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shazzeaslightnovels · 11 months

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Fate/Strange Fake 1

Author: Ryohgo Narita

Illustrator: Shizuki Morii

Label: Dengeki Bunko

Release Date: 10 January 2015

My Score: 4/5

Genre: Action, Battle Royale

This series is part of the Fate franchise and it follows a “fake” Holy Grail War in America. The rules are a bit different to the usual Holy Grail War, in ways that aren’t made all too clear in this volume. This volume serves as an extended prologue as we are introduced to the masters and servants that we will be following throughout the series. Each chapter introduces a new pair and focuses on them.

This was a really good first volume. It got me intrigued to follow the story and the characters. The characters are all interesting and the story has a lot of potential. it’s definitely an introductory volume that made me more excited in what this series will become rather than enjoying this volume on it’s own. I was amazed at how quickly I was able to get through it but it was the kind of book that always made me want to read on. I‘m super interested in how this series is going to progress and I ended this volume just wanting to read the next.

As much as I enjoyed this volume, I don’t feel like I have a lot to say about it and I’m worried this is going be recurring issue with this series so I am going to talk about the characters that appear on the covers for each volume that I do. Similar to what I did with Youzitsu, but I want to go more in-depth.

On the cover for this volume is Archer/Gilgamesh and Lancer/Enkidu. Their identities are revealed soon after they are introduced so I wouldn’t consider it a spoiler (also, I think everyone in the Fate fandom knows what Gilgamesh and Enkidu look like). For most of the servants, their identities are either explicitly stated or we are given enough clues to make an educated guess. The exception is a certain someone who is introduced at the end of the volume and I haven’t been spoiled as to who they are so I am very excited to learn more.

Gilgamesh is the first servant to be introduced in this volume. Gilgamesh would have to be the servant with the most appearances in this franchise. He was in the original, he was in Zero, Extra CCC, and this, and of course he appears in Grand Order and I’m probably forgetting something. Gilgamesh is always a fun and interesting character so it’s not hard to see why people love him and each writer is usually able to do something with him to make things interesting. Here, it seems to be his relationship with Enkidu that will be explored, and I really am excited to see more of their dynamic. I might be more interested in Gilgamesh’s master though than Gilgamesh himself. His master, Tine, is a Native American, and it’s so cool to see Native American representation in anything. I’m really interested to learn more about her and what her role in the narrative is going to be.

I think this was Enkidu’s first appearance in the franchise. They later appeared in Grand Order but I think this predates that. I love seeing a non-binary take on a figure like Enkidu and I really like the way that they are portrayed. Enkidu’s master is a wolf and I love them. I hope nothing bad happens to them. These two are my favourite pair so far. I really hope the wolf survives this series.

Also, I had to laugh at Nasu’s afterword where he talks about how Narita pitched this as a 5-volume series. Nasu says, ‘Narita, do you really think this plot is going to fit in 5 volumes?’ The series is ongoing at 8 volumes so I had to laugh.

Adaptation Notes:

A TV Special anime adaptation came out recently. I watched and it motivated me to finally read the light novels so it definitely works well as an advertisement for the series. It condenses the first volume into a 55 minute episode and it does a pretty good job of it. There’s some stuff that’s cut out and some details are lost and it makes it feel more like highlight reel than anything else but it manages to tell a coherent story and get you pumped for the full anime. Because of the way that the original volume was structured with each chapter focusing on a specific master/servant pair, the anime did some restructuring of scenes to make the timeline more linear so that we jump between different storylines. We get more backstory and details about the masters and servants in the light novel. In particular, the anime cut a lot of details about Assassin’s identity and the situation with Tsubaki. Also, most of the last chapter, where we are introduced to Ayaka is cut from the anime.

A full-length TV series has been announced and there’s been some speculation as to whether they will continue where the special left off or readapt the first volume more faithfully. I feel like they will continue where the special ended and adapt that last chapter fully. I feel like they will have to add back in the details that were cut with Assassin and Tsubaki at some point but maybe there will be a good time in future plotlines to do that and they won’t do it straight away. I don’t think they will just readapt the first volume. The special is a perfectly serviceable adaptation to introduce the characters and, aside from those bits, I don’t see any point in readapting it.

#fate/strange fake #Ryohgo Narita #Shizuki Morii #Dengeki Bunko #4 stars #July 2023

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fahrni · 10 months

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Saturday Morning Coffee

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

What would we start off with this morning? The weather? Our power grid in the Charlottesville area? How about some links to articles I’ve collected through the week? Yes, let’s do that.

Ollie Williams • cabinradio.ca

A mercy flight taking Yellowknife hospital patients to safety was cancelled on Thursday, leaving nurses unsure how they’ll safely leave in the face of an oncoming wildfire.

Poor Canada. It’s been on fire for so, so, long. The human toll is so immense. 😔

Good thing Climate Change isn’t real. 🤬

Evan Selleck • AppleInsider

Apple TV+ has revealed the first details of “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,” a forthcoming 10-part series starring Kurt Russell, and coming as part of Legendary Entertainment’s Monsterverse.

I’m down for this series! I love me some Kurt Russell! 🦖

David Ljunggren • Reuters

OTTAWA, Aug 18 (Reuters) - The Canadian government on Friday demanded that Meta (META.O) lift a “reckless” ban on domestic news from its platforms to allow people to share information about wildfires in the west of the country.

I’m not a fan of Facebook but I do understand why Facebook chose to disallow links to news in Canada. It was a business decision for them based on new Canadian law.

Hopefully they’ll turn linking back on so folks can communicate about these devastating fires. ❤️

Grace Ebert • thisiscolossal.com

Artist Duke Riley is attuned to this history and its modern-day implications. He gathers laundry detergent jugs, flip-flops, and bottles that once held household products once they wash up near beaches and carves incisive allegories and ornamentation into their surfaces. Painted in a warm, grainy beige, the scavenged waste mimics the whale bones traditional to scrimshaw while the artist’s signature wit emerges through the contemporary narratives of oil barons or marine creatures carrying human trash.

It’s amazing what this man can do with trash.

The Globe and Mail

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says Canada has been considering a “game plan” for how it would respond if the United States takes a far-right, authoritarian shift after next year’s presidential elections.

This is really sad when your neighbor and ally feel the need to prepare for the possibility the United States of America could become and totalitarian nation.

All I keep thinking of is Gilead from The Handmaid’s Tale.

Who knows, if the US goes full authoritarian/totalitarian Canada may become a refuge for Americans, just like it is in The Handmaid’s Tale.

Kevin Chisholm • Flutter Engineering Blog

Welcome back to our quarterly Flutter stable release, this time for Flutter 3.13! In just the three months since our last release, we have had 724 pull requests merged and 55 community members authoring their first commit to Flutter!

I’ve tossed around the idea of rewriting RxCalc in Flutter so I keep an eye on it. I find it interesting and I feel like it’s a better choice than React Native, but that’s just a feeling because I haven’t written code in either.

One thing I definitely dislike about it, they paint the UI themselves. They’re not using native controls. I understand the choice, but I don’t like it. I don’t think that would keep me from using it for an app like RxCalc since its UI is extremely simple and I’d most likely use its C++ Pharmacokinetics library.

Nick Gernert • WordPress VIP

Vox Media wanted its creative and development teams to focus on experiences instead of platforms, continuing to create industry-leading content for their audiences.

Big moves like this are always very interesting to me. Vox must need the best writing tools the industry can offer to put together stories and I wonder how they’re going to feel about the writing tools in WordPress. I’m personally not a fan of Gutenberg and wonder if writers will work in that editor or use something else for the writing part and someone else does the post? I’d love to know their workflow.

A little inside baseball. I handle putting together posts for the WillowTree Engineering Blog but the authors use Google Docs to write them.

Debopriyaa Dutta • /Film

In her Telegraph interview, Chalotra explained that she was not too well-versed with the source material (at least to the point that her co-star Henry Cavill was, who’s an ardent fan of the franchise) and the stress of showing up to such a big-budget production was stress-inducing for her. Chaltora talked about how she believed she “didn’t think [she] was going to get through the first day of filming

I love The Witcher and Chaltora’s Yennefer is one of the reasons why. Henry Cavill’s Geralt is also fantastic but the ongoing tension between the two adds another great element to the show.

Ash Furrow

I’m narrowing in on a few possibilities, and one of them will soon become my destination. This space is uncomfortable and I feel an urge to escape it. An urge to collapse the wave function of possible career moves into a definite next job. Any job. After a disquieting summer, I feel myself grasping for certainty.

I’ve watched on Mastodon as amazing developer after developer lose their jobs or are having a very difficult time finding one.

This scare me to death. I’m aging, tired, and my brain definitely doesn’t work as well as it once did — it’s not as fast as before. Sure, I can do the work, but could I get past an interview? That’s the biggest fear.

Starbucks Stories & News

He shares the story of Starbucks® Pumpkin Spice Latte – which has become the company’s most popular seasonal beverage of all time – was created 11 years ago.

This is an article I stumbled on from 2014. I thought I’d share it since Starbucks is about to unleash Pumpkin Spick Latte season on us. It’s not a goto drink for me but I’ve had a few. My wife and daughters love them. Heck, they love all things pumpkin spice. Me? I’m just into good pumpkin pie. 🥧

Grace Kay • Business Insider

During an earnings call on Tuesday, UPS CEO Carol Tomé said that by the end of its five-year contract with the Teamsters union, the average full-time UPS driver would make about $170,000 in annual pay and benefits, such as healthcare and pension benefits.

This article is about how tech workers don’t like the thought of UPS drivers making more than them. I say more power to ‘em!

I’ve often thought it would be amazing to work in a coffee shop. Of course I’d never expect to make that kind of money but I have a feeling I’d enjoy the change. At least for a little while. 😃

Scarheel • Atlas Obscura

From 1810 to 1823, Jean Lafitte and his brother Pierre were among the most notorious and successful privateers in the Americas. Like many great pirates, Jean Lafitte’s exact origins are shrouded in mystery, but he is believed to be born either in France or one of its Caribbean colony Saint-Domingue (now called Haiti) and he had a spectacular reputation for drinking, womanizing, and debauchery.

Who doesn’t like a little pirate lore? I know in real life these folks were scoundrels but we’ve romanticized them and there’s something about that skull and cross bones I like.

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historic-old-guard-lover · 4 years

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How many languages and which of them would the cast speak if we’re going to be completely historically accurate ?

This a great question that I can’t quite answer, but I spent six hours researching to give it a shot. I think that there’s a broad range of plausible languages and you’ve got leeway to choose how many. The first part is that different people have different affinities for languages. Some people can speak ten different languages fluently (or near-fluency), while others will struggle juggling three different ones in their brains. The range in the languages can affect this, too: it’s easy to mess up between similar languages. I personally have trouble speaking Spanish because in the middle of the sentence, I’ll drop a French word without even realizing it. The same thing doesn’t happen to me in other languages like German, though. By the same token as I’ve discussed before, similar languages are easier to learn. Going from English to Russian with the Cyrillic alphabet? More difficult than English to French, which makes up about a third of modern English. These are languages that are still in the same family (Proto-Indo-European, PIE), though, so it holds nothing to the difficulty of going from English to a language like Mandarin.

I’m breaking this answer into two parts: 1) how many?; 2) which ones? and I’m going to get carried away because I’m me so it’s below the break to spare you if this comes across your dash and you’re not a nerd...

PART 1: What’s a realistic number for them to speak?

I think that each member of the old guard probably has a certain number of languages which they’re comfortable with, a few more that they can understand/get by in, and a few that they may only know phrases from. The number of each isn’t the same for everyone. The average human being is able to speak ~1.5 languages. The most talented polyglots can speak upwards of 50 languages, maybe one guy even spoke 65 (mostly I want to mention he loved translating the phrase “kiss my ass”). This hyperpolyglot, Kreb aka “Kiss My Ass” Stan, had his brain dissected after his death and it showed a lot of “abnormalities”. That leads neuroscientists and me to believe that being able to study and learn 65 languages is either 1) a major skill that rewired his brain because he was flexing it so much; or 2) very abnormal and facilitated by his brain differences. Since their powers don’t make them stop being limited by the human brain (they can forget), I would say that it is unlikely that one of them is fluent/near fluent/comfortable in more than ~65 languages.

Getting past twelve languages is considered a feat, so I think only Andy, Quynh, Nicky, and Joe could be anywhere near the upper-bounds of languages. Remember, these hyperpolyglots spend their entire lives studying languages and often need refreshers. The members of the Old Guard don’t have the luxury of reading grammar books all day, and they also have to remember a bunch of combat training. You can argue that a lot of fighting is “muscle memory” aka located in the cerebellum and nowhere near language processing areas, but there’s still things like math, navigation, etc. that they need to remember. I doubt they have a list of their safe houses just lying around. The older members can speak more languages by virtue of being around longer and having that time to learn, but if we’re being realistic they should probably speak no more than ~45-55 languages comfortably. This doesn’t mean that they only *know* that many, but the other languages would be more like bad high school Spanish in America than able to wax poetic. Aside: that Joe is able to be poetic in what is AT LEAST his fourth or so language is very impressive and we should talk about that more.

