why is our Mayor on Tv?” The question is out of my mouth before I know it “Have you ever seen him on tv?” I ask my Dad, but only get a silent nod in response, and a hand gesture asking me to be quiet.

“Dear citizens of Panem

Each district Mayor will read the following statement to their respective district. The Capitol has fallen to the hands of the Rebellion. We are pleased to inform you that said rebellion came to fruition with minimal casualties. That only happened because the rebellion's leaders got classified information that allowed them to take the Capitol without open war.

We cannot divulge the whole extent of said information.

What we can and will say is this: The information came in letters that were sent from the future, specifically three years from now. The first time around rebellion happened at the expense of many lives. So the nation of New Panem decided to use time-travel technology to send letters carrying specific information, valuable information that allowed us to be here today.

Many lives were spared this way. But meddling with time lines comes at a price. Each district will have to take certain measures to guarantee that their future isn't completely turned upside down and collapses. Your Mayor will give you further instructions. “

Mayor Undersee lays down the paper he was reading from and reaches down for a handkerchief to clean his forehead. We don't dare to take our eyes from the screen but we all feel the weight in the room. I can't stop wringing my hands, and suddenly I feel the urge to go pick up Rye's tennis ball, just to have something to do with my hands. I never get to it, because Mayor Undersee is already addressing the cameras, this time without a script:

“District twelve

We took a hard blow during the war that was now avoided. According to what the state of New Panem told us, only 856 district 12 citizens survived the war.”

He pauses as if he is just now processing what he just said and we all let it sink down. 856. That’s roughly 10 percent of our population.

“Out of the 856, only 183 came back to rebuild the district that was completely bombed and destroyed.

The good news is that 7000 of you are getting a second chance at life. But we need to ask some sacrifices from those 183. You see, we need to have some sort of continuous line, an anchor of sorts, to make sure that the change of events doesn’t create some sort of chain reaction. We need some events to stay the same, to dilute the big change we made. What we pretty much need is for those 183 residents to make their lives as similar as possible to what they are in the alternate timeline. Of course there will be differences. But mainly we need them to do two things: one, they need to stick to district twelve as their main district residency. And second, we need them to marry the same person they married in the original timeline, and produce the same offspring.

As I speak, peacekeepers left letters at the door of each house, each letter addressed to a resident. In that letter you will find an armband. Come tomorrow, you will resume your life as usual, but every resident will be required to wear their armband visible at all times. If you receive a black armband it means that you were one of the original war casualties. If you receive a white armband it means you survived the war. Red armband means that you were one of the 183 that helped rebuild district 12.

That will be all for now.

I will see you all tomorrow.”

As soon as he stops talking the tv shuts down and I am running down those stairs, reaching for the bakery door, Rye right on my heels. Exactly as the Mayor said, there are five envelopes waiting for us at the threshold.

The smile barely registers on my face when I see the red fabric coming out of my envelope, until I lift my eyes to meet the rest of my family. They are all holding black armbands.

#itwouldhavehappenedanyway #fanfiction #everlark #the hunger games #promptseverlark #allwayseverlark

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vomitdodger · 10 months

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And a couple not in the meme:

In summary:

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skywarpie · 9 months

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The US capitol being on lockdown/evacuated bc of an active shooter that hasn't fired a shot or seen any suspicious activity is hilarious bc imagine if yall cared this much about the other mass shootings in the country

#d.ont reblog #my fbi dude may be watching rn #but like #a bunch of senators panicking like every american school child has to everyday is really fucking funny #the irony

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 2 years

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The Secret Service warned in December 2020 that the far-right group Proud Boys planned to "kill people" during the January 6, 2021 march to the US Capitol.

That's according to internal emails released for the first time Thursday by the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol riot.

"They think that they will have a large enough group to march into DC armed and will outnumber the police so they can't be stopped," said one email sent a little after 9 p.m. ET on December 26, 2020.

"Their plan is to literally kill people," it continued. "Please please take this tip seriously and investigate further."

The email also noted that the Proud Boys had detailed their plans on a number of right-wing websites and forums.

In addition to the Secret Service, the FBI also warned of violence at the Capitol on the day of then-President Donald Trump's "Save America" rally.

An internal situational report warned on January 5, 2021 that pro-Trump insurrectionists were planning to wage a "war" at the US Capitol the next day, The Washington Post reported last year.

The Bureau's office in Norfolk, Virginia, issued the warning, saying that it "received information indicating calls for violence in response to 'unlawful lockdowns' to begin" on January 6 in Washington, DC, The Post reported.

According to The Post, the FBI report cited an "online thread" that "discussed specific calls for violence," including one that said: "Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal."

