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superman86to99 · 4 months

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Adventures of Superman #513 (June 1994)

"THE BATTLE FOR METROPOLIS," Part 4! The Death of Project Cadmus! (Well, "death" in comic book terms.) After the events of last issue, in which a bunch of Cadmus-brand rockets exploded all around Metropolis, a royally pissed-off Superman heads to the formerly top secret government installation to register his displeasure with Director Westfield... only to find out that someone beat him to it, because Westfield has been murdered.

Since Cadmus' top dorks don't have much experience shouting orders at soldiers (the guy in charge of that just died), Superman steps in to fill that role while they try to figure out who killed Westfield and where his ear went.

Given that Cadmus' other, nerdier directors have spent days in a probably very stinky lab trying to come up with a cure for the Clone Plague ravaging Metropolis (and a small part of Hawaii), the main suspect for Westfield's murder is Dr. Carl Packard, a nervous little guy who tends to disappear for days. Also, he was just found wandering the hallways muttering about someone who "deserves death," so that doesn't look too good for him. Before Packard can explain himself (he was talking about his other evil boss, Lex Luthor), the whole murder mystery matter is shuffled aside when the nerds actually find the key to curing the Plague: the blood of one of the few clones who didn't get sick, the Guardian! Hope he's got a lot of it.

As it turns out, they need Packard to create that Guardian-fueled cure, so everyone agrees to forget about the fact that he's probably a murderer for a while. As soon as they let Packard near a computer, however, he uses the secret program in all LexCorp PCs that notifies Lex if someone types his name (yes, Lex was the original "searches himself on Twitter all day" billionaire) to send him a message telling him about the cure. Instead of letting Packard cook and then stealing the cure, the Plague-stricken and increasingly insane Lex orders his Lex-Men to invade Cadmus and kidnap the Guardian. To be fair, he does look like he's about 15 seconds away from shriveling up into a prune, so I get the urgency.

So, Superman and the few Cadmus soldiers in there (most are out fighting angry clones in Metropolis) have to defend the facility from an army of flying armored goons while the nerds try to work on the cure. Lex uses a hologram of himself when he still had hair to try to convince Superman that he should let Superboy, the Newboy Legion kids, and all those sewer clones die so that Lex himself can live ("Would you let Einstein die to save the Bowery Boys?"), but somehow he isn't dissuaded. Not only that, but Superman even calls Lex "contemptible"... and, uh, everyone else who uses a wig.

Lex must have really hated that crack about his baldness, because the next thing he does is order the Lex-Men to blow up Cadmus' reactor and kill everyone inside. If he can't have the cure, no one can. Superman looks a bit overwhelmed with the soon-to-explode reactor and the Lex-Men trying to stop him from containing it (so much so that he calls them "idiots," about the strongest insult you'll hear from this Superman), but then someone stops by to help him: patient zero of the Clone Plague cure...

...Superboy! Who could barely stand up the last time we saw him and is now flying and punching goons, so looks like that cure is working. Superman tells the Kid to take those goons outside while he tries to prevent the reactor from exploding, but as soon as Superboy makes it out, there's a huge explosion and the mountain surrounding Cadmus collapses. Superboy wants to start digging up the survivors, but Superman tells him not to bother: everyone is dead. And he'll make Luthor pay for this and all his other sins, once and for all... next week, in Action Comics #700!

TO BE CONCLUDED, obviously.

Plotline-Watch:

That's it for Project Cadmus, and everyone who worked in it, which will never appear ag-- ok, no one actually believes that. We'll see how they saved themselves and why Superman is pretending they died next issue. Note, however, that Superboy isn't pretending to believe that some of his best friends are buried under a mountain, so his chipperness in that final panel is disturbing.

As you've probably guessed if you've been paying attention, the one who stole Westfield's ear was the same maniac who killed him, disgraced geneticist Dabney Donovan. I don't remember if Dabney ever used Westfield's ear in one of his experiments, but even if he didn't, at least he got to use it for a couple of corny jokes.

Poor Dr. Happersen... he's trying to tell his boss he loves him and would never betray him, and Lex cuts him off and yells at him. Plus, in the same page Lex made it clear that he still isn't totally convinced Happersen isn't Lois Lane's informant, even thought it obviously isn't him. It's hard not to read that exchange with Smithers' and Mr. Burns' voices.

There's a nice little moment with the Guardian, originally a Captain America self-ripoff by Cap creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, saying he's okay with dying to make the cure because he's lived a very long life. Lines like that work better when it's a character who's actually been around since the '40s. I wouldn't have minded if he had died during this storyline -- they could always make another clone later on (and seeing him struggle to live up to his own legacy might have been interesting).

Patreon-Watch:

The latest Patreon-only post was about an Elseworlds story where Superman turns into a cursed spirit haunting a villain, one where he turns the X-Men into the JLA, and (briefly) one where Bizarro teams up with every other DC villain whose name ends in "O." Join Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, and Gaetano Barreca at the Superman '86 to '99 Patreon!

And now, more from Don Sparrow (whose newsletter you should be subscribed to, by the way)...

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We start with the cover, and it’s a pretty good one, with co-star Guardian in well-drawn technological peril, and I never tire of blasts bouncing off Superman.

Inside the book we are greeted with a poster (or at least sticker) worthy image of an on-edge Superman flying at the viewer, his Tarzan-like mane flowing in the wind.

Kitson’s art at this time is a bit strange to me—it might be the inker, or more likely it’s the era—the early 90s demanded everything be a bit more exxxxxxtreme and Jim-Lee-like in its rendering, but it mostly seems at odds with Kitson’s naturalistic drawing style. So you get weird in-between drawings, like on page 2 where Superman is yelling, but his mouth appears to barely be open (as opposed to page 5, when Dr. Packard shouts in surprise, and his mouth appears to be fully extended).

A page later Superman’s surprise (and perhaps grief?) at Westfield’s death is captured well.

On page 4, the fun really begins, as Kitson seems to really have a ball drawing the insane and Dr. Robotnik-like Dabney Donovan, and his comedic use of a stolen body part.

A small thing, but worth mentioning: Kitson and McCarthy absolutely kill it when it comes to reflective surfaces. Throughout the issue, the shiny glasses are on point. Great stuff there, particularly with the two-tone colouring of a Lex-Men soldier on page 16.

On page 10 we get our latest look at Lex Luthor, and it ain’t pretty. The little lines on his flesh make it seem so fragile and sickly.

The full page splash of Cadmus mountain imploding seems like a bit of a missed opportunity, as Superboy isn’t really facing the “camera” and the destruction is mostly dust. Finally, on page 21, the drawing of Superman’s righteous anger at Lex wreaking death and destruction is a great one.

In contrast to Superman #90, where I felt not a lot happened, this issue is chock full of activity, with a race against the clock to find a cure for the clone sickness, Lex-Men invaders, and a core meltdown, plus a little pop-in with Dabney AND a Superboy cameo—it’s a big one, and a nice hors d’oeuvres for the very BIG number coming next week.

SPEEDING BULLETS:

I think Dr. Packard should be played by Micro Machines Motormouth, John Moschitta Jr. It would certainly make his scientific explanations a lot funnier to imagine them being said at lightspeed.

Superboy makes a reference to a Nancy Kerrigan commercial, which was probably this one for Campbell’s Chicken noodle, where the otherwise waify and demure Ms. Kerrigan bodychecks a hockey player (the Campbell’s slogan, at the time, was “Never Underestimate the Power of Soup”, which is the line that gets cut off as Superboy speaks). [Max: Fun fact, in the Spanish version I read in the '90s, Superboy just says "I learned this from a TV ad." Guess they didn't have space for a footnote explaining who Nancy Kerrigan was...]

GODWATCH: Interesting that Big Words seems to be a believer, as Guardian bravely takes the experimental treatment, the man of science prays that Jim Harper has a “personal guardian”.

This is a pretty testosterone-driven issue—I can’t remember off-hand another issue that had not a single female appear in the story. [Max: There IS a female Cadmus trooper in page 1, but she doesn't speak, unless she's supposed to be yelling "SSSSHHOOOOOOM!" as Superman flies by... which I'd totally do.]

#superman #karl kesel #barry kitson #ray mccarthy #project cadmus #guardian #dubbilex #paul westfield #newsboy legion #superboy #dabney donovan #carl packard #westfield's ear #battle for metropolis #sydney happersen #superman hates bald people #SSSSHHOOOOOOM!

