#from the beginning of their relationship he was willing to do whatever Alan wanted

[introvertedkeni]

Like Alan is well within his right to be sad that his relationship is over and that there is absolutely nothing he can do to save. However, it wasn’t brand new to him that Wen wasn’t in love with him anymore. Yeah, then still living together and sleeping in the same bed didn’t make the break up real to him, but Wen made it clear multiple times that he was no longer in this relationship with Alan. He had no desire to even be friends with him, because honestly when you’re with someone for a long time it’s hard to just be friends.

Wen finally moving out will do both of them some good, but especially Alan. He can finally mourn their relationship. He can finally be able to move on.

Alan didn’t do anything to make Wen fall out of love with him. They got older and people change.

#moonlight chicken #i am a wen defender #when wen said that he only ate beef because of Alan that really stood out to me #from the beginning of their relationship he was willing to do whatever Alan wanted #he just wanted to be loved #to have a home #but he realized that his relationship with Alan wasn’t what he wanted #he wasn’t his true self #am i making sense #like wen isn’t perfect #but he’s not the bad guy!!

[deadboyfriendd]

Laugh Tracks | E.M. 

This is for you, Augustine. Ily <;3 @indouloureux

Loving Eddie meant loving all of Eddie, whether you wanted to or not. Being within a constant proximity of him meant you were constantly the victim of these little quirks: sticky surfaces, sentient socks, et al. This also meant being the victim of the constant expenditure of affection that radiated off of him in a constant influx of surprise-attack, wet, almost toddler-kisses and the sudden onslaughts of neediness despite whatever audience would fall victim. The fact of the matter is that whatever Eddie lacked in social awareness, he made up in sheer, unbridled affection for you. 

Today had been long. Actually, this week had been long. Wayne felt it, Eddie felt it, and you felt it. You knew what the night had in store when you slinked in, feet like cement weights, and saw Wayne in the recliner, mirroring your same deadpan stare. 

“Boy just called, said he’d be a little late.” Wayne gruffed to you, turning his attention back to whatever M.A.S.H. episode had been rerunning and gesturing lazily to the couch for you to sit down. 

You slung your purse over the back of a dining chair lazily, slithering into Eddie’s room, slowly, to rummage your way through whatever halfway-wearable clothes you could bogart from his closet before you threw yourself over the arm of the couch backwards to begin the slow process of bodily decomposition. The worn couch cushions swallowed you like a much drier, much lumpier sea, and your vertebra realigned with a noisy release of lactic acid that brought a sigh from your mouth. Your feet tingled from the sudden lack of pressure after being on them all day. 

You couldn’t even bring yourself to press a laughing breath through your nostrils as Hawkeye takes another low crack at the infidelity between Frank Burns and Hot Lips Hoolihan. Usually, you thought it was funny every time. Alan Alda really had a way of doing that, but tonight, your humor was lost in the heavy pools of your silken eyelids.  

“Long day?” You asked Wayne, who grumbled slightly in response.

“Yup.” He said. 

“Me too.” You replied, knowing he wasn’t going to say much more than that. 

Wayne had a silent language of grumbles and grunts that you had gotten to know and decipher since your relationship with Eddie formed. Wayne didn’t question your presence as long as you didn’t question him. In fact, he welcomed you just as you welcomed the silence you were able to indulge in before the absolute menace you both had to claim came slugging through the door in the same manner. 

Eddie was much louder, even when his voice wasn’t resonating and ringing in the ears of whatever room he claimed as his soapbox. His breaths were a little bit louder, bordering on the edges of sighs- like he wanted someone to hear them. His feet thumped and reverberated through thin linoleum and carried over into the carpet of the thin trailer floors. It echoed into the sand below. He threw his keys on to the table over your purse and the sharp, high-pitched noise jangled loudly and felt like a stab to the brain. 

It was an immediate response- a premeditated attack in which he didn’t even bat an eye at. Eddie made his way towards the couch, where you were willing your body into the stage of active decay. He grabbed the hem of his shirt that inconspicuously lay over your body, pulling it up and over your bra. You wanted to cringe at the cool air that ran up your torso, and wanted to recluse into the couch and die at the thought of Wayne seeing you in an indecent way- despite just how indecent you had been just feet away not twelve hours before. He balanced his knee over the arm of the couch, sending his lanky body forward and face plowing into the warm pool in your skin, taking in your decadently human smell. 

In an instant, his full body weight rested on you, and he drew your shirt back over his head like a shutter, encasing himself in darkness and warmth with a satisfied sigh. You looked over to Wayne, who glanced back at you with a knowing, yet not surprised, look. If he knew his nephew, it's that he did what he wanted on his terms when he wanted to do it. This sort of impulsivity was not lost to him- and he was just glad that you ran with it instead of pushed back. 

It seemed like you hadn’t even finished the episode, the laugh tracks serving as a backing to Eddie’s quiet snores against your skin. You felt a pool of drool collect over the ridge of your ribs

#eddie munson #stranger things #eddie munson headcanons #eddie munson oneshot #eddie stranger things #stranger things s4 #eddie munson fluff #flea writes

[lucifers-horror-harem]

Alan Sharpe Yandere Alphabet (Slasher OC)

So I am aware I don’t even have an official character sheet or background information on this new yandere slasher of mine, however I find that some of these bits come to me in time. Plus, a bunch of small tidbits are in this alphabet post too. But I am always happy to answer asks about this boy cause it helps me get to know him a bit better too <3

The face claim is Kim Coates <3 I imagine Alan to be mid fifties in age.

Warnings for non con/dub con elements, uses of housewife/wife/kids/implied AFAB

Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

Alan is really emotionally and physically affectionate with his darling once he is certain they will accept it. He can be rather cold with someone who’s feisty or ungrateful and doesn't appreciate his love. He tends to go overboard spoiling his darling with material items and such, as money is no object for him. If he thinks something will make you happy he will do whatever it takes to get it for you.

Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

He will take care of whatever stands in the way between you and him. Ultimately he doesn't want to have to kill family or friends, but if they pose a threat to either of you or happen to find out his secrets they will have to go. Alan has people to take care of these things for him, but if they are a significant other or other love interest that makes him see red, he will take care of the matter himself. Violence and murder aren't new to him, when he was in his teens and early twenties he had a track record of hanging in the wrong crowds and going after anyone that stood in the way of his interests.

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

If it were up to Alan, he would prefer to be sweet with you and as soon as he abducts you the two of you start the honeymoon phase of your relationship. But if you’re causing problems and trying to escape, he’ll treat you accordingly. He has no issue being cruel with you, getting into your head and insisting no one will love you like he can and how stupid you would have to be to not see the cushy life ahead of you, if only you accept his love. He doesn't really think its that hard of a choice.  

Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

He would rather not force you to do anything you don't want to. All Alan wants is for you to love him, after all. But if time goes on and you continue to fight him, he might take more drastic measures to prove just how much he wants you. If you are being more docile and submissive, he might push boundaries and grope you as a way of teasing, but he will likely be more willing to wait for you. He has needs, after all. 

Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

In the beginning of the relationship, Alan keeps his deepest feelings close to his chest and only tells his darling of the inconsequential things in his life. He wants a housewife type of partner so he always seems to like venting to you about how rough of a day he had at the office taking care of things, and him wanting to hear the same about your day in return (not that you can even go anywhere during the day). After a long period of time and trust he will slowly start to talk about deeper things with you, really opening up about what he wants and desires in his life. 

Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

Alan hates it, but in a sick way he enjoys correcting your behavior. While he much prefers a more docile and sweet darling he will be more than happy finding a reason to take out his frustrations on the person who has been causing all these problems. If you were good, he wouldn't have to do this, you know. 

Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

Love is something serious to Alan, and gets infuriated seeing his darling wanting to escape or attempting and failing. He will punish them accordingly, and hopefully they will learn their lesson. However, if his darling likes to indulge in bratty behavior but is still quite submissive and only wants to play, then he will be quite accommodating. He can be playful when he wants to, he just needs to feel comfortable enough to let that side of him out. 

Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

The worst would be when they finally realize how dedicated Alan is to having you be his. It could be watching him kill with his bare hands in front of you for the first time, snuffing out the life of someone you know (a lover or someone who just got too close to you for Alan's comfort), and watching the glee in Alan's face as he did it, all while insisting he was doing it to protect you. Another possible contender would be finding out just how long and thoroughly he had been stalking you, waiting until just the right moment to strike. Even building trust with you, playing the kind and caring boss that everyone loves before showing his darker possessive side to you when you finally figure out what's going on. Once kidnapped, he would even use your social media to trick your family and friends into believing the two of you were together in a happy relationship under the radar (if you happened to work for him) when in reality you were trapped in one of his many homes against your will. 

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

Ultimately, Alan is looking for a partner to play out the parts of life that everyone his age for the most part already have. The wife, kids, happy family, the whole shebang. He wants a partner that will stay at home, even if they don't want to do housework he can hire someone for that. But he goes feral over the idea of coming home from a long day at the office and seeing his wife finishing dinner for him and the kids. He had far from the typical home life as a child and longs for the stability and normalcy of it. 

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

Alan gets insanely jealous, but he tends to reserve his anger for those who intend to steal you away from him. If all things work out for Alan, he would want you by his side at all business outings, and in those situations he wouldn't mind the casual conversation of people commenting on your beauty and how lucky of a man he is. It makes him proud and he wants you to feel special as well. But as a man he knows the way they look at you with less innocent intentions, even if they would never act upon them. That's what makes Alan's blood boil. He would never lash out at you specifically unless you actively encouraged others to flirt with you in front of him. He will make them pay in one way or another. 

Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

In public he is the perfect gentleman, having you place a hand on his inner arm as he walks around. He is also known to keep a hand on the small of your back or hip to keep you close to him. While he does worry about you slipping away from him, he is naturally just a very touchy man and likes to have you within arms reach constantly. Will often bring your hand up to his lips to kiss your knuckles absent-mindedly as well. 

Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

The most likely scenario of him finding a partner would be through his work, and while office romance is obviously not permitted because he’s the boss, it doesn’t stop him from being friendly. No one ever suspects him of anything because he is so kind and genuine with everyone. For his love, he would often give them the same treatment as everyone else with a bit of extra meaning behind his words. He would never directly ask them out, but he would be extra attentive and listening to you speak when you have conversations. People would probably call them a brown noser before even thinking that Alan had other motives in mind. He doesn’t give presents mostly because he doesn’t want to be seen as too forward, but if the opportunity arises he will pay for lunch or the coffee at the shop he just happened to bump into you at. 

Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

Absolutely. For the boss of an established business with many important clients, he is all around a genuine good boss to his employees. When he took the business over from his father after he suddenly passed, he made sure he did the opposite of what his father did when it came to treating his employees well. When people look at him they see a genuinely kindhearted man that they can’t believe isn’t married, as everyone else around his age typically is. He was married once though not many people know about it and he prefers to keep that and the majority of his past hidden away from prying minds.

Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

If he is in a good mood there will be a lot of torturous edging on his part. Alan has been known to favor tying up his partner and leaving them for hours until he comes back later to take care of them. He also loves spanking and impact play, knowing just how much you can handle before you cry, though if you’ve been bad he just might want to see you cry a little. If Alan is in a bad mood his punishments will be harsher, the bindings tighter, and will be fine seeing your tears pour freely as you beg for him to slow down.

Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

When he first kidnaps you he will take away almost everything, especially any sort of phone or internet for you to reach the outside world. He makes sure to have things for you to occupy yourself with and even your favorite hobbies and books. But if you continue to disobey, more of those things will be taken away from you. Once you start getting used to life with Alan, he will slowly give you more privileges as he trusts you with them.

Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

Alan is much more patient with a willing partner, especially if they’re shy or inexperienced. He will bend over backward to slowly ease your way into the sexual things he wants from you, though sometimes he might cross your boundaries simply to see what happens. If you’ve been nothing but ungrateful to him, he will have a lot less patience and be more forceful with what he wants from you. He still cares about you though, and would rather not force you to be with him but if you give him no choice he just might. 

Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

While the odds of leaving or escaping under his watch are very small, nevertheless he would be heartbroken and furious at you. How could you not understand what he was offering you? Who would pass up such a comfortable life? Most likely he will have you back with him shortly whether by himself or from his hired men, and your punishment will make you seriously consider escaping again. A part of him is terrified about police intervention, but it would take a lot for you to be able to get them or anyone on your side, and he would have the evidence disposed of quickly if that’s the road you chose. If you were to die, that would be another story. He would never be able to forgive himself, blaming himself for your death constantly whether it was his fault or not. Alan might be able to move on one day, but if his darling were to die it would only make him more cruel and cold when it came to the next person he set his sights on.

Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

The only time Alan might ever feel guilty would be years later after you were in love with him and had given him children, he might feel remorse for how he went about it, wondering if he could have seduced you normally. However those thoughts don’t last long, and he wouldn’t want to change the circumstances for the world. 

Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

Growing up as the son of a wealthy businessman and a high society woman, he has quite a bit of trauma. The majority was psychological abuse from his father constantly berating him for not being manly enough to take over the business, with Alan rebelling in every way he could just to make his father mad. His mother was rarely in the picture, as she did her own thing with her own people and rarely saw Alan. He was taken better care of by his nanny than either of his parents. The life he wants for himself is far removed from what he dealt with as a child.

Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

While he might feel bad for seeing his darling cry, he typically doesn’t feel bad seeing them upset. He knows this is an adjustment period for them, and eventually, they will calm down. If not, then he might see you as a spoiled brat who can’t think rationally.

Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

Not sure if this is different, but he stalks his darling obsessively for a long period of time before kidnapping them. He uses all sorts of cameras and bugging equipment just to see you whenever he can’t be next to you. Alan needs to know everything about you for when you come to live with him and wants to make the transition as easy as possible.

Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

If his darling can find out anything about Alan’s past, it would be the closest thing they have to twist the metaphorical knife into his wounds. There are a lot of skeletons in his closet, some of them being things that were scrubbed from official records while others weren’t even found out. Be careful if you decide to go digging before he trusts you enough to tell you these things, he might have to hurt you horribly just for the breach of trust.

Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

Definitely. While he emotionally manipulates them constantly into believing what he does is love, if push comes to shove he will physically harm his darling to make sure they don’t escape again. A broken arm or leg wouldn’t be unheard of with Alan, and one should be lucky if they get away with that little.

Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

To Alan, you are his entire world, a chance for him to start a family and have the normal life he always wanted. He would worship the ground you walk on, making sure you knew every second of every day how much he loved and cherished you, his savior. And if you don’t believe him, he will go to the ends of the earth and do whatever you ask within reason to prove to you just how much he loves you.

Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

Alan might last at most a year simply watching his darling, especially if there is no competition from other partners. If someone else comes into the picture, Alan is quick to speed his plan along and kidnap you away before you can even grow attached to this person.

Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

While the sadistic part of him loves the idea of breaking his darling down, he ultimately wants them to accept him of their own free will. He might push and push until you bend under his will, but unless he is at his wit’s end he will do his best to keep you from completely breaking.

#slasher oc #yandere oc #alan sharpe #my ocs tag

[davidmann95]

How about those JL storyboards?

In case you haven’t heard, Zack Snyder is putting on display the ‘storyboards’ - i.e. a rough plot summary accompanied by some Jim Lee sketches - for what would have been Justice League 2 and 3, or as this puts it 2 and ‘2A’. You can see them here (I imagine better-quality versions will soon be released), and read a transcript here. This is evidently a very early version: this was apparently pitched prior to the release of BvS and Justice League being rewritten in the wake of it, with numerous plot details that now don’t line up with what we know about the Snyder Cut, plus it outright mentions it builds on the originally planned versions of the Batman and Flash movies. But it’s a broad outline of what was gonna go down, and while I initially thought it was Snyder throwing in the towel, the timing - paired with the ambiguity left by the necessity for changes, including that this doesn’t factor whatever that “massive cliffhanger” at the end of the Cut is - says to me he’s hoping this’ll be a force multiplier behind efforts to will sequel/s into existence. He’s probably right.

I’ll be discussing spoilers below, but in short: with this Zack Snyder has finally lived up to Alan Moore, in that like Twilight of the Superheroes I wouldn’t believe this was real as opposed to a shockingly on-point parody if not for direct, irrefutable evidence.

Doing some rapid-fire bullet points for this baby to kick us off:

* Folks who know the subject say a lot of this is a yet further continuation of Snyder doing Arthuriana fanfic with the League reskinned over those major players, and I’ll take their word for it.

* I don’t know whether I love or hate that in Justice League 2 the Justice League are only an extant thing for the first scene, and then it’s Snyder giving everybody their own mini-movies. It’s compressing the entire MCU “loosely interconnected solo stories leading to a single big movie later” strategy into a single movie!

*  Funniest line in the whole thing: "Even Lantern has heard of the Kryptonian, worried that he's under the control of Darkseid. He heard his spirit was unbreakable." Hal what fuckin' Superman movie did YOU watch? Second funniest being “IT WILL GIVE HIM POWER OVER ALL LIVING LIFE”

* 90% of the plot I have nothing to say about, it’s generic stage-setting crap. That to be clear is the ‘shocked it’s Snyder’ element, it feels so crassly commercial in a way I can’t believe is coming from the BvS guy.

* Most of what I have to say is unsurprisingly gonna be about a handful of characters but Cyborg’s happy ending being “he isn’t visibly disabled anymore!” is not great!

* The Goddess of War battle with Superman...never pays off? No clue why it’s there.

* What I’d originally heard was that the Codex in Superman’s blood was the last key to the Anti-Life Equation and that’s why Darkseid was coming to Earth. It’s not like all of this wouldn’t have already been averted by Kal-El’s pod smacking into an asteroid on the way to Earth so it’s not as if this makes it any more Superman’s fault, and it would have at least tied all this back to the beginning of the movies, but I suppose that was either fake or from a later draft.

* I have NO idea how this was reimagined without the ‘love triangle’, it’s the central character thing and the entire climax flows directly out of it!

* Darkseid’s kinda a chump in this, huh

Anonymous said: So: Does Zack Snyder hate Superman?

Look: the hilarity of this when Cuck Kent has been a go-to Snyder cult insult towards ‘inferior’ takes on Superman for years cannot be understated, yet at the same time I can almost wrap my brain around where Snyder’s coming from with that as the end for his take on the character. He talked in that Variety piece on how his interest in Superman is informed by having adopted children himself, and Deborah Snyder is the stepmother to his kids by previous relationships, so I can see where he’d be coming from, and I can even imagine how he’d see this as ‘rhyming’ in the sense of “the series begins with Kal-El being adopted by Earth, it ends with him adopting a child of Earth!” In the same way as MARTHA, I can envision how he would put these pieces together in his head thematically without registering or caring what the end result would actually look like. In this case, Superman raising the kid of the man who beat the shit out of him who Batman had with Clark’s wife, who earlier told Bruce she was staying with Clark because he ‘needed her’, suggesting if inadvertently that this really honest to god was a “she’s only staying with Superman out of pity, she really loved Batman more” thing.

But Clark is nothing in this. He’s sad and existential because of coming back from the dead I guess, then he’s corrupted, then time’s undone and he woo-rah rallies the collective armies of the world (interesting angle for the ‘anti-military/anti-establishment’ Superman he’s talked up as) as his big heroic moment in the finale, and then he stops being sad because he’s adopting a kid. So his big much-ballyhooed, extremely necessary five-movie character arc towards truly becoming Superman was:

Sad weird kid -> sad weird kid learns he’s an alien, is still weird and sad, maybe he shouldn’t save people because things could go really wrong? -> his dad is so convinced it could go wrong he lets himself die -> ????? -> Clark is saving people anyway -> learns his origin, gets an inspiring speech about being a bridge between worlds and a costume -> becomes superman (not Superman, that’s later) to save the world, albeit a very property-damagey version, rejects his heritage he just learned about and space dad’s bridge idea -> folks hate him being superman and that sucks though at least he’s got a girlfriend now -> things go so wrong he considers not being superman but his ghost dad reminds him shit always goes wrong so he should be good anyway, which sorta feels like it contradicts his previous advice -> immediate renewed goodness is out the window as he’s blackmailed into having to try and kill a dude but the dude happens to coincidentally have some things in common so they don’t kill each other after all -> big monster now but superman keeps supermaning at it because he loves his girlfriend and he dies -> he’s brought back, wears black which apparently means now he likes Krypton again? -> he has work friends now but he’s still sad because he was dead -> evil now! -> wait nevermind time travel -> rallies the troops -> his wife’s having a kid so he’s not sad anymore -> Superman! Who gives way to more Batman.

Do I think Zack Snyder is lying when he says he likes Superman? No. I think he sincerely finds much of the basic conceits and imagery engaging. But I don’t think he meaningfully gives shit about Clark as a character, just a vessel for Big Iconic Beats he wants to hit. Whereas while for instance he’s critical of Batman as an idea (at least up to a point), he’s much more passionately, directly enamored with him as a presence and personality. So while Superman may be the character whose ostensible myth cycle or arc or however it’s spun might be propelling a lot of events here, it’s a distant appreciation - of course the other guy takes over and subsumes him into his own narrative. Of course Batman is the savior, the past and the future (though if he’s supposed to be Batman’s kid raised by Superman there’s no excuse for him not to be Nightwing), the tragic martyr to our potential. Admittedly the implication here is also that Batman can apparently only REALLY with his whole heart be willing to sacrifice his life to save an innocent, for that matter apparently his great love, once said innocent is a receptacle for his Bat-brood, but he and Clark are both already irredeemable pieces of shit by the end of BvS so it’s not like this even registers by comparison.

Anonymous said: That “plan” Snyder had was utter dogshit. Picture proof that DC & WB hate Superman. Also I love how you’re like Jor-El: Every single idealistic take you had about Snyder, his fandom, and BvS was wrong. Snyder’s an edgy hack, his fanbase just wants to jerk off to their edgy self-insert Batgod as he screams FUCK while mowing people down with machine guns, and the idea that BvS said Superman was better than Bats was completely wrong. You know what comes next SuperMann: Either you die or I do.

In the final analysis, beyond that mother of god is there sure no conceivable excuse for the treatment of Lois in this? The temptation is to join that anon and say as I originally tweeted that these were “built entirely to disabuse every single redemptive reading of the previous work and any notion of these movies as nuanced, artistic, self-reflective, or meaningful”.

...

...

...yeah, okay, that’s mostly right. Zack Snyder’s vision really was the vision of an edgelord idiot with bad ideas who was never going to build up to anything that would reframe it all as a sensible whole. He’s a sincere edgelord genuinely trying really hard with his bad ideas who put some of them together quite cleverly! But they’re fucking bad and the endgame was never anything more than ramping up into smashing the action figures together as big as he could, the political overtones and moral sketchiness of BvS while trying to say something in that movie reverberated through the grand scheme of his pentalogy in no way beyond giving his boys a big sad pit to rise out of so when they kicked ass later it’d rule harder, and all the gods among men questions and horror and trappings were only that: trappings. Apparently he’s really pleasant and well-meaning in person, but at his core his art as embodied in a couple weeks in his 4-hour R-rated Justice League movie meant to be seen in black-and-white all comes down to that time he yelled at someone on Twitter that he couldn’t appreciate Snyder’s work because it’s for grown-ups. He made half-clever, occasionally exciting shit cape movies for a bunch of corny pseudo-intellectual douchebags, folks latching onto and justifying blockbusters that at least acknowledge how horrifying the world is right now even if the superheroes are basically useless in the face of it if not outright part of the problem until a convenient alien invasion shows up to justify them, and a handful of non-asshole smart people who vibe with it but...well. ‘Suckered’ is a harsh word, and definitely doesn’t apply to all of them re: what they’ve gotten out of it up to this point and would (somehow) get out of this. But it doesn’t apply to none of them, either.

#Justice League #Zack Snyder #Superman #Batman #DCEU #Opinion

[pathogenliliaceae]

Let the games begin. To go off on: Mia. To explore changes, potential, concerns, etc: Jill.

Oh! Cooperation is lovely! Thank you, Anonymous! This may be a bit longwinded... We'll give Mia a go first.

My Thoughts on Mia Winters:

I make no secrets that my analysis on Mia will be full of speculation. Quite honestly, though she's been in more games than some of our series protagonists, there isn't much that is truly known about her (Ha, I put "it" and had to correct myself). She is full of mystery, and while that functionally works for Ada and her behind-the-scenes mischief, there is something that absolutely irks me about the enigma that is Mia's purpose.

I think this is why: While Ada ends up being beneficial in some circumstance, Mia finds herself in need of rescuing. We are two for two, at this point. Her presence in both games is inconsequential. Everything that happens involving Mia could have been just as easily expressed in a memo or through cutscenes. Those of you who enjoy her will defend that she did not ask Ethan to come and rescue her in Seven, but truly I am not entirely convinced nor sure of how much of Mia's actions are the E-001 mould or are her own. Therefore, we cannot pick and choose.

We can, however, analyse what Mia was like prior to the E-001 infection.

Let us talk first about the organisation she finds herself involved with. The Connections, founded by Brandon Bailey, who you may recognise from memos in Five- a protégé of Dr. James Marcus. From what I can tell, The Connections does not have much to do with anything other than the E-series. They (he?) attempted partnership with HCF in the early 2000s, but the only bit of information I can find about what they did states that they only managed to "revolutionise" mind-control experiments through the use of fungus. Fungus which they obtained from Miranda under the false pretense that they would use it to resurrect Eva. Right, then- Mia joins them in 2010.

The timeline is a bit wonky in this bit, but stick with me as I try to make some sense of it. Mia and Ethan date in Texas (video games tell me that the most awful things happen in Texas) in the early 2000s, and marry in 2011. Therefore, it is (hopefully) assumed that their relationship was at least somewhat serious prior to Mia joining The Connections in 2010. One would assume that they engaged and Mia celebrated by becoming a bioterrorist. I understand, though. Weddings are expensive.