#us politics #news #business insider #2022 #donald trump #trump administration #capitol riot investigation #capitol riot #proud boys #alt right #insurrectionists #the washington post #fbi #department of justice #us secret service #domestic terrorism

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mariacallous · 1 year

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On April 14, Eva Vlaardingerbroek told Tucker Carlson’s prime-time show that the Dutch government was opening “insect factories” to force people to eat bugs as “a compliance test” to see how pliable they’d be to state control. “Our politicians know that when they control the food, they control the people,” she said. Vlaardingerbroek, a 26-year-old political commentator from Amsterdam, was an occasional guest on Fox’s Tucker Carlson Tonight, railing against globalism and “elites” and alleging that European governments are using the threat of climate change (which she calls a “so-called” crisis) to “rule by fear.”

Vlaardingerbroek isn’t anything like a mainstream figure in the Netherlands, but the fictional version of her country she draws is useful for Carlson. Her Netherlands—“the pilot country for an organization like the World Economic Forum” and “the tester kid of the 2030 Agenda”—supports his narrative that a liberal takeover of the US would lead to climate lockdowns and compulsory bug-eating. But by elevating fringe characters and encouraging them to repeat or reference unfounded conspiracy theories, Carlson—who was suddenly dumped by Fox News yesterday—has helped bring often dangerous misinformation into the mainstream around the world.

Tucker Carlson isn’t just an American problem. He’s a dark spot tracking across the global internet. His evening slot was Fox’s most watched show, pulling in 3.5 million viewers a night. But clips of his show posted on social media have had a far greater reach, appearing across antivax groups and globalist conspiracy theory groups like QAnon. He has had a particular hold on international far-right movements, which have latched onto Carlson’s amplification of the white supremacist “great replacement” theory—the idea that white people are being deliberately and systematically replaced by non-white people. The narratives he’s pushed have been picked up and amplified by Russian disinformation campaigns across Europe and the US and used as propaganda tools by authoritarians.

“Fox News launders these extreme ideas and brings them into mainstream discussions,” says Bharath Ganesh, who studies online disinformation and hate speech at the university of Groningen in the Netherlands. Far-right groups talk about the great replacement theory in their own circles, he says. “Then Tucker Carlson picks it up, and then it gets pushed out.”

Carlson’s exit came days after Fox News agreed to pay $787 million to settle a defamation suit by Dominion Voting Machines, a polling technology company. Dominion had accused Fox of spreading the lie that its machines had been used to skew the 2020 presidential election results. It’s unclear whether the two events are linked. But Carlson did repeatedly give a platform to proponents of the “big lie” that the election was stolen from then-incumbent Donald Trump. And in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, in which thousands of Trump supporters descended on the Capitol, Carlson defended the rioters, saying the footage showed “peaceful chaos,” after selectively editing down Capitol surveillance footage provided by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Seven people died as a result of the violence, and nearly 140 police officers were injured.

On his show, which had aired since 2017, Carlson spun a story of a US that is relentlessly under attack from the forces of liberalism and “wokeism,” one where immigration, affirmative action, and attempts to confront the country’s history of slavery are a direct attack on white America.

In many ways, Carlson treated his program as a “mirror” for far-right communities, says Jared Holt, senior researcher on hate and extremism at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank. Holt believes that Carlson’s team was highly attuned to far-right subcultures online, and that the topics Carlson addressed in his show were heavily informed by them. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen conversations happening among reactionaries on Twitter, or among faceless trolls on 4chan, only to see it pop up on Tucker Carlson’s show a day or two after,” he says. In 2020, one of the writers on Carlson’s show was fired for posting racist, sexist, and homophobic content on the 4chan-like message board AutoAdmit.

The ethno-nationalism of Carlson’s content resonates internationally because the online far-right is global, with communities in Europe, Latin America, and Australia overlapping, sharing spaces and stories. Groups in one country will often cherry-pick news stories in another to reinforce broader points. Overplaying the social impact of the influx of Syrian refugees into Europe in 2016, for example, helped build the case for the great replacement theory and support anti-immigration groups in the US and Australia. Such conspiracies can echo back and forth between countries, gathering momentum as they do so.

Pushing the idea that London—whose popular, left-wing, Muslim mayor is a target of hate on Fox—is in violent chaos and terminal decline helps demonstrate the supposed dangers of liberal rule. But the lie then enters a feedback loop, with UK far-right groups picking up Fox’s coverage and using it to validate their own prejudices.