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utilitycaster · 1 year

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you're spot on, so much of the hysteria on twitter seems to be fueled by people with agendas - 3pp who'll have to pay royalties, youtubers looking for engagement, indie developers etc

heck, i saw one youtuber tweet "let's put cr on blast and make them comment on this" which is incredibly stupid. even if they wanted to comment on the ogl (which they're not obligated to), they'll at least wait until the official version is out and not comment on a leaked document

and the thing is, that document is almost a month old. odds are there's already been some revisions based on feedback and negotiations with the big publishers, who knows. no one has the whole picture and everyone's just wildly speculating and accusing

Right like...obviously CR has a close working relationship with WoTC, and, frankly, might even be affected since the Tal'Dorei guides are under the OGL, but also, does that youtuber remember when Critical Role put out a not-dissimilar copyright statement and people similarly lost their shit? Or how whenever CR plays a non-D&D game for a one-shot the indie crowd screams that they're doing it wrong (*cough* Monsterhearts)? It's just so obviously people who either already hate D&D and yet hang on to its every word waiting for reasons to tell people to switch, which I have never seen work and I've been in these online spaces for 4+ years now;

For what it's worth: I actually have rarely seen this kind of fuckery from indie developers though I'm sure it exists. It's usually just random fans (see again Monsterhearts; the creator said she thought Cinderbrush was great; it was fans of the game/haters of CR making all the noise).

Like, I make fun of indie games from time to time but actually, TAZ: Steeplechase has made me interested in checking out Blades in the Dark for a one-shot or something, which a lot of screeching idiots have repeatedly failed to do, because TAZ: Steeplechase is like "hey we are using this system and it's fun as hell for the story we're trying to do here!" instead of saying "D&D is evil and everyone will be leaving it now! just like we said when One D&D came out or when Hasbro said it wasn't profitable enough or when discussions in 2020 touched upon some of the racially charged language surrounding certain character races or or or...ANYWAY PLAY MY FAVORITE GAME."

Also I do want to note that I'm barely exaggerating about the alternatives people offer. I've seen some dude touting Rolemaster, which is literally out of print. Or like, after A Court of Fey and Flowers, someone brought up Good Society and seriously overstated how it was used in that game (it was significantly hacked, and also they were still very much playing D&D 90% of the time) and did not actually cover that if you want to cast spells, Good Society will not help you. It's just...I actually very much agree that we should encourage the use of alternatives to D&D! I think it's good to have a thriving independent game culture! It's just...why is everyone's response to shit on D&D, which is not perfect, but is immensely popular for many good reasons, instead of putting that effort into making their favorite indie game more accessible and appealing to new players. What kind of idiot says "the correct way to convince people to change is to tell them that the thing they love is dumb and bad, and offer an alternative without understanding what other people are looking for."

#answered #Anonymous

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thepacifistrouter · 2 months

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The Spark (Wheatley The Best PM fanfic)

Hello!

I've been reading everything I could about Wheatley the Best PM, a Waffles AU from years ago (twitters, one-shots, questions, wiki, etc.) and, although I found it fun and interesting… I felt like it was missing something …I mean, yes, in itself it is unfinished, but I mean that an element was missing, perhaps even that affected the fact of being able to continue moving forward with the idea, I don't know. After much thought, I came to the conclusion that the story lacked… hope, especially for our protagonist, that it seemed that the negative things around him were much bigger and heavier than the positive ones (too many flaws, no friends real, or at least real support, his cat was killed, his plant, current pet missing and his grandmother is presumed dead, etc), there didn't seem to be any solid reasons for anyone to want to help him personally, not even Chell I'm not talking about a possible Chelley, I'm talking about Chell showing real interest, initiative in, not even being his friend, but at least wanting to help him, knowing the difficult situation he is in, I know he has his reasons, but still. It's difficult to work on unfinished material, but… for some reason, I wanted to try it and… I think I finally came up with a… plausible idea to add hope for our favorite Prime Minister and his story.

I clarify that I'm not even half as good writer as Waffles… and I'm sure she won't read this… but… I don't know, I wanted to publish it, I hope you like it.

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They were a few thought weeks, really though weeks, 2 weeks to be precise, but not because of the cold and snow, nor because the work was particularly difficult (which technically, it wasn't), but because of her boss, the Prime Minister. The tallest and most idiotic Prime Minister the country could ever have, but it was only aware of the former. They were also not aware that the person in charge of the nation was, actually a being that was difficult to define as human, but who was the one who pulled the strings of everything under the shadows. She wasn't someone you wanted to be around, in fact, if it weren't for the Prime Minister having decided on her, she would never have taken that job on her behalf.

Curiously, until a few weeks before, her job had been up and down, but it was bearable, as was her boss. especially in the last week. When he regularly offered to take her home in the Sentinel, even though at first, she did not feel comfortable with that, it eventually became a pleasant time, but sadly, illusory and therefore, temporary.

After having to endure the wrath of Hurricane Caro, aka, his "best friend" all by himself, after having let her know his displeasure during that last Sentinel trip together, even though he tried to pretend nothing had happened the very next morning, things only got worse.

First, because the following days, from time to time, the Prime Minister was called to meet with Her, long and alone meetings, no one knew exactly what was being discussed there, but when they finished, it was clear that it couldn't be anything good. Especially because, due to the clear nerves he had when entering, he seems to had spilled coffee on his leg I none of them and, clumsily tried to hide it. And even without that, you could see a clear glow of satisfaction in Her eyes as She left, and something was changing in the Prime Minister's gaze and in his manners with others. At first was almost imperceptible, it was not very different from how he acted before, but this was just more... intense, less patient, more self-aware of his actions... in a bad way, he seemed to make more and more efforts to appear serious and imposing, trying to look more professional, which, for him, meant being more bossy, being more categorical when giving opinions or making decisions, etc. He didn't even post anything on his Twitter anymore.

Somehow, he managed to make this less noticeable by having public appearances, it was there, but it was still more like any other public appearance before those weeks, silly and lost. Still, Chell, being as sharp as she was, she saw it, she saw that it wasn't the same anymore.

She noticed how he corrected his posture much more often, looking for imperfections in his clothes, at some point he began to adjust his glasses every time it looked like he would say or do something, but he changed them at the last second for something else a little less like him; like being offered some biscuits, but in the last second, he ended up refusing them, saying that he would start a healthier diet soon and that it would be better to leave the biscuits to the children. Even once, on their way to an opening outside London, they spotted a circus in the distance, she could have bet she saw that spark of childish excitement in his eyes, only for him to, in the next breath, remark that he really liked them as a child, but now he had more interesting and important things to pay attention to.

Tension began to be felt in the No10 atmosphere, a tension that grew as the days passed, becoming palpable for anyone around, specially her.

She didn’t give a damn.

Maybe he was her boss, but she wasn't willing to let his stupid attitudes get to her, it already bothered her enough that she was affected by his tantrum at the Sentinel, no matter how sorry she was for him, no matter how much she could understand his situation, what happened was not her fault. It wasn't her fault that he wasn't able to open his eyes to his "best friend", it wasn't her fault that he was incapable of running his life, much less a nation, or that his will was so weak with what really mattered, he was not even able to ask for help other than some advice from time to time or for silly, irrelevant things or accidents he caused with his clumsiness. The only possible guilt she could really feel was not having done anything to try to change things or say something during the elections, perhaps that was the main reason, along with her own plans, why she had not tried to quit her job. He was not her responsibility out of what her work or her guts could demand, like saving his life of himself, which was still on her ‘not exactly something to be too proud of’ list of things.

It was true, after all, despite the time that had passed and there being something about him that could have made her consider to saving him as not a complete waste, from her point of view, that life was still a harmful and dangerous disaster, for himself and for the nation that, It is assumed that it was under his charge. Even taking his precious Caro out of the equation, who was the one who made him a danger to the general population, his position on her life and her mission doesn't change much... irrelevant, almost expendable. Remembering the times she saved him of problems that should only be problems for little kids and not for a ruler of an entire country, that he ignored obvious problems for him or blaming others for them because of his own insecurities and lack of self-steem, or when he began to become especially unbearable in the way he treated others, especially in the last week. She didn't hate him, he wasn't someone worth hating, but she wouldn't let someone so needy and annoying upset her, it was true that he had his more tractable moments where he can even feel friendly and kind, like someone to be nice with… but that was far too temporary, and still, again, even if it wasn’t… that didn't make him her responsibility… aside from her job. There were more important things to worry about, there was a whole nation full of people to worry about to. She couldn't, she didn't have to, she didn’t need to focus on his life problems.

The snow was beginning to fall in a foggy London, she was well dressed for the occasion, scarf, coat, gloves, etc. Luckily it was time to go home, she alone had to stop by to do a couple of purchases for herself. It wasn't her favourite activity, but it had to be done, and that same day she had to go shopping for clothes for her boss, who would say that buying a pair of packages of special-sized socks online was a mission of national importance.

At least she didn't have to deal with him anymore for today… or so she thought.