How Many Each Member is Maximally Proficient In/Knowledgeable Of at the end of the film/Opening Fire comics run:

Lykon (comics): proficient in ~15, knowledgeable of ~30*

Lykon (movies): proficient in ~45, knowledgeable of ~80*

Andy: proficient in ~50, knowledgeable of ~100**

Quynh | Noriko: proficient in ~51, knowledgeable of ~90**

Joe: proficient in ~30, knowledgeable of ~80

Nicky: proficient in ~30, knowledgeable of ~80

Booker: proficient in ~10, knowledgeable of ~30

Nile: proficient in ~2 (maybe 3), knowledgeable of ~5

*In the comics, he is younger than Andy and Quynh and I assume he dies young. In the movie, it is strongly implied that he was the oldest. The reason why his numbers are not larger, however, is because at some point there were fewer languages as humanity had not dispersed as much as it eventually did. He’s also long before written language which facilitates learning for most people. RIP Lykon.

**I’m not saying that Quynh is smarter than Andy, just that she comes after written language and it should be slightly easier for her to pick things up. I’m giving Andy access to more languages, however, because PIE alone covers Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia. More on this later.

PART 2: Which languages would each of them speak?

I’ve covered this question a little in a previous post that was broadly about proto-indo-european/Andy-centric (check it out if you want), but I’ll give a broader survey of each character here.

A Quick Aside on Lykon: We don’t know enough about this character, and the fact that the comics and movie diverge so sharply does not help at all. I’m going to headcannon that he was from Eastern Africa, where most archaeologists agree that modern humans first appeared in the Horn of Africa aka modern Ethiopia and Somolia and neighbors, and predates Andy by ~3,000 years. For future purposes below and assuming a birth date for Andy in the range ~5,000BCE - 4,000BCE, this puts his birth at around ~8,000BCE - 7,000BCE. This is wild speculation, however. Maybe the early immortals should be spaced by warfare types (Stone Age, Bronze, Iron, Steel?) or maybe they pop up once a cultural region reaches a certain historic point or maybe they just sorta pop up and then live for six or seven thousands years. I’m working off the last assumption because it’s the simplest. The only thing I’m certain of is that Greg Rucka probably didn’t sit down and think this pattern through. If I’m wrong, oh well. I’m mad at him for all his historical inaccuracies. With dating from ~8,000BCE - 7,000BCE, I’m having trouble finding a name for the cultures that scientists/historians know were living there at the time. It’s probably because the region has been continually occupied since the first humans, which one can safely assume makes abandoned and undisturbed sites hard to fine.

A Quick Aside on Quynh | Noriko: I like the film better, so I’ll be working with Quynh. If there’s enough interest, I can add on Japanese for Noriko. I’m going to date Quynh to be ~1,500 years after Andy (maybe this should be the new date system, before Andy “BA” and after Andy “AA”). This puts her in the time range of ~3,500BCE - 2,500BCE which could place her in either the Đa Bút neolithic culture of modern-day Vietnam or the Phùng Nguyên bronze age culture of modern-day Vietnam. Those names are archaeological in nature, based on the location where sites have been found and dated to those ranges.

Other Origins: Because we have diverging cannons, I’m going to just state the backgrounds that I’ve assigned. Joe is from 1066CE with a background in the Arab-controlled Maghreb (more specifically, modern-day Tunisia and Northern Algeria). Nicky is from 1069CE with a background from the Italian maritime republic and city-state of Genoa. Booker is from 1770 southern France. Nile is from 1994 Chicago in the United States. Andy is from ~5,000BCE - 4,000BCE in the Caucasus (modern-day Georgia and Azerbaijan) or the South Western Eurasian Steppes, probably the Shulaveri-Shomu culture assuming that location.

The first language everyone learned, their “mother tongue” or “native language” is one that they definitely speak. It’s the language that they think in and would be hard-pressed to lose. This even includes now-dead languages, because, again, it’s the one that they learned to think with. Of course, it is possible to lose a language when you have no one to speak it with if you wanted to do something tragic, but I think that these things are too deeply ingrained for it it to happen by accident.

What Each One’s First Language Would Be:

Nile: American English, possibly African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) at home

Booker: Provençal/Occitan, possibly “standard French” (school and other places outside the home)

Nicky: Genoese Ligurian/Zeneize

Joe: Tunisian Derja/Tunisian Arabic/Tunisian, and possibly one of the dialects of the native Zenati language group based on where more precisely you place him

Quynh: Proto-Viet–Muong (which isn’t well documented because it’s so old)

Andy: Proto-Indo-European (PIE), but if you’re curious the Classical Scythian Language for which she is probably named is only off by a factor of 10 (4000 vs 400 BCE) *cue distressed sighing*

Lykon: Proto-Cushitic (also suffering a lack of documentation from being old as heck)

Other than their first languages, what else they learn depends on where they go. People learned languages back then for the same reasons that they do today: to communicate (and to read, after the invention of writing).

Additional Confirmed or Likely Cannon Languages:

Nile: Spanish because of the American school system for sure. French is listed on the IG account, but she probably speaks only Spanish or French to a degree of fluency, definitely one better than the other. Very Basic Pashto, which we see her use some obviously-memorized phrases with in the film.

Booker: The IG promo things asserts that he knows (modern, standard) Italian and Greek. Why not? He also probably knows Spanish depending on where more specifically in southern France he is from. He’s probably also picked up on at least Very Basic Arabic from Joe and Nicky, but actually learning the language would take commitment from him. He also clearly speaks English.

Nicky: Other Italian dialects, and it would be fairly easy for him to have picked up modern Italian. He definitely reads Latin. If he was from a wealthy family, he probably also speaks Greek. If he was from a trading family, he probably speaks the trading pidgin of Sabir. The IG account confirms Arabic (vague, but okay I’ll be generous and say modern standard Arabic) and Romanche (they meant to write Romansh). I think Romansh is poorly chosen to characterize him in Northern Italy, but I’m feeling generous. He also clearly speaks English.

Joe: He definitely speaks standard Arabic to have been able to communicate with other Arabic-speakers in Jerusalem. Genoese Ligurian/Zeneize because of the love of his life, which also means he probably picked up modern Italian at some point. The IG account confirms Farsi (they call it “Persian” *cue screaming*), which works if he was a merchant who traveled far to eastward on the Silk Road...and if you go with the comic cannon makes more sense. I’m going to say that he speaks the Mediterranean trading pidgin Sabir because of his location in Tunisia. If he was from a wealthy merchant family and could afford schooling, he probably learned Greek and maybe also Latin. There’s a good chance that he knows conversational-levels of other native Zenati languages thanks to colonialism discouraging their usage. He also clearly speaks English.

Quynh: We don’t actually know if she speaks English, but it’s safe to assume she does speak at least some of it. She’s probably learned Vietnamese and Mường because of her mastery of their proto-language. Because I see her returning to modern-day Vietnam to fight the Chinese colonization, I think that she might know Cantonese or Mandarin. Based on her travels with Andy, I’d like to propose Greek, Latin, and Mongolian. I’m sure that Andy and her share a language, but who knows which one they were each speaking when they met!

Andy: The IG account says “all,” but I’ve discussed this elsewhere (*major eye rolling*). She almost certainly picked up Scythian and Greek based on her chosen name. Latin isn’t as likely as you’d think, but is possible. I’d like to think that she’s also partial to learning Russian (or some earlier form of the language), Mongolian, and Armenian. Based on her travels with Quynh, I imagine that she speaks Cantonese or Mandarin and Vietnamese or Mu’o’ng. There is some mystery language shared with Quynh, too. She also clearly speaks English.

Lykon: I really don’t know enough about him to hazard any guesses. He should share at least one language in common with Andy and Quynh. If his date of death is ~2,000- 1,000 BCE like I’m supposing, there’s a good chance that he only speaks one or two currently-named languages. Sorry, OP.

#asks #lovely anon #linguistics #neuroscience #the old guard #andromache the scythian #andy #quynh #noriko #lykon #yusuf al kaysani #joe #nicolo di genova #nicky #sebastien le livre #booker #nile freeman #nile

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moxy-fruitbat · 3 years

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Also because I'm still thinking about the Voyager Record, it's amazing that they had 55 different languanges saying greetings, including 5 dead languages (6? Do people speak Aramaic still? I actually don't know).

Some of them are really cute, like "hello from Earth! How are you? Have you eaten yet? Please visit us if you have the time!"

And they even include Esperanto (a conlang), Quechua (a native language from South America), and !Kung (one of the African clicking languages). But I'm surprised they didn't include any other Native American languages?

Where's Navajo? Nahuatl? Any of the Inuit languages?

I mean, they did include a lot of Southeast Asian languages and Chinese dialects, and I can't be mad at these scientists trying to send out a friendly time capsule to aliens.

They did include Navajo music, too.

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paperdoghats · 5 years

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On Carlos

Carlos’ purpose in the story has changed since WTNV’s beginning and it’s made me feel uneasy (and not in a good way.) This post includes spoilers up to episode 55 and from episode 135. Non-spoilery details from episodes/books between those are included.

When Carlos was introduced, it was clear he was meant to be our eyes, the outsider to Night Vale who finds it all very strange and wanted to investigate “just what is going on around here!” We were made to feel comfortable knowing that Carlos was just like us and so we immediately liked him, because we related.

This is pretty normal in storytelling. Any storyteller can tell you the importance of including a character the readers can use as their own perspective, especially in non-modern settings.

Pretty quickly, though -- and I’m not sure if it was intentional or not -- Carlos revealed that he is not like us. He says he’s never had to read a book before. His methods for science involve “using microscopes and vials of bubbling liquid and making thoughtful expressions and saying things like “Hmm.”” He also has the curious quote, "I am a scientist. I study science, not plants or nature." Carlos... doesn’t sound so legitimate anymore.

In Episode 55, one of the biggest reveals about Carlos is that he was going to teach science at a school called the University of What It Is. That’s definitely not a Regular America (read: non-Night Vale-area) school. Carlos might not be from the town of Night Vale, but we were misled to believe that he’s from somewhere less strange. Why pretend Night Vale is weird?

Now, onto aallll of the spoilers from episode 135.

Carlos has a double whose name is Charles. He lives in Desert Bluffs 2. He is very plainly stated to be 41 years old. Well, now we know Carlos’ age, and somebody should update the Wiki. Charles wants to be a teacher. Carlos was going to be a teacher. Charles is a theologist. (Theology is the study of religion.) Charles has the same voice actor that Carlos had before Cranor felt too uncomfortable voicing a non-white person. Cranor uses the same voice, which is a fun nod to Cranor’s Carlos eps, and really drives home that Charles is Carlos’ double. (Also that Carlos’ double is white?)

What does it mean that Carlos has a double? Aren’t doubles a Night Vale-only thing? Why doesn’t Charles seem weirded out by the sci-fi goings-on of the Night Vale area? It sounds like everyone in the world has doubles, and the reason why doubles are only a problem in the Night Vale area is because the divide between alternate universes is weak in their spot of the world. As for Charles finding it all very normal, there’s one quote from Kevin that potentially answers that question by raising a few others: “You did not turn from my face. You did not wince. You looked straight into me and knew I was the same as you.“

What does Kevin mean by Charles being “the same as” him? I, honestly, have zero guesses.

Was Carlos’ being the listener’s perspective dropped because Fink and Cranor just can’t resist being silly, or because Carlos isn’t what he appears to be?

So, after turning all of this over in my head for a few months, I have a couple of ideas about Carlos:

1. The most likely. Carlos has been slowly forgetting everything about his pre-Night Vale life, including his studies, as sometimes happens with people not native to Night Vale. This gives no explanation about why he would be teaching at a Night Vale-esque school.

I read both WTNV novels this week (6/13/19). Carlos, at one point, thought back on his family. Nothing more was said, but he did remember them.

2. Carlos has a kid. I know, this one seems out of the blue, but I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing Charles and what he could mean about Carlos, since we still know so little about Carlos. Charles is a direct parallel of Carlos and information about him seems to be intended to be information about Carlos. So, why would the writers introduce a Carlos double and then just give him a child, if not to imply something about Carlos? Everything they write into WTNV is deliberate. Not only does Charles have a son, but Charles’ son lives with his dad only, and he never mentions the other parent. Drawing a direct parallel, Carlos could have a child that lives with their mother only and he never brings it up.