“Anywhere you see this international far-right movement, you see what we call appropriation,” says Julian Droogan, associate professor of terrorism studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. This was most evident during the Covid pandemic, when far-right conspiracy theory groups used the real sense of crisis to drive their own narratives. “It became all about white genocide and a plan to kind of install a liberal world government that was going to undermine white people and so on,” Droogan says.

There is still a significant overlap between white supremacist communities and antivax groups online. Fox and Carlson have a prominent place in Covid disinformation circles too. Screenshots of Carlson appear alongside coronavirus misinformation circulated in the Spanish-language Telegram group Verdades Ofenden (Offensive Truths) with more than 15,000 subscribers. Posts from this channel are regularly circulated in other Spanish-language and Latin America-focused disinformation channels, including those run by a network called Médicos por la Verdad (Doctors for the Truth) . The group was removed from Facebook in 2021 for violating the platform’s Covid misinformation policies. But its several Telegram groups have a combined total of around 98,000 members.

Droogan worked on several studies on the online far-right for the Australian government, following a 2019 terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, by a white supremacist who had allegedly been radicalized online. He calls Carlson’s reinforcement of the great replacement theory “the most dangerous of his actions.” That theory has been cited as motivation by several white supremacist terrorists, including the perpetrator of the Christchurch shootings.

There is, Droogan says, an implicit violence in the theory, particularly when it’s filtered through a US perspective. American mainstream media, and Fox in particular, gives platforms to people who use conspiracist terminology—including references to “elites” and “globalists” and nods to the “great reset,” like those made by Vlaardingerbroek—in a way that rarely happens on broadcast television in Europe or Australia.

“Terms like ‘race war,’ concepts like accelerationism—to go out there and create societal crises or to exaggerate them to intensify them to create some kind of culminating, purifying violence against all these threats to white identity—these really come out of the American psyche and popular culture,” Droogan says.

It’s impossible to draw a direct line between content on Tucker Carlson Tonight and political events inside or outside the US. But his place within the information ecosystem means he’s been, at the very least, a passive participant in some startling coincidences.

In June 2022, Carlson interviewed Jair Bolsonaro, then the right-wing president of Brazil, who spent the months running up to the country’s elections in October trying to sow doubt about the validity of the vote.

“During the interview, [Carlson] was speaking the same language as the far-right in Brazil,” says Bruna Santos, a researcher and activist with the Coalizão Direitos na Rede in Brazil. Santos says Carlson’s focus on anti-communism, skepticism about the Covid pandemic, and concern around “anti-white racism” resonated deeply with Brazil’s far-right. “The external approval coming from the US,” says Santos, reinforces and validates the views of the far-right in the country.

Eduardo Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro’s son, often featured clips from Carlson’s show on his popular YouTube channel, where he has over 1 million subscribers, with translations and subtitles in Portuguese. These clips, as well as others from Carlson’s show, would then circulate amongst the country’s far-right groups, appearing in Telegram channels and WhatsApp groups.

In the lead-up to the Brazilian elections, says Santos, short clips from Carlson’s show were being shared in these groups. “A lot of Carlson’s criticisms of [US President Joe] Biden, or what Biden represents, would be redirected into something that could help Bolsonaro,” says Santos. “And a lot of this comes from YouTube and social media networks, and that’s generally where the conversation starts.”

Then, on January 8, 2023, Bolsonaro supporters tried to storm the presidential palace in Brasilia, after the right-wing populist lost an election runoff to his leftwing opponent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro isn’t the only authoritarian that Carlson has boosted. He’s been a vocal advocate for Viktor Orban, Hungary’s president, who has railed against LGBTQ rights and migration, and who routinely accuses the American financier and bête noire of the far right, George Soros, of interfering in the country’s politics.

“[Carlson] is a celebrated figure in authoritarian countries he championed on his show,” says Matt Gertz, senior researcher at Media Matters for America, a media watchdog group. “He received a glowing reception from Orban, and his Ukraine coverage was touted and promoted by Russian propagandists.”

Carlson has echoed Russian talking points on Ukraine and criticized the US government for supporting the government in Kyiv. Several researchers told WIRED that Fox, and in particular Carlson, have been useful tools for Russia, amplifying narratives about the dangers of liberalism and the impending collapse of Western civilization. When news of his firing broke, Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov offered Carlson a job.

Yesterday, Vlaardingerbroek posted a picture on Twitter of herself with an arm around Carlson. “Tucker is the best of the best in the industry. He tells the truth like no one else does, in a way no one else can. I stand with him 100%,” she wrote, before retweeting the right-wing conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich, who claimed that Carlson’s firing meant that “the evil ones will try to win and remove him from history, and commence another Armenian-style genocide against all of us.”

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