The streets were empty due to the hour, the snow and the fog, in the distance, at least from what could be seen, she saw some garbage containers, which told her that she was, more or less, halfway home. The containers were an expected sight for her, what she didn't expect was to see the lanky guy with glasses, overdressed in formal clothes - despite being outside of his working hours- standing in front of them, staring at them, as if he couldn't decide what would be his next step after getting there. She was about to cross the street, taking advantage of the fact that he hadn't seen her, so she could continue without having to go through an awkward encounter with her boss, but something protruding from the box he was carrying caught her attention. From the distance, it looked like just a piece of fabric, but she realized that it was a sleeve, a sleeve of a huge sweater that she had seen before, its size and its owner made it difficult to forget, after all.

She doesn't know what prompted her to move a little closer to be sure if she was seeing wrong instead of following her original plan to cross the street and quicken her pace. She regretted not doing so the second he became aware of her presence, although her reaction was a bit...unexpected?

“… Oh, hello… Michelle” He barely turns his head to look at her for a second and immediately return to the initial position. “You can continue your way, I just… took advantage of the hour… you know, lack of public hour… to get rid of… some trash I had at home, you know, free up some space… A-and I would ask someone else to do it! but… Well, it would’ve been like letting someone snoop though the Prime Minister’s garbage, that’d bee totally weird and controversial, right? Embarrassing paper news material…. No, it was best to do it myself, after all… it’s close to me…”. He adjusts his glasses “I-I mean, close to my home, not me, pfff! is just garbage, how could possibly be that close to me? Is close to my home, like… in the way home, that’s what I meant to say…”

What, this?" It's from my nan. She used to knit me jumpers for school, but she always had to make 'em bloody huge or I'd grow out of it in five minutes flat.

Chell notice how, while he was talking, something was missing in his look, something that had been there before, but seemed to be dismissing over time. She looked at the box, there were many things, some familiar to her, others not, a huge blue sweater, stratospheric blue like the eyes of its owner, long and colourful socks, with almost psychedelic and childlike patterns, one of them with what it seems to be a large coffee stain, she even though she saw a hair clip with a little frog, in a corner.

Something was wrong.

The Prime Minister noticed Chell's gaze towards the box. “Oi, oi!! it's private!! didn't your parents teach you to not look at other people's trash!?... and... and anyway, now that you did, which again, super rude, but since what's done is done, a little saying there, I guess you're wondering about the sweater, after all, you'd already seen it and it's hard not to notice it because the size and the loud colour and that… well, the thing’s that... after thinking about it well, I considered that, honestly, I didn't need it anymore… sentimental value is for people who can't afford actual value, after all, I mean, I'm the Prime Minister! I can buy a much better sweater, more suitable! This one is 2 bloody sizes too big for me! I looked ridiculous wearing it, didn't I? Heheheh... yeah, luckily no one else saw me with that... to be honest... it-it was about time to get rid of it… and-and I don't think my nan would mind, really, after all, she is... is…" He adjusts his glasses "Well, you already have your answer, don’t you? It's getting cold. I'll just... I'm trying to think if I forgot something to throw or if I get rid of something important by mistake, that's all, human mistake could happen even to me, so… you can continue your way home, like I said, nothing important happens here..."

Chell couldn't imagine why he would be taking this decision; it was clearly taking him a while to let go of that box. She was almost certain that he would never let Caro or anyone at No10 know of the existence of any of the things in the box, why would he be getting rid of them, then? The only plausible answer that her mind pictures was Her and their meetings those weeks.

Even though Chell was good at solving puzzles and unknowns, she enjoyed it to a certain extent, at that moment she didn't have much desire or energy to think further about it, it's not like the Prime Minister's clothes or trash were her business and, besides, he didn't seem in the best of moods at that moment; She noticed that ‘something’ that was missing again, that kind of spark that seemed to have been replaced by the small glint in his glasses reflected every time she adjusted them. His stare was almost dead.

She decided that she no longer wanted to be there, so she was about to return to her path, when they both heard something move and squeak that came from the container, they focused their sight on the place where the sound came from. It was a well tied plastic bag, in the middle of several bigger bags and some empty cans.

Chell didn't have much time to think about it when the Prime Minister spoke “Oh... that must be, without a doubt, a cat that someone threw in the trash, I know about this, remember I told you my father loves cats? Yeah, I told you that time when... nevermind, nevermind, thing is he used to pick up cats on his way home sometimes, and he would talk to us about what were the most common places, you know, the most repeated methods to get rid of a cat, he mentioned the use of tied bags in rivers, slopes, gutters, garbage cans, etc. So, I'm sure, 100% accuracy, that there is a cat in that bag" he says in an almost pretentious tone, Chell already saw that she’d have to take him out of the trash for trying to pick up the bag from where he is, instead of turning around to approach it, like someone who thinks before acting would do, but...

He adjusted his glasses "... Oh well... it's better… i-it’s better to finish this and go home, I was told that the snow should not take long to increase..." then, he proceeds to, slowly, place the box in the container, away from the moving bag, pretending he no longer saw it; they could even hear moans and squeaks from time to time.

Something was definitely wrong.

Chell couldn’t help but stare at him, he noticed it, then she looks at the bag “…What? The bag?... is… is just…“ He adjust his glasses “is just a stupid cat, isn’t it? W-What others do with their stuff is none of my business…”

She kept looking at him, he seemed to be, or trying to be, serious and she didn't see any intention in him of wanting to go for the bag, so she wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but she decided to, at least, say something.

“How about a shelter?”

“Heh, nah, at this time? in this weather? The closest one would take too long to get here and I'm not going to waste my time on foot, much less picking up other people's trash and you shouldn't either… again, it's getting late...”

The bag moves again, but he turns to leave. She decides to try again.

“So... are you just going to leave it there?”

He stops, but at first he doesn't turn around. He adjusted his glasses and she could see a bit of the reflection of the light from the street spotlight in them.

“...Is funny, you know? Because I thought...I thought I was being clear about this...but okay, okay I'll take the time to be clearer anyway...so yeah...I'm going to leave it there...whatever happens to that bag... or that cat or whatever... it's not my problem... I have more important Prime Minister things to think about than… than a useless cat... be-besides, there must be a reason why they left it in garbage like that, shouldn’t it?" he turns to look at her "there must be a good reason, a very good reason why someone decided to get rid of their cat like that, probably several reasons... so why would I…"

“Such as?” She interrupts, maintaining her usual serious, cold, and calm tone and countenance, yet, somehow, there was a small hint of challenge in the way she asked it. It was involuntary, or that's what she wanted to believe.

“Such as? Well, that’s easy, actually, a really easy answer, to be honest, there are a lot of possible reasons… for-for example, and this is just the first things that comes to my mind, being very noisy, cats can be quite noisy, really, especially at night, have you ever heard a cat fight? Well, let me tell you, it is very noisy, or could just be one of those who do not stop meowing…. Anyway, other option here, It-it could also be one of those that spends its time scratching or biting things everywhere, like clothes, armchairs, curtains or walls, whatever, that's typical of cats, be destructive, small earthquakes, to be honest… you don't want that in your house... and... well, if I had to name something else, some other good reason that occurs to me, well... well it's still easy" he adjusts his glasses "it could… it could simply be a useless cat...like… like a cat too stupid to fulfil the main role of a cat, the traditional mouse catcher, be the pest controller… yeah… yeah, in fact I think it is the most plausible reason, because it would undoubtedly involve the other 2 reasons I already said, and… and not to also mention the waste of money, space and food!" He turns to look at the bag while saying this, with a look that seemed to have begun to bother with its contents, but even so, it almost seemed empty "Yes, without a doubt that must have been it, a useless cat that only got in the way and caused annoyance... I mean-I mean, just look at it! It's not even able to use the claws nature gave it to try to escape, it’s just a plastic bag! Even so, the moron is not capable of trying to use them to escape on its own" he looked with what seemed almost a look of hatred at the bag, which was moving and emitting squeaks less and less, as if it were getting tired “No, I have no reason worry about such a thing…”

Chell was struck by the hatred that began to appear in his voice and in his eyes, for something that was nothing more than a speculation, he was just assuming all those things... or perhaps more than that… but she didn't back down in this game because of it, although, at this point, she wasn't sure why.

"Even if it were like that… it's just a cat…”

“Yeah, you said it, just a cat” he interrupts “It's just a cat, the country… no, not even the country, we can reduce the population ratio for this, actually, let’s better say the city where we are right now, London, I meant London, is full of other cats, many in houses where they are wanted, many strays that have managed to survive on their own; in short, cats that have earned their place in this life on their own, that they have been useful for their purpose or the one that their owners gave them... this is not one of them... I don't see why... should we spend efforts on a hopeless case like this… it doesn’t deserve… is just not worth it... to be honest”.