When considering all of the segues into making Cecil and Carlos parents (Cecil has recently been openly and loudly presented as someone who loves taking care of kids!), this one seems to fall most easily into the story.

3. A bit of a joke that can always be considered a possibility: Carlos is/was an undercover agent for the Vague, Yet Menacing Government Agency. His cover story is that he’s a scientist, but it’s clear that he doesn’t actually know what he’s doing. He accidentally fell in love, but must keep his secrets, and that’s why we know so little about him, and is why Cecil also mentions not knowing many things about his own partner. Carlos could reason that this situation is OK because it doesn’t mean he loves Cecil any less. It isn’t like Carlos isn’t keeping any huge secrets from Cecil in canon.

(Spoilers: He is.)

Either way, I’ve stated before why I don’t trust Charles, and Carlos’ story worries me, too. It seems particularly unlike WTNV’s writers to give us a character with no backstory; there’s probably a reason for it.

#wtnv #carlos the scientist #wtnv carlos #i listened to all of wtnv 3 times #i have so many thoughts #wtnv spoilers #wtnv charles

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thisdayinfavrd · 5 years

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June 5, 2009

You don't believe I outran a cop with my parachute pants around my ankles, eh? Well get ready to have your mind blown, your honor! @fireland (Joshua Allen) – 104

My wife got all upset because she caught me making out with the cat. It never seemed to bother her back when he was still alive. @Zaius13 (Damn Dirty Ape) – 99

A Canadian in America. Day 1. Trying to blend in with the natives. Haven't apologized once. Guilt consumes me, but it seems to be working. @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 92

My mucous plug just came out. If this doesn't make Favrd then Twitter is obviously broken. @dooce (Heather B. Armstrong) – 88

I'm starting to think my lack of wealth and power is holding me back. @badbanana (Tim Siedell) – 80

Missing tweet #2043217681 @luckyshirt (Unavailable) – 78

Me: That Celine Dion? Cafe Gal: Yeah. The owner likes it. M: Does he suffer from head trauma? CG: What? [pause] M: Yeah. She's pretty great. @hotdogsladies (Merlin Mann) – 78

Karma is a dominatrix that forgot the safe word. @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 72

I like legs that go *all* the way down. I dated a woman once who hovered 6 inches over the ground and, you know what? Not for me. @Moltz (Moltz) – 67

Three more days until my iPhone 3G turns into a total piece of crap. @gruber (John Gruber) – 66

Since lunch I've had 2 donuts, 2 coffees and inhaled a lot while writing with a Sharpie. So anyway, this dwarf ficus in my office says "hi." @adamisacson (Adam Isacson) – 66

All jerk and no lay makes Jack go blind. @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 65

"IT WAS JUST A TRANSACTION! I GAVE MONEY AND GOT STUFF!! UNBELIEVABLY UNEVENTFUL!!! I LITERALLY HAVE NO OPINION ABOUT THIS!!! NULL++++++!!!" @hotdogsladies (Merlin Mann) – 61

Odysseus was forced to endure an odyssey. He must've wished his name was Ecstasius. But definitely not, under any circumstances, Tennesseus. @adamisacson (Adam Isacson) – 60

My people use every part of the toilet. @weselec (Shane Cyr) – 56

Whoa whoa whoa. *I'm* not Spartacus. @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 55

This lighting really emphasizes the red bra I wore under my white shirt and highlights my inability to do one god damn thing right. @CcSteff (Stephanie) – 55

David Carradine: Auto erotic asphyxia? So, he pretty much came and went? @MODAT (Modat) – 55

When my job has me troubled, I ask, What Would Jason Do? And then I go back to killing teenagers. @joeschmitt (Joe Schmitt) – 54

This girls' night dinner really picked up steam when the pregnant friend showed us her nipples. @CcSteff (Stephanie) – 51

#favrd is down

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cythraul · 5 years

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Politics and the original Star Trek

I'm seeing it come around again - the original Star Trek series being held up as a beacon by those who don't want politics in their scifi.

This little doc, simply titled "Star Trek 25th Anniversary Special", talks in places about the politics of TOS. I remember this came with the VHS box set of the movies, back in the '90s. To a large degree it's a puff piece - including very proudly laying out the ways TOS was political.

5:50 William Shatner: "Gene spearheaded a brave new idea: a series that would explore the human condition within a space-age format."

9:00: Gene Roddenberry describes his lead characters. For Uhura: "I was pleased that in those days, when you couldn't get even Blacks on television that I not only had a Black, but a Black woman, and a Black officer." For Sulu: "Great affection I have for Asians and what they do and the important part they play in the world, and I just could not have a group of Earth people without including that great, you know, one half or more of the Earth continents." It's all 100% what shitbags would call "forced diversity".

50:35: Clip from "A Private Little War", with Kirk lecturing a planet's natives about the foolishness of war, in an ep that was wildly seen as an allegory for the Vietnam War, which was still raging at the time.

50:50: Shatner: "In the world of television and motion picture, Star Trek has always had a unique ability of including important social issues within its space-age format, especially during the turbulent '60s. Roddenberry's core of writers had plenty of drama to address. America was in the grips of the Vietnam War. Several cities were marred by violent demonstration. And the civil rights movement was at its peak." Shot of Martin Luther King Jr's "Praise God Almighty, free at last!"

51:54: Nichelle Nichols: "I met him [King], in '66 I believe, or early '67, and I had said to him, I was leaving the show, after he had said that the show was in his home, their home, uh, every week, and how important I was to, uh, his family, and made me very proud. And he said, 'Think about this, Nichelle. You have changed the face of television forever. They can never undo what they've done. The door is open.'"

51:55: Shatner: "Other TV shows that were popular at the time, westerns like 'Bonanza', or situation comedies, offered a temporary escape from the drama occurring outside the windows. 'Star Trek' not only dealt with some of these issues head-on, but presented a message of hope for the future of mankind." (I did say this was a puff piece.)

52:14: Clip of Joan Collins in "City on the Edge of Forever" extolling a future when people will use great technological innovations to "feed the hungry millions of the world, and to cure their diseases."

53:08: Shatner: "The original 'Star Trek' series also presented a future where all races and cultures worked together, side by side."

53:17: Whoopi Goldberg: "You know, this is one of the few, uh, shows that take place in the future that I saw as a kid where there were any Black people. You know, Lieutenant Uhura was there. That gave me a lot of hope. You know, and Asian people, and all kinds of folks. You know, there was no problem with the Russians, you know, the... it's very important that, uh, that the future be hopeful, and that's what this is."

Elsewhere, Goldberg has told the story where she, as a child, saw Uhura on TV and ran to her parents yelling "There's a Black lady on television and she ain't no maid!"

53:42: Shatner: "In the 1990s, Roddenberry and his staff of writers continue to probe both human and political conflicts in a dramatic format." Key word: "continue".

54:42: Leonard Nimoy extolling Greenpeace, and saying they gave him the idea for Star Trek IV.

55:12: Nimoy: "Social issues of the times and historical conflicts often play an integral part of Star Trek. One could argue that these analogies help bring the world of the 23rd century down to Earth."

1:03:50: Clip from "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", with Spock lecturing an alien. This is an episode in which two ethnic groups on a planet are distinguished by being black on the right and white on the left, or black on the left and white on the right. It ends with the discovery that they've nuked each other into extinction.

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wrongfullythinking · 5 years

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And then there were five...

The numbers say 20. Or maybe 21. It’s hard to tell. But in reality, I think we’re down to five. Five’s a good number, the same amount you can fit on a basketball floor and really know who is out there. Let’s face it, nobody but the most die-hard fan knows who bats 8th and plays left. Five? Five’s a number we can deal with. And looking at the state of things, we’re down to five realistic candidates. Maybe some of the other 15 or 16 will get a nice mike-drop moment, and maybe they’ll get a chance to advocate for a cause they believe in. But if your party is so oddly out that you need to use the presidential nomination as a way to get your ideas across... well, it worked for the Bern, but rarely do imitators have the same success as the original.

In this piece, I’m going to give brief thoughts on the five candidates, and then assign my own completely arbitrary “chance-of-winning-the-nomination” percentages.

The Frontrunner: Biden (50%) At this point, [5/2/2019], preliminary voters are presented with a choice: Joe Biden, or somebody else? It is very much Biden vs. the Pack, and if Biden is the nominee, he’ll make it very clear that it is actually TheObamaLegacy vs. EverythingNotObama. Without an Obama endorsement, that’s a tough one to pull off. Frankly, I don’t think Joe Biden is the strongest candidate, and I don’t think he will make a great president. But he’s also not going to go away until the very end of this, and if he loses, it will be because everybody else decides to unite behind another candidate.

There’s this fiction that Biden is the most “electable” candidate. He’s not, he’s the third-most electable. The second-most electable is Michelle Obama. She is a sure-fire nominee and general election winner, pulling southern states, the female vote, Florida and Michigan away from Republicans and guaranteeing there is no red path to 270. Does Biden do any of that? Probably not. He’s not Bill Clinton, with charisma to go with midwestern history. He’s not Obama himself, with a genuine melancholy and a realist outlook. He’s a meme more than a politician since 2008.

But let’s get straight what matters about Biden and what doesn’t. Nobody really cares about what he said to Anita Hill or his tough-on-crimes stance in the 90s. The media will keep dredging up these issues, and the fact that they’re having to dig this deep to find some pretty thin soil tells you a lot about Biden. He’s pretty hard to object to, and Trump is very easy to object to. There is no doubt that Biden will garner the vote of everybody who hates Trump. But can you win an election with just “Not-Trump?” Apparently not, if I remember the 2016 final tally. [But let’s not get started into how Democrats can bungle this thing, if they don’t learn from their “ignore the whites and the heartland, whine incessantly about the other guy, and then say that we should thank them for raising taxes” plan from 2016, they’re hopeless anyways.]

How can Biden win the nomination? The longer everybody else stays in, the more likely Biden wins. Let’s be clear: Biden is going to be the “least objectionable” candidate in both the Primary and the General. Biden’s chances also go up every time somebody else goes low, but his years of experience as Washington and his long, long list of friends, combined with strong association with Obama, make him the most resilient and easily-forgiven of the candidates.

How does Biden lose the nomination? The rest of the field unites behind one or two other candidates who pound Biden with policy expertise, passionate speeches, and a presidential air. Or, frankly, Biden himself disengages. The more time Biden has to prepare (and hire the best speech-writers), the more Biden is likely to be president. The more time the media spends showing his off-the-cuff gaffes (and there will be plenty), and we could see a Howard Dean scenario emerge, provided there is another strong candidate. The other danger to Biden is that the young vote deserts him in favor of another candidate, and the older generation stays apathetic for the days of Obama.

What to expect from a Biden presidency: First, a lot less headlines. Wouldn’t it be nice to open CNN on any day and see that the webpage’s headline was not about the President? That’s not a ringing endorsement of Biden, nor will it excite the often-raving-horde of young politicos. But let’s be honest... young politicos have always been a bit of a raving horde, and this generation really isn’t different. They just tweet instead of march and browse webpages instead of newspapers. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Biden establish a legacy as the “infrastructure President.” And that’d be fine with most Americans. I certainly would love to see some high-speed rails, because **** the airline companies. They’re terrible. The American Highway System is a wonder of the modern world, and improving it with a series of electrical refueling stations and solar-powered rest stops couldn’t hurt. Infrastructure is an easy win, and Biden’s going to take easy wins. As he should.

The Rabble Rouser: Bernie Sanders, 15% The Bern seems to be a better candidate on paper than he actually is; right now, he’s benefitting from the same early-momentum wave that carried Hillary to the Chair of the Anointed One at the Democratic Convention. Bernie’s always had bad timing though, and I’m not convinced this is any different. Had Biden stayed out of the race, I’d put Bernie’s chances at 30 or 40%. But with Biden in, I’m not sure there are enough Obama-era democrats who actually prefer the Bern. Sure, the young/gay/urban/unemployed/coastal [pick two] crowd who wants to reshape the country into a Scandinavian one loves him. But how many of us want to weigh our trash and be charged 6$ for each pound of it the garbage guy has to pick up? How many of us want to be told by a bank that they can’t offer us a loan, because we didn’t attend a prestigious enough university [coastal degrees only for investment bankers]? Let’s not even start on 55% tax rates for the middle class or subsidizing a 29-year-old’s NYC apartment as he trucks through a medieval literature degree one-course-at-a-time. This is obvious hyperbole, but “democratic socialism” starts with “democratic,” and that means “the beliefs of the people” are synonyms with “the will of the people.” Could some of the Bern’s policies work in America. Sure. But there’s no evidence that he can convince any except his already die-hard advocates that they all can, and a policy doesn’t make a system. I’m not convinced Americans, be they blue or red or the purple-murky-middle, are really excited about this sort of sea change.