Mia keeps her job a secret from her to-be, and later- current, husband. She tells him she works as a "worker for a trading company", which- shame on Ethan for not asking more questions to uncover that elaborate ruse. That story falls apart if you brush it with a feather. She even calls the transport and handling of Eveline a "babysitting job" in her video to Ethan at the beginning of Seven. Oh, Ethan, you absolute moron. We should expect that he does suspect something, at least, as in her second video that she attempts to send she states "You're right, I have been lying to you". In October 2014, Mia and Alan spirit Eveline away, intentionally across the Atlantic, and presumably transporting her to Miranda, because the BSAA uncovered the facility (I am unsure where the facility Eveline was conceived in is located. I assume Texas, as Mia joined The Connections in Texas, and Louisiana is on the way from Texas to Romania). I am aware that some articles state that the Annabelle was headed to Central America, but I cannot find citation of it in a memo, nor remember it in my playthrough of Seven. She is "killed" (fails at containment) whilst "trading goods" (smuggling a sentient bioweapon). Ethan presumably moves on with his life, all the better for no longer having Mia as a spouse. ... Until July, 2017. All bad things happen in July in this series. Arklay, Lanshiang, now this.

As we cannot be certain that Mia is not lying, due to her track record, I will state that we cannot be sure that she did not lure Ethan to Dulvey, and therefore is entirely involved in the events of Seven, from transport to finality. Mia, canonically, unfortunately, is "cured" with the serum and evacuated from the Dulvey Estate by Blue Umbrella (which I take absolute issue with).

I've said this timeline is a mess, and my thoughts are equally messy, so I apologise again. We'll move on to Village and the bulk of what I suspect is Mia's covert (if you could call it covert) allied relationship with Miranda. Previous to October 2014, Miranda travelled to The Connections facility that was housing Eveline. There, she met and conversed with both Mia and Alan. Both were working in tandem for and with The Connections, and both were intimately involved in the E-series.

Back to the whole transporting Eveline across the ocean bit, because I've just had a thought, just WHO approves of transporting a BOW of Eveline's calibre without containment measures and protocols? Oh, yes, it could not possibly backfire that we've given everyone out of the know the impression that this is a family with a not-at-all-dangerous small child. Yes, a gun will fix it. Perfect. Whose idea was this? Mia? Alan? Brandon? Whomever, you're thick.

Anyhow- I wholly and fully believe that Mia's involvement in Village and, by proxy, with Miranda, is willful. They had met before, and by extension had worked together, on the E-series project in specific regard to Eveline and the moulded. Rosemary is born to Mia and Ethan, and the BSAA relocates the Winterses (this still makes me laugh as it does not, at all, roll off the tongue) to Romania. I am not one hundred percent certain how this comes to be the location, as I have faith that Mia would know that Miranda operates nearby. There is too much happenstance for it to not be purposeful. That, however, involves Chris in some fashion and I cannot make that connection in a way that I enjoy it. I like to imagine that Mia simply expressed that she had always wanted to visit Romania, and the BSAA bungled it accordingly.

A bit more on the BSAA in this whole instance: While I do find them entirely insufferable, an utter joke at times, I do believe that some of them are at least somewhat competent. Yes, even Miss Valentine. Canonically, The Connections has a mole in the BSAA. The Connections, who hired Lucas Baker as Head Researcher in the E-series project. The Connections, who trusted Mia to transport a sentient BOW without containment measures. Has a mole. In the BSAA.

Sure.

Anyhow, this "mole" provides Miranda with intel of where the Winterses are living, that they've just had a baby, that both Mia and Ethan are living fungal colonies, and therefore, perhaps, maybe, Rosemary may be a suitable substitute for Eva. Bit of a leap of logic there, but I digress.

This "mole" in the BSAA must absolutely be Mia. I do not think so much it's that she's in the BSAA so much as that she is privy to whatever intel they would have regarding her family because she is a part of it. Again, she would have know they were close to Miranda. "Remember that mouldy pseudo-child BOW that my organisation promised you? Have I got news for you- my husband and I have gone stale, I've got a daughter, and I'm right in the neighbourhood!"

It ultimately makes more sense in the whole of how the universe operates that Mia and Miranda would be in league with one another. One does not simply make connections in... Well, The Connections... For all this to be coincidence.

Miranda takes Mia's forme and then goes on to impersonate Mia for days, her confrontational attitude goes unnoticed by Ethan because Mia's mould-type is of the toxic variety. Allegedly, Mia is captured and holed up in Miranda's lab having been experimented on. The only supporting evidence to Mia having been experimented on is in Eugen's Diary, stating that Miranda asked Eugen to bring her medical equipment and drugs on Wednesday, 3 February 2021. On Friday, 5 February, Miranda had taken Mia's place. And, of course, Mia's claim that she was experimented on and held hostage. I have one question of all of this:

Why would Miranda need to experiment on Mia if she is infected with the same E-series mould that Miranda already has samples and an unlimited supply of due to her proximity to the megamycete? Mia does not state that she is special after being rescued by Chris, only that Ethan is special. I would argue that both are rather run-of-the-mill, but again, I digress. Simply put, I don't believe that she would need to. Us scientists are not in the habit of wanting to perform experiments for the sake of using up supplies.

Furthermore, when Chris finds Mia in Miranda's lab, she is "imprisoned" in oddly the same way as she was in Seven. Behind bars, but unrestrained. In Village, Mia even has relative access to a weapon which she tries to attack Chris with. While Miranda is a mimic, after having obtained target DNA, I do not imagine that it would be easy to have mistaken Chris for Miranda. Unless Miranda regularly comes down to her lab as other people, which would be rather amusing- though setting up for a massive security issue.

If you were to imprison someone for experimentation, it's likely you wouldn't give them anything they could possibly use to attack you with. At least, that's how I would do it in the off chance that for whatever reason I became interested in imprisoning someone against their will for the purpose of science. (Do not read into this, Christiana.)

I believe that Mia intended to attack Chris, and after failing miserably, played the damsel card.

I will end this rambling on this note: She is entirely rude, confrontational, and hostile for someone who has just been rescued from imprisonment and had their baby saved. Honestly, if this is her default personality, who could fault Ethan for not noticing his wife being replaced for three days?

In short: Ethan should have saved Zoe instead. Mia Winters is a false-protagonist who has found herself in more than a few suspicious situations, has proven from the beginning to be a liar, and already has the connection with Miranda that might foster her involvement in the events of Seven and Village.

I'm certain I've missed something further that would be worth discussing. We will cover Jill in another entry as this has run much too long already, and it is time for my job as a worker at a trading company.

#Thoughts on Mia Winters #False protagonist #I quite hate her actually #No one shouts at Chris and gets away with it

[aion-rsa]

How Control: The Foundation Changes Jesse Faden

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Control’s central metaphor is about revealing hidden things. Specifically, it’s about pulling away a poster on the wall of a jail, finding the whole world outside. In the game, Jesse Faden delves into a secret NYC building called the Oldest House to find the group she’s always suspected kidnapped her brother. Inside, she finds the Federal Bureau of Control, the government agency responsible for tackling unexplained phenomena, itself overseen by a mysterious entity called the Board. 

By the start of the game’s first DLC, The Foundation, Jesse is well-versed in a whole new world of weirdness. She has embraced her role as director of the FBC, including her alliance with the new head of the research department, Emily Pope. At the start of Control‘s story, Jesse was supernaturally appointed by the Board, an inverted pyramid that looms over the astral plane and issues messages in a garbled language. The Board’s unknown motivation and bureau-wide power contrasted with the mundane way Jesse and Emily assign agents to explore the astral plane sums up the game’s humorously bureaucratic attitude toward the supernatural.   

A large part of Jesse’s story in Control is about growing as a powerful magic user and a leader. The Foundation moves Jesse’s characterization forward in terms of her opinion on the role of director and her relationship with Emily, the Board, and another supernatural behemoth known as the Former. The story is too light to do more than gesture at most of this, though, and Control’s wonderful aesthetic that leaves more questions than answers begins to fray. There’s a difference between the pleasant mystery of what exactly the Board is and being unsure of what the game is trying to say. The political and supernatural ramifications are slightly different, and it’ll take another story or two to find out how they shake out. 

Just as Jesse embraces the directorship, things become more complicated. What do the warring residents of the astral plane want from her? And will finding out distract her from the other major revelation of the DLC: that a previous researcher, Ash, succumbed to an almost religious fervor in the House’s lowest floors? Ever since they started working under the Board, the directors have all taken up the position (and died or retired) under strange circumstances. Jesse has the chance to break that cycle. As an outsider with a grudge against the FBC, embracing the directorship means something different for her: a chance to change it from the inside — if the supernatural forces at play let her. 

The most noticeable change Jesse has gone through in The Foundation is that she is more certain in her ability to control the Bureau. Even when she fails in her mission, she remains determined to alter the agency’s direction. She has plenty of motivation to do so. The FBC has hurt the only family she has left by using him as an experiment to find out more about psionic powers and the supernatural qualifications required for directorship. What exactly the FBC’s connection to the wider federal government is is unclear, but its operations span the United States and sometimes beyond. Because the FBC is so bureaucratic, most of the commentary about the government comes in the form of exhaustive paperwork or cover-ups, as if The X-Files was really mostly about filing. Jesse’s politics are limited to the FBC. Her relationship to it becomes even less about human choice when the DLC expands on the Board. 

In The Foundation, the conflict between the Board and the Former pulls the rug out from under Jesse again. It broadens the lore but also distracts from the story of the FBC’s very human flaws. She’s beginning to rebel against the Board, which doesn’t disguise its feeling of superiority and control over the human it appointed as director. “You should feel honored/handled,” the Board says, the strange and creative way of speaking in alternative subtitles perhaps revealing the Board’s patronizing nature. But Jesse isn’t having it. Later, she declares, “I don’t like you deciding what I can slash can’t have.” One of the best moments in the DLC comes from a second meeting with the Former. First seen in the main game as a side boss possessing (?) a refrigerator, this giant creature lives in the astral plane and had some kind of falling out with the Board. It appears just as Jesse is beginning to suspect she and the Board have different ideas about what directorship entails. If Jesse is supposed to run the place, she’s going to run it … and the Former, whatever motivates it, is willing to give her more powers. 

The Former is shaped like a friend.

Jesse’s relationship with the other main human character in the DLC also touches on what her directorship will be like. She clashes briefly with Emily Pope, who wants to make plans where Jesse dives in. Jesse’s fighting against a pattern the last few directorships have fallen into. Both have had tense relationships between the two most influential managers in the Oldest House, the director and the head of research. The previous head of research, Casper Darling, disappeared after his counterpart’s death paved the way for Jesse. Before that came the father and son duo of researcher Theodore Ash Jr. and his dad, the last director to hold the position before the Board got involved and the first to run the bureau from the Oldest House. Emily Pope is Jesse’s closest ally, but is there something about their job titles in the FBC that means they’re fated for tragedy? Does escaping that cycle have something to do with rebelling against the Board? The Foundation suggests it but doesn’t state it outright. 

The directorship itself is also suspicious. Ash Jr. is compelled by the spell of the House but also suspects something is wrong. “We were shown the way inside so we could help, but all we’ve done is fall victim to the same parasite,” he muses. The last three directors died under strange circumstances (or, in Northmoor’s case, entered some kind of death-like stasis because he was unable to control his own supernatural powers.) Jesse wants to be sure whatever supernatural cycle controlled the fates of the previous directors doesn’t hit her too. 

What is the parasite? The Board, the hive mind Hiss, the Former, or something else? Did the Board draw Jesse to the Oldest House because it thought she would be easily controlled? Are the problems she needs to fix in the Oldest House supernatural, political, or both? 

Leaving some questions unanswered adds to the frightening, strange atmosphere of the game, and The Foundation simply didn’t have time to return to the fate of Jesse’s brother, who remains in a coma. Jesse is still determined to reform the FBC and to make sure no other families are torn apart in the name of studying supernatural forces. But those forces are dangerous, and she’s going to have to contend with that too.

Now more comfortable using her powers, both magical and managerial, she has even less solid ground to stand on. It’s up to Remedy whether the writing in the next installments of the game can balance the government story, the Board, the Former, and Jesse’s family and friends while making a coherent statement that still feels mysterious. 

Control is out now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. It will also be available on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X at a later date. The next story expansion, AWE, will explore the FBC’s connection to Alan Wake, another character created by Remedy.

The post How Control: The Foundation Changes Jesse Faden appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2BY9it2

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[deans-baby-momma]

The Padackles Link-Chapter 52

A/N: Sorry this has taken so long to be updated. Hopefully now I am back on track and can update more regularly. 

IN DALLAS 

Jensen woke up and slowly opened his eyes. He glanced around at the room he was in; the guest room of his parents’ home. When he had packed up and moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career,  his mom had turned his old room into a crafts room. A place where she could go to get some quiet time and do what she enjoyed, creating little trinkets and keepsakes that she gives out to family and close friends as gifts. 

He sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He knew he had fucked up yesterday and last night, going off on Drea and ultimately leaving without much of an explanation. He knew that even though he had finally answered the phone when Jared called and had asked him to explain to Drea where he was headed it wasn’t the best recourse but by the time he had calmed down and realized his mistake, he was already halfway to Dallas. 

Jensen just hoped he hadn’t ruined what he and Drea had, that she would let him justify himself and forgive him. He also knew he wasn’t above begging.

A knock brought him out of his thoughts and his dad, Alan, stuck his head through the door.

“Morning son. Your mother wants to know if you’ll be staying for breakfast?”

“Morning dad,” Jensen rasped, his voice gruff from sleep. “Tell Mom I’ll be down in 10.”

Alan nodded and turned to leave. But then he stopped and looked back at his grown son. 

“Listen Jen. I know you are an adult and probably don’t think you need advice from an old man like me but I’m going to give it to you anyway.”

Jensen smiled at his dad. He actually would like to get some guidance and opinion from his dad. He looked up to the man, always had. Alan Ackles was what he intended to become.  A loving, hard-working man who took care of his family’s wants and needs.So any help his dad was willing to dole out Jensen would take to heart. 

“Now I don’t know why you showed up at our doorstep at bedtime last night but I have a feeling it has something to do with what happened at the party yesterday,” Alan paused long enough for his son to answer. When Jensen nodded he continued. “I know seeing your ex-wife with someone new, someone that isn’t you had to be…unsettling but you can’t let it ruin the other relationships in your life. You’ve moved on and you cannot expect Danneel not to. 

"So whatever you are feeling, suck it up son. You and Drea seem to be getting along and you do not want to destroy that.”

Nodding, Alan shut the door gently, giving Jensen time to reflect on his words. Jensen knew his dad was right. He couldn’t really be upset about Danneel moving on; and he really wasn’t. Not like everyone thought, at least. It was more of whom she moved on with. Dr. Josh Daniel’s, Drea’s ex. He didn’t know the whole story behind their breakup because he had never asked, but to know that Drea had given him her time and affection and he just threw it away like yesterday’s garbage didn’t sit right with Jensen. He knew firsthand just how loving and caring Drea was and he couldn’t imagine tossing it aside. Drea Murphy was the most respectful, most kind, supportive woman Jensen had ever known. She reminded him of his mother with her encouragement and loyalty. 

Running a hand over his head,  Jensen got out of bed to go downstairs to visit with the woman who he admired the most, Donna Ackles.

IN AUSTIN

6:45. Jackson begins his whimpering and I knew by the time I made it to his room, it would be a full on wail like it is every morning. I sit up and swing my legs over the edge of the bed and by the time my hand touches the doorknob, the first loud cry sounds through the monitor.

“I’m on my way baby,” I mutter as I tread to his room. “Hey mister. It’s okay. Mommy’s here. Is my big man hungry?” I coo to my son as I pick him and lay him onto the changing table to switch the soiled diaper with a clean and dry one. Jackson lays there, watching me, his fussing down to just sniffles.

Gen is already in the kitchen, pouring coffee when I walk in carrying Jackson. “Good morning. Did we wake you?”

Gen smiles as she takes a sip of the scalding brew. “Nah, my internal clock wakes me up at 6 every morning. Guess it’s from all those years of getting up early for soccer practice and now with the boys,  they hardly ever sleep past 7.”

“Even now?” I ask, astonished.  I had been hoping that as Jackson got older he would begin sleeping longer. And both Gen’s boys were older than him so it wasn’t looking promising. 

“Yea. Welcome to motherhood. It’s great!” She chuckled.  “No seriously though, I love the time I get to spend with my kids teaching them things and watching them learn. And if that means I lose a few hours of sleep, then I’m not complaining. I can sleep when I’m dead and buried.”

I looked down at Jackson as he ate, staring back at me and took in her words. She was right. If I got to watch this precious little baby grow up and teach him right from wrong, a few lost hours of sleep was nothing. 

*GEN’S POV*

Drea was an excellent mother. Not once had she shirked her duties as Jackson’s parent. It made me even more hopeful of the idea I’d had. Now if Jared was receptive of it. He was wary of it when we spoke last night but I knew I could get him on board eventually.  It was way too soon to bring it up anyway with Drea and Jensen’s current dilemma.

“Did you ever hear from him after I went to bed?” I asked gently, not wanting to make Drea upset.

“No, but Donna did call to tell me he is set up in their guest room,” Drea explained to me. “She just wanted to assure me he was okay." 

"That was nice of her,” I said with a smile. “So what are you going to do today? Wanna take the kids to the park or something?” I sip on my cooling coffee as I watch her mull over the idea. 

“Yea, I guess that would be good,” she says as she switches Jackson from one side to the other and coax him onto the new breast. “After his nap, we can head over. I can’t stay here and wonder what went wrong. Why he up and left, saying he needed time, can I?”

“No, sweetie. You will just drive yourself crazy,” I soothe. “I’ll go wrangle my guys and then we’ll go let them run off some of that Padalecki energy. And give you a chance to get your mind off things for a while.”

“Yea sounds good.”

*END GEN’S POV*

After Gen left to go back home, I got Jackson changed again and entertained him until he began yawning, signaling that it was time for his mid-morning nap. 

Once he was asleep and settled into his crib, I wandered into mine and Jensen’s bedroom to grab my phone. Checking it for messages, I was not surprised to see the notifications were empty. No messages, no missed calls.

I sighed and placed the phone back onto the nightstand and grabbed some clothes to change into after a quick shower.

A day with the Padalecki’s would surely get my mind off of wondering if my relationship with Jensen was over.

@lostinaseaoffictionalbliss 

@carryonmywaywardcaptain

@darlingpeanut 

@sunskittlex 

@sis-tafics 

@wayward-gypsy 

@sea040561

@pretty-fortune 

@squirrelnotsam 

@death-unbecomes-you 

@sandlee44

@internationalmusicteacher 

@kricketc288 

@natura1phenomenon 

@mannls

@nickie-amore 

@spn-tw-37 

@frozenhuntress67 

@blacktithe7

@supernaturallymarvellous 

@thetardishasaquidditchpitch 

@sirod-30

@heyitscam99 

@smoothdogsgirl

 @i-just-wanna-run-hell 

@paintballkid711

@closetspngirl 

@starfirerules 

@vickiq9761 

@rainflowermoon 

@spnbaby-67

@flamencodiva

@tiffany-leigh

@drakelover78 

@jessieray98

@81mysteriouslyme

@travelingriversideblues-x 

@akshi8278

@keymology

@topthis808

#jensen ackles #danneel ackles #Jared Padalecki #Genevieve Padalecki #drea murphy #the padackles link #jensen x drea #jensen x ofc #romance #angst #fluff #Smut #cheating #pregnancy #spn rpf #friendship

[themiscyra1983]

The Elephant In The Room

Let me preface all this by saying I do not have time for assholes. If you come at me with insults and contempt, I will block you.

The other day on Twitter I said the Harry Potter books aren’t good. I said this to a friend but I guess some people just keep an eye out for whatever Harry Potter shit pops up on Twitter and/or the algorithm just likes to spit in people’s eyes because hoooo boy people saw and lost their minds. I blocked two people over it because they decided to be assholes, and had a somewhat terse conversation with someone who was more politely insistent before going, finally, “I’m glad you find joy in something I no longer care for” and putting an end to the conversation.

It’s no particular secret that I’m in the fandom, and prior to J.K. Rowling going full, ‘no plausible deniability here’ transphobe, I’d bought my share of official merch. Frankly I should have stopped that sooner, but it took getting figuratively slapped in the face multiple times before I finally admitted Rowling’s ignorance carried a distinct air of willfulness and malice. Anyway I still HAVE the stuff I bought before, the Ravenclaw crap, the wands I was collecting (no more of that, I fear, though I’d hoped to pick up Tonks and Ginny’s wands at least before I brought an end to it), the Ravenclaw goblet I was gifted from a friend who bought it before JKR passed the plausibly just clueless horizon. There is still much in the world that I love, but much of that love comes now from the creations of others, and I cannot in good conscience spend money in ways that directly benefit Rowling’s financial empire.

And the Harry Potter books are not, in my view, good books. I’ve felt that for a while now. I’ll go a step further: I think they’re dangerous stories to tell children; I think I would be uncomfortable reading them to any children I might have. They are not stories that should be viewed without a critical eye. I loved them as a teenager. I’ve grown more uncomfortable with them - and, as with Twilight, far more comfortable with how critically thinking fans have transformed the work - as time has passed.

This actually has very little to do with the fact that, well...Rowling is not the best writer. Listen. I’m a Power Rangers fan. I’ve watched every incarnation of Star Trek, and every single movie. I have no problem with trashy fiction. You will find me rooting around in the garbage with the finest raccoons. But that is part of it, yes; there are flaws in the craft of it, and I don’t feel that, inherently, we needn’t judge children’s fiction by adult standards. I would argue that the very BEST children’s fiction is also excellent by adult standards. But this is the least of my concerns.

Here are my actual concerns.

Rowling wants credit for declaring Dumbledore gay after the fact, for saying Hogwarts is a safe space for all students in ways not reinforced (and in fact actively contradicted) by the text, for cheering the fan-created same-sex marriage of Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan, but she doesn’t want to take the creative risks that go along with that. When she had the opportunity, with the Fantastic Beasts movies, to make that subtext text, she and her cronies outright declined it. At every opportunity she has shied away from actually putting her high-minded ideas to the page. This is a cowardly choice at best.

Further, Dumbledore’s only canonical love interest (and it is not clear whether the love was requited) was a pretty fascist with whom he fell in, politically, for a time. I get it, we’ve all had crushes on terrible people. But this is literally his one and only love, requited or not, and after he defeats Grindelwald he is left to pine away for the remainder of his days. The one gay love story in the books - if you tilt your head, and squint, and accept Rowling’s word for it - is a tragic one that leaves one man in prison and another celibate and alone and, increasingly, a manipulative bastard who upholds the status quo.

There’s nothing wrong with a tragic love story. I’ve enjoyed quite a few. But when this - THIS - is what you hold up as a triumph of representation, in the absence of ANYTHING else...no. No cookies for you.

Let’s also talk about how I don’t feel Rowling wrote Dumbledore or approaches him with a critical eye. There is NO excuse for leaving a child in an abusive home. No, fuck your blood wards. You’re telling me that Albus Dumbledore - ALBUS DUMBLEDORE - could not devise protections better than leaving Harry with abusive relatives who despised him and everything he stood for? Then, too, when Dumbledore did intervene in Harry’s life, he did so with full knowledge that he was setting Harry up to be a sacrificial lamb, AND WITH THIS SPECIFIC END IN MIND. None of this is acceptable. Dumbledore is a fucking manipulative, abusive bastard who uses people and throws them away, and the fact that it WORKED OUT for Harry does not absolve him of his crimes.

Moving on, and bear in mind I’m still getting my steam up on this whole rant: Seamus Finnegan. Seamus Finnegan is the one canonically, obviously Irish character in the books, named quite stereotypically, but more importantly, in the books and movies, is shown to be interested in (a) liquor and (b) making things explode. He’s REALLY GOOD at making things explode. Do I need to explain why it’s problematic for the one Irish character to blow things up all the time? He also does this in defense of UK wizardry’s status quo, so, you know, even if you were all IRISH FREEDOM FIGHTER YEAH, I assure you he is not that guy.

There is an entire species of sapient magical creatures who exist solely to serve witches and wizards. Hogwarts is run on slave labor and most of the finest wizard families hold slaves. But it’s all right! Only one of them has ever, in the context of the books, wished to be emancipated, and everyone else views Dobby as a weirdo for wishing to be free, and paid for his labor. Dobby, incidentally, later lays down his life for the wizarding savior who tricked his master into freeing him. The only other emancipated house elf we see in the books, Winky, spends her time in a state of drunken depression, rendering her useless and scarcely capable even of caring for herself. She wished to remain enslaved, do you see, and was helpless without the benevolent guidance of her master.

There’s fan work that has tried to address this by exploring a mystically symbiotic relationship between house elves and wizards and witches, and yes, yes, J.K. Rowling is drawing on European folklore here, but let’s not give her credit, okay?

Goblins. Goblins! Goblins have a long history of being antisemitic stereotypes to begin with (hence why I have seen multiple Jews on Tumblr push back HARD on ‘goblincore’), but J.K. Rowling just...right. They’re short, ugly, have hooked noses, generally look like antisemitic cartoon figures. They are locked out of power but control all the wizarding world’s banking, and do so in very usurious ways, for example charging wizards to hold their money, etc. Now this might be an interesting commentary on how Jews have historically been oppressed and forced into fields that goyim felt themselves too ‘pure’ to work in, were it not for the fact that Rowling’s fantasy Jews LITERALLY AREN’T HUMAN, and more, ARE ACTUALLY GREEDY, CONNIVING, AND WILLING TO BETRAY YOU AGAINST THEIR OWN SELF-INTEREST FOR PERSONAL GAIN. FUCKING GOBLINS, MAN.