It seemed like he was going to return to his path but noticing how the young woman continued to stare at him, he seemed to take that as an incentive to continue. He adjusts his glasses.

“Besides, even if I considered... which I'm not considering! Just to make that perfectly clear, I'm not considering anything! but... but if I did, I couldn't, like I said, I'm sure I mentioned it, I have more important things to worry about… like, vital nation things to take care of, important Prime Minister business, decisions to take… as you might already know, I couldn't take care of it, I don't have time to laze round, taking care of another cat that can't even catch mice… no, to be honest, it would… it would, without a doubt, be a waste of time for both of us…”

This time, he turned to look at her, that look that seemed dead, but now also showed a small hint of... irony? “And you... you are also here after all, don't think that I’m not considering you in the scheme of things, but-but I know that you would not take it either! I remember it well from those times, that big red sign of 'NO PETS ALLOWED’ in front of the building door, so no, hehe, you couldn't take it even if you wanted to, right? See? even for you it would be just troubles... because... be-because... let's say that for some reason, you decide to take it anyway, thinking that you could... I don't know, just hide it from the management, but ‘eeeh!’ bad news, and I think you can guess it too, you couldn't! You just couldn't hide it for long, plus it wouldn't be worth it!" A smile appears on his face, a smile she didn't like at all. "Like I said, cats, especially idiot cats like this, can be very loud... and you... you spend most of your day at work, how would you try to hide it while you're away?! A-and let's not mention everything you would have to teach it! to use the sand box, also difficult to hide, not to scratch things or bite them, not to throw things off the table... even though... even though he may be a sweet, innocent... happy... with that tender little face that welcomes you home every day..."

For a second, for that small moment when he said that and his voice seemed to even soften, she thought she saw that familiar silly, happy glint in his eyes, but as soon as it came, it was gone. He adjusted his glasses.

"It's just not worth it!! It's not bloody worth it! honestly, because the truth… the truth is that it would only cause problems!... Plus, it could have rabies or ringworm or something worse…” The snow begins to increase “No... it's not worth to even trying to help... to be honest..."

He turns to look at the bag again, this time with a rather tired tone, perhaps because of everything he said, perhaps because of the weather... or perhaps because of something else.

"Yeah... at this point, probably... the best we can do for it... for all the trouble it would entail... for being too weak, too idiotic to help himself... for be too useless to others... the best thing for everyone would be... not to help him at all...” Suddenly his voice lowered all its volume and the energy with which he spoke a few seconds ago, even sounded a little sad. The plastic bag hardly moved anymore. “No one would gain anything by helping him... but at the same time... no one would lose anything by not helping... leave it there and let destiny takes care of its misery... it's for the best..."

A short dead silence, you could almost hear the snow falling. He finally turns away and continues his way.

"I'm going home...see you...see you tomorrow at work...good night."

He walks with an almost robotic firmness, but determined, no longer wanting to wait. She watches him leave, then looks at the bag and decides to return to her own path at a fast pace, in the opposite direction, the way home, thinking about everything that just happened.

Although she was surprised by the coldness of the Prime Minister's words and movements that night, so unlike him and at the same time so typical of his way of carrying things out, but still. It's not that his life decisions were any of her business, it just caught her attention.

It was strange to say or think this about her boss, but he had a point. The nearest shelter would never arrive on time, especially not at that hour and weather. He, much to her surprise, really didn't seem to have a choice to do anything about it. It was true that she had no solid reason to think that the cat was everything he said it was, but she herself, at that moment, had nowhere to take the cat, it would be a problem for her to take it to her apartment due to the lack of space and the strict policy; she didn’t even know anyone else who could or would be willing to care for the cat, at least until it could be get to a shelter.

The snow and cold increased, as did her pace, she really had no good reason to go through so much trouble to help a being who couldn't help but give it, even if it was unintentional.

It'll probably die soon in this weather and no help... probably tonight she thought, without slowing her pace, feeling bad for no having someone to turn to to help the poor creature.

(…)Look at him, why would anyone not want a perfectly good little cat like that? (…)

Things like that made her doubt that she had any hope in him, that he could actually be more than just the lesser of two evils, watching how he was doing less and less of his part to believe it, to make her believe that he was worthy of any help... In the end it would just be a nuisance

(…) No. She’s never going to let me have a funeral for a bloody cat. ’Specially one that kept going out of his way to sick up on her handbag. I mean, I stuck up for him, I said it was just an unfortunate mistake- a- series of unfortunate mistakes (…)

Anyway, the important thing at that moment was to get home early, it was getting dark and cold.

She had plans to follow, people, an entire population to help, unlike what the Prime Minister believed he did. In her eyes, more than cruel, he was also being a great hypocrite, she knew that he did not take real actions for his people and, even if he did, she also knew that helping a helpless animal did not actually harm or affect to those people at all. It wasn't an attitude that completely surprised her coming from him, knowing that he wasn't capable of noticing how little or nothing he actually did right, of ignoring or blaming others, including things, for what goes wrong. He didn't do anything when he should and when he had a real opportunity to do something other than what his "best friend" told him, to really help with something - like now - he just made excuses not to do it...

(…)But- but sh-she- just said that- snfff- that at least that was one less thh… thing to laze round all day get-getting uh-uh-underfoot. Joking, obviously, just- just how she talks(…)

She had no real reasons, which for her was the same as saying, no practical reasons, for spending time or efforts on...thinking about helping...someone like that...

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Her step was quick and determined, just like her. She hoped she would be able to arrive in time, she was almost at the door of her apartment building when she decided to turn back, the probability that it would be too late was there, but she had never liked the idea of giving up when she set a goal, for however low the chances of success were, if they weren't 0, then it could happen, she would make it happen.

This mentality had always been a part of her, always, she didn't have an easy life, she just never let it stop her from moving forward, always being efficient, always with her eyes on her goal no matter what, no matter how difficult it could be, always looking for the best and most efficient solution possible in her hand, always seeking to remove any possible obstacle from her path or at least not let it disturb or interrupt her too much; After all, no matter how pessimistic - although she preferred to say 'realistic' - she might be, as she was taught to always guided by what she considered to be the right thing to do, she never let adversity get in the way of her principles.

Always seeking the greater good, always evaluating and classifying each cause and those involved in silence, drawing a line of action, based on the value and danger of each one for the cause, always seeking to go unnoticed, determined not to suffer any more inconvenience than the necessary - that is, those planned - as far as possible. If an unexpected problem arose, she would adapt, she was good at adapting to different situations, she knew how unpredictable and unfair life could be, she had internalized that… so internalized... that sometimes she forgot... the weight of other things of value in this life besides usefulness or practicality, even talking about such high and important roles in this society, such as being Prime Minister...

Sometimes she forgot that, as valuable and important her mission was, there were little things that worth fighting for, no matter how irrelevant or useless they seemed in other ways, even if they were a nuisance, even if they might be perceived as a waste of time... maybe they weren't so much, after all, it was those little details that had kept her from completely losing faith in people.... maybe...just maybe

She finally made it back to where the containers were, she didn't waste much time recovering breath and look, immediately, in the direction where the bag was, found what she was looking for, but not exactly in the way she expected.

Maybe there was still a little hope.

The bag was now untied and inside the box with the Prime Minister's things, half stuffed under the stratospheric blue sweater. She could also notice how the bag moved, how a feline nose peeked out, weakly, from the opening. The little one was still fighting, despite everything.

Chell looks around for a second in case she managed to see someone. There was no one. What she did see were large footprints on the ground, striding footprints of someone who came and left in a hurry. She couldn't help but feel a small wave of relief and gave a slight grin, but it was quick, after all, there wasn't much time to waste.

------------------------------------------------------------------

She entered her small apartment, she was covered in a thin layer of snow, but it didn't matter. She carefully closed the door with her foot, and then went straight to her bed to leave the bulky bags with her purchases on her bed. She went to turn on a small heater that she had for days like this, while she shook off the snow and took off gloves and scarf. He went back to the bags and took out the box that was inside one of them. She removed the bulky sweater inside her a little to reveal the weak, thin cat beneath it, just enough to uncover his familiar orange head, then set it down near the heater.

The world was really very small, very small - she never thought that the cat in the container would be the missing little Kevin. She was sure that his mysterious disappearance meant he had died, probably because of Caro. She wasn't that far from the truth, but it was still quite a surprise, it would have been a pleasant surprise if it weren't for the implications of it.

The bag in which they found the small cat was not just any type of bag, it was for medical waste, and there were 2 of them (one inside the other), she noticed this after taking the small animal out of it, this not only implied that it was left there with the intention that he could not get out even if he tried, he would not be able to get out, but expecting for it to try - and she could see that he did try - but in addition, she noticed other details, such as that one of his hind legs had marks, as if someone had been had him tied up for a while. She also found very similar markings on the tip of his tail, which she was sure looked a little shorter. He seemed scared when she opened the bag wide to take it out, but luckily, after a quick smell, he seemed to have recognized her and didn't give her any major trouble.