How to Sanders win/lose the nomination? If the “woke” wing of the party fails to find a demographic-win in Harris or Buttigieg, and decides to yell loud enough to keep the Obama-era democrats from crowning Biden, or if Biden drops out as well as Harris/Buttigieg, Sanders could end up engaged in a rhetorical battle with Warren that neither of them want, but the country might need. At that point, it’s a coin-flip and a nasty convention, and lines in the sand may become tracks on the ground, separating the haves-and-have-nots in the Democratic party. Still, Sanders could emerge in such a scenario with a win, though I’d tip my hand towards Warren.

What to expect from a Sanders presidency: There’s a small chance we get a lot of everything, and a large chance we get absolutely nothing, depending on how Congress plays out. It is always amusing to me to watch candidates at this stage talk policy, because, you know... the President doesn’t write policy. Okay, he [or soon-to-be “she”] does, but not really. You’ve got to go back to the 70s/80s to find Presidents who were really able to institutionalize their policies in statute, and unless Sanders picks up a majority in both Houses, and even then, it is tough to see most of his ideas actually making it into law. I’ve critiqued Obama before as being “the Toothless President,” because his “signature accomplishment” of the AHCA is already mostly dust-in-the-wind, and it wasn’t even much of a victory to start with [he didn’t even get a government-based option!]. Sanders’ ideas are likely too big for any political reality, and remember, he’s been in the Senate for a LONG time. How much of his work do you see in your daily life?

The Best: Elizabeth Warren, 30% One of the strangest (and most chilling) realities of this election cycle is how dismal Warren is polling. What we’re seeing here is what I call “The Hillary Effect,” where an unlikable-older-white-woman is conjuring up all our memories of nasty assistant principals and that mean piano teacher who kept whacking our fingers. Warren is neither of those things, but her image is not, at this point, helping her. Warren needs the rest of the electorate to come to Warren-land, where what matters is your policy chops, and it remains to be seen if the Democratic party (no racism, no slander, no ableism!) allows itself to move past her white-and-rich appearance.

So, let’s have that experiment. Let’s get past the appearance and the fact that she listed herself as 25% Native American in order to get a law school scholarship. What do you have left? What you have left is a woman who can be President. She’s been a far more successful politician than either Sanders or Biden, and she’s the candidate with the best touch to the realities of the parties from coast-to-coast. Warren’s policies, although a bit left-of-center, are clearly centered around the groups she wants to elevate: small businesses, Americans with children, and all of us who are willing to work for a living but want to be able to live like we want if we do. Warren’s the president who believes in exchange: you put in your time with her, and you feel like she’ll give you something back. That’s a big difference from the Hillary Clinton campaign. Look at the Clinton slogan: “I’m with her.” Compare that to Trump’s slogan (Make America Great Again), and we know which one won. On a slogan level, the second one SHOULD win. You want a president who is about making the country great. Warren’s the politician who gets that, and understands how Trump is appealing to people’s needs, rather than setting out for a list of “the world should be like this.” The fact that her policies are so well-defined and solidly based in the needs of Americans is what sets her so far apart from the rest of the crowd. I have no qualms in saying that of the current pack, I would much rather have Warren as my president than any other candidate, and it isn’t close.

How does Warren win/lose the nomination? Warren’s path to victory starts by convincing Obama-era democrats that she is more Obama than Biden is. That’s a tough sell, because she looks more like Hillary... who, let’s not forget, lost a nomination to Obama before she lost to Trump. Warren needs to separate herself from Hillary and align herself with Obama. Frankly, an Obama endorsement might be the thing that lands the race in her lap. Warren also needs the conversation to revolve around policy. She’s the best at that, and she needs to convince people that she can get her policies not just in front of Congress, but through it. The less talk is about policy, and the more it is about nebulous ideas or demographics or social media or broad philosophical stances, the worse Warren will do.

What to expect from a Warren presidency. We might get some high-speed rails, but we’ll likely see taxes go up on the rich, stay stagnant on the middle class, and see some supplement for popular welfare-type programs (college aid, family aid, etc.). I’m not convinced Warren can make a difference in healthcare, and I’m fine if she doesn’t; we’ve wasted 12 years on the topic now and it just may not be the window. But there are so many other issues that Warren can tackle that would make a difference to Americans. I’d love a tax credit for putting solar power on a roof, and Warren’s the one I see making that happen, not Sanders. I’d like to see university students get some more support federally [good job on Summer Pell!] and that is most likely to come from Warren. Generally, I think we’ll see the “B” versions of her stump-speech policies become realities. The middle-50% of Americans will pay 20-30% in taxes, not 15, and the highest-1% will pay 40%, not 50 or 70. Small businesses will get their health care burden for employees subsidized, but won’t be able to write off all debts for a decade. Farmers may again be able to make a profit off a cow, though we may all pay an extra 25c per gallon for milk and an extra 30c per pound of beef.

((My wish list for Warren: rein in credit card companies and payday loans. Nobody but a bank should be able to give you a credit card, let’s stop all this “Sears Card, Best Buy Card, Kohls Card” nonsense that keeps American families in debt from their late-teens to retirement. And banks need transparent policies about awarding credit cards and loans, and be forced to stick with them, not making nebulous decisions about eligibility based on who-the-lending-officer-is and the skin color of their applicant. /rant end))

Bernie 2.0 or Trump 2.0???: Buttigieg, 3% Buttigieg may have the most energy, but the primary process may be the most damaging to him. I mean, it let him get into the race in first place, and he does look a bit like a Kennedy, doesn’t he? And his charisma is first-rate, his qualifications trump Trump’s at this point in the last election cycle [low bar, right?] and he’s just non-white enough [because he has sex with men, so that counts] to keep some of the Democrat’s own bloodhounds off his back. The weaknesses are also glaring: he doesn’t have the policy of Warren, the political capital of Biden, or the funds and the rabid fans of Bernie. But he is from a Midwestern state, and the Democrats could do worse than considering that. The trouble here is that no one really sees the energy lasting for another year. But hey, it worked for Trump, right?

The trouble is that Buttigieg needs a Trump-like groundswell of support to carry him to the nomination, and right now, that base is going Sanders, and may squash any non-Sanders candidate who should appeal to them simply by virtue of them already having Sanders bumper stickers. To get it, Buttigeig may have to be the one who starts to go low, and he’s shown a reticience to do so. At some point, Buttigieg will need to argue that he’s the Midwestern candidate, and the Democrats need the Midwest. How he makes that argument, who he convinces, and if anybody can be convinced, will all dictate how long Buttigieg stays relevant.

How does Buttigieg win/lose the nomination? Frankly, I don’t see this happening without Sanders dropping out the race, and that likely means a Sanders health problem. That’s not an exciting prospect for anybody, but if Sanders drops out and then endorses Buttigieg, we could see a late-term surge for him past the other remaining candidates. He has to raise enough money to be in it for that long, and he’s got to continue to have great town halls and debates, which are two areas where he shines. I think Buttigieg is going to be a player in the democratic party for years to come, but I don’t think this is his race.

The Californian: Harris, 10% Harris is not likable. She wants to be Michelle, and she’s not. Oh yeah, earlier, when I said that Michelle Obama was the second-most electable person in America? That’s because she’s behind Beyonce. And let’s be clear, Harris is NOT Beyonce. That’s not a dig against either of them, it is a reality of the situation: there are a number of high-powered black women easily in the public eye (in addition to the above two, let’s not forget Oprah, Whoopi, and Stacy Abrams), and Harris is less-likeable than all of them. She comes across brusque, aggressive, and well... a little bit like Trump. That’s not what we want, right? Right? The point is, the Democratic party vilifies unlikeable women, and if Warren is struggling with this, Harris is absolutely going to drown in it. We can talk about feminism and compare waves all we want, but people are going to pay lip-service to that in public, and in private, quietly mark ballots for Biden. That’s always a concern of the Democratic party, and I’m not sure Harris is the one that cures it. I am sure that Harris does not carry the female vote away from Biden, Sanders, or Warren. She’s not a woman’s candidate.

What’s really difficult for Harris is that she’s not anyone’s candidate. California? Sure, why not, but any democrat carries California against Trump. Who cares? The black vote? Last I checked, it was what, roughly 8% of America and not enough to carry Pennsylvania or Michigan? Nor any of the Deep South (that Obama won) against a Trump campaign. The nice part of this is that Harris has the potential to make in-roads with a lot of groups. She’s a professional, she has a presidential air, and she has a prosecutor’s wit. She’s unashamedly intelligent and not afraid of a big moment, like we saw with the 13,500-to-teachers announcement or the recent Barr hearings. She’s less good in-the-moment, where she comes across as a lawyer and not a politician, appealing to the paper rather than the audience. And there’s not a good sound-byte here yet. But Harris could be all those things. Maybe.

How does Harris win/lose the nomination? Harris gets 10% here because she may be the one with the most obvious route past Biden, if Sanders and Warren get out of her way. She needs to improve her on-stage performances (that Town Hall was dismal) and she needs to make sure her focus is where it needs to be, and not get caught talking about things like medical care or Yang’s tech-policies that are clearly not her wheelhouse. It is a matter of sticking to her lane, and then including as many people as possible in her car. She wants to pull people towards her, and the better she can do that, and avoid her lawyer’s instinct of defining boundaries of “Yes” and “No,” the better she’ll do. Harris has the real potential to use this race to grow up from prosecutor to politician, and if she does that, she could be a force. I don’t see her as a serious challenge to Warren or Sanders if it comes down to them as the final two, but I do see her challenging Biden if it ends up with the two of them. Harris needs to stay in the race, keep practicing her presence, and start avoiding troublesome questions like a politician, while maintaining a few key clear policies that people can tie to her name. The bump-for-teachers was a great start, and if she could become “the education candidate,” we might really have something here.

The Rest: 2% I feel like the rest of the field isn’t trying to be President, they’re trying to use the nomination process to make money/crusade-a-cause or just stir up feelings. I’m disappointed this is happening to democrats, because it keeps the five real potential candidates from offering powerful distinctions. Does the party want to move towards Bernie-socialism? Can we believe in Farmers? Do Democrats actually value the MIdwest (according to Hillary, no... does Biden change that narrative)? What is the role of the US internationally, specifically with regards to China and a post-Brexit UK? Was is the reasonable path towards renewable energy, and how does it help me lower my energy bill next January? Will I be able to claim Social Security, and if the system is poor, how do we fix it [or incentivize workers and companies to start doing a better job with retirement plans]? What does a rising interest mean for American home-buyers, and do we want Americans to buy homes? There are so many questions that the candidates differ on, and I worry that we won’t be able to hear from the important candidates on them, because we’ll be hearing somebody’s own hot take on Putin or how Universal Basic Income is something we should pretend to care about for the next 12 minutes. That’s a disservice to the party and the voters, and I hope the debate moderators, pundits, and press over the next 12 months give us a clear view of where the candidates stand and the differences between then.

The afterthought: AOC. Well, we’ve got to talk about her, right? The thing is, we don’t. She’s not a political force, she’s a social one. So, let’s get the obvious out of the way: she’s not eligible to run for President now, though she might be in four years (I’m actually not clear on where her birthday lines up with inauguration day, and I don’t think she’s important enough to check). The very real flaw here is that AOC is not representative. No person is. Yes, I get that she’s non-white and female. Guess what, our country is about 50% male and somewhere around 50% white. So by virtue of being not, it is impossible to argue that someone is. However, the real problem with “representative” is that AOC is coastal and urban, and her perspectives are entirely based on those realities. This is a shame, because for all that people can tout her LatinX heritage, she is very much out-of-tune with high-LatinX states like New Mexico, Texas, and even the non-coastal parts of California. Does that matter in an electoral college world? Maybe not... no Democrat is expected to carry Texas, and no Democrat will fail to carry California. But she’s not a candidate (like Harris, or Obama) who can expect to pull a huge amount of votes simply based on her demographic information. That math has never worked out as well as pundits want it to... remember the Palin experiment? That certainly didn’t persuade the female vote to go Red. And this is one place where I think the American electorate is sadly underestimated; it is assumed we vote for people who look like us, and I find American voters quite a bit more savvy than that. AOC doesn’t pull the LatinX vote as a block, and she certainly doesn’t carry Texas. Alongside the coastal-based policies and city-only mentality she carries, there is no reason to nominate AOC in four years.

#politics #democratic presidential nomination #nomination

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wellplacedrocket · 6 years

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I Visited the Mormon Temple Square and it Really Reminded Me of BioShock Infinite

I don’t go on a lot of (read: any) religious touristy sort of adventures, so maybe the Mormon Temple Square isn’t all that weird in the grand scheme of things. But I’ll be damned if it didn’t give me hints of Columbia, the city in BioShock Infinite. Hear me out on this.

