#political distraction

[martianmuckraker]

Martian Streamer Arrested Due to Appearance in Earthing Inquiry

B’ffer, the totally radical Martian streaming and racing sensation was arrested this morning after one of his trademark stellar racing saucers was revealed during an Earthling hearing on Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon. It is uncertain to Martian Muckraker reporters at this time whether this hearing is actually evidence the Earthlings are interested in interplanetary life again, or if the…

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#adventure #aliems #alien #aliens #congress #Congressional #Congressional Hearing #conspiracy theory #distraction #fake news #fake news article #funny #marians #martian #Matt Walsh #my truth is out there #news #political #political corruption #political distraction #politicians #politics #rpg #satire #sci-fi #scifi #the truth is out there #UAP Hearing #UFO Hearing #Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon

[worldwatcher3072]

The GOP's Attacks on the LGBTQ Community Are Only a Distraction

 The Republican Party has long been known for its opposition to LGBTQ rights, and recent years have seen a wave of attacks on the community at both the state and federal levels. From attempts to roll back marriage equality to legislation targeting transgender youth, the GOP's anti-LGBTQ agenda has been front and center.

But many experts and advocates argue that these attacks are only a distraction from the real issues facing Americans today. While the GOP is busy trying to score political points by demonizing LGBTQ people, they are ignoring the urgent needs of the country, such as improving healthcare, creating jobs, and addressing climate change.

The attacks on the LGBTQ community are also a way for the GOP to appeal to their conservative base and distract from their failures on other fronts. By focusing on social issues like bathroom bills and conversion therapy bans, they can rally their base around a culture war that they believe will help them win elections.

However, this strategy is ultimately short-sighted and harmful. Not only does it create a climate of fear and intolerance for LGBTQ people, but it also distracts from the real problems facing the country. It also ignores the fact that support for LGBTQ rights is growing, especially among younger Americans who are more likely to prioritize equality and inclusion.

Moreover, the attacks on the LGBTQ community are often based on misinformation and fear-mongering. Claims that transgender people pose a threat to women and children in public restrooms have been debunked, and studies have shown that allowing transgender people to use the restroom that matches their gender identity has no impact on public safety.

In conclusion, the GOP's attacks on the LGBTQ community are nothing more than a distraction from the real issues facing our country. Instead of wasting time and resources on discriminatory legislation, we should be working together to address the urgent needs of our communities and build a more just and equitable society for all. It's time for the GOP to abandon their culture war and focus on the issues that really matter to the American people.

#Equality #fearmongering #misinformation #inclusion #GOP #discrimination #culture war #political distraction #LGBTQ rights #social issues

[suiheisen]

MONKEY MAN (2024)

#augh it was so good i couldn't stop thinking about it #and also i need to rewatch it because i kept getting distracted by dev patel's big beautiful eyes..... #does he have a licence for those #the mythology the politics the sectarian rife the hijra community and outsider he wove so many things together so beautifully #and also. he gave us an adorable dog. which is necessary to me. #and also he took his shirt off multiple times. #monkey man #dev patel #spoilers #long post #transgender

[uncanny-tranny]

This might seem like an "old man yells at cloud" situation, but it's just wild growing up and being told how dangerous distracted driving is - how, at highway speeds, you can traverse the length of a football field (100 yards, 91 meters) in a matter of seconds - how one split second sending a text while driving could result in a potential fatal crash, and then getting on the road as a driver and being surrounded by billboards. Their entire purpose is to catch one's attention, so they're lining major roads, which tend to be highways. How is it that you're told how important it is to never be distracted while driving, but still being advertised to?

At best, this type of advertising is an eyesore to pedestrians and motorists and a general waste of electricity to light it, and at worst, it is an active danger considering they are there to advertise and therefore, must catch people's attention.

I'm not even against advertising in theory, but this particular mode bothers me so much and I hate how pervasive it is - especially in large cities or highways.

#politics #i don't know much about são paulo banning marketing billboards but on paper i want that here in the USA #as a motorist it at best just makes me more anxious driving in those larger cities because i want to FOCUS ON THE ROAD #and passing 5000 billboards per mile isn't helping actually! #i've gotten good at filtering that out of my FOV but it's still fucking exhausting lol #i especially hate those modern electric billboards. despise them actually #i am aware that advertising is a critical aspect to business management in some cases... #...but it shouldn't risk the safety of the populous for you to advertise to them and i see things like billboards as risking safety... #...i feel similarly about online advertising in that so much of it risks internet user's safety... #...such as flashing ads online which risk triggering epileptic seizures in light/photo-sensitive folks #distracted driving (texting): NO >:( || distracted driving (being advertised to): YAYYYY :D #i've been driving on my own for a few years now and i've been thinking about this for ENTIRELY too long

[rebekahgaveup]