The Prime Minister had many flaws, he was and could be many negative things, but she knew him well enough to know that he would never be so cruel, even leaving out the worst details. No, she knew, she was more than sure who had been the guilty even though she had no proof. After all, She loved to play with Her prey, slowly exhausting them, testing how far they could last until She got bored and then getting rid of them, abandoned to their fate, no longer having the tools or energy to fight back or at least, to move forward. Animal or human.

Chell used a small empty tupperware to give him water. She was sure that she had some grilled chicken that she had left over from the other day that would work for the occasion. The little feline, having already overcome the cold a little, thanks to the sweater and the heater, manages to drink. He was no kind of mouser, much less a Chief Mouser material... but even so, he seemed to refuse to let go his tinny little, he refused to give up, without thinking about it, without anyone asking him, he just did...

She knew that when he regained his strength, it would be harder to keep it hidden with everything he had to do, it would, definitely be a problem and a hassle, but something would occur to her, she had faced bigger problems and even the idiot who caused the most recent problems was able to deal with this for a while. She would figure it out, she will just have to be creative. With the cat... and with the idiot.

After all - despite everything, the adversity, the wear and tear, his own limitations - mental or physical -, despite having to deal DIRECTLY with HER, even seeming like all is lost in his most recent attitude... Even so, he shows a small spark of hope, involuntary, but existing… in his attitude, even in his look, the spark was weak… bit was still there.

She simply couldn't leave him on his own like this, knowing that there was something good to rescue, from her point of view, it was stupid to think that he didn't deserve her effort and her help to get out of the hole he was in, to be better, alone. she needed to think of a way to approach things that would work under the current circumstances, there had to be a way, there always was and she would find it. She knew that it would be difficult and that it would involve going through more than one disappointment and inconvenience... but she had to try...

Yes, it was stupid to think that, just because we had a larger cause on our hands, there was no value in also trying to deal with a small cause... especially if it was directly linked to the larger cause...

As stupid as thinking that you need a stupid, weak, squeaky cat to give you a solid, logical reason for you to take it out of the garbage in the middle of the snow.

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Aaand that was it, I know I'm like 10 years later, but if you read this... thanks you

hope you liked it or at least you found it good enough

thepacifistrouter out

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purrvaire · 11 months

Text

From the chapter:

“Hang on”, she says slowly. Luke looks guilty as charged.

“You mean to tell me, that neither of you buffoons has remotely thought to do the reasonable thing and ask his number?”

“What’s that got to do with me?” Han protests. Luke just bangs his head on the table. “Because”, he hears his sister say. “My idiot brother doesn’t know how to think clearly in these situations. Have you met him, Han? Have you?”

“When you put it like that…”

“Not even his Facebook?” Leia insists.

“Does anyone still use Facebook under the age of 50? Don’t answer that”, Luke says hastily. “And, what do you take me for? Obviously I’ve already looked for him and found nothing.” “Instagram?” “No luck.” “Twitter?” “Doesn’t seem like the type.” “Well, shit”, Leia says.

part 2 is up, sillier than ever and THIS TIME featuring the skywalker family shenanigans at full force!!

#lidia writes (sometimes)#dinluke #din djarin x luke skywalker #luke skywalker #din djarin #the mandalorian #star wars #honestly this is even sillier than part 1 #but what's the point in writing if not to be silly on main?#i just want them to be happy and in love idc #ALSO FESTURING #more han being my favorit comic relief #leia being the most badass to ever exist on either side of the galaxy #obianidala being the silliest most supportive parents ever #luke and din are still two morons but that's a given #if you like it let me know i crave approval #dinluke fanfiction

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batsarebetterthanpeople · 2 years

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Because I’m seeing on my twitter some people talking about Izzy Hands wrong I’m just going to make my post about it. I have never made a post that is specifically on the race issue surrounding this particular character, just because I feel that there are black and indigenous people on this website and others saying it better than I can, but I feel like white people are getting a little defensive, so I’m going to make my take clear. I don’t know whether Izzy the character is racist or not. The jury is still out for me. He does work professionally with a lot of people of color (Spanish Jackie, Fang, Ivan, and Ed to be specific) and the indigenous tribe from episode 2 seem comfortable trading with him. However there are some scenes that objectively don’t look good for him. Those scenes being the ones in episode 9 where he’s in charge and he forces the three black members of Stede’s crew to do the most labor intensive task and the fact that he chose Black Pete (Stede’s crew, less qualified, white) over Fang or Ivan (Ed’s crew and therefore “real pirates”, more qualified, Samoan and Black respectively) for the position of first mate. And then of course there's his whole thing with needing Ed to be violent. There could be exonerating context to all of this (apparently there’s a deleted scene where Black Pete fucked his way to the top, which is a king move) But I’m squinting.

All of that being said, whether Izzy’s racist or not isn’t actually what I’m here to talk about, it’s just context I need to make this statement. Just because I’m not fully sold on Izzy being racist doesn’t mean that I don’t see where people are coming from with that take. You will never in a million years catch me dead telling a black or brown person that they’re crazy for reading race into a scene where a white man forces three black men to do physically intensive manual labor while another white guy (who is established to be bigger and stronger than those men) sits behind them doing a much easier task. You will never catch me dead telling a brown person that they’re taking it too seriously when they see a man who looks like Con O’neill telling a man who looks like Taika Waititi that he can never be anything more than a violent savage pirate and questioning his sanity. I understand the impulse to get defensive when accusations of racism are thrown out because you associate the word racism with historical atrocity that you don’t want yourself or people you care about or even your favorite blorbo to be associated with that, but when your defensiveness leads you to gaslight people of color about frankly valid interpretations of what they are seeing that’s when I stop being sympathetic.

So basically. I don’t think liking Izzy makes you racist, I don’t even think engaging in polite discourse about him makes you racist. But if you can’t see how talking down to people of color about this is racist you need to take several seats, and treating everyone who says “Izzy is racist because-” like their idiots is in fact a racist action.

#tw racism #izzy critical

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bumble66 · 5 months

Note

Corporate PR and Social Media Manager here. I suggest anyone who still has any hope for CE to stay clear of social media this month. You will be further disappointed and disgusted. The goal is to demolish doubt. Those in charge are unscrupulous and there is a lot of money at stake here. Many of you have been right, this is a PR stunt but they will continue to push the limits to convince you otherwise.///

@acircleofstars if this anon is accurate then……Welp, they are wasting their money, time and resources. Good luck to them. 😂 idiots.

It would be one thing if this was on Travis and Taylor level but no one cares anymore let alone ever did about her. The focus was ALWAYS on Chris and now that has been tainted, so whatever bs they try now is just a laugh for most and proves how this is PR and how pathetic this shitshow truly is.

Well, they haven't seen my unscrupulous yet. I expect a pregnancy announcement and then a "miscarriage". Similar on how they did it with Chrissy Teigen and John Legend, how she later claimed it was actually an abortion. I wouldn't be surprised if she only released these sad black and white photos of the miscarriage/abortion because her p*do joke tweets came up again? Option 2: they will actually produce a child. It helped John Legend dispel the gay rumors (I guess? Not for me though...). Option 3: maybe they will say it was a just a pregnancy rumor because Chris' PR wife said in a warrior nun interview from 2020, which can still be seen on her twitter/X, that she liked the movie Juno but not the pregnancy part. Of course people can change their mind but when I look at this idiotic relationship, her behavior and the timeline that doesn't add up, how she was apparently a beard for Lucas Bravo and Justin Amorim before. I don't think Chris and her are serious enough in any way for children (real or not). They both lose followers. This would be the final nail in the coffin for Chris.

#Chris Evans #PR #chrissy teigen #Lavender Marriages

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snugglyporos · 10 months

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@poisonflowrs [[It's even funnier to me that even the people who pay for it are limited. It's a large limit, but for someone whose job is directly related to twitter (or someone who just likes to scroll all day) this is still going to cause problems. One would think that their paid users of all people should be exempt from the limit, but no.]]

// see, here's what gets me.

I've been on Tumblr for ever. I was on tumblr back before it had an actively page, and we rped by tracking posts on the post page and looking in the notes.

I've seen owners come and go. I was here when it was sold to yahoo, and then verizon, and now the guys who own wordpress.

And through it all, I have seen a lot of incompetence. I mean, we call this a hellsite, because lots of things are poorly implemented and aren't really well put together.

But at no point have any of the owners of tumblr been actively malicious towards their own users.