I want to caveat before I go further that it’s probably gonna seem like I’m really picking on Mormons here. I’m not. Mormonism is absolutely no weirder than any other religion, and there are plenty of Mormons (probably most of them) who are much smarter, more hardworking, successful, and better to their fellow man than I am. If you roll your eyes at scripture of Moroni, but turn around and worship Jesus or Vishnu or Odin or Buddha, and follow the World of God as explained to you by Muhammad, then your cognitive dissonance is so thick, so dense, that it must throw off compasses. I don’t think religious or spiritual people are stupid for being that way.

Anyway.

I was in Salt Lake City with a few hours to kill, and figured the Mormon Temple Square would be the one thing I couldn’t get anywhere else, so why the hell not? Let’s get my Mormon on. Many of the buildings in the Temple Square are made with this gorgeous white granite that pops up nearby, and so to the eye a lot of it looked like the White City of Gondor.

The visitors centers are small museums that lay out the history, scripture highlights, and current tenants of Mormon theology.

As a kid, I was raised Catholic-lite, but I’ve never been to the Vatican, and I wonder if there’s similar stuff anywhere else among worldwide Christian churches. That Noah’s Ark museum in Kentucky, maybe? The tone of much of this stuff seems to be to reassure outsiders that hey, Jesus is still just the best! He’s the best, you guys. We’re not any different from your local bake sale-having church people at all! In fact, there doesn’t seem to be much that explicitly tries to contrast with other Christian sects whatsoever, until you get to the Book of Mormon (the actual Book of Mormon) stuff that takes place in the Western Hemisphere.

A lot of this stuff came across to me as a “here’s how to be” kind of children’s book in museum form. It’s not really propaganda, I guess, because conduct prescriptions are what religions are supposed to do. However, the exhibits and artwork they had showing important people in Mormon scripture and the paramount religious events in their lives started giving me weird, familiar vibes.

A 19th century New Yorker who has some sort of religious awakening, begins to preach, gathers a cadre of like minded true believers, establishes a hyper-ardent offshoot Christian sect in the U.S., insists upon racism as one of the pillars of this new theology, is revered as a prophet to his people, gains power and respect (which he abuses), and begins an exodus of his followers out of American society to found their own civilization which will eventually prove hostile to the U.S.? Oh, you thought I was describing Joseph Smith or Brigham Young? Well, surprise, it’s (also) Zachary Hale Comstock, villain of Bioshock Infinite.

I’m not the first to draw this comparison. Here’s a much better article than I could hope to write from an anonymous blogger who claims to be an ex Mormon. And Bioshock creative head Ken Levine mentioned in a Mother Jones article:

There’s a bit of Joseph Smith in [Comstock], a bit of Teddy Roosevelt…Roosevelt was a very progressive figure in many ways. But he was also what you’d probably call a neoconservative in his view of America’s role in the world. So I have trouble comparing Comstock to him directly. Also, I’d have trouble just comparing Comstock to Joseph Smith or Brigham Young. I mean, the American-centric nature of the religion that he forms has some similarities to Mormonism, but there’s nothing in the Mormon church that approached the level of sinisterness you’d find in a Comstock.

In the game (where the next bunch of linked images are from), Comstock is a religious figure with a hyper-nationalism for his own vociferously racist vision of America, which never actually existed and is more twisted than even our own real history. There’s a part of the game where you play through a museum dedicated to the history of Columbia, the city-state Comstock founded, and it puts a very religious sort of spin on the founding of the United States and points in its history. Abraham Lincoln is called “The Apostate” and is remembered as an insidious Satan figure, while John Wilkes Booth is a saint. The Confederate Army, being the true soul of America to these zealots, is led by the angelic spirit of George Washington. The locals are generally hostile.

All of this stuff is understandably batshit, because they were trying to write a villain in Comstock. I’m not saying Mormons are or were evil like this guy. I’m saying it seems pretty likely that the devs took Mormon lore, cranked the evil and steampunky sci-fi up to 11, and out came Comstock and Columbia.

The American founding fathers appear in Mormon religious works, notably in writings by Wilford Woodruff, fourth president of the LDS Church, describing religious visions:

The spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them ... These were the signers of the Declaration of Independence ... I thought it very singular, that notwithstanding so much work had been done, and yet nothing had been done for them ... I straightway went into the baptismal font and called upon brother McCallister [sic] to baptize me for the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

The LDS Church is extremely PR conscious and has left doctrinal, institutional racism behind, but it’s a poorly kept secret that the early days didn’t look too good. Unlike the populations of other Western Territories (Colorado and California in particular), the Mormons mostly took a pass on the Civil War, though to their credit, there isn’t much evidence to suggest explicit sympathy for the Confederacy. However, here’s Brigham Young:

Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. The nations of the earth have transgressed every law that God has given, they have changed the ordinances and broken every covenant made with the fathers, and they are like a hungry man that dreameth that he eateth, and he awaketh and behold he is empty.

And now here’s Comstock:

What exactly was the Great Emancipator emancipating the Negro from? From his daily bread? From the nobility of honest work? From wealthy patrons who sponsored them from cradle to grave? From clothing and shelter? And what have they done with their freedom? Why, go to Finkton, and you shall find out. No animal is born free, except the white man. And it is our burden to care for the rest of creation.

The Mormons flirted with armed rebellion but eventually backed down when the United States and local native nations made it clear they were not fucking around. Joseph Smith, a 100% legit, honest to God prophet to his people, had some pretty dark things to say about the U.S., especially the godless northeast cities:

Nevertheless, let the bishop go unto the city of New York, also to the city of Albany, and also to the city of Boston, and warn the people of those cities with the sound of the gospel, with a loud voice, of the desolation and utter abolishment which await them if they do reject these things. For if they do reject these things the hour of their judgment is nigh, and their house shall be left unto them desolate.

And here’s Woodruff again, in a prophesy “confirmed” by Young:

While you stand in the towers of the Temple and your eyes survey this glorious valley filled with cities and villages, occupied by tens of thousands of Latter-day Saints, you will then call to mind this visitation of President Young and his company. You will say: That was in the days when Presidents Benson and Maughan presided over us; that was before New York was destroyed by an earthquake. It was before Boston was swept into the sea, by the sea heaving itself beyond its bounds; it was before Albany was destroyed by fire; yea, at that time you will remember the scenes of this day.

Well, here’s a scene in Bioshock Infinite that shows a time-travel flash forward to the future year 1984, what Comstock will do if not stopped. He floats Columbia right over New York and starts bombing:

How the hell do they not get shot down? Sci-fi weapons or shields, I’m guessing. Columbia imagines if a civilization of religious secessionists hadn’t decided to chill out in the end, the way the Mormons did.

If you need any more convincing of the connection here, in BioShock Infinite, one of the protagonists who the player spends a lot of time with and who drives the story is Comstock’s daughter Elizabeth. She is kept a gilded-cage prisoner and wants out of Columbia, and much of the action is about helping her to escape. SPOILER ALERT FOR A 5-YEAR OLD GAME: Elizabeth’s parentage isn’t what it seems, she was actually given the name Anna at birth. Well, there was a famous ex-wife of Brigham Young, one of 55, who decided she wasn’t about that life, alleged domestic abuse against Young and filed for divorce (both a huge deal for their time), and ultimately wrote an autobiographical account called Wife No. 19. This woman’s name? Ann Eliza Webb.

No doubt you could substitute any other religion and find similar parallels to BioShock Infinite in art and lore, but the Americanness of the LDS Church is what sells this idea to me, how both the real life Mormon church and the fictional characters and civilization draw from the cultural fundamentals of this country, as well as our absolute worst elements. The obvious difference is the Mormons wrestle with the racism and violence in their church’s past, and for sure try to do good works in the world today. Not so for Comstock and Columbia. But that’s part of what made them such compelling villains.

#BioShock Infinite #Xbox #Xbox 360 #Sony PlayStation #PlayStation 3 #PC #2K Games #Irrational Games #BioShock

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rinnnyxr · 3 years

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Appearance: am tall am in between am short am a blonde am redheaded am a brunette have black hair have blue eyes have brown eyes have green eyes have hazel eyes have grey eyes and wear glasses and wear contacts have braces have freckles have piercings have a tattoo have long hair have short hair have mid-length hair

My nationality includes: chinese indian taiwanese japanese hispanic nicoya puerto rican chicana italian scottish filipino dutch english french german irish greek portuguese polish korean jamaican canadian lithuanian native american russian british danish african hungarian scandanavian armenian finnish other I don’t know

My favorite color(s) is(are): red pink yellow black green blue white silver purple brown orange

Some things I’ve done/played include: soccer cheerleading dancing lacrosse field hockey hockey football softball wrestling gymnastics track/cross country basketball baseball golf minigolf playing in the mud playing music hiking kayaking camping horseback riding

I am sometimes: annoying talkative shy funny serious bubbly spazzy fun-loving laid back strict hyper weird

I like _____ music: rap rock pop country hip hop r&b slow jams Christian classical techno oldies the 80s punk metal reggae Goth Latin 90’s grunge musicals

The pet(s) I have is (are) a: cat dog lizard rat ferret rabbit fish bird tortoise/turtle snakes other

Clothes I like to wear are: plain t-shirts sweatshirts stockings high heels boots sneakers jeans pj pants dresses mini skirts long skirts watches necklace hoop earrings toe socks flip flops halter tops stilettos shorts sleeveless shirts

I like to wear my hair (in a): down ponytail pigtails messy bun half ponytail scrunched/curly bun crimped with a bandana French braids lots of little braids Gel hat messy hot guy hair fauxhawk

I am mostly labeled as: goth emo prep punk surfer athletic hippie nerd gangster ditzy hyper happy I have no idea

I eat/drink: dessert every night no meat diet stuff healthy foods junk foods a lot of carbs lots of meat salad seafood

A typical friday night: mall with your friends partying at a show/venue watching movies going to the club staying home babysitting hanging out with your friends hanging out with your boyfriend/girlfriend working while your friends are out having fun i don’t plan out my weekends

Currently I am: in a relationship single and loving it crushing single and looking for someone single and whatever happens, happens

Online, I use: lol sup =D lmao stfu ty jk ttyl g2g ^^ T_T x_x ^_^ o.o <3 “LOLZOHEMGEE” knai omg

I have: lied to my best friend dyed my hair dressed punk kissed a girl on the cheek lied to my parents cried in front of lots of people went barefoot in the snow played hockey made my own clothes

In the last 24 hours, I: got in a fight took a shower gave a dirty look to someone cried went to school shopped danced got sick did something I regret ate something gross discovered something new

At school I: run to class because I’m always late hide in the bathroom am smart am hyper am a nerd am somewhat popular don’t know

Right now I am: in my pjs drinking listening to music watching a movie IMing someone talking on the phone eating

Have you ever…. Ridden a skateboard? Played a piano? Been to New York? Seen the movie “Thirteen”? Ridden in an ambulance? Broken a bone? Broken somebody else’s bone? Been to sleepaway camp? Gone to another state without your parents? Babysat? Cried for no apparent reason? Laughed for no apparent reason? Shoplifted? Heard “The Tide” by The Spill Canvas? Been nothing for Halloween? Killed a bug with your bare hand? Met a celebrity? Moved? Played on a soccer team? Made a MySpace? Talked on the phone for over an hour? Got detention? Got suspended? Played pool?

