Our favorite superstar!!!!

I havent been able to focus on drawing at all lately so I just kept making mc skins lol

PMC link in reblogs as usual!

im not entirely sure how they justify it to themselves beyond using very similar types of arguments that transgender people use, which i am not a fan of, as a transgender bastard. basically that disabilities are a social construct, that they feel more comfortable in themselves identifying as a disabled person, etc. (aka i cant remember any more, brain empty)

they also tend to call themselves "radical acceptionists" from what ive seen, so they also justify other identities like transrace (not in the adoptee way) and anything they deem "good faith identities", so like any label/identity that they dont think directly hurts anyone (i would argue that some of those labels they include could still be harmful, like transabled)

-sparks

blinks. "disabilities are a social construct." yes but not Like That. battling ableism this way is not... Is Not. i cant really think of a way in which battling ableism in this specific way would actually benefit disabled ppl (AS a disabled person!) the best example of disabilities being a social construct is poor vision and glasses, but even then, people who wear glasses for fashion purposes dont Actually Want astigmatism because it sucks. nobody who wears fashion glasses is ever like "damn i wish the lights were fucked up." its fine to use disability aids for fashion as an abled person, infact i think its great because it normalizes them & means i get harassed in public less. but using a disability aid and and pretending you rely one (like using a fashion cane & limping on purpose if you dont actually have a limp) or even just WANTING to be truly disabled is Very fucking insensitive. literally 0 benefits to being disabled whatsoever, why would someone want this?

i also had no idea that THIS is what radical inclusion means. i was under the impression that radical inclusion was more like "xenogenders Cool" and not really... this. or maybe its just that everyone has their own individual version of "radical acceptance" & its actually a really poor way to describe your persomal politics because of that?

idk we gotta collectively agree to stop putting really vague things like this in our DNIs/BYFs & instead choose to be specific on purpose. my idea of what radical inclusion is obviously not the same as other people's which means its a really poor way to communicate

Slack app for mac cant sign into two teams

#SLACK APP FOR MAC CANT SIGN INTO TWO TEAMS FOR MAC#

#SLACK APP FOR MAC CANT SIGN INTO TWO TEAMS INSTALL#

#SLACK APP FOR MAC CANT SIGN INTO TWO TEAMS ANDROID#

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#SLACK APP FOR MAC CANT SIGN INTO TWO TEAMS CODE#

Select Advanced options in Preferences and then choose the Hide any channels which have no unread activity unless they are starred option. This way you don’t need to take your hands off your keyboard. Keep your hands on the keyboardīusy lives get busy sidebars, right? On a Mac you can navigate through all those channels and messages using Option and the Up or Down arrows. You’ll be notified whenever that keyword gets used in any of your channels. Perhaps there’s a client relationship you take particularly seriously, in which case you might set that company name up as a keyword.

#SLACK APP FOR MAC CANT SIGN INTO TWO TEAMS CODE#

If you are working on a project, you might set the application up to alert you when someone in any of your channels uses the project code name (“big heart,” for example). Pretty please.Preferences > Notifications also gives you access to the Keywords item. Slack people: promise me you’ll never sell this to Microsoft when Team simply doesn’t grab enough market share, and they come knocking. Learn it well, and perhaps you too will adopt it as your one comm app to rule them all! I’m still very fond of Discord, but who knows.!? Slack has not only replaced Skype, but is quickly replacing our need to use generic texting and e-mail. we’ve got channels for making travel plans, sharing recipes, and even communicating while playing Minecraft (yes, I know, Microsoft.). It took some getting used to, but Slack is now our family communication hub. Finally, the family decided to stop using Skype for our domestic and international communications needs. I was not pleased when Microsoft purchased Skype, and my fears were increasingly justified as I saw version release after version release further thrash GUI conventions (if Microsoft made light switches, down would turn the light on and up would turn it off.). Having trouble? Please reach out to my rant (feel free to skip): Scientifically proven (or at least rumored) to make your working life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive. Customize your notifications so you stay focused on what matters.Easily search a central knowledge base that automatically indexes and archives your team’s past conversations and files.Integrate into your workflow, the tools and services you already use including Google Drive, Salesforce, Dropbox, Asana, Twitter, Zendesk, and more.Share and edit documents and collaborate with the right people all in Slack.Message or call any person or group within your team.Communicate with your team and organize your conversations by topics, projects, or anything else that matters to your work.Slack is available on any device, so you can find and access your team and your work, whether you’re at your desk or on the go. Check off your to-do list and move your projects forward by bringing the right people, conversations, tools, and information you need together. Slack brings team communication and collaboration into one place so you can get more work done, whether you belong to a large enterprise or a small business. Need help or Can't find what you need? Kindly contact us here →

#SLACK APP FOR MAC CANT SIGN INTO TWO TEAMS INSTALL#

All you need to do is install the Nox Application Emulator or Bluestack on your Macintosh.