Without a doubt the worst part of Taylor being at this level of popularity/fame again is all the people who want to be different and edgy and are claiming she's just an objectively evil man-hating eco-terrorist attention whore all while proudly proclaiming they also know nothing about her bc they don't like her

#i'm not even saying there aren't valid criticisms of her #but I've genuinely seen people claim she's participating in some political scheme to use football to distract from palestine #presumably for the benefit of the capitalist overlords she supposedly worships #and at a certain point you're not being critical you're just rambling madly on the internet about a conspiracy theory you made up #people genuinely get so insane about her and I do not understand why

[shit-sorry-fuck-mybad]

Come on guys just do it, I swear they won’t even notice

#do it now while they’re distracted #scotland #england #UK #uk politics #and Ireland and Wales

[jakeperalta]

any other uk people wanna come scream in a field with me over the state of the government

#banning trans women from women's hospital wards despite there being ZERO complaints from anyone about it #it's all just such blatant 'hey look at how we're quashing this villain we just made up' to distract from the horrible mess they're making #in literally every area #talking #uk politics

[bonefall]

For Riverstar’s Heir, do you have any idea where you want to land themeatically? Because from my reading of the possible themeatic directions, with the whole story being about this crisis of politics and succession, it feels like the character who “should” become the next leader of RiverClan narratively should be the Most ruthless/aggressive/willing to resort to dishonorable methods of dealing with rivals (reinforcing RiverClan’s entry into/building up of the early Clans’ emerging systems of battle society)

The alternative “most interesting” option I can imagine would be one that is least likely/least aggressive/some otherwise sort of underdog candidate (maybe not even technically “legal” depending on what qualifications there are for heirship?), but I’m not sure exactly what themes that would play into, other than maybe how the pursuit of power can change someone?

That said, your themeatic instincts are strong enough that I can see you having a strong idea for a “middle-of-the-pack” candidate winning out over the others just as much, so— I am genuinely curious what your thoughts are for where you Want this crisis of succession to end, narratively, even if you don’t have an exact cat picked yet.

Good ask because I'd not been clear about the theme yet, I think. What Riverstar's Heir is trying to get at, at the heart of the issue, is that this is a bloodbath caused by naiive optimism and greed.

The commandments to establish borders and prevent killing are nice, but not enough. You can't just have a society on good will, not when POWER is up for grabs in the scramble. It's about collapse, and how innocent, well-meaning people get caught up in the devastation. Not JUST the troublemakers.

Riverstar was an EXCELLENT king, beloved and wise, but if you don't prepare a proper successor, everything you worked hard to build might crumble to ruin.

Something unique is lost in this shuffle. It's no longer the River Kingdom, and the Wind Coalition also becomes WindClan at this point. For better, and for worse, they both lose a bit of what made them special. Redscar's choice at the end also solidifies the early political power of Clerics, which is eventually broken many generations later with Larkwing's Strike.

So, fragment time,

At LEAST three "heirs" end up getting killed.

So, because these ones are gonna die, I have Three Heir "Slots" that I'm committed to and just need to fill;

The Eldest, Riverstar's oldest living biological child.

The Chosen, Riverstar's adopted heir, a rather meek prince easily pressured into backing off his rightful claim. This one is likely going to be the BB! version of Mossfire.

The Firstblood, directly descended from Riverstar's FIRSTborn child. This one is likely going to be the BB! version of Jumpfoot.

I also have two tentative slots.

The Accomplished... who is a blood relative of Riverstar, but more of a "puppet" for WindCo. Someone they're intentionally propping up hoping for power.

The Diplomat, from WindClan, who is a lot like WindCo's puppet but this one is more subtle about it. Poetic. Happy to purr and remind the world of the wonderful, deep ties that had existed between King Riverstar and Thunderstar.

And, LASTLY, there's The Deputy. The most qualified choice, who served Riverstar, but was no relative.

It feels right that the Deputy is the one who is chosen in the end... hm.

Anyway

After a smaller conflict near the start of the story, either The Eldest or The Firstblood seems to be the favorite to win... but decides to wait for the morning to set out for the Moonstone and take their lives.

In this time period, without selecting a successor, this heir is assassinated.

In fact it might be VERY fun if this heir, being so much like King Riverstar himself, decided to throw a pre-emptive celebration.

Meat! Merriment! MURDER!!!

Having them go out via poison would be a fun way to send a character off.

This is going to be why the "DEPUTY BEFORE MOONHIGH" rule is established, but it's also what kicks off the bloodier parts of the plot.

Thinking about it... a cleric and/or the deputy should probably tell this heir, "Hey, buddy, you should really get going" and they're ignored.

With Eldest Heir gone, the small conflict from earlier becomes an LARGE conflict.