Even the porn ban, which was poorly implemented and barely functional, was only brought on because tumblr got kicked off the app stores, so it was an 'in case of emergency break glass' moment.

But twitter is actively malicious towards its users. It hates them. It actively thinks they're idiots for using it, and increasingly punishes you for doing so. Its owner actively hates the people who pay for it.

I've been here a long time, as I said. And tumblr's various owners have usually ranged from dispassionate to incompetent; even Verizon didn't really care about the site beyond having it. They only cared briefly when it got thrown off the app store, and once that died down it went back to ignoring it.

At best, the various owners have believed, perhaps rightly perhaps wrongly, that the only way to really manage this site is benevolent neglect. As long as you're not running a crime ring or posting hardcore porn, they don't care. They understand that their bread and butter are weirdos like us. That's the niche.

Twitter, by contrast, seems to actively believe that its users should be directly subsidizing the site, which is sorta the opposite of how a content create model works. There's a reason why youtube doesn't charge you to post videos.

It's kind of wild, really. They're going to be studying this idiocy in business classes for decades.

If you had put a gun to my head and said 'come up with the worst business decisions' I could not have imagined this.

#ooc

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slow-button-off · 2 years

Note

As an Italian, from what I understand, this strategy team situation is very... Italian lol

It's a very Italian thing where the mentor doesn't really do the job anymore, was actually promoted to a better position, but keeps getting credit for the successes... or blamed for the failures.

So it's not all bad.

LinkedIn keeps saying Rueda is head strategist, but articles from last year are very clear that he transitioned into his role as Sporting Director in 2021. There's simply not much talk of it internationally because Ferrari has tried to keep things hush. If it weren't for the commentators, I don't think fans would have found out anytime soon.

I think the plan was for Rueda to keep his role as "head strategist" even though it's not real until the start of the 2023 season, maybe even beyond. Who knows if the plan has changed now.

The thing that worries me is that Jain is not NEW. He's been working as a strategist for Ferrari for at least 6 years. And started in his new role at the beginning of last season.

There's an Italian article written before las year's season began titled "Ravin Jain takes Inaki Rueda's place as head strategist" and the article says it will be definitive in Baku 2021.

So yeah, none of this is NEW, most of us just missed it because Ferrari has kept quiet about it. Unless you are an F1 superfan that looks for info even off season, you couldn't have know.

From what I could find, articles about Jain in English focus on 2022. Only Italian articles talk about this shift of power that happened in 2021.

English articles still call Jain "race strategist" while Italian articles last year called him "the new guru of strategy"/"the new head of strategy".

I don't know how, but Ferrari managed to keep this under the radar internationally until now.

Hiya!

I'm tacking a second ask about the same thing onto here

According to some Italian articles that I read last year (I'm Italian), the new head strategist isn't that new. He's been a strategist at Ferrari since 2016 or so, and debuted at the pit wall last year, in Baku 2021, the 6th race of the season. Mekies officially became race director in the same race. Rueda became sporting director last year as well, because of "new guy's" role (idk if I should use his name or not, rn I don't see any hate directly thrown at him on here, but on Twitter it's bad, so maybe it's better to keep him anonymous? Idk). For a while Rueda was still responsible for strategies the same way Binotto is responsible for the team aka not doing everything himself directly, and it was actually new guy making them. And now I'm thinking about some very strange choices he made for Leclerc last year...

So it's not like he made a mistake in Monaco 2022 out of pressure because it was a new role. It's actually very concerning that he got Monaco of all races so wrong, because usually the starting order is also the finishing order since overtaking is so tough there. You have to screw up real bad to mess that race up. To me that's still worse than Silverstone and Hungaroring.

This is my take on the whole thing:

Honestly it's not at all surprising that he has been with the team for a while because you don't just get this job with no experience. And we'd have heard about it if they had poached someone with experience from another team. I don't that is something to hold against him or the team. That is how you learn and work your way up legit anywhere.

The thing of having the person previously in charge still hold the title and mentoring the person new to that position also makes a lot of sense to me. Regardless of how qualified you are for any positions it will always take a little while to learn the ins and outs and having someone to mentor and ask is always a good thing.

Also in this case it's probably extra good because he is shielded from at least some abuse and lbr if everyone knew that it was him (he is probably already facing it) he'd be facing an awful lot of racism. Because racist idiot as sadly everywhere.

Yes he has been with the team for a while. But that doesn't have to mean all that much. Strategy decisions are a collaborative discussion effort but usually one person makes the decision in the end. And I would be massively surprised if there were not a single person in that team ever questioning any strategy decision. There are surely some that have the right idea. Maybe it's not the same people all the time but it's not like they are sat together one person says something and the rest just agrees. That's never how any of these things work. So that might as well have been him previously. We don't know.

So he started to make the decisions some time in 2021. Which tbh to me is a good sign because I can't remember any disastrous strategies form 2021. They did try things but it wasn't this bad. And that's not all just down to everything carrying more weight this season. Maybe I just have selective memory about last year but I can't remember anything and that twitter thread also didn't have anything for 2021. if I forgot about something then please let me know! About 2021 we have to keep in mind that you have to try and be creative when you want to get onto the podium in that car. And their best shot at that was Charles so they did it with Charles and the man almost won a race and probably would've had the engine not been weird. Carlos got the standard strat just to get some sure points whereas with Charles they were trying things. And sometimes it doesn't work out. But imo that's not what cost him last year that was the bowling, and Monaco and those things.

And it's not like everything this season was wrong either. Bahrain was good, Saudi was great with the dummy call, there wasn't much to do in Australia, Imola they tyres didn't work properly and there were deg issues but that's not a strategy thing, Miami the same, Spain was fine, Baku was also fine at least they tried something and were proactive but we don't know how that would've played out. Austria was also great! Everyone thought that they had fucked it but they realised their tyre deg was great and that Charles would have an easy time getting past Max with the tyre delta.

Monaco was stupid but wet to dry is always carnage. I don't have the timings in my head, but they definitely wanted to cover Checo with Carlos (who originally didn't want to then did agree to pit) by the time he was supposed to pit Checo had already kinda undercut him. So that didn't work anymore and they decided to cover with Charles. Which was so stupid because they did it so late! But he almost made it work until the double stack fully cost him the entire thing. And the double stack was miscommunication at it's finest. Monaco to me feels like they wanted to prioritise the team result and then got so scared by RB trying things that they fucked it a bit and then the double stack was the end.

Silverstone pretty much proved that there is something wrong with their tyre simulation if they really thought that the softs would die so quickly. They had enough time to decide but not that much to think about it and they aren't particularly quick at making decisions this year. Splitting the strategy to keep track position also is a thought that I can understand just for the case that Hamilton doesn't pit. However, had he not pit Charles on softs would've cruised past. The more I think about Silverstone the more I am convinced that their tyre simulation is absolute garbage. They should've let Charles past earlier put it was Carlos first Pole and he was on for his first win so I get the reluctance a little bit.

Hungary, I don't even know where to start tbh. Quali already proved that their car wasn't setup for these temps. And therefore Binotto is kinda right they didn't have the pace they had on Friday but they were still the fastest. Starting them both on meds was dumb. They should've split strategy. Having Carlos go long to go on softs after his short first stint where he killed his tyres was also dumb. They could've used him to cover Max and if they really felt the need to cover Max they should've used him just because of his tyre age! And again when you pit Charles so early the hards were the only option. And their tyre sim still sucks.

They seem so scared to try things with Charles that they use him to react to every little threat and it end up fucking it for him anyway. They also need to realise that they have to cars and that you can use Carlos to cover Max even if in the race it's Max vs Charles and vice versa. And that they don't have to react to everything.

They did really well in the beginning of the season and I really think that using Charles in Monaco to cover Checo is making them second guess everything right now. Because they didn't react quickly enough with Carlos to cover Checo that they had to do it with Charles if they wanted to. And now they cover immediately (it's just still wrong) if they don't have a huge pace or deg advantage.

The other thing that they need to realise is that Charles (I don't listen much to Carlos radio there are only so many hours in the day) really does know what he talks about when he is talking about tyres. He's gotten really good at managing them. And Sara _allthatglitz on Twitter had a tweet about how anytime Charles was unhappy with the tyres in FP he struggled in Quali (more than Carlos) and then the tyres were absolute shit for both in the race. Which also happened in Hungary. They need to listen to their drivers more and not be so scared of RB all the time. (tbf to Ferrari Merc also seriously fucked up some strats because they were scared of RB)

Anyway, what I am trying to say is that I get Mattia saying that there are no personnel changes needed over the summer. Because it does sound like growing pains to me. And just sacking someone after 1.5 years (or whatever it is) in the job where things largely were going great is imo not right.