#SLACK APP FOR MAC CANT SIGN INTO TWO TEAMS FOR MAC#

The steps to use Slack for Mac are exactly like the ones for Windows OS above. Click on it and start using the application. Now we are all done.Ĭlick on it and it will take you to a page containing all your installed applications.

#SLACK APP FOR MAC CANT SIGN INTO TWO TEAMS ANDROID#

Now, press the Install button and like on an iPhone or Android device, your application will start downloading. A window of Slack on the Play Store or the app store will open and it will display the Store in your emulator application. Once you found it, type Slack in the search bar and press Search. Now, open the Emulator application you have installed and look for its search bar. If you do the above correctly, the Emulator app will be successfully installed. Now click Next to accept the license agreement.įollow the on screen directives in order to install the application properly. Once you have found it, click it to install the application or exe on your PC or Mac computer. Now that you have downloaded the emulator of your choice, go to the Downloads folder on your computer to locate the emulator or Bluestacks application. Step 2: Install the emulator on your PC or Mac

#SLACK APP FOR MAC CANT SIGN INTO TWO TEAMS SOFTWARE#

You can download the Bluestacks Pc or Mac software Here >. Most of the tutorials on the web recommends the Bluestacks app and I might be tempted to recommend it too, because you are more likely to easily find solutions online if you have trouble using the Bluestacks application on your computer. If you want to use the application on your computer, first visit the Mac store or Windows AppStore and search for either the Bluestacks app or the Nox App >. Step 1: Download an Android emulator for PC and Mac

It’s all for his sake - Endeavor and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

My hero academia 301 is a pretty interesting chapter, but for me, the most notable piece of it was how Endeavour reacted to the realization that Touya couldnt surpass All Might.

upon realizing that his son might not be able to do it because of inborn physical limitations, he immediatly stopped his training, which frankly was the responsible and adult thing to do. 

This stint of real parenthood did not last long however.

After taking the matter to a doctor, he is flat out told that not only cant Touya achive what endeavor wants, but it is a direct result of his incredibly selfish and irresponsible attempt to play god, by trying to breed the “perfect” hero into being.

It is how you react when you lose however, that shows who you really are, and endeavor illustrates that very, very well.

Upon being told in no uncertain terms that his attempts at Breeding an heir failed magnificently, producing a child that was not capable of resisting his own immense power, but also admonished by his doctor for even attempting it, and adviced not to try again, Endeavor instead doubled down, while focusing on the child he screwed over from the start with his attempt at genetic manipulation.

It was all for him you see. Endeavor doesnt use those words, but that is how he spins it here. it was all for Touya, all for his sake. if i stop now, then Touya was all for nothing, a mistake, im doing this for my son.

if im doing this for my son, then im not responsible for any of this.

his wife however, calls him out on it, as she understands Touya much, much more than endeavor does. or rather, she sees him fully as a human being, instead of as a thing, a weapon, a failed attempt at an heir.

Unlike Endeavor, Rei is able to see the way this all is affecting her son. She is able to see, and understand that Touya has fully accepted what Endeavor wanted him to be. a stronger, and better version of himself. however, unlike Endeavor, she only cares about him as a person.

Endeavour by comparison isnt completely uncaring about Touya. like most abusive parents, he does possess love for his offspring, but it is forever tainted by the fact that however much he might care, or not care about Touya, any familial love he has for his son is tainted by the fact that to Endeavor, he is a failed experiment, a failed heir, not his child. 

He is the golden child that Endeavor was building up as his true and only heir, who he breed, trained, and molded to for that single purpose, and now that he’s reached a point where he cant continue that legacy.

so, its time to abandon him, and start over new, despite literarily having just learned how stupid this plan was, and that it can, in fact, go completely wrong, with a quirk that will fuck over the person he brings into the world.

Of course, Endeavor doesnt use those words to frame it. there is no way to pretend to be a hero, if you phrase it like that after all. Intead, this is the words he uses.

this is a very important series of panels for a great number of reasons, some that can be debated, argued, and we will probably never know the full truth to the questions because this is a series published in 2020′s shonen jump, and there are things that probably wasnt gonna fly with Hori’s editors, if it was the case.

but lets start with what can not be debated. Endeavor’s words here.