And, like they did back in DOTC, families start to rally together. Especially Eldest's offspring, who think they're just as entitled to the Throne as The Firstblood/Jumpfoot

King Riverstar used to encourage cats to enter the River Kingdom freely. The borders were essentially open, and everyone was allowed in, as long as they were willing to cross the river.

(maybe I'll even have him pull down the tree from Riverstar's Home intentionally, happy to accept other cats into his Kingdom. Then he defends it from Skystar, specifically, but refuses to destroy what he built.)

This had allowed River Kingdom to grow large and powerful, but it also meant everyone in River Kingdom had connections to the other Clans.

Which meant there were cats supporting OTHER bids to the Throne, like the one from WindCo and the one from ThunderClan.

Smelling a way to grab power, Duststar supports his favorite heir, and Whitestar of ThunderClan also begins to stick his nose in.

Each Heir tries to run the River Kingdom, and things start to get hostile. If there's more than just the three heirs, even more of them start to get openly attacked, chased out, killed, until there's only The Chosen and The Firstblood left.

Somewhere around here, River Kingdom is invaded. Probably by the leader of SkyClan at the time, claiming that they don't even NEED an heir to take what these cats clearly don't deserve.

And that's when the internal conflict becomes a FULL-BLOWN WAR between four Clans.

In those days, the camp was at Sunningrocks, right in the middle of the river.

ThunderClan jumps in to help its "Ally" against SkyClan, just like historical precedent, but they have NO IDEA who they're fighting against, because the whole Kingdom is divided. It's not as simple as it was in DOTC anymore.

WindCo came to support its favorite heir, but its cats don't obey Duststar's orders when it comes down to fighting their own friends and family, meaning they're functionally fighting EVERYONE and losing a TON of cats

SkyClan is getting pummeled because EVERY group is pissed at them as well as each other, getting a painful awakening that they are NOT being run by Skystar the War God anymore and they're no longer the biggest, baddest bananas in the bunch

(shadowclan is watching all of this and eating popcorn. moisturized. in their lane. unbothered.)

The climax here, between The Chosen and The Firstblood, is a battle that matches the chapter from COTC. They launch at each other, in a battle to the death.

The first Sunningrocks Battle.

They both wear "crowns" on their head, one custom made for Mossfire's short-furred head, and traditional, braided into Jumpfoot's long, lush fur.

As they claw, bite, and tumble, they plunge into the river.

Fighting and hissing, they try to pull apart to rise up for air-- and can't.

They're STUCK

The crowns became tangled in their skirmish, and neither one can work with the other to bring them both to shore, against the current.

Both heirs, the last with a proper claim to the throne, drown together in the river.

At the end of the bloodbath, the tone is very somber. The rules were meant to prevent The First Battle from ever happening again... but The Second Battle had just taken place.

The body count wasn't AS high as the First Battle, but it was still a bloody loss. Every Clan lost warriors. Even ShadowClan, who hadn't even been IN the conflict, checked its ranks to find that powerful warriors had run off to go fight with their Kin.

Now they could be buried with them, too.

And now, there was no proper heir. If any descendants were still kicking around, they were refusing to take a throne that so many cats had died for. Jumpfoot and Mossfire never emerged from the River, their bodies, and their legendary crowns, were never found.

At first I'd been considering Redscar being swapped to become a RiverClan Cleric, but now I'm thinking it actually makes sense he's still from ShadowClan. ShadowClan was the ONLY neutral group-- it's reasonable for the clans to turn and request their partiality.

So, Redscar peruses the options, having followed the situation from afar.

His choice, in the end, was The Deputy. The most experienced advisor who knew Riverstar, and probably tried to stay at his adopted daughter's side as well. The closest thing they'd had to a leader all along.

(Thought: Maybe this character will be the POV. Make it like a bit of a fake-out title, you THINK Riverstar's heir is Mossfire. But it's actually been this one all along.)

He creates his famous false sign, and from there, the five groups discussed how they could prevent this from ever happening again.

They create the Law of the Deputy, commanding that ALL Clans have a single Deputy who will inherit the Clan after the leader passes away, ending dynasties in WindCo and River Kingdom and centralizing power in the other 3.

With the massive losses that WindCo and River Kingdom experienced, they also restructure, forced to accept a lot of help from ThunderClan and ShadowClan.

The borders began to close up, leading to the sentiment that would lead to Commandment 4, the Law of Loyalty, in just one more generation.

#better bones au #BB!DOTC #Riverstar's Heir #I feel like I need to add in more 'human' moments #But it's also a very broad overview type thing #Having the Deputy be the POV will help immensely I think once I get into the details #Since she'll be thinking about how to keep the Kingdom together. How to feed people. How badly it's all crumbling #And how distracting the violence all is #But this is a broader draft of the major politics when the REAL meat of this story is in the minutia. #(Ottoman Empire ass drama in the background) ``no time for that goku. its fall. the salmon r coming.`` #Unsure if this is Flowerstem or Maplewhisker.... #The Eldest would make sense as Mothpelt #Again: COTC my beloved

[tetrafelino]

The PDF from IBGE is still downloading so shitty picture for now but wtf this is so cool

We look so good- I mean, truly a map for the american continent, look at it!