And him having been with the team before isn't a bad thing. You're not promoting a new person to that position unless they've had extensive experience in that position elsewhere, or you've had them for a while and feel confident in their skills.

Sorry for the long rant but I had thoughts to get out. I don't even know if this makes sense and I am not going to read it back rn... Don't have the time

#📨

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yobaba30 · 1 year

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Manly, War-Winning Non-Loser Vladimir Putin Kidnapping American Journalists Now

We guess Russia was feeling weak and puny with its back stuck up against a wall, because it's taken a journalist from a real country hostage.

Russia's FSB has detainedWall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, from the paper's Moscow bureau, on what we assume are entirely fictional imaginary espionage charges. The world might be more inclined to take Russia's statements seriously if it were a real country that didn't stifle all dissent, murder (often literally) the free press, and wasn't currently engaged in a genocidal war it started for no other reason but to make the masturbatory fever dreams of its increasingly frail leader come true. Hell, it banned telling the truth about how poorly that war is going. Also, just in general, Russia is a huge fucking liar trusted by no one who isn't an easily flattered idiot and/or traitor.

This is reportedly the first time they've kidnapped an American reporter as a spy since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the first time they've kidnapped a foreign journalist since they barged into Ukraine and started killing children. Obviously they've kidnapped American lesbian basketball stars and ex-US Marines and others. It's a pretty big deal that they've kidnapped an American journalist.

According to the Journal, Gershkovich had the proper accreditation from the Russian foreign ministry, as all foreign journalists working there must. Since he started with the Journal in January of 2022, he's been covering a "variety of Russia-related topics, including the recent visit by Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Moscow, close associates of Mr. Putin and tensions between Kremlin officials and Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russian paramilitary group Wagner." He's also worked for Agence France-Presse, the New York Times and the Moscow Times.

Gershkovich was particularly known for reporting like this: "Putin, Isolated and Distrustful, Leans on Handful of Hard-Line Advisers." It was full of the kinds of quotes we've come to expect about a weakened president, disconnected from reality, who blunderfucked himself into the greatest geopolitical miscalculation of the 21st century when he figured he'd have an easy time invading the country next door and that nobody in the world would really do anything about it.

Fellow journalist Max Seddon, Moscow bureau chief for the Financial Times, says on Twitter that this is "yet another troubling sign of the off-the-charts repression, paranoia, and hostility to the US in Russia right now. A moment of which Evan was one of our finest chroniclers." He links to the article excerpted above.

Gershkovich was kidnapped in Yekaterinberg, in the east of Russia. The FSB says he, "acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.” They are particularly claiming his trip to Yekaterinberg was not journalism-related, but rather espionage-related. Sure you betcha.

His friends say he was doing reporting on the Wagner group there. Apparently it's a big place for Wagner's recruitment of fighters. Are these some of the same ones Russia is sending to get slaughtered on the frontlines and then reportedly hiding that information from their families? Don't know, but Gershkovich reported A LOT on the Russian military.

Putin mouthpiece Dmitry Peskov says: “We’re not talking about suspicions,” Dmitri S. Peskov, spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, said in a daily conference call with journalists, adding, “He was caught red-handed.” Mr. Peskov said he could not provide further details.

Eat a bag of dicks. The Wall Street Journal, of course, says this is all obvious bullshit.

As of now he's supposed to be held until May 29. Based on Russia's past behavior, we are sure that day will come and go and they'll still be illegally holding Gershkovich hostage and Russia will tell us as little about it as possible. As the Journal writes, "His case, according to TASS, is considered top secret." He could go to prison for 20 years, according to the New York Times.

Does Vladimir Putin think he's in a good position to be doing this right now? We know Putin's sidepiece Donald Trump is making sunny predictions on "Hannity" this week that Russia is about to take over all of Ukraine, but back here on Earth #1, Russia is a laughingstock and a pariah. But yeah, sure, take a hostage. Big strong man!

Many are noting that ever since Russia invaded Ukraine and banned all journalism that hurt Putiun's feelings, American and other foreign press outfits have cut back on their presence in Russia. And quite frankly, all Americans should leave that ugly, falling apart shithole of a country and never return. It's not like it has anything to offer to the world, culturally or otherwise. That said, what Gershkovich was doing was by definition what journalists do, and the risks are part of what make the job so vital to the world.

Therefore any commenters who say things like "DURRR DURRRR WHY WAS HE EVEN IN RUSSIA IF HE DIDN'T WANT TO GET KIDNAPPED" will be immediately thrown out of a window. Ha ha just kidding, that's just a little Russia joke for you!

But people who say that should fuck off anyway.

[Wall Street Journal / FT / New York Times]

Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter right here

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patriciavetinari · 2 years

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As a content reviewer, it gets very very clear for me that consolidation and endless strive for growth of social media in particular is centrism reinforced and is in the end always going to empower bigotry, no matter how hard will companies try to make it seem progressive and intolerant of hate.

I'm not very old, but I remember Ye Olde Internet, before twitter, instagram, youtube and even before facebook. Much like divine right of kings, social media that is so big seems inevitable right now, it's basically 2-3 monopolies consolidated into swollen creatures trying to grab everyone and force them into same space. Trying to make life outside of that blob impossible. That's never good and as humans, we don't actually need it. All of the benefits Internet connection granted us were arguably much better before Internet became synonymous with modern social media. Internet is possible without twitter, youtube, facebook and instagram (and now tiktok and also linkedin).

Before that, we had personal homepages to store our interests and dox ourselves if we really wanted to. We had message boards and forums for our hobbies and interests. We had cooperation on matters of science, art, technology, language, any professions that existed. We had chatrooms to meet new people, and we did transfer those friendships into real life, people became lifelong friends without twitter or tumblr and people got together without tinder or grindr or what have you.

I miss those days. Yes, those communities were smaller, there were no influencers, there was much less advertisement. Separating your online spaces, much like real life spaces, based on the topics, made sure that you could spot and weed out hateful communities early on. Hateful communities were known, skinheads had to indicate that their message board is for far right groups to ensure they will get the right people.

Should hosting hateful information be outlawed on a judicial level? That is a question of philosophy and law that we should have tackled if the Old Internet was to remain.

In the old days, it was much easier to create Safe Spaces. You create your own message board and chat room. I've been an admin of a message board. I could block people as easy as I do now on my Tumblr, so I could ensure me message board is for decent people discussing topics I want to discuss. Now, when I block an account on tumblr or twitter, I cannot ensure other people in my space will not get bothered by bigots or won't fall under their influence.

In the Old Internet, in smaller cliques of people, on personal homepages and in small chatrooms and on message boards very few people were in charge of making the rules what is acceptable on certain platform. It was very easy and absolutely ok to make a chatroom or message board and disallow conservatives. No issue whatsoever. You just blocked people and deleted their messages and could focus on discussing politics in your community with like-minded people.

With the social media that we have now, all of this sounds like sci fi, especially to young people. It seems inevitable that there are some idiots that might retweet you or comment on your post or lurk on your facebook. You can block them from interacting with you personally, but you are forced by the company to share platform with them still, they might bother your friends etc.

The Olden Days were not perfect. Message boards got big and messy and there was scandal and power takeover etc. But that's what was also good – it was quite easy to leave all that behind. If your message board turned nazi or violent, you grabbed your people and made a new message board and kept talking about lord of the rings or whatever.

It had very little influence on your professional life. People were more cautious with their info online in general, but no employer was googling your lord of the rings message board as they look up your facebook and twitter now. If you wanted to talk hobbies or cringe ships or politics anonymously in relative privacy with like-minded people — you could do that, very easily.

It was harder to grow and amass same following people on modern social media have. But instead of cherishing it for the good thing it was, we were sold the idea that it's bad.

It's bad because the strive for endless growth and endless popularity always means compromise. No big social media will ever ban conservatives from spouting hate and bigotry and outright evil shit. Every social media has gone softer and softer on hate speech policies specifically to accommodate bigots, even while claiming they are a safe space for all groups. It's an oxymoron. You can never have a safe space that is safe for both wolves and sheep.

And it's not even an issue. It's not an issue of free speech because those companies are not government companies. Access to twitter is not a basic necessity nor a human right. Just as I on my message board could outright ban anti-abortion talk and block every pro-lifer, twitter could do that in one policy update. Very easily. There is nothing legally stopping them. It's like a restaurant setting a shirt policy, you can just choose to do that.

I feel like young people especially view being banned from facebook for nazi shit same as imprisonment for denouncing the government or something. It's not. It's not a human rights issue. We are not punishing people for speaking, we just don't want them speaking that shit in our space. Just like a restaurant can deny you entrance for not wearing a shirt - it's not infringing on your freedom to wear whatever you want, but people are allowed to set rules for their spaces. I want the guests in my house to take their shoes off and wear slippers and me enforcing that is not infringing on my guests freedom to wear shoes – they can do that, just outside of my house.