“If we want him to give it up, then we have no choice... Touya... Cant surpass him.”

These are very telling words, and however you believe The third and fourth children of the Todoroki family was concieved, there is not denying the meaning of what he’s saying here.

The only way that my son will stop being an idiot and fall into line, is if we have another baby. that is the only Right way to move forward. it is morally right, because if we dont do this, then he’s going to destroy himself.

there are two ways to interpret this scene.

The charitable way is to read it as the fact that he used Rei’s oldest son’s mental state as a justification of guilting his wife to have a third child, to give this attempt at a superpowered breeding project another shot, despite the fact that they now know that this can lead to a child who is essentially born crippled from his own powers, and despite the fact that Rei obviously understands the effect of them continuing this insanity will have on their oldest son.

the uncharitable way to look at it, is that he used this as justification for flat out raping her, and forcing a third, and then later a fourth child on her.

I personally believe the last one, given a number of factors shown in this chapter(the way this page is framed, the fact Rei obviously didnt want a third child, given she predicted exactly how touya would react, the way her eyes would latet turn when she looks at who is presumably touya which really brings to mind how she would later react to her youngest son’s face after her mental breakdown, etc.), but i’ll frankly admitt that withouth a direct quote from Hori, its impossible to know for sure one way or another. 

either way however, this is a very good example of Endeavor both being influenced by, and using Sunk Cost Fallacy to justify bringing another potentially crippled child into the world for his own, selfish goals.

sunk cost Fallacy, is a mental reaction to when you invest more time and resources into a project, that you becomes so emotionally invested into said project that you will continue to invest into it, even if it reaches a point that it becomes clear that the resources you put into it, far, far outweighs the potential gains you can achieve.

because if you give up after having invested years, and years of effort to breed, raise, and train a kid, and then all that effort was absolutely wasted. hence he choose to keep going, despite having learned what a terrible idea this is.

He doesnt care about the fact that his next child might be even more crippled than his firstborn, he doesnt care about his son’s actual wellbeing. he cares about the fact that if he doesnt continue this insanity, then not only will he not achieve his dreams, but everything he did to get to this point was for absolutely nothing.

and endeavor cannot accept that. and so long as he can justify breeding more children into the world, and there being any chance they might inherit both quirks perfectly, he doesnt care about anything else.

and the moment he realised that this kid wasnt gonna cut it either, he did it again. it is not a coincidence, that the age gap between Endeavor’s second, third, and fourth children were all 3-4 years apart. because thats the age where you can usually tell when a quirk will manifest or not, as established earlier in the series.

While she isnt brought up directly by Endeavor as a justification, it is very telling that Endeavor decided on having a third child, only after his second child was old enough that he could tell that that there was no chance she could take the place as his heir instead.

So, he had his third child, and as time passed and it became obvious that he wasn’t gonna be able to fulfill Endeavor’s goals either, he dumped him, and instead breed a fourth child into existence.

and finally, he struck gold. he did it. he produced Shoto.

everything was finally worth it, and now, everything would be absolutely fine. the cost fallacy had reached its end, and it was now all full sails ahead.

except of course it wasnt.

His oldest son, now in middle school, had been raised from birth to believe he would surpass his father, only to be thrown away, and getting to see his father try to replace him, not once, but twice.

frankly, this scene is probably my favorite in the chapter, because it goes to show Endeavor’s mindset. Natsuo made a point that their father completely ignored his older children. and he did... from Natsuo’s perspective. however, having a more thourough picture of things, we can clearly see that this wasnt the case with Touya.

Endeavor genuinly cared for Touya, enough that once he got that child he tried to breed into existence 4 times, he genuinly wanted him to just abandon trying to be a hero. he genuinly thinks of himself as a good dad here, wanting his son to abandon the mission he set out for him before he was born. of course, with context, this heartwarming scene is incredibly sad and insidious, because we understand why Endeavor got so attached to his oldest child. because he WAS the golden child. he was the child Endeavor genuinly cared about, and invested in, and trained personally with great warmth and enthusiasm.

And not only did he abandon him as a failed project the moment he realized he wasnt gonna live up to his ridiculous standards, but he literarily created 2 more kids to try and replace him, just as his oldest son was old enough to understand what exactly his dad was doing. over the course of this chapter, we get to see Touya’s start as a 5-8 year old, his deteriorating mental state over the years, until he finally seemed to reach the breaking point with Shoto’s birth sometime in his middle school years 12-15. 