#turns out I *am* distracted by political gestures when they're catered for me lmao #miau⁴

[aunti-christ-ine]

#editorial cartoons #mike luckovich #fox news #faux “news” #indictment #tRUmp indictment #distraction #hunter biden #political cartoon

[michaelgovehateblog]

There's someone on radio 2 right now arguing that going on your laptop during a performance in a theatre is completely fine and acceptable, what

#thats crazy #also surprisingly nobody arguing against him is mentioning how distracting it would be to everyone around him #so weird #not politics

[simplyender]

this but with the spot

#the spot #atsv #across the spiderverse #spiderverse #spot #johnathon ohnn #i mean as in hes the one reacting to the cat #not that. hes the cat. #bc this man is so very distractable #you just KNOW if he were angsting hed stop for a friendly cat #he probably says hello to them. very politely. #a bodega cat couldnt have prevented the robbery but it certainly wouldve delayed it #(ignoring my hc that most animals are afraid of spot and avoid him unless he has food to bribe them with lol)

[twogundogonesighthound]

Callie got his ORT last month - on his six month birthday. I was worried I rushed him, but he was beyond ready and handled himself beautifully all trial

#save for some distracted sniffing bc ORT boxes are boring #but he found each box in under a minute so we’ll allow it #he waited relatively politely between runs #pottied each time I asked #waited nicely in the car

[byler-alarmist]

What scares me most about Byler endgame is the reality of it likely coming out long after the US presidential election 2024.

#not to be us-centric #but it really does affect the world #like if we think things are bad now #i'm afraid 2025 may find us living in even scarier times #young cis white queers i'm talking to you - don't get too comfortable in this heartstopper era #don't make the grave mistake of thinking we have come so far and that things can only get better #as trans and poc queer ppl know we still have a lonnnng way to go #and even the rights you do have must be continually fought for #they can always be taken away #yes even in the 21st century #i fear we may be headed into darker times #sorry for doomposting #byler tumblr #please do whatever you need to feel safe #but just remember that we will all need to be a bit brave #and stand together #don't let infighting distract from solidarity #byler nation #stranger things #us politics #tw politics

[h3n5h1]

sharing is caring !!

#bg3 #high rollers dnd #karlach #astarion #my art #for context astarion stole using karlach as distraction and she politely asked for her share

[tennessoui]

Hey Kit is Anakin/Kitster The Manservant/future King Anakin force sensitive? Is he hiding it from the Jedi and Sith? Darth Solence has no idea at all until Anakin drops his shields at the most dramatic opportunity possible and Obi-Wan has..... a Very Strong Reaction, hahaha. I'm such a sucker for most of the Jedi (and most sensible people really) being genuinely frightened when Anakin does, like, impossible things bc his force sensitivity is so strong, but Obi-Wan being severely turned on by it instead, hehehe.

ooo i would say he's force sensitive for sure - i usually try not to take away anakin's force sensitivity in gffa aus!!

i think this raises a good question of 'purposefully hiding it from the jedi and the sith' vs not really understanding it would be something they would like to know

i don't think either the jedi or the sith know prince skywalker is force sensitive, so obi-wan discovering manservant kitster is force sensitive would add on to his fascination and attraction (especially when the manservant is just....casually using the force to complete intricate chores as if it's no big deal even though he has never been trained and this level of finesse is unheard of if you're not trained by either the jedi or the sith)

(i agree, i like evil!obi-wan being very attracted to anakin's power, i think that's a key dynamic for most sith!obi-wan/anakin relationships)

but i also don't think anakin knows that he should be hiding his force sensitivity - like, i like to think of it more as...an open secret? he's not going to run around and declare it, but NNP Jedi isn't really focused on Prince Skywalker's manservant, so he doesn't notice or doesn't care, and yeah, sure, Lord Solence is fascinated and horny about his power, but prince skywalker's manservant has other things to worry about when darth solence is looking at him with that level of fascination and horniness in his eyes

(mostly if they're going to make it to a bedchamber before they fuck or if this is finally gonna be the time they're fucking in the hallway)

#asks #to the point of distraction au #obikin #of course there's the other camp where prince skywalker is rumored to be force sensitive/is known to be force sensitive #and anakin has to do some floating/force using lip synching for kitster #to keep up the rouse #which is hilarious to think about #but also the jedi and sith aren't interested in anakin because he's extremely powerful in the force #they're interested in him because he's the new queen's son and they want a political advantageous marriage #so i think it makes sense if they don't know that anakin is force sensitive #but also that anakin wouldn't know to hide it #a la 'i didn't think you'd care'