Then there’s the travesty of Magic in North America, which disrespected the intelligence of Native Americans (none of them figured out you could point a stick at something to make the magic go until white people showed up to help, apparently, but don’t worry, they’re really CLOSE TO NATURE and GOOD AT NATURAL MAGIC), disrespected the beliefs of specific peoples (no, skinwalkers aren’t just misunderstood shapechanging wizards and witches smeared by the greedy and ignorant, you’re whitesplaining actual mythology to the people who hold it sacred), made the ONE wizarding school in America white with an appropriated Native veneer, and generally just...Did Not Get America. As bad as the UK Wizarding World is, Rowling demonstrated complete IGNORANCE regarding the long history of what we now call North America, ignorance of even modern American culture (there’s a reason why American fans particularly tend to ignore the idea that wizardry is locked down tight behind a wall of secrecy here), ignorance and disrespect toward Native populations, and an unwillingness to do the research necessary to do this shit right.

There’s more. There’s blood purity, and gender politics, and Severus Snape’s portrayal, and all kinds of shit that grates, and I’m just tired.

Writers make mistakes. it happens. But Rowling does not recognize her mistakes. She does not seek to make amends. She just barrels on with her shitty opinions, regardless of who she hurts.

it is at the point where I am no longer even willing to thank her for graciously allowing us to play in her sandbox. We don’t need her blessing; the OTW has done far more for fanfic than she has. And it is, indeed, beginning to grate on me that people constantly try to apply Harry Potter metaphors to real life and real politics. As my friend Doc often says, find another book.

I love butterbeer (or at least the knockoffs available outside the Universal parks), I still read fanfic sometimes, I still like to play with ideas like the Harry Potter movies as performed by Muppets, with Dan Radcliffe as Snape and Tom Felton as Lucius. I’m glad the movies brought us a generation of actors, mentored by performers like Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith and so many others, who have gone on to bigger and better things. Much of my merch is packed away, but I still hold on to some of it because it has new meaning for me in light of fanwork, or because (in the case of my Ravenclaw hat and scarf) it’s warm, winters here are cold, I don’t want to buy new shit, leave me alone.

I am accustomed to seeing fans turn trash into treasure. I’ve tried to do it myself. But I feel, quite strongly, that the original text in this case is trash. it is radioactive, stinky trash. You won’t persuade me otherwise, and I’m done apologizing for it. If Rowling wants me to respect her and her work again, she’ll have to earn it, but I’m very trans and she low-key hates my kind, so even if I weren’t a random reader I wouldn’t be holding my breath.

And I really, really need to emphasize to you all that it is okay if people don’t like a given work of fiction. It is okay if people HATE that piece of fiction. You don’t need to change the minds of everyone around you. You absolutely will not succeed in doing so. Please, I’m begging you, make peace with that - and please, I’m begging you, even if you like something, try to consider it critically.

[dan-alexander-art]

Personas

Man it has been a long time since I posted anything. I wanted to apologize for that, things have been hectic. Especially with University but through all that I've been doing a lot of self discovery and realized I'm not one person, but actually six (plus a train of thoughts). Most people might think it's Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID or Multiple Personality Disorder) but that's not what I have. After talking to a therapist about this she's helped me see that they're just different parts of me. I knew it wasn't DID to begin with since I didn't have blank memories. It took awhile but after trying to listen to my different parts I figured out who they are and their own stories. Most have their own tastes of music and that has helped me a lot in figuring out on who they are, what they do and what they're like. So below I their bios as well as a short story of them and how they came to be. This is right to left.

Name: Love and Memories

Nickname: Rose

Likes: Listening to Maroon 5 and songs about love. Look back at happy memories. Giving Lillies or Bonsai Trees to friends.

Bio: Love has been around a long time, he's the second longest persona that existed. When he's around he doesn't care what to wear. When he's present he likes to go back and remember both the good and bad in my life. He has a deeper understanding between a good relationship and a bad relationship. The vines represent a current relationship I have, weather it's a friendship or family relations. When the vines are mostly thorns rather than flowers it means the relationship is toxic and should be fixed. If there are more flowers than thorns then the relationship is healthy. The point where the toxicity has gotten really bad is when the rose on his right eye begins to wither. Whenever we get friends he symbolically gives said friend either a lily or Bonsai tree since these require lots of care, love and patience just like a real friendship. Love isn't too hesitant about forming new bonds but only after a certain amount of time. He's not shy but most people would assume since he doesn't speak much, but in reality he just doesn't know how to communicate well and worries it might come out wrong, misunderstood or offensive.

Name: Beast

Nickname: ---

Likes: Feeding off my insecurities and taunting me

Bio: Beast is a dangerous persona that requires me to have full control of what goes on. Beast can control the other personas. For example Beast can make Love rewind traumatic memories and leave me feeling paralyzed. He is the embodiment of negativity and he enjoys seeing me suffer. If I'm not careful he can and will slowly crawl up behind me. Starting with small whispers of insecurities then building on until he's shouting taunts at me. Shouting all my fears, my worries and my worthlessness to the point of crying.

Name: Hurt

Nickname: Wolf

Likes: Listening to Linkin Park, Three Days Grace, Katy Perry and any type of strengthing music. Wearing rings and bracelets.

Bio: Hurt carries a lot of scars and wounds on him that represent emotional and mental scars and wounds I carry. He doesn't mind showing them off, he actually finds them empowering. To him it shows not only what he's been through but even through all that he's still here. Hurt isn't afraid aside from Beast. Beast is the only thing that scares him. Hurt also doesn't mind crying, it just means he's human like everyone else. When he's around he lets me cry when I need to but also reminds me that there's always a better tomorrow. That whatever is going on in my life doesn't mean the world is going to end and this experience is only going to make me stronger. Hurt's nickname comes from his ability to change into a wolf. The form represents the pride he has for being able to continue walking down this path dispite the curveballs life has thrown at us. Hurt is very wary of new people and doesn't open up on the spot. Though he's very kind and is willing to comfort people who are hurting. He always puts other people ahead of himself. The cracked eye shows that Hurt's soul is part broken, since the eyes are the windows to the soul. The cracked has a tendency to bleed every now and then and because of the cracked eye his perspective is warped. What caused the cracked eye is something Hurt doesn't want to talk about or explain.

Name: Ying & Yang

Nickname: Unity

Likes: Listening to NoCopyrightSounds (NCS) and other types of beat music. Wearing a black hoodie.

Bio: Yang has a deep understanding for human behavior and human emotions but doesn't understand his own. When he's around I just have a strong emotion of movement and color. Yang is very powerful, he can alter my reality. He helps me see different perspectives. Yang also has a different side called Ying. Yang is calm, collective and uses his ability to make my day brighter. Ying is a bit more unstable, he changes my reality in order to escape it. Ying doesn't always show up but when he does it's often from stress and a sense of lack of control. Unlike Yang, Ying doesn't see color. He only sees static black and white. This static helps calm my mind by focusing on less. Ying is also chaotic and makes me go through healthy mental breakdowns. Though Ying's mind is also disturbing compared to Yang's. Ying doesn't mind listening to twisted music and watching gorey movies.

Name: Smart Alec

Nickname: Yukio

Likes: Listening to lo-fi and reading music. Reading fiction books. Peace and quiet whenever possible.

Bio: Alec is the first persona to be around, he only focuses on school and is always planning ahead. He rarely makes me forget to do HW. Alec would often scare me into doing HW fast and early. Though it pays off. He loves reading especially the Wings of Fire series. The combination of music and reading helps keep him immersed into the world. He's often very technical and often likes to argue with science. He's all about the facts and research, he sees educating one's self is important especially with the type of world he's in this time around. He's hardworking and studying whenever it's necessary. He use to push me to my limits but is now more lenient and doesn't make me overdo it when it comes to studying. He's not really too comfortable in crowds and prefers to be with a small group or being alone. He doesn't mind a challenge, in fact he actually welcomes it. Alec doesn't see any reason for emotions and he lacks a lot of emotion himself. Although he doesn't see it as bad he does see it as a burden, especially if when I'm upset but there's a task to be done. Though he encourages me to do said task, like he always says: Once you hit rock bottom, the only way now is up.

Name: Creativity

Nickname: Twilight

Likes: Listening to Alan Walker, Zedd and any upbeat music, but mostly music in general. Drawing and painting, especially adding a new drawings to my bedroom walls. Playing videogames, mostly JRPGs. Wearing hoodies and comfortable clothes.

Bio: Creativity likes to turn Yang's vision of colors into meaning. He often translates those colors into drawings. The same goes when he listens to music. When he's around he always compeles me to draw even if it's late. He gives me a drive to continue drawing. He also looks out for my wellbeing by helping me balance between downtime and chores. Creativity is also the one who gave the other personas nicknames. He's mostly shy but that shyness doesn't stay around when he's playing competitively. He won't hesitate to pick up a controller when it comes to games such as Smash Bros. Playing games helps with the ongoing stresses in life but also helps spark new ideas. Creativity also likes to world building and create new characters for his world building. He's always positive and helps me through my hard times by drawing vent art. Creativity is a Walker fan himself, if you're curious he's Walker #37804.

Name: Lust

Nickname: Blaze

Likes: Listening to Ke$ha, Avril Lavigne, Green Day and any type of party music. Think about sex as a means to relieve anger, frustration or irritation. Wearing multiple necklaces and high tops.

Bio: Lust didn't always have free will especially early on. He was always fueled by rage, hate and anger. He often protected me by being cold and learning to fight back. He was present in my early years of starting Elementary school as a way to keep a distance from people who would try to hurt me. Though because of his lack of free will he would often make me feel angry and ready to clock anything even if it was just bothering me. The lack of freewill came from Beast. In fact Beast and Lust use to be one. With Beast fueling his anger with hurtful words. It wasn't until Ying and Yang helped them be their own person that Lust started to control his anger. Now he just likes to display himself as someone against authority when he believes something is wrong. And he uses that anger as a passion to participate in marches and protests. Though Lust hasn't completely shed influence from Beast. He possesses the ability to become a dragon. He can do this at will but not when he's angry. The angrier Lust gets the more dragon like he becomes. Only when he gets enraged does Lust become a full dragon. Lust is very protective, not just protective of me but also of my friends. He cares about other people and displays it as being protective. If anyone messes with my friends, Lust won't hesitate to get even. He's also very raw when it comes to intercourse and sees it as nothing more than human nature and not something to be ashamed about. Though he also holds consent to a high standard. If we're out he'll make sure me or someone there doesn't end up getting taken advantage of or be in a dangerous situation. Intercourse is very secrete to him and not something someone should have the ability to abuse.

#digital art #personas #charcter art #charcterdesign #persona drawing #digital illustration

[darkwingdragon]

Skully The Sentient Walking Cane

This is a fan character for the animated series “The Hazbin Hotel” made by VivziePop​.

Name: Skully 

Canon Voice Actor: Alan Tudyk ( Has a voice similar to King Candy Talks with a lisp)

Age: unknown

Gender: male

Type of Demon: He isn’t one He’s a Walking Cane

Friends: Rumeminus,Bucky,Katia,Gnat The Imp,Serina, Charlie,The King and Queen of Hell,Vaggie,Angel,Husk,Alastor, Nifty and everyone else at the hotel.

Enemies: Anyone that endangers the princess’s life and her friends is considered an enemy much like his master,The Exterminators and the Wraith Demons.

Nicknames: Doesn’t have one

Abilities: Able to talk and understand every language even the imps,When his master is using him he is able to open portals,create protective barriers,shoot chaotic energy blasts, and transform anything or anyone into whatever his master Rumeminus thinks of. Skully acts as a stabiliser for Rumeminus’s chaotic aura,he also saps his masters chaotic energy to help prevent his masters chaos powers from warping the environment and objects whenever they are around unless Rumeminus does it on purpose.  

Note due to him harnessing  Rumeminus’s chaotic energy Skully is able to be used by other demons,that is if anyone is able to get him.Because of this unless they are close friends of him and his master Skully will try his best to prevent anyone from using him.

However although he doesn’t have organs Skully suffers from motion sickness this often cause him to spill out some of Rumeminus’s chaos energy which can accidently open portals to random places even to other realms such as Heaven or the Human world.  

Personality: Skully is a cheerful, friendly, humble, helpful and  good natured towards anyone, whenever his master pulls a prank on someone Skully is often very apologetic towards whomever they are pranking.Skully is very loyal to hi master Rumeminus even if his master can go a bit overboard at times he still supports him,he acts always like Rumeminus’s moral compass to whenever his master is confused if whether they should cause someone trouble today or not.If his master or anyone that they know is upset Skully will console to them and will give advice if they need any.

Whenever Rumeminus is deciding if he should prank an unfortunate demon or not Skully will most likely try to convince him to leave them alone but it usually never works. Although Skully cannot get around unless someone takes him somewhere he’s always tries to help those in need by giving them moral advice even if they seem that they don’t want it. 

Background: When Rumeminus was younger he had a hard time keeping his chaotic powers under control because of this where ever he went his aura would warp the environment and objects such as causing poor demons to float away random furniture would come to life and try to attack and even the colour in the sky would change.One day when Rumeminus walking down town he noticed an antique shop excited headed inside due for his love of collecting old and unusual things.

After having a good look around the shop he was about to leave when something caught his eye. A barrel filled with different walking canes Rumeminus has a look at the canes until he picks up one particular one, a black ebony wooden cane with a skull attached on the end.The Trickster King fell in love with its quirky design and decided to buy it.After he bought the cane Rumeminus was about to head home when suddenly the cane began to vibrate. Rumeminus takes a look at his cane carefully and was surprised to see that the skull on the end of his cane eyes were blinking and looking around.

When the Skull began to speak it suddenly dawned on the demon of chaos,due to his chaotic aura his walking cane was brought to life and became sentient but that was not all. As Rumeminus held his now newly alive walking cane he noticed a strange sensation while holding onto his cane.It was sapping his chaotic energy keeping his powers stable ad preventing everything around him from getting warped by his aura.

After realising this the arch demon decides to give his new friend a name, “Skully” whom was not only an object to help him control his chaotic powers but he would also find soon enough is that Skully would become his most loyal companion and beloved friend for all of eternity and in Hell you need to have at least one.              

Appearance: Is basically a skull infused to an ebony black wooden cane, Has green eyes.

Relations: Rumeminus was the first person he saw when he came alive and ever since that day he’s tried his best to serve his master anyway he can.What his master doesn’t know is that Skully can sense his master’s mood due to his powers being connected to his emotions so whenever his master is upset or angry Skully would try to console him to make him feel better. Skully knows that his master can be unpredictable but that’s what being the Demon of Madness and Chaos is all about because of this Skully might be the only person i Hell that truly understands him.

Although Skully has a very good relationship with his master there’s one thing that annoys the poor skull and that is his master’s prideful nature. Very often the arch demon likes to brag about random things to any poor demon that he has in his sights or even to his beloved cane much to Skully’s displeasure. Because of this whenever Rumeminus is bragging a little to much Skully would respond by remarking sarcastically at his master’s brag. This annoys Rumeminus a lot which often causes him him to have an argument with Skully. But it always seems to ends with either Rumeminus or Skully giving up and forgetting what they said.

Bucky a taxidermy jackalope was another object Rumeminus brought to life both he and Skully get along pretty well despite Bucky hating his master. Even though Bucky hates Rumeminus’s guts  Skully still appreciates it when Bucky agrees to help them if they need any 

Skully’s first opinion on the little imp known as Gnat was mixed at first.At the beginning he seemed like a little pest that scurried around the interior of the hotel however after a while Skully soon came to like the little Imp and appreciates his help from time to time.

Skully has good relations with the royal family to the point where he’s happily to serve their wishes.Although his master hates the queen Lilith due to some rivalry between them Skully sees the queen as a strong and respectable woman,as well as the King.

As for princess Charlie just like his master Skully liked her from the very start and would protect her with his life.To Skully she seems to be like an angel innocent and kindhearted and an angel like herself needs to be protected. 

As for her friends at the Hotel, although he has mixed feelings towards a lot of them Skully happily accepts  them as part of the family and is willing to help them with any trouble they have.However there are two of Charlies friends that he does not like and they are Razzle and Dazzle.Whenever the two goat imps get a chance they will steal Skully and will play with him like he was a type of cool toy much to Skully’s dismay.  

There you have it the character bio of Skully Rumeminus’s sentient walking cane hope you enjoy.

May update bio later in the future.           

NOTE!!          

There my fan character for the Hazbin Hotel is done will do some updates on his bio once i’ve seen more of the show.Also the characters that were mentioned on his bio named Serina,Gnat the imp ,Bucky and Katia are my other Fan characters that i need to work on. Also the Mire is a part of hell  that isn’t canon to the show i don’t know but its something I've been working on.

Hazbin Hotel Characters belong to VivziePop                        

#Skully the sentient wallking cane #The Trickster King #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel oc #fancanon #fancharacter #character bio #my artwork #My OC Character #vivziepop #darkwingdragon

[playermercutio]

it’s me again. yes alan here. 43, lives in their parents basement is back at it again with another character. slap a like at this and ill come at you for plots with the boi or just plots in general. bc i love plots.

°✧｡ [STEVEN YEUN, CISMALE, HE/HIM] IT’S BEEN TWO YEARS SINCE MERCUTIO JOINED VELIA FROM SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA. APPARENTLY THEIR NAME IS MARCUS WEON AND THEY’RE A LANCER. THEY HAVE BEEN FIGHTING AS A KNIGHTS OF BLOOD OATH MEMBER FOR A WHILE NOW. DIDN’T PEOPLE SAY THEY WERE NOT A BETA TESTER? I HEARD THEY TURNED THIRTY-SIX THIS YEAR. LET’S HOPE THEY MAKE IT OUT ALIVE. 

VAR X = DOCUMENT.CREATEELEMENT(“STATS”); X.SETATTRIBUTE(“TYPE”, “FILE”);

USERNAME : mercutio

LEVEL : 69 (refuses to level up now, yeh he’s this idiot)

GUILD : knights of blood oath

POSITION : mentor (note to self, send message to main)

OCCUPATION : trainer 

CLASS : lancer

SKILLS MASTERED : communication, charisma, luck.

OUT OF GAME INFORMATION : system error ( coming soon )

IN GAME INFORMATION : system error ( coming soon )

VAR X = DOCUMENT.CREATEELEMENT(“BEFORE-VELIA”); X.SETATTRIBUTE(“TYPE”, “FILE”);

born in the 90s, 1997 which is still the 90s which means he’s a 90s boi leave me alone. marcus’ spent the majority of his life in seoul, south korea being raised by a single mother. the thing about his father is that she had no idea who he was which honestly prompts to her, she had it narrowed to a few guys but marcus really never cared. all that mattered was the books that he swarmed himself around. they didn’t exactly have a lot of money but plenty of books, whether they were library borrowed or not. marcus was a reader to the point where his teachers had to get him to stop reading. a problem that he seemed to think was not a problem.

in college, he was engaged. first serious relationship and he thought it was it. but the engagement was short lived when he found out she was cheating but that’s old news. no one thought of them as a good match which should have been red flag number one. but he was young and stupid -- still stupid but not that young anymore. either way, it all fell flat and he dove himself into studying.

really, she was to thank for him being a workaholic. if he wasn’t doing something, there must be something wrong. marcus became a writer, the only thing he wanted to do with his life since he was five. really, he wanted to write independently, working on his own things but reality didn’t always go that way and instead found himself writing for a few south korean dramas. some did well, some... not so much. but all of that was just meant for experience before he went off to write his own stories -- what he really wants to write about.

like all writers, he found himself hitting a road block and with this game newly out, he thought why not let out some steam? why not play for a few hours before going back to writing? which is exactly what he did and one road block was all it took for him to get stuck in velia.

VAR X = DOCUMENT.CREATEELEMENT(“AFTER-VELIA”); X.SETATTRIBUTE(“TYPE”, “FILE”);

mercutio chose this name after his favorite shakespeare play -- romeo and juliet. he would have picked romeo but thought that would be tacky. that and he always liked mercutio’s character far better, listen he thought this through for a good twenty minutes on what his username should be.

in the beginning, mercutio joined up with a small time guild. barely enough members to really call themselves a guild but that was enough for him. the group didn’t last long after the death of their leader, arguments filled the air between the remaining members and well, they all found themselves drifting away from each other anyways so it was only right that they disband and move on.

mercutio is not the kind of guy who does well without a guild tbh. he discovered that quickly that if he’s not around other people, he’ll go insane in here or do something very stupid like walk right into a boss battle with no one around him. that kind of stupid. but when he joined knights of blood oath, he went all in to do what he can for the guild.

which meant that he wanted to help all the other members -- be whatever kind of mentor they might need even if it’s just someone to talk to. but he didn’t really stop just there within the guild, mercutio is willing to train whoever, for a small price if they aren’t in the guild of course. but still. at least it’s something. 

VAR X = DOCUMENT.CREATEELEMENT(“CONNECTION-IDEAS”); X.SETATTRIBUTE(“TYPE”, “FILE”);

OLD GUILD MATES: before joining knights of blood oath, he was in this small time guild but when their leader died in some raid, the guild disbanded. mercutio probably hasn’t spoken to many of them, least not often.

FRIEND / ENEMY AND THE BENEFITS: yeh, you heard right. gimme some friends with benefits oR better yet, enemies with benefits.

MENTEE TO HIS MENTOR: mercutio won’t ask questions about why people want to level up, he just will help them do it. price is negotiated -- if they are part of blood oath, price is zero.

idk that’s all i got guyz.

#veliaintro #// i fell asleep like three times writing this for no reason other than iM TIRED

[dweemeister]

Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)

The Walt Disney Company is on a financial rampage. Its pending acquisition of 20th Century Fox will be just the latest of a long line of safe purchases by its chairman and CEO Bob Iger – perhaps the first step in erasing the glorious history of a rival, formative major Hollywood studio. In the midst of rapid change in how television and cinema is consumed and distributed, the Walt Disney Animation Studios remains the spiritual home of the corporate behemoth that has been banking hard on monetizing nostalgia to decrease its risks. Apart from (recent) Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel, and whatever else Disney has acquired, the Walt Disney Animation Studios can be proud of its history of artistic innovation and narrative timelessness. So it is dispiriting that Rich Moore and Phil Johnston’s Ralph Breaks the Internet will be the first of two of the Animation Studios’ sequels over the next two years (the other is 2019′s Frozen 2 – good riddance to John Lasseter). This sequel to Wreck-It Ralph (2012; which I enjoyed) drowns in its thematic incoherence about the Internet, muddles a well-intentioned center about the nature of friendship, and overdoses of my least favorite things about recent Disney movies – making hollow metatextual jokes about the Disney Company and previous Disney movies; the latter reveals a modern-day Disney ashamed of its past in all the wrong places.

For all that and more, Ralph Breaks the Internet – which, again, I enjoyed while watching it in a theater – is the worst Disney movie for at least a decade. It goes beyond Big Hero 6′s (2014) bombastic Marvel-sized corporatism and Zootopia’s (2016) ultra-contemporary character behavior. As a professed Disney fan cut by a different cloth, the passes that recent canonical Disney movies have received from other, noticeably hesitant-to-criticize fan-reviewers (apologies for all those hyphens) reveal a brand loyalty that yours truly does not possess. Animation history cannot be written without mentioning the works of Walt Disney Animation Studios. And thus they must be held to highest standards.

The film begins six years after the original, with Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) and Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) the best of friends at Litwak’s Family Fun Center and Arcade. Vanellope is tiring of her game, Sugar Rush, and a contrived moment which will make you question whether the arcade characters have free will and which results in the destruction of the game’s steering wheel controller sees Sugar Rush being unplugged – leaving its characters homeless (if this makes no sense to you, you probably did not see the first movie). Soon after, Mr. Litwak has plugged in a new Wi-Fi router, connecting the arcade to the Internet. Ralph and Vanellope decide to travel to the Internet and purchase a replacement wheel as soon as they can. They head to eBay, and in their enthusiasm, overbid for the wheel. As a result, they must raise $27,001 – which looks like a decent final score in a game of Jeopardy! – as they navigate pop-up advertisers, the dark web, a Disney fansite that needs more Eeyore and Grumpy, a YouTube knockoff led by an algorithm named Yesss (Taraji P. Henson; no the character is not named “Yasss”), and a Grand Theft Auto-like online game called Slaughter Race.

In Slaughter Race, in conversation with charismatic racer Shank (Gal Gadot), Vanellope finds what she believes to be her virtual calling. Ralph, who has been monetizing videos on that YouTube knockoff by making an absolute fool of himself, overhears his best and only friend thinking about leaving Sugar Rush. He is despondent, and willing to do too much to keep Vanellope in Sugar Rush. All this inspires plotline (Vanellope, who is essentially a child, wants to live in what probably is an M-rated game? Do these concerns make me a game-phobic adult?) and universe logic questions that are too numerous to bring up in this review. For that alone, Phil Johnston (Zootopia) and Pamela Ribon’s (2016′s Moana, 2017′s Smurfs: The Lost Village) screenplay can be described, charitably, as calamitous.

Take a deep breath; that synopsis was a lot, I know. Now, do you like Fortnite references? What about Internet memes that allow this reviewer to approximate when this screenplay was finished within a three- to six-month window? Do you care for lazy product placement for Twitter, Google, YouTube, Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Instagram, Snapchat, and especially ©Disney and its ever-growing list of intellectual properties? If you said yes to each of these questions, then Ralph Breaks the Internet is probably going to be your favorite film in the Disney animated canon.