LGBTQ+ Out of the closet She/her Owns an LGBTQ+ account Cisgender Other sexuality Pansexual Has tons of gay ships Transgender Has been to a pride parade

They/them Asexual Homosexual Has family members in the LGBTQ+ community Nonbinary Has friends in the LGBTQ+ community In the closet Demisexual Bisexual Polyamorous Heterosexual Questioning Genderfluid He/him

Favorite Childhood Tv Shows Bob the Builder The Suite Life of Zach&Cody Wizards of Waverly Place Sesame street Blue’s Clues Kim Possible My Little Pony Go Diego Go iCarly The Backyardigans The Wonder Pets SpongeBob SquarePants The Powerpuff Girls Caillou Barney & Friends Hannah Montana Dore the Explorer Teletubbies Zoboomafoo Peppa Pig Pingu The Magic School Bus Phineas and Ferb Lizzie McGuire

Favorite Disney Movies Moana Lilo & Stitch Cinderella Brave One Hundred and One Dalmatians The Lion King Alice in Wonderland Pocahontas Lady and the Tramp The Fox and the Hound Sleeping Beauty Finding Nemo Mulan Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs The Jungle Book Frozen Aladdin The Princess and the Frog Tangled The Little Mermaid Peter Pan The Aristocats Bambi

1- I can do Australian accents 2- I know where Madagascar is 3- Je peux parler français 4- I can’t speak French 5- I am partially Russian 6- I like Swiss cheese 7- I have lived/am living outside the States 8- I have tasted REAL Chinese food 9- I have attempted to learn Japanese 10- I know what the South African word ‘Tskudu’ means 11- I know someone who speaks fluent Norwegian 12- I can say ‘I love you’ in more than five languages besides English 13- I have in the past fallen for the story, “Haggis is a three-legged rodent” 14- I have always been aware that Haggis is actually sheep gut 15- I can read the Cyrillic alphabet 16- I understand slang from other countries 17- I have tasted Belgian chocolate 18- I have a penpal who doesn’t speak English 19- I have songs on my iPod/MP3 that aren’t in English 20- I know what ‘croque-monsieur’ is 21- I know where Helsinki is 22- Minä puhun suomi 23- I don’t have a clue what language that’s in 24- I have been lost in a foreign country 25- French wine is the best 26- I can cuss in multiple languages 27- I understand the Greek alphabet 28- I think Swedish is a pretty language 29- I have never heard spoken Swedish 30- I can play bagpipes 31- I think Scottish accents are cute 32- I have been to Hong Kong 33- I think anime would be better if it was in Japanese with English subtitles 34- The majority of my friends are not from my home country 35- I often think it would be cool to speak Polish 36- I don’t have a clue where Thailand is 37- I understand the term, “fucking British weather” 38- People speaking in foreign languages unnerve me 39- I can speak other languages besides English fluently 40- English is not my first language

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teacherintransition · 3 years

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Inner Healing Rarely Comes From a Medicine Bottle

Confronting the pain … the loss … often alone helps you see that hope is still there.

My nephew is following the path of the ancients when life takes a devastating turn… the pilgrimage, the sojourn, an odyssey a journey to reconcile his desire for joy in life in the face of mind numbing loss…

In the early morning hours of the 28th of February, 2021 the Rich family who followed after my father, Roland Rich; my wife, my three sons, their wives, my grandchildren, my sister’s son, my brother, his wife, his son, his daughter, his daughter in law, his grandchildren all were peacefully sleeping through the last moments of the world as we knew it. By 9:30am of the 28th, the existence of what we all knew was gone, ripped from our grasp in the form of a violent, horrific car accident that claimed the life of Matthew Paul Rich. Matthew, my brother’s son was twenty four, a husband and father of two little children was no more … the twenty five and more members of his family plus dozens of close friends, in a year where death had been all too prevalent due to a pandemic of historical proportions, were now dealing with a personal loss of a young who was a boundless source of joy to all who knew him. Nothing would ever be the same. But, …. This isn’t Matthew’s story …

No, this isn’t a story about Matthew Rich, though the laughter and joy he brought could fill volumes. I’m not writing about his beautiful wife and lovely children. These words have little to do with a father who had lost his son. This is the story of Matthew’s brother and best friend… my nephew Cory Patrick Rich, whose loss of Matthew created a unique devastation of spirit yet, awakened in him a refusal to relinquish the happiness in life so often provided by his brother.

Cory was born on the 12th of July, 1991 to Brian and Vickie Keith-Rich in Conroe, Tx. He was and is still to some degree a loner but in a healthy manner. He graduated from Klein Oak High School in 2009. My nephew is intense… he LOVES his family, he loves deep intense conversations with them, which is a trait directly inherited from my dad, his grandfather, Roland Rich. His intensity also showed sometimes in his temper, “il peperoncino fa scaglie nel culo,” and like many young men who are eighteen or nineteen, lacked direction… and it caused him a little trouble. Despite this, Cory has always shown the ability to make sound decisions in stressful times. To get some focus, Cory enlisted in the United States Army and served in Kuwait during time of war. He knew that many of his family members whom he deeply respected followed a long tradition of military service: his grandfather was a twelve year Navy veteran; his cousin, my son, is a USMC veteran; his step brother served in the Army for 8 years; his second cousin on his fathers side was in the United States Navy SOG (Navy Seals); a great uncle who retired from the USAF; and an great uncle who served in the Navy during WWII… and on back through time to the American Revolution. The discipline and focus was exactly what he needed … Cory knew that.

When he left the army he, like many young men, pondered what would they do with their lives, but he had a rock that kept him grounded: his brother Matthew. Often brothers have rocky relationships. My brother Brian and I have been known to butt heads, some have distance that is sad to see. My sons love to provoke each other and argue much too much. Then there’s Matthew and Cory. Did they fight? Yes. Did they argue? Yes. They were, for much of their lives, raised apart as many children are due to divorce, but there was something special going on there. I have seen men who were close brothers; I have seen brothers who were best friends, but rarely have I seen many who were incredibly close brothers and best friends to each other. Separately, they were funny guys and opposite sides of the same coin. Matt was laid back, cordial, a peacemaker and genuinely put everyone at ease; Cory is curious, a seeker of ideas and often a bit hot headed. They played off each other’s strengths and assuaged their weaknesses. They looked out for each and dreamed dreams with each other. My brother and I haven’t always gotten along, but now, at 55, we’ve found a commonality of thought, even though that tension lurks just beneath the surface. Matt and Cory were a team … a powerful entity when together. Then, with the precision of the marking of a calendar… they weren’t.

This piece will not rehash the horrid details of that awful morning, or share the agony of a young widow or the pain of a mother who lost her baby. This is a story of the path of a lost young man. Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross in her timeless study on how humans cope with grief, wrote there were five stages we go through when we lose a loved one. I observed Cory experience four of them: denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. The final stage: acceptance was stopped by an emotional brick wall. In all honesty, Cory, Brian, me (although my pain was to a much lesser extent) did all the right things to cope and some of the negative things you would expect. We argued, we cried, we drank too much, we self medicated, we had nightmares….remember my mention of Cory’s intensity? It was as you’d expect. My brother answered the call of being the patriarch and set the example for his family, I was there to help him when being the solid foundation was too much. Cory jumped in and took on the role Matt’s kids desperately needed. He spent his free time with them, took the son to soccer practice, helped Matt’s widow cope, comforted his mother … he showed a maturity and responsibility beyond expectation. All the while, Cory was so very much alone in processing his loss while attending to his loved ones.

My brother wisely planned a family trip to California to visit his wife’s son. The intentions were perfect, a family taking a step towards normalcy. From my own struggles with mental and emotional health, I learned that when situations approach a calm, the deep seeded pain that you haven’t been able to face, will rise to the surface as the progress that has been made will have your mind tell you, “ok, it’s time to deal with more stuff.” This happened on their trip. I told my brother that this wasn’t a setback but a step forward to deal with a loss that no human could take on all at once. Cory had taken no time for himself. He was spinning his wheels and the pain would not abate. I mentioned earlier that Cory had shown sound decision making in the past during times of emotional distress, he was about to embark on what I view, as a courageous, healthy, well thought out, wisdom beyond his years path towards healing. Cory was going on the road with his little dog Chewie in search of peace.

Like Homer, Ibn Battuta, Strabo, Xuan Zang, Thomas Jefferson, Isabella Byrd, Michael Palin, Jack Kerouac or Anthony Bourdain … Cory was not going on vacation, Cory was not going to “party.” The travelers mentioned above were seeking truth, understanding, community…Cory was going to find a way to live with the loss of his little brother. All to often, we will wallow in self pity and depression, harm ourselves or drop out of living altogether. Very few of us have the courage to go headlong and face our fear and pain and conquer it by seeing others in our world contend with tragedy and be inspired. To seek comfort traveling alone and realizing that none of us are truly alone is a daunting task. I would say that most people have dreamed of hitting the open road to “find ourselves “ and carrying a little regret at not having the balls to do it. Cory has no time schedule, no mapped out path, no preplanned itinerary…his heart and Chewie’s needed pit stops are his only considerations. Well, in truth, there is one destination and hundreds of ways to get there. Matt went on his honeymoon with Rachel his wife to Colorado. He was in awe of the beauty of the vistas. They returned home and, of course, he made a pact with his brother, “Cory brah, promise me that we will climb Pikes Peak together.” Cory promised… Matt is there on the summit ready to embrace his brother and tell him, “it’s ok dude, I’m good, thank you for caring for my family. I’m ok brah, go live …go live…go live …for me.”

My nephew has been gone for three weeks. His path on the map looks like pretzels. He’s been to New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, West Virginia, Missouri and numerous places. He is heading towards Pikes Peak today …something powerful is going to happen …and Cory Patrick Rich had the courage to face it. I know this entry in my blog seems quite incomplete. “Where’s the details of the place he visited? What’d he eat? How’s he doing?” are questions that are being asked. I’ll let you know when he gets back. I also kept many of the names of Matt’s family unwritten so as to focus on one man’s personal sojourn. Each of us have a story through this nightmare we’ve experienced, but this is Cory’s and he still has many miles to travel before he can rest.

"Kathy, I'm lost", I said, though I knew she was sleeping

I'm empty and aching and I don't know why

Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike

They've all come to look for America

All come to look for America

All come to look for America*

*Simon, Paul; “America;” Kobalt Music Services; 1968

https://youtube.com/channel/UClK_MAvZtDiLmlp-4HIN7NA

http://labibliotecacoffee.com/

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lumaxmayclair · 6 years

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100 questions

Tagged by @janes-mike and @mileven-and-contemplation (who tagged me as I’m answering this lol) thank youu for the tag!

1. What is your nickname? Zi

2. How old are you? 22

3. What is your birth month? April

4. What is your zodiac sign? Aries

5. What is your favorite color? Idk I cant think of one right now

6. What’s your lucky number? I love the number 7 but I’m not sure if it’s lucky

7. Do you have any pets? Nope. I wish I do though. Would love to have a cat..

8. Where are you from? Indonesia!

9. How tall are you? Probably like 168cm or something? Idk it’s been literally months since I last measure it and I can’t remember what it was.

10. What shoe size are you? 43, I just checked

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own? Just one.

12. Are you random? Randomly yeah. Sometimes I’m randomly random.

13. Last person you texted? Strictly texting: a friend, I told her I might be late cause I just woke up. Any chat-based app: My mom, asking her if she told my other friend that I’m sick.

14. Are you psychic in any way? Nah I don’t think so. Pretty sure I’m as clueless as one can be.

15. Last TV show watched? NCIS, an old classic.

16. Favorite movie? Black Panther!

17. Favorite show from your childhood? Hmm, I’m not sure. Probably Justice League Unlimited? Idk I forgot what I used to watch lol. Wait no I just remember: Avatar: The Last Airbender! The best animated show there ever was.

18. Do you want children? Haven’t really thought about it. Why not though?

19. Do you want a church wedding? Not church but yeah a religious one would be great.

20. What is your religion? Muslim and proud!

21. Have you ever been to the hospital? A few times yeah.

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law? Nope. And hopefully never.

23. How is life? Could be better.

24. Baths or showers? Showers

25. What color socks are you wearing? White exclusively.

26. Have you ever been famous? Nah never.

27. Would you like to be a big celebrity? Why not? As long as I get to keep my privacy. I think there’s a lot of things I can do having a big influence.

28. What type of music do you like? Songs that are in my playlist.

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping? Nope.

30. How many pillows do you sleep with? Three. I’m a hugger.

31. What position do you usually sleep in? Whichever that’s comfortable for me that night.

32. How big is your house? I’m only a student living with two housemates so.. not big.

33. What do you typically have for breakfast? Define breakfast.

34. Have you ever left the country? Currently studying abroad so yeah lol.

35. Have you ever tried archery? Nope. I’m kinda curious tho. Maybe one day..

36. Do you like anyone? Yep.

37. Favorite swear word? O shit.

38. When do you fall asleep? When I shouldn’t be.

39. Do you have any scars? Nah.

40. Sexual orientation? Bi.

41. Are you a good liar? I think so yeah. I try to never lie so that when I do, no one thinks I’m lying.

42. What languages would you like to learn? Spanish and/or ASL. Gotta finish Portugese first though.

43. Top 10 songs? Umm

Nervous - Shawn Mendes

My Mother’s Eyes - Alec Benjamin

The Majestic Tale (Of A Madman In A Box) - Murray Gold

Wakanda - Ludwig Göransson ft. Baaba Maal

I’m Yours - Jason Mraz

Memories - Shawn Mendes

Avengers Infinity War : Musical Tribute (Marvel Mashup) ft. 14 Marvel Music Artists

The Shepherd’s Boy - Murray Gold

Can I Have This Dance - High School Musical

I Don’t Dance or as we know it the gay hsm song - High School Musical

Bonus, cause I’m indecisive as fuck: Avatar State and Series Finale by Jeremy Zuckerman

44. Do you like your country? Yeah even with all her imperfections I will always love my homeland.

45. Do you have friends from the web? I hope so. I’m just so bad at conversations that I never asked lol.

46. What is your personality type? Introvert

47. Hogwarts House? Ravenpuff!

48. Can you curl your tongue? Yeah.

49. Pick one fictional character you can relate to? Online: Stan Uris. Irl: Jonah Beck.

50. Left or right handed? Right.

51. Are you scared of spiders? As far as we’re not touching I’m good.

52. Favorite food? Probably rendang.

53. Favorite foreign food? Asian: sushi. European: spaghetti/pizza. African: wish I knew more.

54. Are you a clean or messy person? Messy.

55. If you could switch your gender for a day, what would you do? Hug them titties.

56. What color underwear? Black, grey, dark blue.

57. How long does it take for you to get ready? 20 minutes when I’m not in a hurry, 5 when I am.

58. Do you have much of an ego? Unfortunately proabably yeah..

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops? Bite. I’m too impatient lmaoo.