Endeavor is in this scene, just not capable of understanding why Touya so desperately wants to become a hero, when obviously he isnt physically able to do so. he isnt able to understand that he is 100% to blame for the fact that his son is having a full emotional breakdown after literaly being replaced by his siblings. 

In other words, Endeavor genuinly think’s he’s a good person. a person who has made a few mistakes along the way sure, but a person who was always justified in the end, and now that he’s having to face the fact that as dabi would later say “The past never dies” and has to face the aftermath of his inane attempt to play god for the pettiest of reasons, things simply arent going to work out.

He isnt going to have a happy family, who can now put the awful early years behind them, he put way too much effort, caused too much suffering and sacrificed too many years of his life for this not to work out as he wants.

after all, if he walks away from this project now, and lets Shoto have a normal childhood, and decide for himself, with no pressure from him, wheter or not to become a hero, then the sunk cost fallacy will have reached a negative end. it will all have been for nothing.

and we know he did eventually double down on this mentality, literarily beating into Shoto that he WAS going to become a hero, and there was not but’s or no’s about it.

there was no way that Endeavor was EVER going to let things be for nothing. His treatment of his older children could not be for nothing. His treatment of his wife could not be for nothing. His treatment of Shoto, and the way he beat him black and blue to train him, could not be for nothing.

Because if it all was for nothing, if everything he feels guilty about was for absolutely nothing, then he was in fact, a bad, bad person, who had no justification for anything he ever did.

Do u think Alec and raphael would have good relationship on the show after the finale? You have good metas about Raphael and I wanted to ask do you think Alec punching him was justified? Or could be redeemed?

ive talked about the punching before and i think the punching... was definitely not in any way justified, it wasn't rapha's fault, it was IZZY who fucking roped him into addiction not the other way around lol. but also alec didnt know that so i kinda get why he did it cuz that's his little sister and at the end of the day if you see your little sibling in a situation where it looks like they're being hurt it's punch first ask questions later

at the same time, i cant pretend racism didnt have something to do with his immediate assumption that it was rapha's fault (both because he's a vampire and because he's latino and of course latinos are All Predatory Sexy Drug Dealers) despite the fact that rapha wasn't hurting izzy at all. but there was also a lot of context that would point in that direction cuz he knew izzy was suffering because of addiction and that she was roped into it and then he saw a vampire feeding on her so like. i wouldnt ask questions either y'know?

so like alec definitely wasn't right about it and it wasn't justified but i don't exactly fault him for it either. i fault the writing for never questioning the whole "rapha was the one who roped izzy into it" narrative or the punch, and for having MAGNUS of all people be judgemental or rapha. magnus who knew rapha back when he was addicted. magnus who helped him recover. magnus who KNEW he had been clean for decades and how hard he worked towards that. magnus who knows rapha's heart better than anyone and knows how much he cares and that he'd never ever do this... just fucking assumed it was rapha's fault. bullshit. sorry that's just complete and utter bullcrap

so i don't find the writing redeemable but i do think the punch is something they could have worked out, if alec apologized to him and said that it wasn't his fault and they actually talked about it. but that would have to happen, you know? it cant just be like, we move on now. especially because obviously a part of rapha blames himself for the yin fen thing which is INSANE. izzy was the one who triggered and used him, not the other way around. that couldnt have been more obvious, its not debatable and the only reason ppl even entertain the idea that rapha was at fault is racism

and like look izzy is not a monster or whatever she was literally desperate enough to put her life on the line for vampire venom (like when she showed up at the den) but that doesnt make it any less true that she triggered rapha's addiction on purpose several times. the circumstances make it not be Pure Evil on her part, but they dont make it any less awful for raphael. and while i still mostly like izzy and think she's "redeemable", i fully understand those who don't and even agree with their reasoning honestly, especially because sh never acknowledged her fucked up actions and the fandom treats that plotline in a completely izzy-centric way despite the fact that rapha was in a way, WAY worse position than her

and i only find her redeemable assuming that she 1- took the full fault for what happened; 2- apologized to rapha; 3- tried to make things right. not in a catholic Feeling Guilty way but as in like trying to help raphael way - like finding him a support group for example. which is what i hc happened in my version of sh where things make sense and the writing isn't racist shit