I am just grateful the film did not find the space for 4chan or InfoWars.

In a year where all these corporations and some of their most prolific, famous users have been under much-delayed scrutiny for their ethical misbehavior, Ralph Breaks the Internet seems to want to say something, at times, about their worst aspects. The comments section in the YouTube knockoff that Ralph attempts to monetize videos with has a comments section room, teeming with negativity and cruelty. Because this is a Disney film, you have to imagine casual racism and sexism must be buried in there, but Ralph – whose self-worth has become defined by his friendship with Vanellope – shrugs off his momentary disillusionment with how some on the Internet think of his videos. Most everyone who has engaged in social media and has received nasty comments from anonymous or known users online never pick themselves up that quickly. The film looks like it wants to make a statement here – whether subtle or as obvious as a clothed person at a nudist colony. But the plot must progress to the next frantic sequence or extremely contemporary joke that will date badly in a years’ time let alone fifty years’ time, as Ralph’s Power of Friendship with Vanellope is so unbreakable that the film cannot take a few minutes for the audience to reflect on why people (perhaps themselves) act like this online. Mind you, this paragraph is only on social media negativity, in the light of revelations that video-sharing site algorithms reward the vapid and the controversial.

Johnston and Ribon deserve credit for the film’s crux, however: that friendship, any worthwhile relationship of any kind, is not what a person provides you, but what you can do to foster that person’s growth into the best individual they can be. Ralph, understandably, given how ostracized he was for decades among those at Litwak’s Arcade, is terrified of losing his best friend. But that is no excuse for keeping a friend away from what they want most, especially if what they want the most will take them elsewhere – best intentions be damned because best intentions do not always yield behavior that is healing. Unfortunately, the film’s message contradicts those from Wreck-it Ralph if only because of the inconsistent universe rules established in the first installment. Vanellope’s final decision seems not to consider how much she is valued from the place where she has come from (Ralph has more to learn, yes, but so does Vanellope, and her bit of introspection is exclusively understanding what she, and she alone, wants). Ralph’s flaws are also portrayed far too literally – no spoilers here, but the animation in this over-literalization of Ralph’s clinginess is outstanding – and manifests itself in a fatiguing action/chase/rescue setpiece. And to further bury this integral part of Ralph Breaks the Internet, there is barely a reprieve – once Ralph and Vanellope have departed Litwak’s arcade for the Internet – from a comedic scene where Ralph suffers as a result. 

Some of the film’s funniest, but simultaneously disheartening, sequences occur when Vanellope finds herself at the Disney fansite – a detour that the overstuffed screenplay does not need. The most discussed moment is when she meets the Disney Princesses (all voiced by their original voice actor if that voice actor is still alive – with the exception of Mary Costa for Aurora), from Snow White to Cinderella to Belle (1991′s Beauty and the Beast) to Moana. Yes, this is a light-hearted aside from the main plot. But what is bothersome is that every joke in these few minutes are based on online-generated criticisms or perceptions on each of the characters. To dig the hole deeper, the film appears to insist that these versions of the Disney Princesses are the actual Disney Princesses. Snow White is useless and has that high-pitched voice. Aurora (1959′s Sleeping Beauty) is a tad drowsy. Don’t get me started on Merida (2012’s Brave). The Walt Disney Studios that has operated after Walt’s death – aside from nephew Roy E. Disney’s tenure through the 1990s – bears little to no resemblance to Walt’s artistic vision. Likewise, the depictions in Ralph Breaks the Internet are not reflections of what made each of those princesses’ appeal to audiences worldwide – aesthetically (many of the features of the pre-2000s princesses have been poorly rendered) or characteristically.

Before getting to the point, though, I will note that “A Place Called Slaughter Race” – with music by Alan Menken (numerous Disney Renaissance films; if you do not know Menken’s name, you should) and lyrics by Phil Johnston and Tom MacDougall – is delightful, and elicited the most laughs out of me during the entire film. Anyways, back to the Disney Princess scene.

That scene, in addition to the interminable parade of live-action Disney remakes of their animated classics, is part of a worrying trend for the studio’s 2010s movies. In films like Tangled (2010), Frozen (2013), Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Moana, this film, and probably the foreseeable future given the history of the Walt Disney Animation Studios’ chief creative officer Jennifer Lee, Disney’s animated films cannot stop making self-referential jokes about Disney tropes and previous Disney movies. The live-action remakes and the animated films are both responding to contemporary criticisms of Disney classics (foxes aren’t always devious creatures, Zootopia trumpets deafeningly; if you wear a dress and have an animal sidekick, you are a princess, says Maui from Moana; etc.). For Ralph Breaks the Internet, the central criticism of these Disney princess movies is that none of these princesses – especially the earlier ones – were feminist “enough”. I acknowledge (and almost entirely agree) the points from anyone who says that some of the older Disney princess movies have serious problems in how they portray gender stereotypes. But Ralph Breaks the Internet is judging the princesses on a standard that has not withstood the unforgiving passage of time, unwittingly close to saying it is not worth anyone’s time to see Snow White. Intersectional feminism, from my understanding among its many facets (full disclosure: I’m a dude), seeks to understand the environment in which a work of art was produced. It critiques that art for the gendered inequalities within, but reserves praise for those works in what good they did for depictions of women in their time.

Ralph Breaks the Internet represents a concerning turn in the artistic direction of Walt Disney Animation Studios. Its impulses to become a studio of the likes of Illumination (of Despicable Me fame) are rooted in the early 2000s, when Disney’s then-Chairman/CEO Michael Eisner proceeded to destroy the hand-drawn animation department after the box office failure of Treasure Planet (2002) and the success of Shrek (2001) – I am not saying that a hand-drawn animated movie is necessarily better than a CGI movie, but have you noticed how poorly the referential, cynical humor in Shrek has dated? That transformation, noting the résumés of the people in charge at the key positions at Disney, is nearing completion. Will Disney’s past be prologue? This axiom proved itself true once before, but the appetite nor the groundwork seems to be apparent for a second sampling.

If nothing more, Ralph Breaks the Internet is the sort of movie I – if I was a parent or a babysitter – would put on the television (or tablet or phone... there are many reasons why you should never watch movies on a tablet or a phone if you cannot help it, but that rant is for another setting) to distract children with. The film is almost devoid of thoughtful discourse about how the Internet has changed human behavior for better and worse, preferring to occupy too steadfastly what is now, leaving others to write the future.

My rating: 5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

#Ralph Breaks the Internet #Rich Moore #Phil Johnston #Disney #Pamela Ribon #John C. Reilly #Sarah Silverman #Gal Gadot #Taraji P. Henson #Alan Menken #My Movie Odyssey

[gay-jesus-probably]

Pls talk about your Tron & Rinzler are different personalities headcanon because that's a headcanon of mine too & I saw your post in the tron legacy tag && got rly excited that someone else has that headcanon ahaa

Anon, I will gladly talk about this FOREVER.

Okay so first of all, let me just address the fact that yeah. I know. There is literally no evidence whatsoever in canon for this. But yknow. Rinzler says about nine words total, so whatever’s going on in his head is not going to be shared in a movie. If Legacy was done on a written medium (book or comic) Rinzler probably would have gotten at least one or two scenes from his perspective. But it’s a movie, and we don’t even have facial expressions, so we need to fill in the blanks ourselves of how he gets from ‘loyal enforcer’ to ‘I FIGHT FOR THE USERS’.

And for the record, I’d like to just say that the entire reason I have this headcanon at all is the fic Domestic by tehkittykat on Ao3, the plot of it being that Alan finds what he thinks is Tron dying in the Grid after the events of the movie, repairs him, brings him out into the real world, but upon waking up we find that surprise Tron’s long dead it’s literally just Rinzler, and the plot follows him settling in to the User world, and dealing with the aftermath of like everything from Clu. If you haven’t read it, go read it.

So preamble done with, let’s get into the real meta.

So in the post Anon’s referencing (this one) I mention that I think Tron and Rinzler are separate personalities, and basically different people, due to them having vastly different fighting styles and behaviour. And I believe that for a variety of reasons. I mean for a start, Rinzler can’t possibly be basically just a really fancy black guard. He’s not a standard re-purposed program. First of all, there’s the glaring problem. Tron wasn’t coded by Kevin Flynn. He was made by Alan Bradley. Kevin Flynn is the kind of man who spontaneously wanders out into the wastelands and makes the most important program on the Grid with a fucking mirror or whatever. He’s got all the raw talent and creativity, but not the focus and drive. Wheras on the flip side, it’s canon somewhere that Tron started being programmed two years before the events of the movie. And that the entire thing was Alan’s very slow ultimate gambit to take out the MCP, with plan A being Tron is completed and deletes MCP for being dangerous, and plan B being Tron is deleted by MCP, and the MCP going after independent security gives Alan all the proof he needs to pull the plug from the outside. Heads I win, tails you lose. And he spent two years working on it, apparently covering his ass with a paper trail (”Yes Mr. Dillinger I sent you a memo on my Tron project”), and also got in good with Gibbs to stop him from getting fired without reason. My point is, Alan Bradley is damn meticulous, and Tron’s coding definitely reflects that. So when it comes to repurposing, the standard work we see in Uprising wouldn’t be enough. Clu probably had to manually overwrite Tron’s code, and it probably was a long and frustrating process. Flynn’s coding probably has holes. Alan’s, not so much.

So, that’s the first reason. Rinzler would have to be much more complex than any black guard, because Tron’s coding would be deeply confusing and borderline alien to Clu, and much more meticulously written than any other program on the Grid, including Clu. I’d imagine if an ISO or User was ever repurposed, it would be the same story, on account of them being fundamentally different from anything Clu is used to.

Second of all, as I’ve mentioned, the biggest clue (no pun intended) is the fighting style. Just look at Tron fighting in the original, Uprising, and the flashback in Legacy. He stays planted on the ground. He’s not flipping around, either with an audience or without. Wheras Rinzler, as we all know, might as well be flying for all he stays on the ground. The man is made of unnecessary acrobatics, and let’s all be honest here it’s fucking awesome. But it’s about as far removed from Tron’s style as you can get. I mean obviously, both are getting the same badassery ranking, but Tron’s more of a ‘straightforwards brute strength’ style, while Rinzler is a ‘momentum and using opponents own actions against them’ kind of fighter. Both damn good, but very different. Rinzler’s ridiculously dynamic. And he’s like that the entire movie. A few meta posts suggest that he was programmed by Clu to drag out arena fights with his acrobatic style, but that’s only really taking in mind the arena fight against Sam. We do see him fight again, against Quorra on the Recitifier, and against Sam and Quorra on the Throneship. There’s no audience for those fights, and more importantly, there’s no Clu. If Rinzler was going to switch back to Tron’s sharp, efficient style, that would be the time. But instead, he sticks with the flipping, and handles things in the same style. Sure, he does it a lot faster, but that’s probably because Sam in the arena was being approached as ‘goddamn idiot walked right into this, might as well fuck with him first’, while Sam and Quorra later on are both taken as ‘this is serious lets get this shit over with quickly’. I feel like if it was just a badly corrupted Tron in there, he’d switch back to his normal fighting style the second Clu wasn’t watching. Muscle memory and all, or whatever the program equivalent is. But he doesn’t, because that was never Rinzler’s style to begin with.

And overall, just. Experience. I think it’s unanimously agreed that Rinzler does not have access to Tron’s memories, and is not supposed to, because you really don’t want your brainwashed enforcer to remember how much he hates you. That’s just common sense. So, even if Rinzler started out as just a brainwashed and corrupted Tron, he’s around for roughly 20 years, give or take however long Uprising lasts. And time moves slower in the Grid, so it’s more like over a thousand years by their standards I think. My point is, Tron’s around for about nine human years, Rinzler’s around for about twenty. Even if they’re not a split personality, Tron’s going to come out of the whole experience more Rinzler than Tron (AND WE ARE NOT EVEN CONSIDERING HIM DYING AT THE END OF THE MOVIE THEY DON’T SPECIFICALLY SHOW HIM DEREZZING SO HE’S ALIVE AS FAR AS I CARE FUCK YOU). And really, Clu is Clu. There’s no fucking way Rinzler had a safe and supportive enviroment during that 20-ish years. The man tortured and brainwashed him, and as we see, has some stunning anger issues. I think it’s a unanimous fandom agreement that Clu was majorly abusive towards Rinzler, because there’s no risk of retaliation, nobody to stop him, and Clu’s already got Issues over Tron. I mean, just re-watch Legacy (it’s on Netflix), and pay close attention to Rinzler’s body language. His posture becomes hunched over and submissive whenever Clu’s in the scene with him. He looks like he wants to bolt sometimes. It’s subtle, but the staging and body language definitely implies some very not good things happening to Rinzler during pretty much his entire life. So even if there’s no split personality to start with, Tron was used to either loyally serving a caring higher power (Alan, Flynn, and pre-coup Clu) or fighting against a tyrannical oppressor (MCP and post-coup Clu). His relationship with figures of authority was either something positive, or something openly antagonistic that he openly fought against. And on the flip side, Rinzler only ever served under Clu. He didn’t have the option to leave the abusive situation, or even openly resist it. His only options would have been to endure, and to quietly manipulate events and people to protect himself. Like, during the scene where he’s dragging Quorra off to what is implied to be some very fucking horrifying things? Rinzler doesn’t show any hesitation at all, and I’m willing to bet that his thought process is something along the lines of ‘if Clu’s focusing on her, he’s not paying attention to me’, because that’s what abusive situations do to your head. Everything comes down to survival, and protecting yourself. Your priorities shift dramatically, because they have to, or you’re not going to make it. Ironically, the best way to survive abuse is to pick up abusive traits to defend yourself, and there’s nothing wrong with protecting yourself from your abuser, the real struggle is trying to get rid of the abusive traits once you get out. Rinzler’s likely about as far away from Tron’s ‘holy paladin’ type as possible. They may not have been a split personality at first, but they would inevitably get there just from the vastly different lives and experiences. It’s nature vs. nurture.

As for Rinzler not talking, it’s kind of annoying that we never get a canon explanation for that. Personally, I figure that it’s either ‘severe damage to the talking parts makes speech painful and difficult’, or ‘Clu has ordered Rinzler to only speak when absolutely necessary’. Or possibly some combination of the two. Either way, it means we just don’t get Rinzler’s view on the matter, which deeply upsets me. Because, as I’ve mentioned, Legacy treats Rinzler like shit, a writer deserves to be slapped for the line “Tron, what have you become”, and my husband needs to be saved.

In summary, read Domestic, fuck the Legacy writers, Rinzler and Tron are different personalities, and if anyone wants to know my full opinions on what the fuck was up between Rinzler and Clu just ask because a full examination of that one is going to need it’s own post and a nice assortment of trigger warnings.

and I meant to go to bed and answer this in the morning but i kept writing this in my head so i gave up and got up to write this. i’m going to bed now. ur welcome everybody.

#tron #tron legacy #rinzler #clu #fandom meta #WHOO this one got away from me

[roguenewsdao]

Countering the Deep State/Mueller Soft Coup: LaRouchePAC Circulates Report on Capitol Hill Regarding the Independent Counsel's History of Gross Prosecutorial Misconduct and Criminal Cover-ups

This article originally appeared at LaRouchePub.com on October 18, 2017. -- JWS

Silverglate goes on to recount a meeting with Mueller at the Justice Department concerning the Jeffrey MacDonald case, which many consider to be a wrongful conviction of an innocent man. At a meeting called to explore possible law enforcement misconduct in the case, Mueller walked in and announced, "Gentlemen: Criticism of the Bureau is a Non Starter." Silverglate goes on to attack the General Counsel statute as a constitutional abomination, endorse Alan Dershowitz’s analysis that no crimes have been committed by the President based on what has been reported to date, but notes,

"Mueller’s demonstrated zeal and ample resources virtually assure that indictments will come, even in the absence of crimes rather than behavior which is simply politics as usual."

The impact of our mobilization and public disgust with the Russiagate charade are also demonstrated in the CNN Story, "GOP calls grow to end Russia investigations in Congress this year." The lead:

"A growing number of key Republicans are sending this message to leaders of the congressional committees investigating potential Trump collusion with Russians: Wrap It Up Soon."

Although it doesn’t have the poetic ring of "Suck It Up, Move On," we are, of course, dealing with Republicans. Senator James Risch of the Intelligence Committee said, "Nobody wants to move this so quickly that we miss something," but added, "The question is how many weak leads can you follow?" Rep. Adam [full of] Schiff (D-CA) countered that the Committees involved were trying to "rush" the now nine-month-old investigation. Schiff’s remarks were characterized as "nuts" by Committee Republicans, according to CNN, who accused Democrats of trying to extend the "fishing expedition" into the midterm elections. The report otherwise makes clear that sharp public demands for an end to this hoax are beginning to be felt. Last Friday’s call for investigation of Mueller was not some sort of "one off." We just have to increase that pressure.

The latest example of a grotesque "go fish" based on brazenly fake leads which can readily be demonstrated to be such, has been provided by former oligarch and British intelligence spawn Mikhail Kordokofsky. He claims that Jared Kushner was intimately tied to bankers who are "close to Putin." The reader might assume that Khodorkovsky is an unbiased private individual. But Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia movement and the Institute for Modern Russia [the latter of which previously paid Daily Beast/CNN pro-jihadist neocon 'journalist' Michael D. Weiss - JWS] are open intelligence fronts for British and NATO intelligence and the NED in the U.S. They have been critical to fomenting the anti-Putin hysteria in the U.S., with open support from both British and NATO intelligence.

Otherwise, Attorney General Jeff Sessions appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, with the Democrats still trying to pump the impeachment narrative, but to little effect. Sessions caught Senator Richard Blumenthal in an outright lie, to the effect that Sessions had been interviewed by Special Counsel Mueller when he had not. The Attorney General also engaged in a heated back-and-forth with Senator Franken about Sessions’s limited interactions with former Russian Ambassador [Sergey] Kislyak. Franken, demonstrating his best infantile rage-ball persona, basically accused the Attorney General of perjury, and Sessions defended himself.

In general, the Republicans countered the Democrats’ kabuki show by inviting Sessions to defend Comey’s firing, which he did well, focusing on Comey’s draft exoneration statement concerning Hillary Clinton before the FBI had even interviewed her, and on the suppressed FBI investigation of Russia’s purchase of U.S. uranium, and bribery and corruption allegations concerning the Clinton Foundation which accompanied that purchase.

All of this nonsense on the Judiciary Committee while the nation drowns in an opium epidemic, which is killing more and more people daily. While this did receive some attention from the Committee with jurisdiction to discuss and legislate about it, it was a sidelight to the continued insane braying at the moon by Committee Democrats.

Below RogueMoney is proud to reproduce the full pamphlet by LaRouchePAC's Barbara Boyd - [email protected] · View the PDF here, a leaflet advertising the dossier can be found here. The Russia Analyst has added a few details in brackets to expand certain background information related to bit players in the deep state scheme to destroy Trump. This document details Mueller's history as a deep state legal hit man and corrupt FBI director.

Given the complicity of numerous officials still inside the Bureau and Justice Department with since fired director Jim Comey -- Mueller's friend -- coverup of various efforts to shield the Clintons and their money laundering machine the Clinton Foundation from prosecution, it isn't surprising that the deep state is fiercely attacking Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) for challenging these institutions thus far successful stonewalling of their subpeonas. Both Nunes and Grassley have been trying in vain to get the FBI to admit to paying 'former' MI6 operative Christopher Steele for his fraudulent dossier on Trump which contains numerous bits of disinformation likely fed to him by Estonian [possibly with the complicity of now former president and Atlantic Council fellow Toomas Hendrik Ilves] or Ukrainian intelligence agencies, ultimately operating on behalf of their British handlers.

Former Wall Street Journal reporters who run the Fusion GPS firm that commissioned Steele to write the fake dossier have already pleaded the 5th Amendment against incriminating themselves, in response to questions about which clients paid for it and whether they did any actual due diligence on the now infamous, libel-suit spawning document. The DoJ doesn't want to admit that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) warrants were issued using a falsified document to convince the secret court's judges. The FBI does not wish to admit that its January 2017 assessment rushed out in advance of Trump's inauguration is a colossal hoax. Nor can it face the truth: the only real foreign meddling in the 2016 election that had any impact [including the Ukrainian Embassy's efforts through the Ukrainian-American Democrat operative Chalupa sisters] were efforts by the British and their American deep state partners, enraged by Trump's calls for detente with Russia, to smear the future President as 'Putin's puppet'. -- JWS

See also: Wednesday was a very active day for our war to stop the Mueller coup LaRouchePAC.com October 19, 2017

Robert Swan Mueller III—the special prosecutor tasked to take down the President of the United States—is, as his name attests, a product of elite private schools and universities. He is uniformly and soberly praised in the national news media as incorruptible, fair-minded “honest Bob,” “strait-laced Bobby three sticks.” This image, we shall show, is a brazenly false, Washington, D.C. public relations pitch, created for the credulous.

In reality, Robert Swan Mueller III is about as corrupt as they come, bending and twisting the law every which way necessary to serve the goals of those who provide him assignments. The might of the prosecutorial function and the institutions he serves dictate right for him, rather than the unbiased pursuit of justice the law envisions for his vocation. In what he says was a defining moment, Mueller broke rank, after college, to serve in the Vietnam War as a Marine. After that he never wanted to do anything but prosecute. His appointment as special prosecutor caps a long career in which he has envisioned himself to be a stern and willing warrior, a dutiful Marine, acting on behalf of whatever evil scheme his superiors present to him, and using whatever means seems necessary to execute it.

In recent weeks, organizers for the LaRouche movement have been repeatedly told by citizens they meet: “It looks like President Trump is getting the ‘LaRouche treatment.’” The two men could not be more different in station, or cultural and intellectual achievement. LaRouche is a world-historical genius in the mold of Gottfried Leibniz. But, both men touched what has amounted to the third rail of American politics after Franklin Roosevelt’s death. They threatened the post-War Anglo-American British imperial system. LaRouche did so directly, continuously, and explicitly by name. Trump has done so implicitly, by rejecting perpetual war, seeking better relations with Russia, calling for imposition of Glass-Steagall banking separation, endorsing what he refers to as the American System of political economy, and promising massive infrastructure development and a modern manufacturing platform for productive jobs.

In both cases, as we shall see, the British explicitly demanded scalps, based on a perceived threat to them, most specifically located in the desire for a collaborative relationship with Russia and an end to the “unipolar” framework of relationships between nations. In both cases, a controlled media unleashed an incessant barrage of ugly, salacious, and defamatory coverage, day-in day-out, to create the popular conditions for a criminal prosecution. While there were and are many other players in these Kabuki dances—compromised and terrorized politicians and judges, and an intelligence community which functions as the gendarme of our Orwellian police state—the blunt instrument chosen for the hit was Robert Mueller. Along the way, between the two assignments, Robert Mueller played a hugely significant role in covering up the Saudi/British role in the murders of almost 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, and the wholesale destruction of the United States Constitution which followed in its wake—a role which, if thoroughly examined, constitutes obstruction of justice, among other crimes.

This dossier will walk you through Mueller’s career based on what is readily and publicly available. It is a trail of prosecutorial misconduct, including what former Senator Bob Graham calls “aggressive deception” of the U.S. Congress and the public concerning the events of September 11, 2001, and includes a major role in the creation of the post-9/11 surveillance state which has eviscerated and destroyed the Fourth Amendment and the rest of our Constitution’s Bill of Rights. Those who work inside our modern Leviathan can surely point to other malfeasance, and we invite you pile on—please, expose it. You owe no less to your oath to the Constitution of the United States.

Help us defend the Presidency & circulate this dossier. Donate to LaRouchePAC

The LaRouche Case—An Attempted Murder and then a Legal One

On August 27, 1982, a Top Secret letter was sent from the British government to the FBI. That letter itself remains classified to this day, but it is clear from the FBI’s response to it, from its unclassified attachments, and from subsequent actions, what the British were demanding. On September 24, 1982, under the subject-heading “Re: Lyndon LaRouche and the Executive Intelligence Review,” FBI counterintelligence chief James Nolan responded to the British demands as follows:

“We would like to reiterate our conclusion that, while many of the harassment activities of the NCLC and the themes promoted by NCLC publications, such as EIR, are often propitious to Soviet disinformation and propaganda interests, there is no direct evidence that the Soviets are directing or funding LaRouche or his organization. It is entirely plausible, however, that the Soviets have developed or may be developing sources within the NCLC who are in a position to interject Soviet-inspired views into NCLC activities and publications. It is likely that the Soviets will attempt to capitalize on or exploit NCLC sentiments that are parallel to or promote Soviet foreign policy objectives. At the same time, the Soviets will probably have to balance the advantages of exploiting the NCLC with the dangers of being associated with a bizarre and often unpredictable organization. For your information, under the domestic security guidelines set forth by the Attorney General, the FBI does not have an active investigation of Lyndon LaRouche or the NCLC.”

As we shall see, this is the same British smear, in the same British speculative language, used to paint Donald Trump with the “Russian dupe” brush. That allegation, of activity on behalf of a foreign power, the Russians, unleashed a full spectrum of intelligence agency weapons from Constitutional constraints under the Reagan Administration’s Executive Order 12333 and subsequent renditions governing classified counterintelligence activities, particularly the subsequent versions of E.O. 12333 put into place after September 11, 2001.

We document below some of what LaRouche was doing to provoke the British call for his head in 1982. His activities included back-channel negotiations with the Russians concerning the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) on behalf of the CIA and National Security Council (NSC). He met with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Mexico’s President Jose Lopez Portillo seeking a completely new monetary system, not controlled by the City of London, Wall Street and allied institutions, which would finance high technology development, completely transforming North-South relations. President Lopez Portillo implemented LaRouche’s proposals during the Mexican debt crisis in 1982, sending the Anglo-Americans into rug-chewing fits.