60. Do you talk to yourself? Yeah who doesn’t?

61. Do you sing to yourself? Yep.

62. Are you a good singer? I’ll leave it up to the judges.

63. Biggest Fears? Being thought of as annoying or selfish.

64. Are you a gossip? I don’t gossip, but when there’s drama I just have to know more lol.

65. Are you a grammar nazi? Yeah unfortunately.

66. Do you have long or short hair? Short. It’s currently longer than usual though.

67. Can you name all 50 states of America? I used to, thanks to this game but I didn’t keep it up.

68. Favorite school subject? Math and english.

69. Extrovert or Introvert? Introvert ftw.

70. Have you ever been scuba diving? Nope.

71. What makes you nervous? Interacting with people.

72. Are you scared of the dark? Sometimes.

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes? Nah I’m not confident enough.

74. Are you ticklish? Maaaybe..

75. Have you ever started a rumor? Nope.

76. Have you ever been out of your home country? Currently living out of my home country.

77. Have you ever drank underage? Nope, I don’t drink.

78. Have you ever done drugs? Nope, I don��t ever plan on doing drugs.

79. What do you fantasize about? Being able to concentrate for long enough to actually do something productive.

80. How many piercings do you have? None I don’t really like piercings.

81. Can you roll your R’s? Yep that’s how we do it in my native language. (bonus I also can do the english R’s, obviously, as well as the french ones.)

82. How fast can you type? I’d say average.

83. How fast can you run? I’d say less than average. I can sprint pretty fast but no more than a minute lol.

84. What color is your hair? Black.

85. What color are your eyes? Also black. I think.

86. What are you allergic to? Discourse and dust.

87. Do you keep a journal? I wish lmaoo. I tried a few times but I always forgot to write in it after a few weeks.

88. Are you depressed about anything? Probably.

89. Do you like your age? Meh I’m indifferent.

90. What makes you angry? I’m not sure.. Maybe wasting time.

91. Do you like your own name? Meh I’m indifferent.

92. Did you ever get a foreign object up your nose? Almost said never but then I remembered I got a crayon up there once…

93. Do you want a boy or a girl for a child? Meh I’m indifferent.

94. What talents do you have? Procrastinating. I’ve even mastered procrastinating procrastination.

95. Sun or moon? Moon cause my first girfriend turned into the moon.

96. How did you get your name? It’s from this guy! Also my middle name can mean The Nightcomer and I was born just as the sun was set, according to my mom.

97. Are you religious? Yep.

98. Have you ever been to a therapist? Nah I haven’t.

99. Color of your bedspread? Just plain white.

100. Color of your room? Pastel yellow.

Whew finally done. Tagging: @dontfanficanddrivefolks @oioioioioiland @urdearestmom @she-who-the-river-could-not-hold @gay-for-roxane @breakthestrutura @ask-the-deadman @willel or @kirabook @sunsetozier @el-and-hop

I didn’t check so sorry if you’ve done this before!

#this took me literally hours lmaoo #i got distracted really easily #it was pretty fun tho #also #reposting cause the tags didn't work the first time #zi's #tag game

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newstfionline · 6 years

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On US-Mexican border, the rules change, but human impulses don’t

By Henry Gass, CS Monitor, June 21, 2018

BROWNSVILLE AND MCALLEN, TEXAS--So much has happened so fast, Joyce Hamilton says, that she has to double-check exactly when her small role in the 2018 border crisis began.

Checking her calendar in a park across the street from the Gateway International Bridge in Brownsville earlier this week, her guess is close: 15 days ago.

There had been nothing in the news then, and no one had been talking about it until she heard from a friend of a friend that asylum-seekers were lined up on the bridge connecting Reynosa, Mexico with Hidalgo, Texas--a few miles south of McAllen.

At first she was surprised, says Ms. Hamilton, a retired educator who lives in Harlingen--then eager to learn what supplies the asylum-seekers needed.

Ever since the Trump administration implemented its “zero-tolerance” immigration policy last month--prosecuting everyone caught crossing the border without proper documents, including those requesting asylum--the situation on the US-Mexico border, particularly here in the Rio Grande Valley, has been changing quickly.

After hearing of the line at the bridge, Hamilton and a group of her friends packed their cars with water, snacks, clothes, sun umbrellas, and fans to fight the 100-degree afternoon heat and brought the supplies through the turnstiles into Mexico. There, about 40 asylum-seekers told them they had been waiting at the border for upwards of five days.

When she returned with friends four days later, the line had doubled.

“They were just kind of pleading for specific clothing items, and alimentos, food for the kids,” she says. “They’re not MS-13. It’s not gang people,” she adds. “These are good people from little villages in central America trying to get away from violence.”

Hamilton, who resolved to bring supplies every few days after her second trip to the bridge, says she has found it hard to keep up with the changing situation on the border.

Just Wednesday, President Trump ordered an end to the most controversial aspect of the zero-tolerance policy: the separation of undocumented families caught crossing the border.

The changes at the border notwithstanding, advocates for migrants and asylum-seekers see no let-up in the demand to enter the United States. Almost all the migrants are coming from the “Northern Triangle” of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala--where murder rates exceed even those in active war zones--and are unlikely to be deterred by months in immigrant detention or long waits on bridges over the Rio Grande, the advocates say.

“It’s a life-or-death decision for them,” says Efrén Olivares, director of the racial economic justice program at the Texas Civil Rights Project in Alamo, Texas. “It’s going back to the threat of ‘If I ever see you again I’m going to shoot you in the head’--after they’ve shot your brother in the head.”

Meanwhile, if the reversal of family separations means children as young as 12 months should no longer be detained without their parents, it is unlikely to mitigate--and may even exacerbate--other consequences of the zero-tolerance policy, experts and advocates say. There is no clear plan for how to reunite the more than 2,300 children already separated from their families, the Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday.

“We’re certainly happy that children aren’t being ripped from their parents, but it really does appear that the executive order is trading one humanitarian crisis for another,” says Jennifer Nagda, policy director at the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. “Children won’t now face immediate separation or long-term separation from their parents, but it appears they’re going to be locked up together in detention facilities” while their cases are processed, she adds.

Most days on the Gateway International Bridge between Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville, the only sign that you’ve crossed an international border is a change in the tiling of the walkway near the center of the bridge.

Earlier this week, however, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers had set up a small wooden desk at the line, with about a dozen asylum-seekers waiting on the Mexican side. They had all spent weeks traveling here from Central America, and days sleeping and waiting on the bridge.

One of them was Marcos, who said he rode buses for 20 days to escape violence in his native Guatemala. Next to him was a Guatemalan family of four who said they left because of the volcanic eruption there this month.

Alla, a teenager from Honduras in a tattered New York Yankees t-shirt who traveled here with his mother and two younger siblings, wandered back and forth between asylum-seekers sitting or sleeping against the fence and the long line of people making routine crossings from Matamoros.

Near the feet of the CBP officers, a young woman from Honduras, who asked not to be named, waited with her 3-year-old son amid boxes of water, baby formula, and bread, clutching her own backpack.

“I think [the situation] is really bad for the kids,” says Ernie Mascorro, a Brownsville resident who was waiting to enter the US after visiting family in Reynosa.

“Where they’re coming from, they’re poor and afraid,” he adds. “This is not going to stop.”

Even after fleeing to Mexico, many migrants don’t even feel safe, propelling their journey north. Last year a shelter in Tapachula, Mexico, on the Guatemala border, for example, reported gang members in the shelter that were essentially stalking refugees.

While families caught crossing the border will no longer be separated, Mr. Trump’s executive order made clear that the policy of prosecuting every illegal entrant will continue.

Yet recent US polls have found strong public support for immigration as well as strong public opposition to family separation. A record-high 75 percent of Americans think immigration is “a good thing for the US,” according to a Gallup poll conducted in the first two weeks of this month and released Thursday. On Monday, a Quinnipiac University poll found that 66 percent of voters opposed the family separations policy. Ninety-one percent of Democratic voters opposed it and 55 percent of Republican voters supported it.

That public pressure--and political pressure from Republican Party and religious leaders--seems to have prompted Trump’s reversal on family separations.

Besides the fact that migrant families will no longer be separated, there is significant confusion over what the rest of the executive order will mean for the situation at the border. The administration has not clarified if or how families who have already been separated will be reunited.

The government currently faces strict requirements when it comes to detaining children--including keeping them in the “least restrictive conditions” possible while they are detained and placing them with a relative “without unnecessary delay”--but the order directs Attorney General Jeff Sessions to try and modify those requirements.

Advocates are also concerned about a section saying the Department of Defense could make “existing facilities available” to house detained families.

“They’re going to detain the families throughout the immigration proceedings, families are going to be detained, imprisoned, incarcerated for over a year,” says Mr. Olivares of the Texas Civil Rights Project. “In some ways the executive order makes things worse.”

Back on the Gateway International Bridge, the two tote bags of supplies that Hamilton had brought are empty. In line to reenter the US, she leans against a railing in exhaustion.

“I feel like they’re between a rock and a hard place, and I’m sorry that we’re part of that rock and hard place,” she says. “These are people trying to get away from danger, they’re not bringing the danger. I just really wish that people would see that.”

#US-Mexico border #family separation #separating children from parents

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gordonwilliamsweb · 3 years

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To Vaccinate Veterans, Health Care Workers Must Cross Mountains, Plains and Tundra

This story also ran on Time. It can be republished for free.

A Learjet 31 took off before daybreak from Helena Regional Airport in Montana, carrying six Veterans Affairs medical providers and 250 doses of historic cargo cradled in a plug-in cooler designed to minimize breakage.

Even in a state where 80-mph speed limits are normal, ground transportation across long distances is risky for the Moderna mRNA-1273 vaccine, which must be used within 12 hours of thawing.

The group’s destination was Havre, Montana, 30 miles from the Canadian border. About 500 military veterans live in and around this small town of roughly 9,800, and millions more reside in similarly rural, hard-to-reach areas across the United States.

About 2.7 million veterans who use the VA health system are classified as “rural” or “highly rural” patients, residing in communities or on land with fewer services and less access to health care than those in densely populated towns and cities. An additional 2 million veterans live in remote areas who do not receive their health care from VA, according to the department. To ensure these rural vets have access to the covid vaccines, the VA is relying on a mix of tools, like charter and commercial aircraft and partnerships with civilian health organizations.

The challenges of vaccinating veterans in rural areas — which the VA considers anything outside an urban population center — and “highly rural” areas — defined as having fewer than 10% of the workforce commuting to an urban hub and with a population no greater than 2,500 — extend beyond geography, as more than 55% of them are 65 or older and at risk for serious cases of covid and just 65% are reachable via the internet.

For the Havre event, VA clinic workers called each patient served by the Merril Lundman VA Outpatient Clinic in a vast region made up of small farming and ranching communities and two Native American reservations. And for those hesitant to get the vaccine, a nurse called them back to answer questions.

“At least 10 additional veterans elected to be vaccinated once we answered their questions,” said Judy Hayman, executive director of the Montana VA Health Care System, serving all 147,000 square miles of the state.

The Havre mission was a test flight for similar efforts in other rural locations. Thirteen days later, another aircraft took off for Kalispell, Montana, carrying vaccines for 400 veterans.

In Alaska, another rural state, Anchorage Veterans Affairs Medical Center administrators finalized plans for providers to hop a commercial Alaska Airlines flight on Thursday to Kodiak Island. There, VA workers expected to administer 100 to 150 doses at a vaccine clinic conducted in partnership with the Kodiak Area Native Association.

“Our goal is to vaccinate all veterans who have not been vaccinated in and around the Kodiak community,” said Tom Steinbrunner, acting director of the Alaska VA Healthcare System.