anyway anyway. yes i could see alec and rapha working it out. i can't really see a close relationship, tho. first, because at the end of the day alec is on izzy's side first and foremost even if he's willing to admit she was at fault, and while i think that obviously rapha has forgiven her and they have like, positive feelings for each other, distance between him and izzy is not only present but good for them both and especially for rapha. so i can't see them being close. beyond that, i don't see much rapha and alec have in common besides loving magnus with their whole hearts and being autistic

i guess they have similar senses of humor so i could see them having some whispered conversations where they roast the attendees at a clave event or something, but they dont last long and mostly rapha is focused on, you know, his friends, partners, family, his clan. and i also think it would take rapha a loooong time to fully trust alec with magnus, because well... alec did fuck up plenty of times lmao and rapha knows better than anyone that as good intentioned as the lightwoods may be they have a lot of potential to really fucking hurt downworlders, and he's seen it happen to magnus already. but also alec does have magnus' happiness as his first priority and more and more so as time goes by, so i think eventually hed grow to trust alec. he was obviously happy at their wedding and he knew how much that meant for him, so

so i think they'd have, like. a neutral-to-positive relationship with each other (especially as time goes by and rapha begins to trust alec more and the yin fen thing feels less raw) and might even team up and trust each other to have their backs in battle and stuff like that, but i cant really see them being super close. but like thats okay and it works, and besides, neither of them would want to have magnus choose, so they interact with each other just fine and as long as magnus is happy, theyre happy, really

(You don't have to respond to this) I just wanted to say I agree 100% with you. I think fans of any sport, fans of tv/movie actors & actresses, and any other celebrity fall into this trap of believing that every famous person is our friend. Like they tend not to care about unless it for publicity and even if they do actually care about important issues, they cant or wont speak up due to the chance of being outcasted. And on the fans side we do get way to invasive into celebrity private lives

I think there are plenty of famous people who do a lot of good work for marginalized communities and do show up as allies in meaningful, genuine ways, and we shouldn’t assume that all shows of activism are purely performative! But in general I agree with you here.

We need to remember that the NHL in particular is a notably conservative-cultured sports league in just about all aspects (including conservative as in “unwilling to try new things” lol). Just as importantly we need to remember that, as with any celebrity, the versions of these players we are talking about and being fans about are not real. They are by and large characters that are crafted (with varying degrees of finesse lol) by PR teams and managers and media, and beneath all that is a flawed human person who is capable of all the same mistakes and harms as any of us. They are fallible.

In engaging with them as characters, we are going to project a lot of our own values and beliefs into the blank spots of what we don’t know about them, which is a natural human thing to do. And that isn’t inherently harmful. I think we all want to believe that most people hold the same moral codes as we do until proven otherwise. But especially in a league where many players lean conservative, it’s important not to conflate that projection with somehow “knowing” that they’re “one of the good ones” without them every actually making that clear. You are setting yourself up for heartbreak that way.

I think it’s okay to be an enthusiastic fan of players as long as you on some level recognize the difference between the persona and the person. It’s similar to how a lot of RPF fandom operates on the premise of like, discussing a slightly alternate universe where we politely remove the players wives and families (who are typically not celebrities or public figures and thus did not consent to be involved in these narratives) from the picture in order to write about romances between the public characters of the players, with the implicit understanding that most of do not us believe what we’re writing is real in a conspiracy theory sense. The particular type of fandom we do here is a peculiar kind of multi-layered thing, where we both focus primarily in our works and discussions on those fictionalized personas, while also trying to hold the real people behind them to account to improve the fucked-up culture of this sport. Those two things have to be held in tension, with nuance and a constant need to make judgement calls.

Like, a good example of this two-layers fandom approach is how when I talk about/cheer on Ovi, I’m talking about the character that he is in hockey culture and the hockey narrative and in fanon, not the actual man who is married with children and gets chummy with dictators. I don’t actually think that Ovechkin and Bäckström are in love or that he’s even a person I would get along with or find tolerable in real life. I’m engaging with a character. I engage with pretty much all other NHL-ers the same.

With Ovi and the whole Putin+Trump thing, I don’t find it as necessary for me to personally address or consider as, say, Jamie Benn’s transphobia, because I don’t think the fact of whether I personally (via absolutely no financial support at all) enjoy the persona of a famous Russian hockey player is anywhere NEAR an influential factor in the power those dictators hold. We’re at like six degrees of separation at that point. My five posts a week from watching a pirated Caps stream are such a drop in the bucket in Ovi’s influence and Putin’s that it doesn’t even matter at all whether I do it or not. Putin will continue to be a dictator regardless of whether or not I post gifsets of this hockey player.