This British demand to the FBI immediately followed a letter, on August 19, 1982, from Henry Kissinger to FBI Director William Webster, demanding that LaRouche be investigated for “harassing” Kissinger. This is the same Henry Kissinger who, in a speech at the Royal Institute for International Affairs on May 10,1982, had openly declared himself to be a British agent of influence. While endorsing Churchill’s “rigid” anti-Soviet policies and British colonialism over “naïve” American idealists, Kissinger remarked on his service to the British while in the U.S. government:

"The British were so matter of factly helpful that they became a participant in internal American deliberations, to a degree never before practiced between sovereign nations. In my period in office, the British played a seminal role in certain American bilateral negotiations with the Soviet Union. Indeed, they helped draft the key document. In my White House incarnation then [as National Security Adviser] I kept the British Foreign Office better informed and more closely engaged than I did the American State Department." 

What Kissinger called “harassment” by LaRouche, was wide-spread exposure of the British-agent aspect of his curriculum vitae, among other issues. These include Kissinger’s 1974 “NSSM 200" document calling for drastic population reduction in the Third World by any means necessary in order to conserve raw materials for colonialist looting, threats to Italy’s Prime Minister Aldo Moro shortly before his kidnapping and murder, similar contentions by the Bhutto family of Pakistan concerning the murder of former President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and numerous documented war crimes.1

On January 12, 1983, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, comprising David Abshire, Leo Cherne, and Edward Bennett Williams, demanded that an FBI investigation, under Executive Order 12333 be opened on LaRouche based on “harassment” of Henry Kissinger and possible foreign funding, under the guidelines or otherwise. The British demand was going to be implemented.

In April of 1983 and thereafter, New York investment banker John Train convened a series of salons attended by nominally private organizations, prominent journalists living off intelligence community leaks, and government intelligence operatives, to plan and implement a defamatory campaign against Lyndon LaRouche. The avowed aim of the meetings was to create the popular conditions for criminal prosecution.

In 1982, the Anglophilic CIA Director, William Casey, had tasked CIA psychological warfare and propaganda expert Walter Raymond to oversee a program of psychological warfare and “perception management” by the Reagan Administration, a program largely overseen by Vice-President George H.W. Bush. Under provisions of the new executive order governing intelligence and counterintelligence operations, EO 12333, Psy-Ops and propaganda operations, formerly conducted on foreign targets by the CIA, were to be farmed out to private entities under such rubrics as Project Democracy, the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, the League for Industrial Democracy, and similarly designated entities. Psy-Ops and “perception management” were also to be targeted domestically in counterintelligence operations. To start such counterintelligence operations, a credible allegation had to be presented that a domestic target was operating on behalf of a foreign power, like the Russians.

John Train’s investment company partner, Thomas J. Devine, a former CIA employee, had partnered with [former CIA director and future President] George H.W. Bush in the Zapata Oil company, during Bush’s time as an oil man in Texas. Many believe that Zapata was a CIA proprietary. Train himself was the former editor of the Congress of Cultural Freedom’s Paris Review, and was engaged, at the time of his LaRouche salons, in running black propaganda operations for the CIA against the Russians during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Train’s work in Afghanistan was coordinated with Walter Raymond.

Court testimony in the LaRouche cases and follow-up investigations revealed that the Train salons were attended by Roy Godson, a long-time British intelligence-connected operative deployed under the CIA’s Jay Lovestone and James Jesus Angleton, and, at that time, a consultant to PFIAB and the National Security Council; by John Rees, an FBI functionary; Mira Lansky Boland of the Anti-Defamation League of B’Nai B’rith (ADL); representatives of Freedom House, long a CIA proprietary associated with PFIAB’s Leo Cherne; financier Richard Mellon Scaife; Pat Lynch of NBC; reporters for Reader’s Digest, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic; “investigative reporter” Dennis King who was employed by the League for Industrial Democracy, Chip Berlet, neo-conservative colleagues of Train, and others described by participants as “gentlemen with government connections.” The representative from Freedom House provided the briefings on LaRouche to those assembled.

Train’s salons resulted in a barrage of articles portraying LaRouche as violent, a racist, megalomaniacal, an authoritarian anti-Semitic extremist—calculated and horrific, poisonous lies designed to nullify any positive response to LaRouche’s actual ideas. These ID-format lies are deliberately designed to create “cognitive dissonance.” as it is known in the Psy-Op trade. President Trump has been consistently portrayed with similar Psy-Op ID-format defamations.

Defamatory broadcasts and articles by Train meeting participants were concocted, and entirely fake versions of LaRouche’s ideas and work were spewed to the public. NBC News, for example, presented a completely fake picture of EIR’s groundbreaking expose of the drug trade, Dope Inc., which had become a bible for DEA agents in the War on Drugs. Dope Inc. proved that the British were actively promoting drug legalization for population pacification purposes, as they had done historically in the opium wars against China, and that British financial institutions, including banks and funds directly associated with the Royals, were dependent upon and subsisting on drug money-laundering proceeds. The book’s contentions have been ratified repeatedly over the years in such cases as that of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. NBC repeatedly broadcast, however, that LaRouche’s War on Drugs consisted of the claim that the Queen herself was out on the street corner peddling dime bags of heroin.

Even more astoundingly, NBC’s Patricia Lynch claimed in a prominent NBC news feature, that LaRouche had ordered the assassination of President Jimmy Carter by remote controlled bomb. She admitted that she relied for this preposterous claim on a notorious FBI informant and other “non- public” information provided to her by former CIA counterintelligence chief, James J. Angleton, other CIA sources, and sources in the FBI. In March of 1986, a collaboration between Irwin Suall from the ADL and the East German Stasi, produced the sensational and completely fabricated claim that LaRouche had played a role in the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme. Richard Mellon Scaife and the CIA’s Smith-Richardson Foundation funded a book-length defamatory dossier by Dennis King as a result of the Train meetings, which became the central resource for a relentless anti-LaRouche hate campaign.

Do such wild, salacious assertions remind you, in any way, of the deliberately gross and fake dossier on President Trump, prepared by the highest levels of British intelligence for circulation to the American public? You know, the so-called “Pee Dossier” by MI6 agent Christopher Steele, that claims that the President cavorted with Russian prostitutes on a bed slept in by the Obamas?

What Did LaRouche Do?

The attachments to the British demand letter to the FBI include a published statement by LaRouche demanding that the Monroe Doctrine be enforced in support of Argentina with respect to the British-instigated Malvinas War. In the document, LaRouche contrasts British imperial looting policies with the “American system” as defined by Lincoln’s economist Henry C. Carey. Addressing those in Congress siding with Britain against Argentina during the Malvinas crisis, LaRouche said:

“How shaken are these representatives at Britain’s plight, the same representatives who have sat by and let U.S. industrial power be destroyed by British system economics, watched millions of Third World children starve for lack of technology exports, and raved about the fascist oppressions of the only energy source, nuclear power, that could turn the situation around! . . . The imposition of the Monroe Doctrine and reassertion of the commitment to republican sovereignty can put the United States back on the road to fulfilling our national mission. Kicking the British Tories out of the Senate should be followed within minutes with kicking Tory Volcker out of the Fed, and restarting American industry once again.”

The second attachment to the British demand letter is a leaflet announcing an EIR forum focused on developing the economies of the Middle East, and exposing the role of British intelligence in creating and funding Muslim Brotherhood Islamic fundamentalism. The second topic for the EIR forum concerned an expose of the role of the British Secret Services in the then-ongoing Soviet succession struggle. Other attachments to the British demand letter to the FBI remain classified.

A review of LaRouche’s activities in 1982, the year the British called for his head, reveals that LaRouche’s policies were gaining ground on every front and that he had developed a substantial following in U.S. intelligence and military circles in support of those policies, including in President Reagan’s National Security Council. He also posed a direct challenge to British control of the world’s economy, through the City of London, Wall Street, and aligned government institutions, and the hegemonic British economic nostrums of free trade and speculative capitalism.

From December of 1981 through February 1983, LaRouche had been tasked first by the CIA and then by President Reagan’s National Security Council to conduct back channel discussions with Soviet representatives on what became President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Beginning as early as 1978, LaRouche had been calling for U.S.-Soviet collaboration in developing beam-weapon defenses to incoming thermonuclear missiles, replacing the insane Anglo-American doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) with one of Mutually Assured Survival. At the same time as he met secretly with Soviet representatives, LaRouche and his associates campaigned publicly for the concept. President Reagan announced adoption of the SDI in a surprise televised address on March 23, 1983.

In April of 1982, Lyndon and Helga LaRouche traveled to India where they met with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, along with scientists, parliamentarians, industrialists, and economists. In his presentations, LaRouche stressed that the developing sector must band together, creating credit for large scale infrastructure development along lines consistent with Hamilton’s system of political economy. In this endeavor, the British system of Malthusian zero population growth, primitive “sustainable development,” and debt slavery—the policies of the World Bank and the IMF—would be condemned as genocidal and abandoned. True human progress could be scientifically and reliably measured, LaRouche said, by the metric he had discovered, potential relative population density, ensuring continuous progressive economic development.

In May of 1982, LaRouche met with Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo, and immediately followed that meeting with a document entitled “Operation Juarez,” a battle plan for reorganizing the already-bankrupt world financial system based on physical economic development. LaRouche proposed that the nations of Ibero-America use their collective strategic leverage as debtor nations to unite in a common economic bloc and unilaterally declare a restructuring of their debts and the establishment of a new just monetary order. The formation of an International Development Bank among these nations would serve as a coordinating agency for planning investments and trade expansion among the member republics.“If a sufficient portion of the Ibero-American nations enter into such an agreement, the result is the assembly of one of the most powerful economies in the world from an array of individually weak powers . . . the Ibero-American continent would rapidly emerge as a leading economic power of the world, an economic super-power.”

In August, Lopez Portillo tried to bring Argentina and Brazil on as partners in “Operation Juarez.” Failing that, in September 1982, Lopez Portillo acted on LaRouche’s proposal, adopting credit controls on Mexico’s currency, nationalizing the Mexican banking system, and announcing a debt moratorium on Mexican debt. Wall Street, the City of London, and allied intelligence agencies, having scrambled to prevent implementation of LaRouche’s plan, now targeted LaRouche and Lopez Portillo. Nonetheless, in October of 1982, in a speech at the UN, Lopez Portillo called for a new financial system essentially along the lines LaRouche specified.

These proposals were all perfectly consistent with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s post-World War II vision of ending British colonialism, and developing the world based upon reciprocally beneficial trade relationships among nation states, the “idealism” Henry Kissinger attacked in his Chatham House address.

Such were a few of Lyndon LaRouche’s many activities in 1982.

1982-1983 were years of enormous battles within the Reagan Administration. On one side was National Security Adviser William Clark and his assistant Richard Morris, who continued to task LaRouche and his colleagues at EIR on national security issues. On the other were the Anglophiles controlled by Vice-President Bush, who found LaRouche to be “the most dangerous man in America.” Richard Morris testified in the LaRouche cases that Kenneth DeGraffenreid, Walter Raymond, and Roy Godson were the three most vocal opponents of LaRouche inside the Reagan Administration. Raymond, along with Bush, DeGraffenreid, and then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, were the primary authors of Project Democracy, ceding perception-control and regime-change operations to private organizations and NGOs operating under CIA and MI6 direction.

Enter Mueller

In 1982, Robert Mueller joined the staff of U.S. Attorney William Weld in Boston, Massachusetts. He had previously been in private practice in San Francisco while waiting to be accepted into the U.S. attorney’s office there. His life’s dream was to prosecute. Mueller and Weld concentrated on public corruption cases, targeting and taking down the administration of popular Boston Mayor Kevin White in an investigation widely criticized for “gestapo tactics” and prosecutorial misconduct.

Following LaRouche’s 1984 Presidential campaign and a public claim by Kissinger that LaRouche would be “dealt with” after the election, William Weld opened a criminal investigation of LaRouche’s Presidential campaign committees, claiming that the campaign had engaged in credit card fraud. While there was a barrage of initial publicity, and companies associated with LaRouche suffered huge contempt fines because they refused to turn over information about their contributors to Weld’s office, the investigation languished over the course of two years and two grand juries.

While the criminal investigation stalled, numerous classified counterintelligence investigations were launched, under Executive Order 12333, justifying surveillance prohibited by the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, infiltration, and classified counterintelligence “neutralization” tactics [see the related story recently published by Robert Parry's Consortium News on "The Legacy of Reagan's 'Civilian Psyops'"]. These covert operations were used to create an otherwise non-existent criminal case. FOIA documents released over the years revealed a number of such classified operations based on fabricated assertions by government agents. Many of these operations remain classified to this day. In 1992 and 1993, investigators for LaRouche confirmed that the Leesburg, Virginia offices of EIR and other LaRouche-associated entities were subject to intense warrantless surveillance conducted through NSA hubs in northern Virginia’s AT&T offices, and that numerous black-bag burglaries had been conducted through the local Sheriff’s office and Deputy Donald Moore.

In March of 1986, two LaRouche Democrats, Mark Fairchild and Janice Hart, won the Illinois Democratic Primary for Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State. They were part of a slate of over 1,000 LaRouche Democrats who ran for office that year. A huge, daily, national media defamation campaign followed, using the John Train playbook and many of the Train salon participants. The Boston investigation was revamped. Mueller, who succeeded William Weld as acting U.S. Attorney in 1986, after Weld decamped to Washington to head the Bush Justice Department’s Criminal Division, brought in John J.E. Markham II to take the lead in the LaRouche investigation. Markham had been a member of the Process Church of the Final Judgment, a Satanic cult tied to Charles Manson, during his early legal career. Plans for a search of offices associated with LaRouche in Leesburg and Boston were set into motion.

There were two plans for the Leesburg raid, one buried in official FBI documents, and the other hidden in secret communications. One of the raid’s principals, Donald Moore, told an FBI informant in 1992 that a plan was in circulation weeks before the assault, to provoke LaRouche’s security guards into a shooting incident by staging a massive siege and provocation at Ibykus Farm where LaRouche stayed. According to Moore, he had provided detailed plans for the eventuality of entering the farm and killing LaRouche. FBI case agent Richard Egan corroborated Moore’s account, stating in court testimony that his activity under the warrant consisted of a frantic search for evidence justifying a second search warrant for Ibykus Farm and an arrest warrant for LaRouche.

Utilizing what he has come to call “shock and awe” tactics, Mueller employed a force of some 400 law enforcement agents and privately owned armored personnel carriers to raid two office buildings in Leesburg, Virginia where EIR and other companies associated with LaRouche were located—this, for what former Attorney General Ramsey Clark accurately describes as “book people.” Ibykus farm was surrounded by SWAT teams in black ninja gear, and helicopters flew overhead.

At 10 p.m, Fox News reported that authorities were about to enter Ibykus Farm to search for a “weapons cache.” No such weapons cache existed, and the FBI and BATF knew it. The plan to kill LaRouche was only aborted when his associates sent a telegram to President Reagan seeking his intervention.

Based on a classified mechanism with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, documents seized in the raid were taken to a military facility, Henderson Hall, where they were undoubtedly reviewed by intelligence officials for purposes of their continued classified operations. William Weld, now heading the Department of Justice Criminal Division, claimed that this extraordinary procedure was necessary to prevent the LaRouche people from breaking into a normal government facility and stealing back their documents!

On the day of the raid, Mueller and Markham targeted and arrested key personnel involved in LaRouche’s intelligence functions and security, charging them with obstruction of justice. To break them, the prosecutors sought lengthy periods of detention, which the Alexandria federal court granted based on the wave of poisonous publicity surrounding the raid, and numerous inflammatory and false statements to the court by John Markham. When those statements were later proved to be false, the defendants, now released, were without a real remedy except to call the Boston trial court’s attention to Markham’s lies.

At the same time, key prosecution witnesses underwent “deprogramming” by so-called cult experts to prepare for testimony, and were granted numerous benefits never disclosed to the defense. Markham and Mueller employed the ADL for witness interviews, thus evading the requirements for disclosure required of government agents, used Dennis King as a consultant, and used inflammatory allegations which they knew to be false in television broadcasts aimed at poisoning the jury pool. Donald Moore, who had illegally burglarized EIR’s offices and mapped LaRouche’s assassination, was invited by Markham and Mueller to come to Boston to serve as their assistant on the criminal case.

The Boston case, in which LaRouche was indicted for obstruction of justice, fell apart when FOIA documents revealed small aspects of the secret covert operations being run parallel to the criminal prosecution–notably a document from Ollie North’s safe indicating extreme White House interest in players in the LaRouche case. As a result, Federal Judge Robert Keeton, following the classified trail which he viewed in documents which he ordered be presented to him in camera, ordered a search of Vice-President Bush’s office for exculpatory evidence. During prosecutorial misconduct hearings conducted before Judge Keeton, it was also discovered that a national security informant had been infiltrated into the LaRouche security operation, and that John Markham had instructed him to advise the defendants to obstruct justice, in words dictated by Markham, knowing that the defendants would write the informant’s words down in their notebooks. The fabricated and planted notebook quotes were then used by Markham in his opening statement to the jury, as proof that the defendants had conspired to obstruct justice.

The lengthy government misconduct hearings Judge Keeton conducted resulted in a mistrial due to juror hardship. More troublesome for Mueller and Markham, jurors told the Boston Herald that they would have voted not guilty if the case had ended at that point, following testimony on the credit card fraud counts of the indictment. Judge Keeton found that the government had engaged in “systemic and institutional prosecutorial misconduct” in the case. In a separate opinion, he opened the door to further discovery of classified operations in a retrial, in order to allow the defendants to show that they did not have the “corrupt motive” necessary for an obstruction of justice conviction.

The Justice Department quickly opened a new massive LaRouche case before Judge Albert V. Bryan Jr. in Alexandria, Virginia, this time based on a conspiracy to commit loan fraud and a conspiracy to prevent the IRS from assessing taxes. LaRouche was the sole defendant charged in both of the two counts, and all defendants were convicted. Bryan raced the case from indictment to trial, preventing adequate defense preparation; invited the government to conceal evidence by denying all motions for exculpatory evidence; and prevented the defense from introducing the fact that the government had bankrupted the companies issuing political loans, preventing them from repaying the political loans, in a case in which the government claimed loan fraud based on non-repayment of the same political loans. Judge Bryan himself had signed the order initiating the unprecedented government-instigated bankruptcy. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Bostetter later ruled that the bankruptcy was a “constructive fraud” on the court. Praising his railroad, Judge Bryan mocked Judge Keeton openly, saying Keeton “owed him a cigar” for “disposing” of the LaRouche matter.

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who represented LaRouche on appeal, said that the LaRouche case represented“a broader range of deliberate cunning and systemic misconduct over a longer period of time using the power of the federal government than any other prosecution by the U.S. government in my time or to my knowledge.”After reviewing the federal cases during hearings held in his Court, widely respected New York Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Crane found that the“actions of federal prosecutors raised an inference of a conspiracy to lay low these defendants at any cost.”

Needless to say, Robert Mueller does not feature the LaRouche case as a career highlight.

The Narcos Era: Mueller Ascends the Bush [Crime] Family Ladder

In 1989, George H.W. Bush brought Robert Mueller to Main Justice to dispose of another nemesis, Panamanian President Manuel Noriega. Aside from supporting LaRouche’s “Operation Juarez,” Noriega had refused to go along with the cocaine financing of George H.W. Bush’s Contra insurgency operations directed at El Salvador and Nicaragua. Based on his work for the CIA, Noriega just knew way too much about George H.W. Bush and cocaine. Following multiple unsuccessful coup attempts against Noriega, on December 20,1989, more than 28,000 U.S. troops invaded Panama, killing hundreds of Panamanians, deposing Noriega’s government and armed forces, and extracting Noriega for trial in the United States. The operation was dubbed “Operation Just Cause,” an antonym if there ever was one.

Manual Noriega was known in the CIA and DEA as a steadfast drug fighter, and DEA and CIA agents testified to that fact at his trial. To overcome this problem, Mueller dealt and bribed Latin America’s most notorious drug gangs with “get out of jail” free cards, if they would say that Noriega dealt drugs. According to reporter Glenn Garvin, Mueller plea bargained down a potential 1,435 years in prison for the lying narcotrafficker criminals testifying for him, to 81 years. These deals and bribes included a $1.25 million bribe to members of the Cali Cartel (whose leaders Noriega had jailed) and a deal with self-avowed Hitler worshiper Carlos Lehder Rivas, leader of the Medellin Cartel. Once again, charges of prosecutorial misconduct flowed daily from Noriega’s defense and appellate legal teams, but the media operations accompanying the prosecutions had turned Noriega into a devil whose claims did not deserve to be heard.

Having done the assignment on Noriega, Mueller ascended to head the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. Here he successfully covered up the drug, weapons, and terrorism activities of two banks, BCCI and BNL. BCCI was the Anglo-American intelligence community’s chosen vehicle to fund terrorism, launder drug money, and fund dark intelligence activities in Afghanistan, Central America, and throughout the Middle East. The highest levels of the British and European oligarchies were directly implicated in BCCI’s activities. Both banks escaped with plea bargains and fines, protecting dirty state secrets on several continents from public disclosure. Mueller left the Justice Department in 1993 for private practice, a stint in Washington D.C.’s Homicide Division, and one as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California in San Francisco.

Based on family services rendered, President George W. Bush returned Mueller to Main Justice as acting Deputy Attorney General in the early days of his Administration, before appointing him, in July of 2001, to head the FBI. He assumed that office on September 4, 2001, only days before September 11th. As we shall see, he played a commanding role of covering up for the perpetrators of the murder of nearly 3,000 Americans on that date, while overseeing the creation of the police state measures which followed that attack.

Aggressive Deception of the American People Concerning 9/11

There is a picture formerly available from the Bush Presidential Library which shows George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia’s U.S. Ambassador, on the White House balcony two days after September 11, 2001. The men are smoking cigars. Reporters inquiring about the photo more recently have been told it is no longer available from the Bush Library. Maybe the picture in this case says more than a thousand words ever could. Again, two days after almost 3,000 Americans were murdered by 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudis, the Saudi Ambassador yucks it up with the President, Dick Cheney, and the National Security Adviser on the White House balcony.

Immediately after September 11,2001, Bandar arranged for a mass exodus of Saudi royals, intelligence personnel, and other Saudi nationals from the United States, including members of the bin Laden family, with the full cooperation of the United States government. He placed them beyond the reach of any future inquiry.

It is obvious that the 9/11 terrorists did not emerge out of bat caves in Afghanistan. They lived here in the United States, training for a suicide mission which required massive logistical support. The immediate conclusion of anyone thinking through the plot, is that this had to be state-sponsored terrorism. The Bush Administration, however, immediately focused the nation on Iraq and took the nation to a disastrous war there, when even the most basic common sense told investigators to focus initially on the Saudis, following the evidence from there.

Congress convened a Joint Congressional Inquiry into the events of 9/11 in 2002, chaired by then U.S. Senator Bob Graham. Senator Graham says that he has stopped using the term “cover-up” in relation to 9/11. He instead uses the term “aggressive deception,” and places Mueller, operating on behalf of the Bush family, at the center of obstructing his investigation and others. It was Mueller who angrily intervened to prevent Congressional investigators from visiting FBI offices in San Diego. They went anyway, and discovered troves of FBI documents concerning the Saudi hijackers’ San Diego cell, and its support by Saudi royals and government officials, which Mueller’s FBI never made available to the Congressional Committee, despite their specific requests.

Former Senator and Chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham, charged the FBI with engaging in what he terms "aggressive deception" regarding the truth surrounding 9/11 during a press conference at the National Press Club August 31, 2016.

Prince Bandar, so close to the Bush family that he was called “Bandar Bush,” is at the center of the support network for the San Diego hijackers. There were multiple documents in the San Diego FBI files referencing well-known sympathies for Al-Qaeda by employees of the Saudi embassy in D.C., including Osama Bin Laden’s half-brother. There were records of checks paid to Saudis supporting the two San Diego hijackers from Bandar’s wife. There was also a CIA memorandum carefully tracking Saudi government support for Al-Qaeda and other Saudi terrorist organizations.

Congressional investigators also discovered the identity of an FBI informant who was close to both San Diego hijackers and rented rooms to them, living in the same house. Rather than allowing investigators to interview the informant, Mueller placed him in an

FBI safehouse for “his protection.” The results of the Joint Congressional Inquiry’s review of Saudi government support of the 9/11 hijackers, 28 pages of the Joint Congressional Committee’s report, were classified in the final report. They remained classified, despite the demands of the 9/11 families and an all-out national campaign for their release, until July 15, 2016. According to all concerned, the man who classified these 28 pages in 2003—and adamantly fought to ensure that they would never see the light of day—was FBI Director Robert Mueller. The 28 pages solely concern what Congressional investigators found in the San Diego FBI office, the discovery of which Robert Mueller actively sought to prevent.

In the summer of 2015, another document formerly classified, Document 17, was quietly declassified. It was authored by the same Congressional investigators who wrote the 28 pages, and revealed that two Saudi students, funded by the Saudi government, did a dry run of the September 11, 2001 attack on an American West flight from Phoenix to Washington in 1999, an incident well-known to the FBI. After releasing the two Saudis from custody, the FBI subsequently learned, in 2000, that one of the students had been trained in Afghanistan’s Al Qaeda camps to conduct Khobar Towers type assaults, and the other was tied to terrorist elements as well.