VA began its outreach to rural veterans for the vaccine program late last year, as the Food and Drug Administration approached the dates for issuing emergency use authorizations for the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, according to Dr. Richard Stone, the Veterans Health Administration’s acting undersecretary. It made sense to look to aircraft to deliver vaccines. “It just seemed logical that we would reach into rural areas that, [like] up in Montana, we had a contract with, a company that had small propeller-driven aircraft and short runway capability,” said Stone, a retired Army Reserve major general.

Veterans have responded, Stone added, with more than 50% of veterans in rural areas making appointments.

As of Wednesday, the VA had tallied 220,992 confirmed cases of covid among veterans and VA employees and 10,065 known deaths, including 128 employees. VA had administered 1,344,210 doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, including 329,685 second vaccines, to veterans as of Wednesday. According to the VA, roughly 25% of those veterans live in rural areas, 2.81% live in highly rural areas and 1.13% live on remote islands.

For rural areas, the VA has primarily relied on the Moderna vaccine, which requires cold storage between minus 25 degrees Centigrade (minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit) and minus 15 degrees C (5 degrees F) but not the deep freeze needed to store the Pfizer vaccine (minus 70 degrees C, or minus 94 degrees F). That, according to the VA, makes it more “transportable to rural locations.”

The VA anticipates that the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, if it receives an emergency use authorization from the FDA, will make it even easier to reach remote veterans. The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech both require two shots, spaced a few weeks apart. “One dose will make it easier for veterans in rural locations, who often have to travel long distances, to get their full vaccination coverage,” said VA spokesperson Gina Jackson. The FDA’s vaccine advisory committee is set to meet on Feb. 26 to review J&J’s application for authorization.

Meanwhile, in places like Alaska, where hundreds of veterans live off the grid, VA officials have had to be creative. Flying out to serve individual veterans would be too costly, so the Anchorage VA Medical Center has partnered with tribal health care organizations to ensure veterans have access to a vaccine. Under these agreements, all veterans, including non-Native veterans, can be seen at tribal facilities.

“That is our primary outreach in much of Alaska because the tribal health system is the only health system in these communities,” Steinbrunner said.

In some rural areas, however, the process has proved frustrating. Army veteran John Hoefen, 73, served in Vietnam and has a 100% disability rating from the VA for Parkinson’s disease related to Agent Orange exposure. He gets his medical care from a VA location in Canandaigua, New York, 20 miles from his home, but the facility hasn’t made clear what phase of the vaccine rollout it’s in, Hoefen said.

The hospital’s website simply says a staff member will contact veterans when they become eligible — a “don’t call us, we’ll call you,” situation, he said. “I know a lot of veterans like me, 100% disabled and no word,” Hoefen said. “I went there for audiology a few weeks ago and my tech hadn’t even gotten her vaccine yet.”

VA Canandaigua referred questions about the facility’s current phase back to its website: “If you’re eligible to get a vaccine, your VA health care team will contact you by phone, text message or Secure Message (through MyHealtheVet) to schedule an appointment,” it states. A call to the special covid-19 phone number established for the Canandaigua VA, which falls under the department’s Finger Lakes Healthcare System, puts the caller into the main menu for hospital services, with no information specifically on vaccine distribution.

For the most part, the VA is using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines to determine priority groups for vaccines. Having vaccinated the bulk of its health care workers and first responders, as well as residents of VA nursing homes, it has been vaccinating those 75 and older, as well as those with chronic conditions that place them at risk for severe cases of covid. In some locations, like Anchorage and across Montana, clinics are vaccinating those 65 and older and walk-ins when extra doses are available.

According to Lori FitzGerald, chief of pharmacy at the VA hospital in Fort Harrison, Montana, providers have ended up with extra doses that went to hospitalized patients or veterans being seen at the facility. Only one dose has gone to waste in Montana, she said.

To determine eligibility for the vaccine, facilities are using the Veterans Health Administration Support Service Center databases and algorithms to help with the decision-making process. Facilities then notify veterans by mail, email or phone or through VA portals of their eligibility and when they can expect to get a shot, according to the department.

Air Force veteran Theresa Petersen, 83, was thrilled that she and her husband, an 89-year-old U.S. Navy veteran, were able to get vaccinated at the Kalispell event. She said they were notified by their primary care provider of the opportunity and jumped at the chance.

“I would do anything to give as many kudos as I can to the Veterans Affairs medical system,” Petersen said. “I’m so enamored with the concept that ‘Yes, there are people who live in rural America and they have health issues too.’”

The VA is allowed to provide vaccines only to veterans currently enrolled in VA health care. About 9 million U.S. veterans are not enrolled at the VA, including 2 million rural veterans.

After veterans were turned away from a VA clinic in West Palm Beach, Florida, in January, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) wrote to Acting VA Secretary Dat Tran, urging him to include these veterans in their covid vaccination program.

Stone said the agency does not have the authorization to provide services to these veterans. “We have been talking to Capitol Hill about how to reconcile that,” he said. “Some of these are very elderly veterans and we don’t want to turn anybody away.”

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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booklover4816 · 6 years

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Nope. Sounds pretty good if to me so far. What about Florida, Nevada, California, Utah, Mississippi, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Montana, and Washington. Sorry, gotta curious mind.

It’s okay! This is going to be long. One thing that you’ll quickly notice is that pretty much all of the states are tied into agriculture somehow. That’s because every state is part of the agricultural industry in someway and it’s the easiest thing for me to write about and use to tie them all together. Also, rural America doesn’t usually get a whole lot of love in most State fics.

Florida: Florida admittedly is hard for me to write. I have family who lives in Florida and I don’t want her to have any of their personality traits (because they’re awful people). I also need to do a lot more research. So far, Florida is a tough girl who is afraid of practically nothing, except driving in the snow. She loves gator hunting and fishing, but she also loves things like amusement parks, beaches, and politics (again, swing state). She also can’t stand any temperature below 55 degrees. Florida’s favorite hobby is growing oranges and she and California are in the middle of a fruit war with each other (who has the best oranges). She speaks fluent Spanish (mainly Cuban). She has wavy brunette hair (that is extremely frizzy due to the constant humidity) and gray eyes. Like I said, her personality is still under construction.

Nevada: Nevada was is known as the Battle Born State due to joining the Union in the middle of the Civil War, and her personality shows it. She seems cold on the outside mostly because she was brought up in the aftermath of the Civil War and saw first hand, at a very young age, what it had done to her siblings. She seems kind of aloof and has a bit of a pessimistic view on the world. But, once she opens up to someone, you’ll find her to be a very loving and caring person. She’s smart as a whip when it comes to science and gambling (even though she’s not supposed to) and she’s also an excellent shot (always carries a gun, and has named it Las Vegas). She’s chasing New Mexico away from Area 51 (Roswell, so he loves aliens), but she’s also always looking out for him and shares his love of science and aliens.Other than that, I need to do a bit more research on Nevada. This is just the basis of her personality. Appearance wise, she has long black hair as a reference to her Native American heritage and warm brown eyes. She also speaks Spanish and Navajo and always wears a pair of sunglasses that she has affectionately called Carson City.

California: California is a little like America in this story: the way she acts depends on who she’s around. She’s a big sister and kind of motherly to Hawaii, Arizona, and Nevada. She’s rivals with Florida and Texas (though she wouldn’t hesitate to stand up for them if someone was bothering them). She’s agriculturally focused when she’s around the Midwest and Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana (California is the US’s number one producer of agricultural products). She enjoys being a nerd with Washington, especially concerning tech and business, and being an outdoorsy hippy-like person with Oregon. And of course to anyone outside of her family, she’s a complete airhead. She likes portraying herself to strangers as the stuck up, ditzy Hollywood type, but in all actuality is extremely smart, focused, hardworking, and driven. She truly is America’s daughter.She’s extremely beautiful with glossy, wavy brunette hair (she’s lucky and always has a good hair day) and sapphire eyes. She also has a permanent tan and can pass a Mexico’s sister (Mexico is actually her aunt by blood, and they are very close). She’s also one of the only states that has a mother (the Californian Republic was briefly independent). She speaks Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, and a few other languages.

Utah: Utah’s one that I need to do a lot of research on. The extent of my knowledge on Utah currently is Great Salt Lake, Mormons, honeybees, and skiing. It’s pathetic, I know but I’m planning on doing research before I write her chapter. So far, though, she does have a basic personality. Religion is a very important aspect of her life; however she doesn’t really identify with a specific one out of respect to all of the people in her state, so she’s more spiritual. She’s very active and outdoorsy; she enjoys skiing, hiking, and mountain climbing with the other Four Corners States. She also is a huge supporter of the National Parks, and hers are her pride and joy (Utah has a ton of National Parks). And then, Utah is the Beehive State, so I want to incorporate that into her characterization but I’m not quite sure how I want to do that yet. She has brown hair and green eyes.

Mississippi: Once upon a time, America tried to raise Mississippi like a lady (this was back in the early 1800’s), but then Alabama came along and that was the end of that. Mississippi is a tomboy, much like Ohio. She loves football and hunting and doing other stuff that would have been considered “boyish” when she was small. Still, she loves cooking with Georgia and Louisiana and hanging out with Alabama and Florida. She tends to be more conservative; however, she personally prefers making informed decisions and sticking to her morals. Again, I need to do more research on Mississippi, especially before I decide how I want to address the Civil Rights issues with Mississippi’s past.

Oklahoma: Out of all of her siblings, Oklahoma is closest to Texas. They really are two peas in a pod and share a lot of interests: ranching, rodeos, food, religion,(though both, like Utah, are non-denominational out of respect for all of their citizens), music, etc. She is actively involved with her Native American heritage and speaks many native languages as well as Spanish. She’s very sweet and kind and takes everything that America says to heart, always obeying what he tells her to do and taking his words literally. She has shoulder length brunette hair and green eyes. And again, I need to do more research on Oklahoma before I start tying history to her personality.

West Virginia: I get so many reviews about West Virginia and he hasn’t even appeared yet, but I get it. Many people write West Virginia as a stupid hillbilly, which I guess is kind of the stereotype outside of the state, and that’s just offensive. So, West Virginia is outdoorsy. He just loves being outside and being active. He also enjoys doing things with people he’s close to, and he doesn’t really care what it is: playing football with Ohio, spending a day in D.C. with Virginia, hunting with Pennsylvania. As long as he has fun and he’s bonding with one of his siblings, he doesn’t mind.He suffers from slight social anxiety, but once he trusts someone, he’s super friendly. He loves history and his favorite activity is touring abandoned mines (he used to work in them, but America wasn’t too fond of that and child labor laws…) He has light red hair (a nod to his Scottish and Irish heritage) that’s light enough to pass as strawberry blonde in some lighting, and brown eyes. He actually shares these traits with Virginia (as a nod to the fact they used to be the same state), though Virginia’s color is closer to brunette, but he absolutely hates this. He strives to make himself stand out from Virginia so people don’t mistake them for twins (they’re not) and he hates her constant mothering of him. But still, he’s closest to Virginia.

Montana: What can I say about Montana? Well, for one, America is the only one allowed to call her by her human name; everyone else has to call her Montana (her human name’s a secret for now; some of her own siblings don’t even know it). She has brunette hair and violet eyes (same shade as Canada’s). She’s kind of Canada-like in that she’s nice and polite to everyone, but she’s not afraid to stand her ground. She’s hardened due to the weather and terrain, but she loves being outdoors under the big sky. She’s a rancher, one of the few states that keeps the tradition alive. She likes to hunt and fish. Overall, she’s just hardworking and dedicated. I need to do more research on her history.

Washington: Washington’s kind of a nerd, especially when it comes to tech and business. He usually always has his nose stuck in a book and a coffee in hand. But that’s not to say that he’s not willing to get his hands dirty. If he needs to, he’s capable of and more than willing to do hard, physical labor. He and Oregon have this rivalry going on — it’s slightly reminiscent of the Ohio-Michigan rivalry (and those two egg it on; Ohio backs Oregon and Michigan backs Washington). I was actually told by someone from Oregon that their relationship is kind of Ohio-Michigan and it also has something to do with land. He’s also extremely professional. He has icy blue eyes and black hair. Again, I need to do more research on Washington.

Really, I still have a lot of research to do, which is why most of what I’ve given you is very non-specific. I really don’t want to offend anyone, and with some states, you get into some very sensitive topics that can easily and justifiably upset someone when they’re applied incorrectly.

Sorry for taking so long to answer. I meant to finish this earlier in the week, but I got distracted with school work. If you have any suggestions that you’d like to see, please feel free to let me know.

#booklover answers #asks #anon #anonymus #The United States of Chaos #statalia #State OCs #aph California #aph Utah #aph Washington #aph West Virginia #aph Mississippi #aph Florida #aph Oklahoma #aph Nevada #OCs #My OCs

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