But I also recognize that there are times and situations when dealing just with the fictionalization of a player isn’t enough, when it is necessary to step back and make commentary and critique about the flawed human person underneath because they are in a position of visibility and power, and their actions have great influence.

Setting that Ovi example aside, I think there’s an important, nuanced difference when it comes to players who are unapologetically and unreformedly racist, homophobic, transphobic, violent, etc. Because those players are harming people, directly. I’m not talking about players who just support awful politicians, I’m talking about those who explicitly express harmful, bigoted personal opinions from their own platforms or enact direct harm on others personally. When they do this, they are making people less safe, they are making this sport less safe for fans and for other athletes. This cannot be separated from the fame and praise given to their fictionalized personas, because continuing to laud and support and cheer for them directly enables their ability to be in a position of power and influence where they can personally harm people, with actions or with words.

So again, it is important to understand that the version of your favourite player you engage with in the act of most fandom is not a real person, but a character. It is also important to make principled judgement calls, based on your own moral code, as to when is the point at which you can no longer justify promoting and/or financially supporting that character because it means feeding into the influence and ability to commit harms of the real person behind it all. You need to know where the lines between it all are, and where you personally draw a line in the sand you won’t cross. Making the hockey community safer and more welcoming should always be your first priority, because getting to not prioritize that and instead “focus on just having fun” is a privilege only afforded to those who are already safe here.

Support those figures in the league and the sport who choose to use their massively influential platform in this league to go to bat for marginalized people, because you’re right, there is a risk of backlash that comes with that choice, and we (as in the broader many-faceted community of hockey fans) should try to positively reward and reinforce them taking that risk if we want to see more of it! It’s an important part of making this sport something that everyone (except bigots and abusers) can be a part of.

But yeah, it isn’t healthy to pretend that you have a knowing personal relationship with these famous people, or to put responsibility/trust for your emotional well-being into their hands when they don’t even know they’ve been given it. Parasocial relationships like that can really fuck you up if you get sucked too deep into them. Understand that you don’t know these people, and be prepared in advance to make some difficult choices if you don’t like it when they show you who they really are.

(And feel free to grieve privately about the outlet or fun thing or favourite character you lose if you decide you cannot support them anymore. That feeling of betrayal is real for you, and it is okay to feel it and work through it as long as you understand that it might not always be appropriate to focus on doing so publicly (an example of it being inappropriate to focus publicly on your feelings would be a white fan lamenting how sad it is for you personally that your fav turned out to be racist).)

Take care, anon. 💜

I was just reading Snk 123 again and somehow I’m just so sad that Isayama literally flipped Levi out of Eren’s life just like that. I mean this has been hard to accept for a long time now but with all the miscommunication between AM and Eren in this chapter, it is even harder to take in. Levi has played such a big role in Eren’s development and has always understood Eren better than anybody. His pov is extremely important at this point. And I’m just a lot frustrated at how Isayama keeps pushing him out of the whole conundrum. So basically I wanted to write a meta but I was just too sad to write a meta so below the cut is just a whole rant about Levi and Eren and why we need Levi back in Eren’s life. Eh, it’s like really long but I just had to get this off my chest.

I just want Levi to talk with Eren once more before the manga concludes. His POV is extremely important rn, more than ever, given that he was the only one who acknowledged Eren for his whole self ( yes both his darker side and the baby side). Additionally he was the only one who talked to Eren in his language (like freedom and choice) something that would later influence Eren’s outlook and consequently his speeches too. I don’t have anything against AM (in fact I love both of them a lot) but really the fact that they CHOSE to see only one side of Eren is something that’s undesirable and unfortunate. I mean, every living person has a darker twist associated with them. Nobody is flawless and it’s important for us as well as people around us to acknowledge the flaws, to accept a person for who he is. Choosing to ignore the darker aspects and accepting only the idealised version of someone is rather naive and immature behaviour.

And here I just wanna point out how Levi was always aware about the darkness that Eren possesses inside him. He has always spoken in terms of duality when it came to Eren like to him, Eren was both a “tameless monster” that might be dangerous and also his “source of all miracles” ,i.e., his hope. Levi is someone who never had a Romantic perception of Eren. But for AM, it was just the opposite. Could it be because AM were somewhat afraid that if they chose to see Eren’s darkness it might make them love him less and also shatter the idealism they associate with him? And am I blaming AM for having this outlook? Hell no. It’s a personal take but tbh as teenagers that’s not uncommon. I mean we do like to think that the people closest to us are absolutely perfect. We like to believe that they can never be in the wrong, specially when it comes to family and childhood friends who’ve been there for us since forever. It’s hard to accept that they might have a darker side to them. AM love Eren so much that it makes them turn a blind eye to reality and they “did not want to see” the slow transformation in Eren because that could lead them to confront Eren’s demons. 