Senator Graham has remarked that Mueller stone-walled his investigation at every turn. Undoubtedly, large volumes of documents concerning the Saudi role in 9/11 reside in still classified and undisclosed CIA, FBI, and other files. This is not the place for a full review of the joint British and American responsibility for Salafist terrorism. From the U.S. side, Zbigniew Brzezinski deliberately created and supported an entire generation of such terrorists, including Osama Bin Laden, in his geopolitical war game with the Soviet Union. He deliberately created a terrorist insurgency in Afghanistan in order to draw the Russians into a war there, and gloated about it until his recent death. Saudi Arabia has never been anything other than a satrap of the British, and the second incubation point for the terrorist phenomena manifesting themselves in 9/11 lies in the mosques of “Londonistan.” The CIA knew this. MI6 knew this. They had been using these terrorist networks for years for their own geopolitical purposes.

The FBI did not pay attention to the Saudis before 2001 because “they were an ally,” according to testimony provided in the wake of the attacks. In August of 2001, President Bush was handed a CIA briefing which explicitly warned that Al Qaeda was about to launch a major attack on the United States using airplanes. The President did nothing. Earlier, Robert Mueller, serving as Deputy Attorney General in the days prior to 9/11, had blocked a major funding increase for the FBI’s counter-terrorism division led by John O’Neill. O’Neill had moved his entire operation to New York because official Washington would not listen to his warnings about Al Qaeda. The job to “aggressively deceive” the American people about this sordid history fell to Robert Swan Mueller III, and he obstructed a Congressional investigation to do precisely that.

Due to an act of Congress, JASTA, the 9/11 families are now proceeding with their lawsuit against the Saudis. But why should they have to endure years more of litigation? Why doesn’t President Trump open the actual door on this process, assigning seasoned investigators, like Michael Jacobsen, who unearthed the San Diego FBI trove, to a full review and disclosure of the Saudi role in 9/11, the U.S. and British government role in creating and fostering Islamic terrorism, and the “aggressive deception” and obstruction of justice by Robert Mueller and others which resulted in this illegal coverup?

While engaged in “aggressive deception” about the criminal conspiracy resulting in almost 3,000 American murders, Robert Mueller continued to railroad innocents. He personally directed the PENTBOM investigation which falsely accused Dr. Steven Hatfill of mailing the deadly Anthrax letters which killed five people in 2001. For years, Mueller harassed the innocent Dr. Hatfill, ordering the FBI to search his apartment multiple times, searching the apartment of his girlfriend, ensuring that Hatfill lost his job, and leaking continuously about Hatfill’s alleged perfidies to the national news media. Once, when an FBI agent ran over Hatfill’s foot with his car, it was arranged that Hatfill would get a ticket for impeding traffic. The Justice Department finally paid Hatfill $5.8 million dollars to settle his Privacy Act lawsuit aimed at government leaks—a settlement, along with an exoneration, which only came when a federal judge insisted that reporters reveal their Justice Department and FBI sources for stories about Hatfill.

As part of the same PENTBOM 9/11 investigation which destroyed Hatfill’s life, Mueller, with Attorney General John Ashcroft, rounded up 762 Muslims who had overstayed their visas, and were identified via tips to the FBI “tip line” from a hysterical public reacting to the events of 9/11. Remember, Prince Bandar had already moved the key Saudis involved with the hijackers out of the United States. These individuals were detained, without charges, in a special unit of New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center. Their jail conditions were supervised by Mueller and a small group of other Washington officials, and amounted to torture. They were deprived of sleep and food, repeatedly strip searched, physically and verbally abused by guards, and denied basic hygiene items like soap, toilet paper, and towels, or any access to the outside world. Both the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York and the Second Circuit kept Mueller as a defendant in the subsequent civil rights suit brought by the detainees. This means, under the high standard of proof required of civil rights plaintiffs, that the judges were literally appalled by the allegations against Robert Mueller in the complaint. In a 4-2 decision on June 18, 2017, however, the Supreme Court let the newly-appointed Special Prosecutor out of the lawsuit. Here is what Justice Stephen Breyer said in his dissent:

The majority opinion well summarizes the particular claims that the plaintiffs make in this suit. All concern the conditions of their confinement, which began soon after the September 11, 2001 attacks and lasted for days and weeks, then stretching into months. At some point, all the defendants knew that they had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks but continued to detain them anyway under harsh conditions. Official government policy, both before and after the defendants became aware of the plaintiffs’ innocence led to the plaintiffs being held in “tiny cells for over 23 hours a day, with lights continuously left on, shackled when moved, often strip searched, and denied access to most forms of communication with the outside world.” The defendants detained the plaintiffs in these conditions on the basis of their race or religion and without justification.

Mueller is often touted by the Washington establishment for reorganizing the FBI to become an effective counterintelligence and counterterrorism organization in the wake of 9/11. This also is Washington D.C. public relations claptrap. The FBI under Mueller excelled at entrapping the otherwise innocent, and constructing a surveillance state strongly resembling that portrayed by George Orwell in the novel, 1984. In the Newburgh Four case, for example, the presiding judge said the FBI, “came up with the crime, provided the means, and removed all relevant obstacles, making a terrorist out of a man whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in scope.”

Studies have found that almost every domestic terrorist plot during Mueller’s tenure, from 2001 to 2010, was in some way cooked up, assisted, and eventually busted by Mueller’s FBI. The book, The Terror Factory—Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism by Trevor Aaronson documents this in chilling detail. J. Edgar Hoover’s domestic security depravities seem pale in comparison.

The FBI now manages some 15,000 designated informants through a Linked-In type data base called Delta. It allows FBI agents to dial up informants to use in stings anywhere in the country. Informants then travel to their assignments and can earn up to $100,000 for entrapping and testifying against the unwary petty criminals, losers, and mentally-challenged individuals who inhabit the Bureau’s terrorist case docket. Philip Mudd was brought over from the CIA by Mueller to lead this effort in the FBI’s new National Security Division. Mudd, using a data-mining system called Domain Management, flooded immigrant communities, particularly Muslim communities, with informants to monitor and entrap those who expressed ideas favorable to radical Islam, whether or not those expressing the ideas had any real possibility of ever engaging in a terrorist plot. FBI agents referred to the Mudd-Mueller surveillance and entrapment tools as “battlefield management.” In other words, entire communities in the United States have been targeted and treated to the methods of the East German Stasi. On August 10, 2017, Mudd, now a CNN “analyst” who has raved repeatedly against President Donald Trump, told CNN analyst Jake Tapper, that the U.S. government “is going to kill this guy,” meaning the President.

Then, there is the surveillance state.

William Binney was the senior-most technical analyst at the NSA. He designed a system, “ThinThread,” which would accurately track terrorist plots while preserving the civil liberties of American citizens. In the film, “The Good American,” Binney tells the story of how he did this, and how General Michael Hayden, then the Director of the NSA, ditched Binney’s program and spent millions of dollars with an outside contractor, SAIC, on an alternative system, Trail Blazer, which mass-collected data on every American, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Drowning in data under SAIC’s alternative surveillance program, the NSA was unable to pinpoint actual terrorist plots. Binney and his collaborators demonstrated that under his program, ThinThread, all of the information necessary to stop the 9/11 hijackers was recorded by the NSA and readily available to investigators. For that, Robert Mueller sent the FBI to raid and harass Binney and his collaborators, bringing criminal charges against one of them, Thomas Drake, which were later dropped.

And then, of course, there is Enron, another notch in Mueller’s prosecutorial belt. Stretching the law on obstruction of justice, Mueller and his task force went after Arthur Anderson and Company, then one of the world’s largest accounting firms, for the perfidies of Enron, charging the accountants with obstruction of justice. The U.S. Supreme Court found that Mueller and friends had stretched the obstruction statute beyond recognition to prevail in the case, a reversal which came too late for the company and the people who worked there. Arthur Anderson went out of business as a result of Mueller’s prosecution.

The True Origins of the Coup Against the President

The coup against Donald Trump, in which Robert Mueller has been assigned to conduct the concluding acts, actually began in 2013-2014. The popular explanation for the perfidies and crimes against the President is that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama employed their networks, including stay-behind loyalists in the government and in the intelligence community, to change the result of the U.S. election, to stage the ongoing coup. This explanation, focused primarily on events in 2016, while true in an immediate domestic sense, misses the larger picture. As we shall show, the British starting calling for Donald Trump’s head, by their own account, in 2015 and meddled and meddled in the U.S. election and the coup to reverse its result every day thereafter. A recent book by Dick Morris and Ellen McGann, Rogue Spooks, the Intelligence War on Trump, puts appropriate emphasis on the British origin of the war against the President, but assigns the wrong motive for the crimes committed.

Why, for example, did the FBI obtain a FISA warrant for Paul Manafort in 2014 based on his political consulting work in Ukraine?

Why, according to accounts in the Guardian, did the British start demanding Trump’s head in 2015, and warn that the DNC computers had been hacked in July of 2015, a full year before the DNC revealed it had been hacked?

Why did the British keep pushing and pushing for Trump’s removal by any means necessary? Why was Hillary Clinton’s campaign working not only with British intelligence’s Christopher Steele and Sir Andrew Wood to develop dirt on Trump, but also with Ukrainian intelligence?

Why was NATO intelligence, an appendage of the British, raving about Russian bots and Russian “hybrid warfare,” leaking repeatedly to the London press in 2014 and 2015 about the purported evil emanating from the St. Petersburg Internet Research Agency and thousands of paid internet trolls [the current topic of Democrat/Deep State fueled media hysteria now that 'collusion' allegations have fizzled for lack of evidence -- JWS]?

The Real Story: Issues of War, Peace, and the Future

Beginning with an announcement of President Xi Jinping, at a conference in Kazakhstan in July of 2013, China has set into motion an entirely new dynamic in the world, a new paradigm of cooperation between nation states, to build vital modern infrastructure allowing nations in the former “developing sector” to reach their full economic potentials. Xi Jinping’s vision of the New Silk Road or “One Belt, One Road” project has been endorsed by Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Russia and China are joining in projects which will fully develop the Eurasian landmass, creating a “new financial architecture” in the Asia-Pacific region.

On July 16, 2014, the BRICS group of nations meeting in Fortaleza, Brazil, joined by the Latin American heads of state, agreed with Xi Jinping’s proposal on the creation of an entirely new economic and financial system, representing a fundamental alternative to the casino economy of the present system of globalization. The Anglo-American globalist system is based on maximized profit of the few, and the impoverishment of billions of people. In the new paradigm, financing for joint great projects is to come from development banks, such as the newly created Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, ending dependence on such globalist institutions as the IMF or World Bank. Globalization as administered by the IMF and World Bank is effectively a system of imperial debt slavery, keeping the nations dependent on their loans in primitive economic conditions, while their raw materials are looted.

As Prime Minister Narenda Modi from India remarked,“The BRICS is unique as an international institution. In this first instance, it unifies a group of nations, not on the basis of their existing prosperity or common identities, but rather their future potentials. The idea of the BRICS itself is thus aligned with the future.”It is not incidental to this remark that Russia, China, and India have set future goals for space exploration, including most specifically exploration of the Moon and possible exploitation of Helium 3 on the Moon, which has the potential of finally realizing nuclear fusion power as a primary energy source powering the world.

China has made clear that no small part of this initiative is inspired by the work of Lyndon and Helga LaRouche. Many of the envisioned projects reflect long-standing proposals by Executive Intelligence Review and the Schiller Institute. The methods employed echo the ideas of political economy first developed by Alexander Hamilton, and deployed by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt—ideas uniquely developed and expanded by Lyndon LaRouche. Xi Jinping has asked the United States to join this great venture, which could produce thousands of productive jobs and jump-start infrastructure projects in this country. Obama adamantly refused Xi’s offer, and did everything in his power to block and defeat the Chinese initiative. President Trump has indicated an openness to the proposition.

These 2013-2014 events were and are a direct challenge to the British imperial system. They directly challenge the monetary system which is the source of Anglo-American domination of the world. They directly challenge fundamental British strategic policy extant since the days of Halford Mackinder. Under the “One Belt, One Road” initiative, joined with Russia’s Eurasian Union, Mackinder’s “world island” of Eurasia and Africa will be developed, crisscrossed with new high-speed rail links, new cities, and vital modern infrastructure, based on the mutual benefit of all of the nation states existing there. Under the British geopolitical model, this area of the world has been subjected to endless instability, war, and raw materials looting. Xi Jinping has also attacked the geopolitical axioms by which the United States and the British have operated. He proposes instead a model of “win-win” cooperation in which nation states collaborate for development based on the common aims of mankind.

The Anglo-American response to this development can be seen in the events in Ukraine, where Obama, the British, and the National Endowment for Democracy staged a coup in February 2014, overthrowing the government of the duly elected President, Victor Yanukovych, because he refused to turn his country into a western satrapy to be wielded against Putin’s Russia. Victoria Nuland, who helped oversee the coup from her perch at Hillary Clinton’s State Department, was famously caught on tape dictating the Ukraine succession, after bands of murderous neo-Nazis did the scut-work for the coup. According to Nuland, the price for this handiwork was some $5 billion.

The actual “swamp” of the British and their accomplices in the U.S. intelligence community and aligned trans-Atlantic institutions, like NATO, have viewed themselves as being in a state of war against Russia and China since the 2013-2014 events. Think about former DNI Clapper’s unhinged speech in Australia of June 7, 2017. Clapper ranted that it was in Putin’s and Russia’s “genes” to attack the United States. Since Trump pursues better relations and shared intelligence with Russia on terrorism, Clapper ranted, Watergate (where Richard Nixon committed proven crimes) paled in comparison to Russiagate (where both Clapper and Comey have testified that to date the President has committed no crimes). Clapper told the Aussies also to target China, accusing the Chinese, without any offer of proof, of meddling in Australia’s elections. Former FBI Director James Comey backed Clapper in his testimony on June 8, 2017, attempting to wax eloquent in response to Senator Joe Manchin, about how Putin exists with one purpose in mind—to shred and dismember the United States.

But China and Russia have completely outflanked these cretins, and the new paradigm is rapidly coming to life with “shovels in the ground” everywhere. In response, the Anglo-American elites have absolutely nothing to offer the world except the same dying, decadent globalist “order.” This explains why many in official Washington let loose their inner alien monster every time the President mentions a desire for better relations with Russia, or evinces his friendship with President Xi Jinping of China. This is why Hillary Clinton has literally gone insane, raving like Lady Macbeth, and obsessing about Putin’s “man-spreading.” That is why, also, they would risk World War III rather than see the “Belt and Road,” the New Silk Road, go forward with its “community of principle” idea of relations among nations.

What Did Trump Do?

Like LaRouche, Trump represents an existential challenge to the post-War British-dictated monetarist and imperial order. In his campaign platform he called for the reinstitution of Glass-Steagall banking separation. This would end the casino economy which is about to blow up again—the real economy never having recovered from the collapse of 2008. He wants to build huge modern infrastructure and revitalize the manufacturing sector of the economy with modern manufacturing techniques. He wants to return the United States to space exploration and the funding of fundamental science, recognizing the optimistic national morale which will result from that.

In his public speeches, Trump has repeatedly invoked what he understands as “The American System” of political economy, a concept developed and elaborated in recent history by only one man, Lyndon LaRouche. This centers economic systems in nation states, rather than global institutions, and calls for harnessing the resources of the nation state to develop the economy to higher and higher levels of physical productivity and human culture. While Trump has features in his version of the American System which LaRouche would not endorse as historically accurate or politically wise, even the use of the term, invoking Alexander Hamilton and Lincoln’s economist Henry Carey, is a direct challenge to the free trade, small-government nostrums foisted on the United States by a parade of British agents during the Twentieth Century.

The British, up to this point, have been largely successful in burying the actual ideas of Alexander Hamilton and Franklin Roosevelt, and burying the fundamental advances in these ideas resulting from original discoveries by LaRouche. Through deliberate miseducation of Americans, the British have made their economic theories and systems, against which Americans explicitly fought in our Revolution, appear to be universal laws of human behavior.

As his recent speech to the United Nations emphasized, Trump envisions a system of sovereign nations, each striving to develop and enrich their populations, engaged in cooperative trade relationships, reciprocal in nature and targeted for the benefit of each party. His U.N. speech echoed the foreign policy of John Quincy Adams, a policy which forbade our nation from “going abroad, seeking monsters to destroy.” This is the very opposite of the imperial-gendarme, perpetual-war policy long favored by the British for the United States. Trump’s positive vision, under present circumstances, requires active collaboration with Russia and China.

To stop the coup, the President’s team and his supporters must stop reacting defensively. He must act on the aspects of his program—Glass-Steagall, large scale infrastructure development funded by national banking mechanism devoted to that purpose, space exploration, fusion power development, and joining the “One Belt, One Road” program with China, which can actually save the economy and produce high paying jobs. At the same time, they should look at the actual crimes involved in the coup which are already on the public record, investigate them—including in the Congress—and prosecute them. With respect to Mueller, they should investigate his obstruction of the investigation into the crimes committed on 9/11, together with a full public unveiling of the Saudi and British role in international terrorism. In aid of such an effort we present seven crimes implicated in the events in the coup against the President to date.

Seven Actual Crimes

The crimes outlined below make clear that a Special Counsel, not Robert Mueller, should be investigating the U.S.-British response to China's Belt and Road Initiative, beginning with the illegal coup in Ukraine which has resulted in the targeting of Paul Manafort.

In the British account of the American election, largely published in pieces in the Guardian, they began warning their American counterparts about the dangers of Donald Trump’s accommodating views toward Putin and Russia in 2015. These warnings were followed by the specific claim that the Democratic National Committee’s servers had been hacked by the Russians as of July of 2015. According to the British account, their American counterparts were slow to respond, although the FBI says it notified the DNC, which did nothing about the alleged Russian hack until June of 2016.

The obvious should be stated here. If the British were developing dossiers on Trump and his associates as early as 2015, Trump and his associates were under surveillance as of that date or sooner by British GCHQ and/or the NSA. We know that Paul Manafort was considered practically an enemy combatant in Anglo-American swamp circles by 2014, because of his Ukraine work with Yanukovych and the Party of the Regions. He apparently chose the wrong side by fighting against a Nazi coup. The same was true even of Democratic consultants such as Tony Podesta, who worked with Manafort on Ukraine and were subject to the same reported 2014 FISA surveillance warrant [though media leaking regarding FISA warrants targeting the brother of John Podesta has been remarkably restrained, compared to the feeding frenzy around former Trump campaign chairman Manafort].

What was the FBI affidavit which justified the 2014 Manafort, Podesta FISA court surveillance warrant, and what was the British role in obtaining it? What role did the British play, including GCHQ and MI6, in the Manafort counterintelligence investigation? What were the British “concerns” about Trump communicated to U.S. intelligence as early as 2015? What was the specific British warning about hacks of the DNC computer in July 2015?

By December of 2015, according to James Clapper’s dodgy January 2017 report on alleged Russian meddling in the election, hundreds of paid Russian trolls associated with the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency had begun to advocate for Trump’s election. At the same time, former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) director Michael Flynn attended a dinner at RT in Russia, sitting across the table from Putin. Flynn had already driven Obama crazy by proposing a determined U.S.-Russian collaboration in the war on terror, and going after the Administration’s policy aimed at dismembering Syria. Obama had fired him. Is this the date when surveillance on Flynn actually began, or did it begin sooner? What was the British [especially GCHQ] role in this surveillance?

Carter Page has also been a subject in Mueller’s Russiagate hysteria. He apparently walked in to volunteer for the Trump campaign without any prior association with the President, and was disavowed by the campaign soon after. He went to school in London, had a variety of business dealings in Russia, and had volunteered for the Trump campaign as a foreign policy advisor by simply walking in the door. Page had already functioned as an FBI informant in a major 2013 New York City FBI case against Russian organized crime figures, and stated on CNN that he briefed both the CIA and FBI regularly on these business dealings in Russia. Was he used as a front to get a FISA warrant directed at the Trump campaign? Was he a spy sent by the FBI both to Russia and into the Trump campaign?

The targeting of the alleged activities of the St. Petersburg Internet Research Agency (IRA) in DNI Clapper’s January report, again points to the heavy British hand in the coup against the President. According to French journalist Thierry Meyssan, in September 2014, the British government created the 77th Brigade, a unit tasked with countering foreign propaganda, which worked with the U.S. military in Europe to interfere with websites considered to be distributing Russian propaganda. This project ultimately morphed into NATO’s Strategic Communications Service, tasked with suppressing any news or person favorable to the Russian position concerning strategic topics, but particularly Ukraine.

From its inception, the NATO Strategic Communications Service incorporated a service of the Atlantic Council, the Digital Forensics Service. Crowdstrike’s Dimitri Alperovitch—the person with sole access to the DNC’s allegedly “hacked” computers, whose forensic analysis was adopted wholesale by James Comey’s FBI and the U.S. intelligence community—is a senior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Service. News about Russian trolls operating out of the Internet Research Agency and poisoning the Western mind filled the British press in 2015. In line with this NATO project is the Information Warfare Initiative in the U.S., centered at the Washington Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and founded by Washington Post neocon Anne Applebaum [who as Moscow based Australian journalist John Helmer has doggedly reported, is married to former Polish Defense Minister Radek Sikorski. Mr. Sikorski used to work at the neocon think tank the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) during the Iraq invasion which included a symbolic Polish aka 'New Europe' contingent. Sikorski was basically kicked out of Poland's politics after a tape emerged of him privately mockingPoland's dependency on Washington at a restaurant: “You know that the Polish-U.S. alliance isn’t worth anything. It is downright harmful because it creates a false sense of security…[it's] complete bullshit. We’ll get in conflict with the Germans, Russians, and we’ll think that everything is super because we gave the Americans a blow job. Losers. Complete losers [murzynskosc – literally, dark-skinned slaves]”]. It is a pseudo pod of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. intelligence community, and has concentrated its attacks on the Russian broadcasters RT and Sputnik.2

What exactly was the relationship of The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and the other black propagandists operating against the President, together with their reporters, with the NED, the Information Warfare Initiative, NATO’s Strategic Communications Service, and The [since absorbed by the taxpayer funded Broadcasting Board of Directors RFE/RL] Institute for Modern Russia in New York City, or other British or U.S. intelligence agencies during the Obama Administration and subsequently? Like the Train meetings targeting LaRouche, the media attacks on the President are not organic. They are organized, and on a much larger scale than anything ever experienced in this country.

What is the relationship of various Washington D.C. lobby shops, such as Orion Strategies, long associated with John McCain, to the organized media campaign against Donald Trump? Have our intelligence agencies, actually instigated an Active Measures counterintelligence program illegally and against a sitting President? What is the overlap of offices, personnel, and entities assigned by Obama to Russian, Chinese, and Eurasian intelligence functions, including the coup activities in Ukraine, with the illegal leaks of classified information to the news media?

The Cardinal Events of June-July 2016

(1). The Conspiracy Against the President Takes Off

Sometime in June, 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign took over an opposition research project on Donald Trump which had previously been funded by Trump’s Republican opponents. The contract was with a D.C. firm called Fusion GPS, who, in turn, employed a British firm, Orbis, and Orbis’ founder Christopher Steele. Steele ran the Russia desk for MI6 until 2009 [Steele had been kicked out of Russia years earlier as a spy who got caught by Russia's FSB]; Sir Andrew Wood, an “associate” at Steele’s company, was the British Ambassador to Moscow between 1995 and 2000, a “Russia” adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair, and is an associate fellow of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Royal Institute for International Affairs at Chatham House [the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and Washington being Chatham House's subservient American sister organizations]. Christopher Burrows, Steele’s partner in Orbis, lists himself as a long-time high-ranking British foreign service officer, although news accounts also place him in British intelligence.

Christopher Steele has also acknowledged a longstanding relationship to the FBI, centered in the FBI’s Eurasian Organized Crime Strike Force in New York City, which media reports date to 2010, the same time the relationship to Fusion GPS went into effect. Andrew McCabe, the ethically challenged FBI Assistant Director now being investigated for Hatch Act and other violations concerning the Clinton sponsorship of his wife’s campaign against Virginia Senator Richard Black [who happens to be a deep state loathed outspoken critic of the Washington/Langley proxy war against Syria], led the Eurasian task force early in his career, and has maintained contacts ever since. Many believe that McCabe was Steele’s FBI handler and contact.

In court filings in a London libel suit against them, Steele and Orbis state that they briefed reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Yahoo News, and CNN about Christopher Steele’s reports on Trump and Russia in September 2016, and participated in further briefings with the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Yahoo News in October 2016. In late October, Steele briefed a reporter from Mother Jones via Skype. Senator John McCain and David Kramer, who was McCain’s agent, were briefed on the pre-election Steele memoranda in December of 2016. Sixteen memoranda smearing Trump, based on paid and anonymous Russian sources, were produced prior to the election. It is clear that the FBI was also a recipient of all of these memoranda dating back to June of 2016, if not earlier.

Steele and Orbis claim that the 17th memo, produced in December 2016, which referenced the salacious and disgusting claim that Trump engaged in perverse sexual activities at a Russian hotel, was solely produced to one David Kramer as a representative of Senator John McCain (R-AZ), and a representative of the British security services. The December memo was the product of a collaboration between Steele, Sir Andrew Wood, Kramer, and a representative of the British security services, which began on November 18, 2016, that is, almost immediately following Trump’s election as President. It has been widely reported that James Comey’s FBI was also offering Steele and Orbis $50,000 or more at this point to corroborate aspects of the dodgy dossier smearing the President-elect. [Though the FBI's post Comey director Christopher Wray to date is risking being found in contempt of Congress by stonewalling subpoenas from GOP led committees demanding details on the amounts paid to Steele].