A company could easily take such a stance. The reason no company is doing that is profit. It's not difficult to ban bigots. It's my current job to ban bigots. The reason I'm shit at it is that companies want bigots on their platforms because those bigots are profitable. They create content that gathers both support and outrage and all of that means more clicks, more people viewing ads and spending a lot of time on the websites in question.

Tumblr will never ban terfs not only because terfs are among @staff , they won't ban terfs because terfs are people doing the clicks and watching the ads and being active users.

Social media has a profit incentive. Small online clubs did not have that. They were free spaces where you did see some ads, but also had certain authority over what kind of people were around you in that space. If you wanted a message boards about community gardening with no nazis and no xtians and none of that trad shit - you could arrange that, it was very easy. You wouldn't be a tiktok community garden influencer, you wouldn't get sponsorships or free stuff or anything, you would have to actually be interested in what you do and talk shop with like minded people.

I miss that time.

#long post

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fahrni · 7 months

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Saturday Morning Coffee

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

Another week in the books. It’s my favorite time of the year. Trees are changing color and dropping leaves. Temperatures are beginning to drop. We have Halloween and Thanksgiving coming up. What a wonderful season!🍁🎃🦃

Robert D. McFadden • New York Times

Dianne Feinstein, 90, Dies; Oldest Sitting Senator and Fixture of California Politics

A friend of mine worked for Dianne Feinstein when he was in college. He was a registered Republican but that didn’t matter to her. She still hired him.

RIP 🪦

Moira Warburton and David Morgan • Reuters

WASHINGTON, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Hardline Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday rejected a bill proposed by their leader to temporarily fund the government, making it all but certain that federal agencies will partially shut down beginning on Sunday.

And, here we go. All these knuckleheads want to do is tear down democracy. They don’t legislate and pass laws. You’re there to do the work of the people you represent back home.

Anyway, the modern GOP is full of idiots like Gaetz, Boebert, and Green. Why Republicans are so angry and hateful is beyond me. 🤬

Jacob Kastrenakes • The Verge

“Did he say we were moving to it specifically or is thinking about it?” Yaccarino asked.

That was Linda Yaccarino’s reply when asked if Twitter was going to start charging a fee for all users, a claim Space Karen made. She was caught off guard, she didn’t know that was the plan. She’s not the CEO of the company. She’s probably there just so Space Karen can say he lived up to his stupid poll.

I’m sure Linda Yaccarino is a more than competent executive but she’s made a deal with the devil. She should be nervous. Especially once he’s fired her. I originally said she be gone in six months. I’m sticking by that. She’s 100 days into her new role and already out of the loop.

Christian Tietze

SwiftUI.View is actually a view model – a model of the view. It’s a blueprint for what to display, but doesn’t contain any actual pixel drawing.

This is an interesting take and I think Christian is right. Once you think about it for a bit it starts to make sense. At least it did for me.

Now, I’ve done a bit of work on one of my apps — Arrgly — that has a few view models and they fit right into the new SwiftUI I’m writing. So, view models work as well, but is it an unneeded level of indirection? Maybe. 🤔

Jenny Gross • The New York Times

A 16-year-old boy was arrested Thursday on suspicion of criminal damage after one of Britain’s most famous trees, a sycamore that stood in a dip in Hadrian’s Wall, was cut down overnight in what the authorities described as “an act of vandalism.”

This is one of those head scratchers. Why in the world would someone just cut a down a random tree?

Hopefully we find out.

Craig Hockenberry

The only explanation I can find for the Timer’s design regressions is an unfamiliarity with some use cases. In the following critique, I’ll focus on how the watch is used in the kitchen and how older customers struggle with the new layout. Suggestions will be kept to a minimum: the effort here is to be descriptive, not prescriptive.

Wow! Craig does a deep dive into the Apple Watch Timer. I also used the built in timers when I’d grill.

Umar Shakir • The Verge

Google is offering its employees a new incentive to come into its Mountain View, California office: discounted hotel stays. The company is promoting $99 per night rates for its on-campus hotel to help remote employees transition into a hybrid working schedule, according to a report from CNBC.

Yeah, that’s not what I’d call good marketing. 🤣 you pay us $99 a night so you don’t have to commute to work! Brilliant! How ‘bout you just let folks work from home? 🧠

Gabriela Galindo • WIRED

The Fruit Union Suisse is 111 years old. For most of its history, it has had as its symbol a red apple with a white cross—the Swiss national flag superimposed on one of its most common fruits. But the group, the oldest and largest fruit farmer’s organization in Switzerland, worries it might have to change its logo, because Apple, the tech giant, is trying to gain intellectual property rights over depictions of apples, the fruit.

If Apple goes after a company over 100 years old because the have a logo with an apple on it they’re pathetic. 🤬

Believe it or not it’s part of what motivated me to change my little company’s name from Apple Core Labs to Hayseed.

Scott Jenson

Android and iOS share a common problem: they copied desktop text editing conventions, but without a menu bar or mouse. This forced them to overload the tap gesture with a wide range of actions: placing the cursor, moving it, selecting text, and invoking a pop-up menu. This results in an overly complicated and ambiguous mess-o-taps, leading to a variety of user errors.

I’ve mentioned I compose all my blog posts on my iPhone. I do it largely out of laziness. 😁

I’ve used Tot for a number of years and it has the best editing experience of any iPhone apps I’ve used.

Once I’m happy with my post I copy it to Micro.Blog and post it to my blog. Easy peasy.

Jeff Seldin • Voice of America

White supremacists appear to have settled on a new strategy to grow their numbers and ready capable fighting forces across the United States, Canada and Europe while avoiding the scrutiny of law enforcement.

I’ve been waiting for a war to break out in our country. At the least a bunch of very targeted attacks. If these wannabe soldiers can actually get their act together folks may have to start worrying. If they’re as disorganized and dumbass as they were on January 6, we’ll be fine. Yes, people will die, and that’s a terrible price to pay for stupidity.

Rogers Cadenhead

I publish this blog and seven other sites with Wordzilla, a CMS I wrote for myself and have never released. I began it 20 years ago and the PHP codebase is best examined in small doses because to look upon its full extent would bring a descent into madness worthy of Yog-Shoggoth.

I’ve read Rogers blog for years and years and I had no idea it was a home rolled solution. Good for you, Rogers! I’ve always wanted to create my own publishing system but I don’t have the gumption any longer to do it. 🎩

Ross Dellenger • Yahoo Sports

About 20 minutes after the conclusion of, let’s call it, the Autzen Stadium Massacre — Oregon 42, Colorado 6 — Prime Time himself nicely summed up the sordid affair.

I knew they’d lose eventually. It’s just going to happen, especially with a program in rebuild mode. They’ve already doubled last years win total so I’d say this year has already been a success. I also suspect they’ll win quite a few games this season. More than they lose. 🏈

X Out Hate

We are a group of rabbis, leaders of Jewish organizations, artists, activists, and academics. We have diverse ideologies and beliefs, but we have come together to address the danger Elon Musk and X represent to Jews and others.

Space Karen strikes again. He’s a racist and antisemite and has no place running a social media sit with so much power. X has become a home for the worst of the worst and it all his fault.

Hopefully we get some regulation around trust and safety issues that force social media companies to police their platforms better. 🤞🏼

It’s beyond time to leave Twitter. You now have much better choices; Mastodon, Threads, and Bluesky. Very selfishly I’d recommend Mastodon. It’s not controlled by a corporate entity who’s interest is using your data as the product. It’s a rag tag, loosely federated, collection of misfits and absolutely beautiful people carrying on the best conversations. It’s a place to build your community with a site controlled by your community. You don’t answer to anyone but yourself.

Aaron Brooks • MakeUseOf

A critical vulnerability in the WebP Codec has been discovered, forcing major browsers to fast-track security updates. However, widespread use of the same WebP rendering code means countless apps are also affected, until they release security patches.

Yikes! Make sure you patch your browser ASAP.

Evan Low • The Mercury News

Contrary to how some have misrepresented the letter my colleagues and I sent to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, we are not asking to “unilaterally strike (Donald) Trump’s name” from the ballot.

I’d love to see Trumps name stricken from as many states as possible. Especially those where he encouraged election fraud.

As a nation we need to do everything legally possible to keep this dangerous man out of office.

David Jays • The Guardian

A star with incredible presence, Gambon – who has died at the age of 82 – brought heft and delicacy, mischief and feeling, to the stage and screen

Most folks will remember him as Dumbledore. I remember him best for his roles in Sleepy Hollow and Mary Reilly. He played a real nasty piece of work in Mary Reilly and that stuck with me. 🪦

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