However, coming back to Levi, he really foreshadowed Eren’s whole character arc in his understanding of Eren’s nature. Yes, Eren does have a darker psychological side: he is essentially a monster that cannot be hold in check by anybody. Mikasa and Armin tried in 112, but sadly they couldn’t get through to him. And also, let’s talk about the difference in approaching Eren when it comes to AM and Levi. Armin, in all the instances he managed to talk Eren out of his delirious state, has always made references to the outside world and elaborated on the beauty and variety that lies there. It was kind of like projecting his own dreams onto Eren and not realizing that Eren doesn’t care about oceans or mountains or deserts or anything. For Eren, it is not about the beauty of the world or the variety in it, it is the FREEDOM and the FREEDOM OF CHOICE that a person who’s not oppressed has when it comes to seeing and experiencing the world. In contrast to Armin’s way, we have Levi’s way of approaching Eren where he talks about the different taste in air outside the walls because the outside has what BOTH OF THEM value: FREEDOM. Levi also talked about how hellish the outside is, in contrast to Armin always associating beauty with it. And when Eren later talks to Falco he tells that what awaits him might just be another hell, but it could be hope too- the hope of finally being free. Levi has a superior understanding of Eren, of what he needs to hear, etc.- something that can’t be just thrown out of the window. (Isayama did just that by denying any involvement from Levi when it comes to Eren’s recent actions/attitude. He denied us the talk that was much needed)

Now the VN isn’t exactly canon given that it wasn’t written by Isayama but we can consider it semi-canon as it required Isayama’s approval. So, the whole thing highlighted the message that “Humanity’s strongest understands Eren Jaeger very well” and yeah, even going by the manga we know Levi is integral in Eren’s development and is the only one who saw through the duality in Eren, understood his drive and his will. So why all the focus on Levi’s understanding of Eren if it is supposed to amount to nothing in the end? I get that Isayama wanted to set it up like Levi’s role in Eren’s life is over but it is just so abrupt?? I mean, okay I accept that when Levi said “He’s fifteen. Everyone has a phase like that”, it was an indirect reference to the fact that Eren is in the teenage phase™️ where he wants to be left alone with only his friends and therefore, Hange shouldn’t be so inquisitive (and maybe Levi too should not concern himself with Eren as much as he used to before??) Like, if we look at this way, it justifies Levi’s distance from Eren post the basement revelation. Since then, we got no other moment of conversation between them while before that, there’d be plenty. I get Isayama’s motif of taking Levi out of Eren’s life to add fuel to Eren’s gradual isolation from everybody but then why did he bother to put so much emphasis on Levi’s understanding of Eren in the beginning? It should have some ulterior purpose right? If the Rumbling does happen and the world is really destroyed (i’m not ruling out the possibility of the world destruction not happening im just considering the situation if it really does comes to the worst), there has to be someone who reproaches Eren, someone who berates him in a way that he understands and reflects on what he has done; someone who brings up the topic of if this is really what freedom demands and actually gives us the answer to the pertinent question: if this was the only way? And I cant think about anyone else really suited for this other than Levi- someone who realized the potential for danger that Eren holds? someone who always realized his desire for freedom? (Also, Levi and Hange are the only senior officers left right now so it ideally should be either of them but because Levi played a greater role in Eren’s life compared to Hange, I side more for him being the one to deal with Eren.)

Also, Armin pointed out how he always thought he understood Eren even more than Mikasa but it turned out that he actually didn’t; the same went for Mikasa in 123 when she accepted that she’s been seeing only one side of Eren. Both of them could never accept the plausibility of Eren doing something so monstrous. But, Levi could. From the very beginning. Not that it made him love Eren any less I mean, he did say that he’d willingly go to war again to protect Eren. Besides the vow he made to Erwin, the fact that Zeke could be controlling Eren and it’s Zeke’s fault that the higher-ups don’t trust Eren, also became a crucial factor for Levi to decide going against authority and killing Zeke. That’s how much Levi still loves Eren, even after Liberio. So all I am saying is that Levi should be let in Eren’s life once this all is over and the manga concludes because imo there is no one better qualified to address Eren and talk to him as he is now. Only someone who had a vague idea about Eren’s darkness can and also should talk him down. If the Rumbling really happens, and all hell is really let loose, then is this really the freedom that Eren wanted? Is this a price worth paying? Given that Levi is the only one who has spoken explicitly about freedom to Eren, his take on this becomes extremely important and that’s why we need a Levi-Eren talk or at least Levi’s pov on Eren and the Rumbling. 