David Kramer is the former President of the CIA and NED quango, Freedom House, was a fellow of the neo-conservative Project for a New American Century, held State Department positions dedicated to Project Democracy and soft power coups in Russia and the former East Bloc, and presently serves as Senior Director for Human Rights and Human Freedoms at Senator McCain’s Institute for International Leadership in Arizona.

Hillary Clinton used the Steele Dossier to paint Trump as a Russian dupe throughout her general election campaign against him. James Comey used it to justify his FBI counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign which began in July of 2016, and has continued.

Thus, we have the British government and, in all probability, NATO, intervening in an election in the United States to sway the result. Most certainly this raises questions about the applicability of election laws which bar foreign funding for exactly the reason that United States elections should be decided by United States citizens. Most certainly, once this sequence of events is fully investigated, it will become clear that all government participants intended to sway the election unlawfully, using the powers of a state to vanquish the will of the voters.

(2). The Russian Hack That Wasn’t—False Reporting of a Crime

On June 12, 2016, WikiLeaks announced that it was in possession of emails damaging to Hillary Clinton, and would soon be publishing them. June, 14, 2016 marks the announcement by the Democratic National Committee that its computers had been hacked by the Russians, the subject apparently of the initial Christopher Steele memorandum prepared for the Clinton campaign. The purloined DNC emails showed, definitively, that the DNC, which should have been neutral in the primaries, was trying to destroy the rising campaign of Bernie Sanders. The emails were published by WikiLeaks on the eve of the Democratic National Convention. The claim that the WikiLeaks emails were the result of a Russian hack of DNC servers was authored by Dmitri Alperovitch of the security firm, Crowd Strike. Alperovitch, a Russian-American who demonizes Putin, is, as previously referenced, a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Project, deeply involved in NATO’s Strategic Communications Service.

The FBI’s James Comey accepted Alperowitz’s forensic analysis without ever accessing the DNC computers in question. It is probable that Comey was already operating on the basis of the British Christopher Steele Memoranda asserting that the Russians were responsible for the DNC hack.

On July 24, 2017, the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) released a Memo to the President demonstrating that there was no Russian hack of the DNC. Rather, the WikiLeaks document trove was produced by a leak from inside the DNC, not a hack. According to this memorandum, the leaked treasure trove from the DNC was altered in a “cut and paste” job to make it look like it was the product of a very crude Russian hack. The VIPS are veterans of U.S. intelligence agencies, and include William Binney, the former technical director of the NSA. Their group first formed to oppose the fabricated reasons for the Iraq War.

Watch LaRouchePAC's full interview of former CIA Officer Ray McGovern and the VIPS report.

William Binney has insisted from the first reference to Russian hacking as the source of the WikiLeaks Podesta/DNC documents, that if such an event had occurred, the NSA would have traced it and could say so with certainty. In their report, the VIPS point out that the CIA’s “Marble Framework” program allows for obfuscation of cyberattacks and false flag attribution to other state actors.

WikiLeaks has consistently claimed that the source of its dossier was an inside leak from the DNC, implying that Seth Rich, a DNC data management staffer who supported Bernie Sanders, was one of its sources. Rich was murdered in July of 2016 in Washington, D.C., in a crime which remains unsolved at this date. Congressman Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) recently met with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, and states that he has evidence confirming that the WikiLeaks DNC/John Podesta email trove was the result of a leak, not a Russian hack.

(3). The Trump Tower Meeting—Entrapping a Presidential Campaign

On June 9, 2016, a meeting took place in Trump Tower involving Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, at the time the campaign manager for the Trump Presidential campaign, Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law, and five other people. As opposed to media accounts, only one of the participants in the Trump Tower meeting was a Russian, the lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. By all accounts provided by participants, the meeting was very short, and involved the Magnitsky Act sanctions imposed by the U.S. Congress on certain Russians. Many consider these 2012 sanctions to be the opening shot of the New Cold War. This meeting has attracted extensive attention from Special Counsel Mueller, as the media has painted it as a “smoking gun.” of alleged collusion between Trump's advisers and Russians.

The emails setting up the meeting do not reflect what actually happened at the meeting. Instead, they bear all the marks of an intelligence-agency entrapment attempt against Donald Trump, Jr., designed to fix the “Manchurian candidate” label on Trump early in the general election campaign. The emails setting up the meeting specifically offered “dirt” on Hillary Clinton to be provided by the Russian government.

On July 15, 2016, at the same time as the FBI was opening an investigation of the Russians for interfering in the U.S. election and of the Trump campaign for colluding with them, another British intelligence operative, Bill Browder [grandson of Communist Party USA director and avowed Stalinist Earl Browder], was filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice concerning four participants in the Trump Tower meeting and others for failure to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Browder’s complaint claimed that these people were engaged in unregistered Russian lobbying activities, namely, attempting to overturn the Magnitsky Act. Browder renounced his American citizenship in 1989 to become a British subject and has operated at the highest levels of British finance and intelligence.

Undoubtedly, by the time of the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting, the British government’s Trump file already included a full history of Donald Trump’s sponsorship of the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow and its players, Trump’s real estate dealings with Russians anywhere in the world, all of candidate Trump’s conciliatory statements toward Russia, and complaints that campaign advisor Michael Flynn was soft on Russia, and a rebel against the U.S. intelligence establishment [which had been busily arming Al Qaeda and ISIS under the guise of supplying 'moderate rebels' to topple Assad in Syria]. The file also included surveillance of Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who was considered an outright enemy of Anglo-American interests given his political work for the former President of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovych and his Party of the Regions, and Trump’s relationship with Felix Sater, a Russian-American and high level FBI informant.3

So, even before the Trump Tower meeting, we find following intelligence services in motion and attempting to concoct illicit dirt about Trump and Putin: British intelligence, Ukrainian intelligence [the SBU], the DNI and the CIA in the United States, the FBI, and NATO’s Strategic Communications Service and its U.S. offshoots. But wait, as they say in infomercial sales, that’s not even close to all involved.

According to Foreign Policy magazine and others, on July 11, 2017, a hacker going by the name of “Johnnie Walker” published a trove of emails from the private account of Lieutenant Robert J. Otto, who is tasked to a secretive unit in the U.S. State Department focused on Russia. Newsweek magazine states that Otto is the nation’s “foremost” intelligence guy concerning Russia. The emails have not been authenticated. However, they contain an email purported to be on the day of the Trump Tower meeting between Otto and Kyle Parker, of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, featuring a picture of Russian attorney Natalia Velselnitskaya’s house in Russia. Parker credits himself as the actual author of the Magnitsky Act sanctions against Russia, and a close friend of Bill Browder. Velselnitskaya claims that her children have been threatened as a result of her participation in a legal case questioning the bona fides of Bill Browder and the factual foundations of the Magnitsky Act. The picture of her house in this context suggests another level of intense surveillance directed at Trump Tower on the day of the meeting, and the possibility that threats to her family were actually governing Veselnitskaya’s behavior.

The Set-Up

On June 3rd, Trump Jr. was emailed by publicist Ron Goldstone, a British national who operates out of the U.S., whose first career was as a British tabloid journalist. Goldstone’s Facebook account appears to indicate that he is presently on a break from his businesses and on a world tour of gay bathhouses in which the proudly obese Goldstone takes pictures of himself wearing various strange hats and shirts in the company of young men. Who is financing this tour apparently outside the reach of Grand Jury subpoenas? Goldstone has also been photographed with Kathy Griffin, who famously posted a picture of herself with President Trump’s severed head.

Goldstone emailed Donald Trump, Jr. that Aras Agalarov wanted Goldstone to set up a meeting with Trump, Jr. in which sensitive Russian government files about Hillary Clinton’s dealings with Russia would be provided to the Trump campaign as a gesture of official Russian government support of the campaign. Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting.

Goldstone is the publicist for Emin Agalarov, an Azerbarjani pop star. Aras Agalarov and his son Emin partnered with Trump for the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. The base of operations for the Agalarov family is the Moscow regional government, not Putin’s Kremlin.

The actual twenty-minute meeting involved Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, who did most of the speaking by all accounts; Rinat Akhmetshin, a well-known Washington D.C.-based lobbyist and American citizen; Ike Kaveladze, a U.S. citizen and vice-president at one of the Agalarov’s companies; Ron Goldstone; and the translator for Natalia Veselnitskaya, Anatoli Samochornov. Samochornov is also an American citizen who worked with Veselnitskaya frequently, since she does not speak English. He has also worked extensively for the FBI and the U.S. State Department. Although Akhmetshin has been linked to Russian counterintelligence repeatedly in the news media, that all appears to be based on his bragging about his two-year stint in the Russian military as a young man. The topic addressed by Veselnitskaya was the Magnitsky Act sanctions against Russia, which resulted from a campaign conducted by violently anti-Putin British operative William Browder, allied with Senator John McCain and the D.C. public relations firm Ashcroft and Glover.

Any sound investigation about this meeting would focus on who, out of the small army of intelligence operatives watching this meeting, designed and implemented the clear entrapment attempt against Donald Trump, Jr. for later use. Since it was surveilled and recorded by multiple intelligence agencies tripping all over one another at the time, (you get the image of Keystone cops), why was it only surfaced as the “smoking gun” recently? Natalia Veselnitskaya had been paroled into the United States to serve as the Russian lawyer in a legal case in the Southern District of New York based solely on money-laundering allegations made by Bill Browder against her Russian clients. At the time of the Trump Tower meeting, however, Veselnitskaya was traveling on a business visa issued by the U.S. Department of State after having been previously denied such a visa, and after efforts by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to prevent any free travel by her in the U.S. at all. Immigration attorneys I have spoken to describe this situation as extremely strange.

(4). Obama’s Final Days In Office— Insurrection Against the President-Elect, Felonious Leaks

In an apparent effort to influence the Electoral College vote following the election, the Obama Administration leaked a preliminary intelligence community “assessment” that the Russians had hacked the Democrats’ computers and otherwise intervened to swing the election to Donald Trump. According to the New York Times of March 1, 2017, Obama and his national security colleagues additionally spent the months after the election and prior to President Trump’s inauguration dropping a trail of “leads” in official documents and leaking information, in the effort to delegitimize Trump and to continue their policies against Russia and China.

Certainly, there is a document trail on this process which appears to be confined to a period of a little over two months. Evelyn Farkas, formerly of the Defense Department’s Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia Desk and the Atlantic Council, virtually admitted to MSNBC in March that she had participated in this process. This is where the illegal unmasking of names in FISA and E.O. 12333 surveillance occurred, when these crimes were committed. Samantha Power, the U.N. Ambassador, was reportedly involved in 260 unmasking requests bearing little relationship to her function. Other targets of the House Intelligence Committee concerning illegal unmasking and leaks include Susan Rice, John Brennan, and Ben Rhodes.

On December 15, 2016, DNI James Clapper signed new procedures allowing the NSA to distribute raw intercept data throughout the entire intelligence community. These procedures became official on January 3, 2017 when Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed off on them.

At issue is modification of secret procedures under E.O. 12333, deemed by Edward Snowden and others as the most significant authority for our present, completely unconstitutional surveillance state. Previously, the NSA was required to filter and redact information regarding U.S. citizens monitored in foreign counterintelligence activities. DNI Clapper had also implemented a cloud intelligence data platform accessible by all intelligence agencies, and obliterating many paper and digital access trails and safeguards. Were these new procedures implemented in any way based on a desire to facilitate leaks and obscure their origin to future investigators?

(5). The January Blackmail/Extortion Attempt

On January 6, 2017, according to James Comey’s June 8th Congressional testimony, the intelligence chiefs went to Trump Tower to present the Obama Administration’s report on Russian hacking, hoping to convince the skeptical President-elect to abandon his campaign promise for better relations with Putin and Russia. Following that briefing, in a pre-arranged move with the rest of Obama’s intelligence directors, Comey cleared the room of everyone but himself and Trump. He presented Trump with the Steele dossier’s most salacious allegations, namely that Trump had engaged in sexually perverse acts with Russian prostitutes while visiting Moscow, and Putin had taped it. This is exactly what the infamous J. Edgar Hoover did—blackmail Washington politicians with FBI dossiers, assuring them that he could protect them so long as they did as Hoover wished. In fact, Comey described this as a “J. Edgar Hoover moment” in answers to questions by Senator Susan Collins on June 8th. [Former Clinton White House adviser] Dick Morris describes the entire affair as “just about as close as you can get to a political assassination without holding a gun to the President’s head.”

Trump appears to have demanded that the entirely fake dossier be investigated, and refused to back down in efforts to achieve better relations with Russia. In fact, Trump denounced the intelligence community publicly as acting like Nazis. He also denounced the McCarthyite hysteria they were generating. While Comey recorded the President-elect’s responses on a classified computer moments after leaving him, Buzzfeed, which had frequently published raw Clinton/Obama “oppo” stories, published the December 2016 British/Clinton dodgy dossier in full. The U.S. intelligence community, particularly Obama’s ghoulish grand inquisitor, [terrorists in Syria arming and alleged Saudi asset] CIA head John Brennan, proceeded to give it credibility by leaking that both President-elect Trump and President Obama had been briefed on its contents.

Publication of the Trump Russian sex allegations accompanied James Clapper’s factless “official intelligence community assessment” that the Russians hacked the DNC and Podesta, and that they did so to influence the election in favor of Donald Trump. Put together by analysts “hand-picked” by the CIA’s John Brennan, that assessment was backed by no actual evidence. It has now been thoroughly debunked as “the hack that wasn’t” by the analysis presented by the Veteran’s Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. John Brennan subsequently explained to Congress and the public that he does not “do evidence.”

The Democrats, the news media, and their Republican allies led by John McCain and Lindsay Graham, went berserk over the factless Obama Administration “assessment,” demanding special prosecutors and Congressional investigations, and sneering that “other shoes” were about to drop. The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman, having clearly lost it, claimed that Russia had committed an “act of war,” presumably seeking to invoke Article V of the NATO treaty [with all the attendant risks of thermonuclear war].

(6). The President Calls Out Comey, Brennan et al. for Wiretapping Him, They Lie About It To Congress

On March 4, 2017, after General Flynn was fired, and after a deluge of leaks of classified surveillance of members of Trump’s transition and national defense teams, President Trump interrupted the entire fake media narrative by tweeting what had become obvious: that Obama had him “wiretapped” in Trump Tower prior to the election, and that what was happening to him reeked of McCarthyism. The media, which had been publishing allegations about FISA warrants and intercepts of Trump or his associates for months, erupted in what has to be one the most shameless demonstrations of the Big Lie ever known. They declared that Trump was offering wild claims with no evidence, essentially circling back on their very own reporting [regarding the prior existence of said wiretaps of Trump at Trump Tower or at least his closest campaign associates] and labeling it, “fake news.”

Now it has been revealed that FISA warrants existed on Paul Manafort from 2014 through some period in 2016, and from some period in 2016 through this year, conveniently omitting the period when he was Trump’s campaign manager. Manafort lives in Trump Tower, and was originally investigated regarding compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) for his Ukraine activities. It is fairly obvious that the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower was the subject of massive surveillance. It is also abundantly clear from the leaks which occurred concerning contacts with the Russians by Trump’s campaign officials and supporters, that the Trump Tower offices of his transition were subject to massive surveillance, either as the result of extant FISA warrants or under E.O. 12333.

James Comey and James Clapper were both asked directly in their appearances before Congressional Committees whether there was any evidence at all to substantiate the President’s wiretapping claims. Both of them gave emphatic answers that there was not, and went out of their respective ways to paint the President as a paranoid wacko.

So now, Robert Mueller is investigating the President of the United States for obstruction of justice, because he fired an FBI Director who lied to Congress. Really?

(7). The Comey Firing-Attempted Entrapment of the President

On March 20, 2017, former FBI Director Comey breathed new life into what was, by then, an insurrection which had run out of steam. People were simply tired of Democrats, like Rep. Adam Schiff,4 trying on McCarthyite tinfoil hats before TV cameras and pontificating about the outrage du jour. Comey, in testimony before the House Select Committee on Intelligence, made it officially public, for the first time, that the FBI had been investigating collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the election since July of 2016. He opined that the FBI counterintelligence investigation (which had been leaking like a sieve since its instigation in July, without producing any verifiable facts about either Russian interference or Trump campaign collusion) could continue for many more months, if not years. He refused to say whether the President himself was under investigation, despite the fact that he had told the President that he was not, and had told Congress the same thing behind closed doors.

Despite the daily press instructions about events which the public must view as scandalous (why scandalous was never explained), and highly publicized Congressional hearings concerning “Russia! Russia! Russia!” all of President Obama’s men, at this late date, had only managed to arrange the human sacrifice of Michael Flynn for lying to the Vice-President about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December.5 They had also generated ethics, foreign intelligence registration, and tax questions about their other Trump campaign targets—typical of what happens when an entire life is put under a microscope, in a dedicated search for something, anything, that could be construed feasibly as wrongdoing.

Ask yourself, what have any of these people allegedly done? Spoken with the Russians? Talked about lifting sanctions imposed because Putin reacted to a coup Obama ran against the duly elected government of Ukraine? Lobbied on behalf of foreign governments? Really?

The actual testimony of Obama’s intelligence officials before Congressional Committees, shorn of the media hype surrounding it, was that there was absolutely no evidence of any Trump campaign collusion with alleged Russian efforts to interfere in the U.S. elections. In fact, on March 15, 2017, Comey himself had told Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Diane Feinstein (D-CA) behind closed doors, that the President was not a target of his investigations, despite planted press stories to the contrary. Comey had otherwise continually stone-walled Grassley concerning the Senator’s persistent questions about the FBI’s relationship to British operative Christopher Steele.

While unable to produce any saleable legal goods, the illicit investigations had significantly bogged down the President’s political agenda, while fostering an increasingly toxic and divisive national political environment. The strategy of official Washington, the Republicans who opposed the President’s election, the Obama/Clinton Democratic establishment, and the intelligence agencies operating on behalf of British strategic policies and axioms is clear—use complicit Republicans to trap the President in failed and obnoxious policies, such as the healthcare bill; hope that the President’s silent majority remains exactly that—silent; hope that some of the smelly stuff they are throwing up against the wall actually sticks; distract, distract, distract the President, and prevent him from working with Russia and China to develop the world, end wars, and implement the massive infrastructure and space exploration projects which will actually save our economy.

On May 3, 2017, Comey followed his March drama-queen performance before the House, with even more theatrical speechifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He bloviated that despite the fact that his unprecedented disclosures and handling of the Clinton email investigation may have impacted the election, and it made him nauseous, he, Mr. Eagle Scout and True Crime Detective rolled into one, would do the same thing all over again. He exaggerated the significance of the Anthony Weiner computer discovery by stating that it contained thousands of new Clinton emails, not previously produced, some of which were classified—a statement the FBI had to subsequently correct. As Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein rightly argued, Comey violated numerous Justice Department regulations and ethical norms in his outrageous actions in the Clinton email investigation. It is the Attorney General’s job to prosecute cases —to open and close them—not that of the FBI Director.

At the same Senate Judiciary hearing, Comey refused to state publicly that President Trump was not under investigation, despite repeatedly assuring the President of that fact privately. He knew this allowed the media and Democratic party “color revolution” to continue. He refused to confirm that there was any investigation into the torrent of illegal classified leaks at the center of the media campaign.

On May 9th, President Trump fired Comey for this gross misconduct, setting the stage for Robert Mueller’s appointment as Special Prosecutor. At the center of Mueller’s inquiry will be a conspiracy to obstruct justice charge against the President for firing James Comey, along with any so-called process crimes he can find during his investigation—registration offenses under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, tax offenses, or false statements to FBI agents or Congress. As he builds his case, Mueller will follow his standard playbook, putting unrelenting psychological pressure on those Trump loyalists he can implicate in the process crimes. He will continue to target and investigate the President’s family for similar offenses in order to destabilize the President himself. He will continue the relentless demonization of the President, in order to ensure that neutral officials in Washington who witnessed key events will testify not according to the truth, but according to what they see as future career prospects.

Following his firing, Comey and friends leaked to the press notes which he had allegedly taken following most of his encounters with the President. With each encounter, Comey’s leaked account says, he returned to discuss what was said and its implications with a close circle of his FBI comrades. He prepared for each encounter with the President based on “murder boards” conducted by his FBI colleagues. In the course of their meetings, Comey says, the President asked for his loyalty, which Comey portrayed like the request of some Mafia don in a bad Hollywood movie. If it happened, such a request, in the context of what appeared to be an open insurrection against the President by the intelligence community, is hardly surprising. The President denies that it happened.

On the day after the President fired Flynn, according to Comey, the President cleared the room and went one on one with him, expressing the “hope” that Comey could let the matter of Michael Flynn go. Comey whines that he took the President’s “hope” as an “order,” giving rise to concerns about possible obstruction of justice. This line of reasoning was thoroughly eviscerated by Senator James Risch (R-ID) in the Senate Judicary Committee hearing on June 8, 2017. Senator Risch forced Comey to admit that Trump never ordered him to let the Flynn matter go, but only expressed a “hope” that he would do so, and no prosecution that Comey knew of ever went forward, based on someone expressing “hope” for something. While the President denies he ever asked Comey to let the Flynn matter go, Harvard Law Professor Emeritus and famed trial lawyer Alan Dershowitz writes that the President would be fully within his legal and constitutional prerogatives to order Comey to back off Lt. Gen. Flynn. He could have simply told Comey, "I am going to pardon Flynn."

So, it is clear by James Comey’s own account that he was trying to set the President up, to entrap him—an escapade which was “crudely” interrupted when the President fired him. Again, confirming this, Comey told Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) in his testimony, that the reason why he did not stop the President from improper interactions, if he thought they were such, the reason he concealed the alleged improper and possibly illegal conduct from his superiors at the Justice Department, and the reason he did not resign, was because his encounters with the President were of “investigative interest” to the FBI. Otherwise, Comey’s leaks reveal a man so leery of even shaking the President’s hand (or being photographed doing it) that once in January he tried to hide himself in the White House drapes in the hopes that Trump would not see him.

The problem for Robert Mueller’s obstruction case, among others, is that both Comey and his Assistant Andrew McCabe have previously testified, under oath, to Congress that there was no pressure to end the FBI’s investigations from anyone in the Trump Administration. And, Comey confirmed in his testimony that prior to his firing, Trump was not under investigation for collusion with Russia, obstruction, or any other offense. Furthermore, Comey has proved that he is willing to violate professional norms and Justice Department regulations, if not laws, by leaking government documents.

The question is, what else was leaked by Comey and his FBI circle? Finally, we now know that Comey lied to or misled Congress about the “wiretaps” on Trump Tower—the Manafort FISA warrants prove Comey's dishonesty. Senator Grassley has asked the FBI: Why, if you were wiretapping a close associate of the President, wouldn’t you warn the President about him as is customarily done? The true answer is that the President himself was and is the target of an unprecedented and illegal coup-attempt conducted by those sworn to uphold the Constitution and the nation’s laws.

Those familiar with the relationship between Comey and Robert Mueller describe them as “joined at the hip,” “cut from the same cloth” (can’t help thinking of the Union Jack), close personal friends, and mentor (Mueller) to mentee (Comey). The problem with this relationship is that Department of Justice conflict guidelines specifically bar prosecutors (Mueller) from investigating issues where close friends (Comey) have a significant role, such as material witnesses. Official Washington knows all of this and yet touts this investigation as somehow “independent,” “apolitical,” and “unconflicted.”

Will You Help Us End This Coup?

So, now you know. Since the election and before, we have been stuck in a very elaborate and dangerous British hoax, gambling the future of our nation in a cold coup against an elected president. Actual crimes have been committed—not by the President—but against the President and the Constitution. What has happened is that political differences, ideas, have been criminalized, the very danger most provisions of our Constitution and its Bill of Rights were explicitly designed to guard against.

We have shown you the prosecutorial robot named Robert Mueller, whom others have always pointed to shoot, and why he has been deployed to take out the President of the United States. We have told you the real reasons why the President has been attacked by a foreign power, the British and their allies in our country. We have shown you that many of the same people and methods were deployed on a smaller scale to deprive the world of the beautiful ideas of Lyndon LaRouche. Now, at a point where this President, freed of Mueller and adequately advised, could join with China’s Belt and Road and usher in a new renaissance for mankind, shouldn’t we really, finally, win our future, this time?

#RobertMueller #DeepState #Coup #SoftCoupvsTrump #Coupdetat #Mueller #FBI #FBICorruption #Saudisand9/11 #SaudisandUSDeepState #DerpState #WGBH #LaRoucheMovement #LaRouchePAC.com #LaRouchepub.com #EIR #ExecutiveIntelligenceReview #HarleySchlanger #hanging with harley #HangingwithHarley #Harley Schlanger #HarveyASilverglate #HarveySilverglate #Silverglate #Boston #FireMueller #JamesComey #MikhailKhodorkovsky #AGSessions #AttorneyGeneralSessions

[jackblankhsh]

Fell on Black Days...

When Chris Cornell died my social media feed flooded with posts about those lamenting the loss.  It reminded me of previous occasions such as the death of David Bowie, Alan Rickman, and the plethora of celebrities who passed last year; online communities posting music, gifs, memes, and video clips as a way of eulogizing the departed.  Then as now I scrolled through myriad such signs of mourning wondering why these deaths mean so much.  

I usually feel detached from the demise of a celebrity.  Even those I admire have never really affected me in any obvious fashion.  It’s hard for me to be overly distraught over the loss of a person with whom I had no interpersonal relationship.  That isn’t to say I don’t have some type of personal connection, but such threads always struck me as more nebulous and abstract.  For instance, throughout high school and college I listened to Pantera a great deal, however, when Dimebag Darrell was murdered I didn’t experience any profound melancholy.  And yet, I know for a fact that his death still affects the mood of many Pantera fans.  Simply putting any of their music on a jukebox eventually elicits the attention of a CFH enthusiast, who invariably nods somberly – funerary headbanging – as they turn the conversation, almost immediately, to the death of Dimebag:  “This is a kickass song.  Sucks that he’s dead, man.”  Joy of the song sharply gives way to a reminder of the dead.

Now, that may seem an extreme example, a murder is bound to hold root in anyone’s mind, but the same is true for celebrities who have passed less horrifically.  Dead musicians draw out the most common instance of this, really listen to the conversations people have about deceased celebrities.  Talk starts out mentioning why so and so meant a great deal to an individual, but discussion soon moves towards two statements:  

1.  There will never be more (films, songs, paintings, etc.) from Blank. 2.  What remains will often be less enjoyable; now tainted by death a song, a scene, or a photo becomes a reminder of loss.  

What concerns us most is that we’ve lost those things which gave us happiness.  The joy of hearing a song or seeing a film will never be quite as potent now that it serves as a reminder of loss.  However, it’s never about the person, it’s about their product.  To this day, people still remark on the suicide of Hunter S. Thompson in regards to wanting his writing, particularly the dagger prose with which he might stab whatever current political madness is rising.  Yet, I’m willing to assume, with absolute certainty, Thompson’s son, Juan, doesn’t want his dad back so he could write another book.  Fans can only want back that part of the celebrity they actually knew.

Our connection to famous people is often indirect.  We assume a level of relationship potential based on how their works make us feel as opposed to any understanding of the actual individuals – just because you love Kurt Cobain’s music doesn’t mean you’d be best friends.  (In fact, the more one tends to learn about beloved celebrities the less appealing they actually become.  Hunter Thompson could be a wild merry prankster, or a frighteningly explosive volcano.  Just ask his ex-wife.  Louis Reed may play the music you love, but he never met a woman he wouldn’t brutalize.  Roman Polanski:  rapist.  And let’s not even start down the horrifying litany of offenses numerous sports icons commit from every conceivable type of cruelty to outright murder.)  Because we don’t actually know them celebrities can be the people we want most in life:  someone who understands us; and a vicarious means to see our dreams come alive.

So it’s no wonder those products become tainted.  Hearing a beloved song by Bowie is a constant reminder that the man who wrote it, who seemed to speak to your very soul, is gone.  Watching Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, depending on your inclination – Jane Russell or Marilyn Monroe – means that vicarious sex appeal really is just a dream because the actors are dead and gone.  There’s no one living it for you, and though films are always fantasy, they seem less so knowing the performers are alive somewhere in the world.  In essence, what’s lost isn’t so much the celebrity, but a degree of connectivity to others as well as dreams.  

Abstract though it may be art unites at a subconscious level, so do sports.  At the minute details our preferences become subjective; however, broadly speaking they involve general themes.  I may have turned on “Becoming” because of my own particular reasons, yet it speaks to any other Pantera fan who hears it, in essence giving us proof we aren’t alone in life.  There used to be someone who created something that connected strangers to one another.  It’s a profoundly unique accomplishment.  So it’s no wonder the loss of that focal point leaves us adrift for a while.  Such communities orbit the celebrity, and without them a real threat seems to emerge:  the lynchpin is gone, so the whole cosmos may fly apart.  Yet, now is the beginning of true immortality.  The memory sustained by devoted fans, the legends turn into mythical gods, holding the universe together.  

#

I get how material is tainted by the loss of a celebrity, but I’ve always been comforted by the fact those same materials still persist.  For instance, Chris Cornell is gone.  I can still listen to his music, and though it may stir some darker sentiments than before, his absence doesn’t change what it once meant to me, and will mean again.  That thing which was significant to me still remains, so in a way is comforting.  Still, I find it hard to cry over the loss of a man I didn’t know.  Loving his music doesn’t mean loving him, and I haven’t lost his music.  In fact, I haven’t lost anymore of Chris Cornell than I ever had, while his friends and family have lost an entire human being from their lives.

Others aren’t likely to be as dispassionate as I am.  I’m well aware of this.  As such I can’t help wondering if I’m missing out on something.  While no one ever wishes to grieve it seems like those who do, in these instances, who are not his immediate friends and family, have lost something profound.  It’s entirely possible I’ve missed out on a depth of feeling of some significance, and I sometimes worry if that means I lack something human not having that.  Still, it may simply be that I’m more connected to the moments of my own life:  at this movie I got my first kiss; this album acted like the soundtrack to that horrible winter; her book inspired me to be a writer, and his showed me the way to my voice… it probably sounds incredibly narcissistic I’m sure.  Unless one considers it like this:  any kind of death is mostly a reminder of our own mortality, so although there’ll be no more elegant plays, films, songs, or whatever, recognizing the loss should serve as inspiration to spend time with the real people in our lives.  

Sure, let Bowie be the soundtrack to your adventure, but make sure to have one.  He certainly did, and who’s to say you might do any less?  Missing the words of Hunter, what’s wrong with yours?  Alan Rickman can’t share that sonorous voice, so I guess it’s time you did.  There’s an absence in the universe that needs to be filled, not because of some selfish desire for fame, but because maybe you can make someone feel less alone carrying the torch a celebrity dropped when they died.  It doesn’t even require being a superstar.

Going back to Cornell, there’s someone out there right now who feels a bit of worry.  The creeping dread flickers at the edge of their mind-sight threatening the possibility there will never be another Soundgarden, or Audioslave to sing the songs which made their life shiny on dull days, brilliant in blackest night, and endurable when torturous… yet, perhaps, it takes a simple visit to kill such bleakness.  

Put on an album.  Pour some drinks.  Share some memories, while making some more.  Because it’s never really the musician, the actors, or the athletes we’re remembering.  It’s seeing that film where a first kiss happened, hearing the music that made high school bearable, the bonding chats at the ballpark… escapism in real time, flavoring the days.

The seasoning tastes a bit different, but it’s still there.  That’s life.  

“Someone tried to tell me something Don’t let the world bring you down Nothing will do me in before I do myself So save it for your own, and the ones you can help.”

Well said Mr. Cornell.  Thanks for the tunes.  They’re more precious now, though the cost is too high.  Yet, unable to change reality, the only thing I can do is what I will do.  Keep playing those songs so a rock legend becomes a rock god, and so, in a way, immortal.

#writing #honestyisnotcontagious #celebrities #dead celebrities #soundgarden #chris cornell #essay #nonfiction #op ed #opinion

[sage-nebula]

oh man im really loving those posts about alan's lost parents coming for him and stirring all kinds of trouble. you think this is something ash can help alan with at some point with some input? given the novelization's canon of him having a dad that vanished out of shame due to being a shitty trainer and all. maybe something to help alan settle his resolve on staying with those that are truly important to him? taisetsu mono, right? or is this something that alan and sycamore work out themselves?

Thank you! I put quite a bit of thought into Alan’s parents / heritage, so I’m really happy you like the posts! ♥

I don’t think Ash would help Alan with this, only because by this point Ash is either back in Kanto, or possibly even already in Alola. (It depends on how long he stayed in Kanto before traveling to Alola, but you get the idea. This takes place somewhere around that time, post-XY(&Z) and around the beginning-ish of SM.) Since there’s already an ocean between them, Ash isn’t around to notice that something’s up with Alan, and thus he’s not really in a position to ask. Alan also isn’t the type to call up someone else to talk about his problems; it’s one thing if Ash notices and asks him, because we see in canon that Alan is willing to share his feelings with Ash if Ash asks him directly. But even Ash isn’t someone that Alan will actually call to talk about his problems with. He wouldn’t want to put that on Ash’s shoulders, especially not out of the blue. So unfortunately, in this regard Ash wouldn’t be able to offer any advice, because he wouldn’t know about it. He’s off in Kanto / Alola, completely oblivious that any of this is happening. =/

(I do think that Ash would, however, have some interesting thoughts / feelings on it if he did hear about it, though. I mean, at this point I don’t even think he knows that Sycamore is Alan’s (unofficially) adoptive father; while I think he has come a long way from his obliviousness when it came to recognizing that Sabrina’s father was her father, and while he no doubt picked up on the fact that Sycamore and Alan are very, very close (he picked up on the fact that Manon was important to Alan, after all, and he had only spent about twenty minutes around Manon, if that!), I don’t think he’s aware of their actual relationship, beyond the fact that Sycamore asked Alan to come work at the lab again. So I think he might at first be surprised to hear that Alan is actually an orphan, and then would fall back into some complicated feelings, because his father did walk out on him and Delia and he has never known the man. There are times, I think, when Ash thinks that he’d like to see his father again, but then I also think there might be a lot of resentment buried deep down, because Ash’s father left Delia to be a single teenage mother, and while Delia has done a wonderful job raising Ash, and while he no doubt feels that their family is perfect just the way it is, I think that Ash is also perceptive enough to know that things were hard for Delia at times, that even though she’s always done her best to keep smiling and persevere, and even though he did his best to try and be easy to take care of, it was still hard for her to manage the restaurant and take care of him at the same time, and his dad left them to that, and never called or anything. So when he thinks about that, I think he might feel angry, and feels sort of like “good riddance” to his dad, and hopes he never meets him. But then he also kind of wants to, especially since he doesn’t know that his dad is a garbage trainer, since Delia tells him that his dad is a wonderful trainer and would be proud of him … and so on and so forth, it’s complicated. So I think Ash would think on it for a while, and would feel kind of complicated, especially when he thinks of situations like how Brock’s dad, Flint, came back to take care of the family and Brock gave him that chance, or how Sabrina’s father was always hanging around in case she could be helped, et cetera. I think ultimately he would, as you say, say that he thinks Alan should stay with Sycamore, that family’s not so much who you’re related to by blood, but who you care about in your heart. Your family is what you make it, you know? Like, Professor Oak’s not actually his grandpa, but he’s always kinda been a grandpa to him since he never met his actual grandparents for whatever reason, and so he considers Professor Oak family even if they aren’t actually family. And Brock’s like his big brother, which means he guesses that he also has ten little brothers and sisters thanks to all of Brock’s younger siblings, and it doesn’t matter that they’re not blood related because they’re still family. So in that sense, Ash would think that things should follow for Alan the same way, that even if his biological parents are back, if he doesn’t feel like they’re his family, then they don’t have to be. I definitely think that Ash’s feelings would fall along those lines, and he’d say so if asked, but since he’s not around he can’t really be asked about it, alas. :/)

That was a really long aside, haha. Anyway, this would be something that Alan would work out mostly on his own, and I say “mostly” because there is one living being on this planet that Alan does talk to without prompting with whatever’s on his mind, and that’s Lizardon. We actually see the two of them talk numerous times in canon, both in TSME and in the main series, and we know that Alan understands the feedback that Lizardon gives him, because sometimes the things that Lizardon says take Alan by surprise for a moment before he reacts: 

This was after his first battle with Ash, in XYZ013. I like to think that Lizardon was commenting on Alan’s clear, genuine happiness, and that’s why Alan was so taken aback. He didn’t even realize how genuinely happy he was feeling as a result of the battle, even as he said it was excellent. But when Lizardon pointed out it, Alan was taken aback as the awareness hit him … and then he closes his eyes and smiles, because yes, Lizardon is right. We also see them talk after Alan’s second battle with Ash, at the end of the episode by the campfire, wherein Alan is still in a very good mood after the battle earlier and receiving a positive message from Manon, and talks about how he’s nostalgic for the days back at the Professor’s lab, and how they need to continue to get stronger to protect what’s important to them. So we know that Alan talks freely with Lizardon about his feelings, and also that he understands the feedback he gets in response (and sometimes doesn’t even need it verbalized; in TSME 4, after his fight with Manon, he says to Lizardon, “You look like you want to say something,” but since the next battle is about to start, Lizardon huffs, shakes his head, and turns to face the fight instead). So I think that, in this situation, he would absolutely go straight to Lizardon to talk about it, no doubt while they’re out on their flight after the dinner he had with his parents (or even like, they fly somewhere, land, and then he talks about it). They would probably have a good, long talk about it; Alan would tell Lizardon everything that had happened, and after Lizardon got over the initial surprise (he would have never even thought something like this was possible; the only parent Lizardon has ever known Alan to have is Sycamore, even if Alan doesn’t call him “Dad”), he would listen as Alan went into his personal feelings on the subject, as he talked about how conflicted he felt, how he wants to stay (and wants the Professor to adopt him, has always wanted the Professor to adopt him, wishes he could be good enough for the Professor to adopt him but knows he isn’t, especially now), but how he feels like maybe he has a responsibility to his parents to give them the chance they’re asking for, maybe he’s being selfish or cold, maybe he’s once again hurting people he has no business hurting. Maybe it’s wrong of him to stay because that puts a burden on the Professor as well, puts the lab at risk, et cetera. Maybe his parents showing up isn’t about him, but maybe it’s a way for him to stop putting the Professor at risk and leave without forcing the Professor to kick him out, since the Professor’s too good of a person to do that. Alan would think and feel all of these things, and he would talk about them with Lizardon, because Lizardon is the one he speaks most freely to about whatever it is he’s burdened with. And Lizardon would listen, but then he would give his strong, equally as blunt opinions right back, that they don’t know these people and Alan isn’t required to do anything with or for them, and hasn’t Alan already given up and sacrificed enough for other people? He’s done it constantly over the past two years, and honestly—

“It’s not like that. You make it sound like a bad thing. I was doing what was—what I thought was right.”

‘But it wasn’t.’

“No, but only because I was stupid enough to be fooled by the Director. It wasn’t wrong to protect the Professor, Manon, and everyone else. It was wrong to listen to the Director. There’s a difference.”

‘You’re not stupid, and enough sacrifice is enough—’

And so on. I think that talking to Lizardon would help a lot, and would help Alan reach a conclusion, not so much about whether it’s right or wrong to sacrifice to protect the people he loves (and Alan would point out that it’s not like Lizardon wasn’t right there by his side, so honestly Lizardon has no room to talk—and Lizardon would fire (ha) back with, well, obviously he was, what, does Alan think Lizardon is going to leave him? No, that’s never going to happen, and Lizardon is pretty sure Alan damn well knows that, and so on and so forth), but about what to do in this situation. He would still be feeling stressed out about it by the time he gets home that night, which is why he pretty much comes home, takes a shower, and then goes to bed, but talking with Lizardon definitely would have helped him get his thoughts in order, and reach a conclusion about what it is he should do—about what the Right thing to do is, even though it’s hard for him to trust himself on that now after everything that happened with Lysandre. (And given that he’s Gryffindor down to his core, the fact that the Team Flare situation has shaken his faith in his internal moral compass is extremely troubling and damaging to him. It’s part of why he needs that sounding board from Lizardon to be sure—or at least as sure as he can be—that he’s making the right decision. And even then, there’s still some doubt …)

As far as Sycamore goes, Sycamore actually wouldn’t steer him one way or the other, for two reasons. One, Alan isn’t going to be forthright about this. As we’ve seen, Sycamore typically has to work to get Alan’s feelings out of him, because Alan doesn’t want to burden him any more than he already thinks he has. If Sycamore simply asks “how are you feeling?” he gets an “I’m fine” in response. Anything beyond that is a result of gentle probing, and Sycamore setting up the situation so that they can talk about it. Alan won’t seek him out and volunteer that information as he will with Lizardon, and he won’t answer on the first try like he will with Ash. With this situation in particular, though, Sycamore feels that it’s not really his place to pry. He asked Alan how things went when Alan came back to the lab the first time (after dinner with his parents, before his flight with Lizardon), and Alan simply said things were fine before he left again. Sycamore can tell that Alan doesn’t really feel fine, and he’s concerned about that, but this is a really sensitive matter and he doesn’t want to push if Alan doesn’t feel like sharing. And that kind of hurts, and he has some doubt, and he feels like … it’s as I explained in the previous post. Sycamore feels like he should be happy for Alan, or like, if Alan has this chance to get to know his biological parents, this should theoretically be a good thing. It’s not Sycamore’s place to interfere with that. They’re Alan’s parents, this is something that he should be free to deal with on his own, however he sees fit. If Alan doesn’t want to talk to him about it, that’s … fine, it should be fine, it’s not really Sycamore’s place to feel upset. And he does feel upset, and he does want to gently probe, but then he’s worried that if he does that he’ll be crossing boundaries that he doesn’t have a right to cross. Honestly, the fact that he never officially adopted Alan is rather coming back to bite him right now, because if he had then he could pull the “well you weren’t around so I adopted him and he’s legally my son” card, but he can’t pull that card because he doesn’t have that card. Regardless, Sycamore wouldn’t press that night because he would be concerned about crossing boundaries he has no right to cross, and would also have some doubt that maybe he’s perceiving upset in Alan that isn’t really there because he’s upset—that, perhaps, he’s projecting on Alan. So he would hold back and they wouldn’t really talk much that night. (He would tell himself, though, that if Alan still seemed upset the next morning, he’d try gently poking that information out of him. He doesn’t get the chance to do that, though, since Lucia and Sebastian return first thing the next morning. Sycamore is … overjoyed at their reappearance, as I’m sure you can imagine.)

When Lucia and Sebastian come back, Sycamore forces himself to take the same stance he had the day before: It isn’t his place to interfere, it’s Alan’s right to handle this however he wants to, he doesn’t really get a say in this, can’t let his own personal feelings possibly impede on Alan’s happiness, et cetera. (Though again, all the same other concerns still apply, i.e. why have Lucia and Sebastian suddenly shown up again now, do they have ulterior motives, et cetera.) He would step out of the room as Alan handles things in the lab’s foyer, and would totally plan on not listening … but then Cosette cracks the door to listen there, and Sophie joins her, and as Sycamore gives the two of them an appalled look, Sophie is like, “I’m just a bit worried, you know … I want to make sure he’s okay.”

“I’m … I’m just nosy,” Cosette says sheepishly. “But my nosiness comes from concern, promise.” 

And Sycamore sighs, and he thinks this is probably wrong, but if Sophie and Cosette are eavesdropping … he eavesdrops, too, even as he’s aware of the little voice in the back of his mind telling him that this creates a risk of him hearing something that he really doesn’t want to.

Fortunately, though, he doesn’t—or at least, it ends up all right. Because when Sebastian asks Alan if he thought about what they said, and, “Are you ready to come home, and give our family a chance?” Sycamore’s heart drops all the way to the floor. It’s lucky he’s not actually holding anything this time, because he reflexively squeezes his fingers into fists so hard he probably would have broken whatever he was holding. He had no idea that’s what Alan’s parents had talked to him about—hadn’t thought, or considered … though even as he stands there, numb with shock and upset, he knows he probably should have realized it. But he hadn’t, and now they’re here, and—

“I have—I did think about it,” Alan says, and his voice is quiet, steady. “And my answer is no. I can’t. I’m not who you think I am—who you want me to be.”

“What do you mean?” Lucia asks, confused, as the sudden tension Sycamore had felt melts into relief. “Baby, we’re sure you’re our son—positive. If you’re doubtful, we can get a DNA test—”

“It’s not that,” Alan says. He isn’t looking at them. He’s be staring at the floor instead, his own hands fists in the pockets of his lab coat. He takes a deep breath before he speaks again. “I’m sure that, biologically, you are my parents. We share enough physical similarities for that to be obvious. A DNA test isn’t necessary.”

“Then—”

“Are you familiar with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics?”

Lucia and Sebastian are both perplexed by this seemingly sudden subject change, and on the other side of the door, Sycamore, Sophie, and Cosette all exchange looks as well.

“Um … not especially,” Sebastian says. (Before he can help himself, Sycamore thinks a petty thought about how no, of course he isn’t—and then immediately feels bad for thinking something so petty and spiteful. Not everyone is a scientist, after all, and that’s not a bad thing—that’s not something that should be held against Sebastian, and isn’t something Sycamore would even ordinarily hold against him, but the circumstances being what they are …)

“The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is a metaphysical theory that postulates that an infinite number of alternate timelines and dimensions coexist with our own, usually explained by the asserted existence of the universal wavefunction. Generally, the alternate timelines and dimensions speculated about when considering the many-worlds interpretation are alternate timelines and dimensions that spawned off from events that could have happened in our past, but didn’t. For instance, if you were driving down a road and came to an intersection where you had to take either a right or a left. If you chose to turn right, that would create a timeline—or dimension, depending on how you looked at it—where you turned left, running parallel to the timeline or dimension you created when you turned right instead.” Alan pauses, then asks, “Does this make sense so far?”

“I … suppose,” Sebastian says.

“But I don’t see … what does this have to do with you thinking you’re not our son?” Lucia asks.

Instead of answering directly, Alan takes another second to collect himself and then says, “Sometimes the branching timelines or dimensions don’t have very much difference between them. In some cases, maybe they even look identical. But in others, maybe they’re very different. Maybe the you that exists in the world where you took a left turn isn’t very different from the you that exists right now. But maybe there’s another dimension out there where you made a much more drastic choice. Maybe the you in that timeline … is very different from the you that’s standing here right now.”

“I … maybe, but—”

“I’m not Liam.” Finally, he looks up at them—secures and maintains eye contact as he continues. “Maybe I am, in a different timeline, in another dimension. If there really is an infinite number of dimensions, as the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and reports of legendary pokémon such as Hoopa seem to suggest, then maybe there is one where you didn’t leave me in the forest that day—where you chose to raise me instead. In that timeline, in that dimension, I’m Liam. But we’re not in that timeline, or that dimension. We’re here. And in this one, I’m not Liam. I’m not—I can’t be the son you want me to be. I’m sorry.”

They would try to argue, I think. They’re not really understanding his perspective on this, where he’s coming from, and I think they would try to argue or reason out that they don’t have preconceptions of who he should be, that they want to get to know him, as he is now, and that although they made the wrong choice in giving him up—that Lucia especially made the wrong choice by abandoning him on that rock—that doesn’t in any way prevent them from loving him now, they promise. They’re fine with calling him Alan, they can accept that, and they don’t have any set idea on how they want him to behave, other than as himself.

But he would stand firm on it. He would point out that whether they realize it or not, they have built an image of him up in their heads. They don’t really know him, they know an idea of him, and that would affect how they interact with one another, whether they want it to or not. And aside from that—

“I can’t see you as my parents. Biologically, I know you are,” he adds quickly, as Lucia opens her mouth. “But I’ve never known a mother, and when I look at you, I still don’t see one. All I see is a stranger. And when I close my eyes and think of my father,” he looks at Sebastian as he says, “yours is not the face I see.” 

And that hurts. It cuts deep. Lucia even starts to cry a little, though she does her best to hold it back (she’s never been an open crier). Alan notices, and he feels bad about it—it’s not like he likes making people cry, or hurting them—but not only is it true, but they weren’t accepting his first answer. They kept arguing it. And he’s starting to feel uncomfortable, anxious, because he just wants them to accept his answer and leave, and yet they’ve persisted—

Sebastian, I think, would be the first one to give in, and probably would right then. He’d probably say something like, okay. He—they understand. They won’t push anymore, but if Alan wants, he knows where to find them. They can stay in touch, maybe take things slow, that sort of thing. Lucia would want to keep talking about it—she has that same dragon clan determination that runs through Alan’s own soul, he got that part of his nature from her—but Sebastian would take her hand and gently tug her toward the door. Continuing to push him won’t do any good, and I think Sebastian would know that. Or at the very least, he’s hurt, and not happy with this answer, and so he has this odd mix of wounded pride and feelings that tends to make him retreat and sulk for a while before trying again. Lucia, while still not wanting to give in, would be able to notice that Alan seems a bit relieved by this, and that would make her back down. She’s not happy about it at all, and probably reaches out as if to grab or hug him or something, but Alan makes no move to hug either of them—he stays rooted to the spot—and that clues her in, too, to the fact that it’s not happening. So the two of them leave, and Alan feels … not happy, but relieved, although not … in a really positive way. It’s an odd feeling, where he’s glad it’s over, but that feeling doesn’t translate to happiness. It’s more of a subdued, melancholic sort of feeling.

He wonders, vaguely, if Liam is happy in whatever dimension he exists in.

But there’s no point in dwelling on it (even though he’s going to anyway), and so he probably leaves the foyer then to go out to the garden to tell Lizardon what happened. Meanwhile, remember that Sycamore eavesdropped on all of this, and while there is a part of him that is inwardly beaming at how clever Alan is at utilizing the many-worlds interpretation to express his reasoning, there’s a bigger part of him that’s just sort of … warm and fuzzy at the implication he’s pretty sure he picked up on in the last part of what Alan said, that he’s the person Alan thinks of whenever Alan thinks of his father. True, Sycamore has always thought that it was obvious and didn’t need to be said that he and Alan are family, that Alan is his son and that is that, that things are fine the way they are because this is just an unspoken understanding they both share. But something else entirely to actually hear it, and that … well. It’s a good something else. (Of course, he can’t really say anything about it because that will reveal that he, Sophie, and Cosette eavesdropped on the whole thing, so …)

Anyway, that’s how I imagine that falling out. It would probably be a while before either Lucia or Sebastian tried to contact Alan again, though of course they would hear when he became the new Kalos Champion (and would feel a sort of pride, though also a strong pang of awareness that they had no part in raising him, no real part in how he became the person he is today). I’m not entirely sure how subsequent meetings would go, though I do know that they, at least, would still consider him to be their son, even though he does not feel that they are truly his parents. (Like, biologically, yes. But in every other way, no.)

Thanks for asking!! ♥

#em-exceeds-change-zearu #fic fix #the bond that overcomes reason #lab family #my valiant dragon son #pokemon #champion alan #lizardon #ash ketchum #professor sycamore #lucia and sebastian #alan's parents #lucia #sebastian