The manga has established that Levi understands Eren’s drive for freedom and his monstrous essence better than anybody else. In fact, it is an undeniably important aspect of his character arc and unless he gets to have a final conversation with Eren then his arc will never really get a proper closure. At least, this is how I feel and I’m also sad that Isa made him so non-inclusive in Eren’s life just like that and in his place, AM couldn’t understand Eren at all. I mean let’s face it he is Eren’s mentor and his influence on Eren is so visible that this cutting away of Levi from Eren’s life just doesn’t sit well with me. Maybe it’s because I’m biased idk but I strongly feel like Levi should get a final say on Eren and his behaviour, because right now, as it stands, he is the only one who got the closest to understanding Eren, all of him.

Entirely unsurprisingly

Entirely unsurprisingly, it's impossible to get in touch with any of the people who actually run these networks. None of the above entities from LiveJasmin, Streamate, or MyFreeCams responded to efforts to confirm that they do indeed exist and have some affiliation with the websites in question. All that's available is a semi-robotic technical support chat, which fields basic questions about how to use the site and credit card processing. These web cam kingpins might as well not exist. We don't know where the money goes."It's psychologically damaging to stay 12 hours in an office getting paid a minimum wage," she says.So who are these tireless women (or girls), these internet sex pioneers? Where do they live? Where did they come from? How did they wind up these poorly furnished, fluorescent-lit rooms in this oversaturated, low-res corner of the web? We wondered the same thing. So I talked to them.Theres so much free porn that I feel webcamming is more of a personal one-on-one. You can go online and find any ol stuff, but webcamming is more personal; its tailored exactly to what you want and what youre looking for. Youre not sharing it with 100 thousand other people. This is your show. Most of the time you build up a relationship, I talk to you as a friend and I respect you as a person. How has your day been, what did you get from the shops, what are you cooking for dinner… its like an online relationship.

It is true that when I am up on stage I feel powerful. In my 7-inch heels and latex leotards and frilly skirts, my body feels beautiful in a way that I dont see it in everyday life, and I feel confident and empowered. When the music comes on, I go with it, when I dance it is natural and its fun. The money is ultimately what I am here for, but this isnt just something I do just to pay the rent. This is my art, and whilst I am making myself sexually desirable, nobody can objectify me, as I hold that power. I am in control, because I objectify myself, if you like.And as a cam girl, you won't know where it's coming from. You'll get your split — typically around 35-percent, but sometimes upwards of 70 — siphoned to you via an innocuous credit card processing site like CCBill, while the site takes the rest of the cut. However you earn that cut is up to you. Some sites, like Streamate, allow actual sex to the point of orgy, while others limit your act to a solo show. You can do whatever you think will earn cash in the form of dollars-per-minute private shows or instant "tips". That's the formula. You're up against tens of thousands of women (and men, to a lesser degree) offering the same product in varying versions. That's a tough stab at making a living, even with your clothes on.Lana works in Room 8. It is dominated by a circular bed with cushions. There is a wardrobe containing some of her clothes.So as I sat there, in front of my laptop, I thought to myself, Why didnt I just respond the way that I normally do when somebody proclaims something which I dont agree with? Why didnt I just say, firmly but reasonably, you are wrong and these are the reasons why… Perhaps it was because it was so personal, that I felt like for once, I wasnt defending femininity as a whole, but just myself. Which on the surface would seem like a less daunting task, but for me it left me stumped. I knew that I was a feminist and it wasnt often that I had to justify myself to anybody. I was used to breaking down all the reasons that men used to justify their behavior.

It sucks, because Cam Girling was pretty fun: I got to choose my own hours, what I wore, what I did and who I wanted to talk to. The paranoia that came with the knowledge of the stigma attached was the only downside. That and the random twelvie trolls that would appear and write: Your face is shiny in the comments. Yeah mate, its 40 degrees. Cant you read the profile that says, Australian?Streamate sells its models through a variety of repackaged and re-skinned websites, like PornHubLive — using the site's well-known brand as an easy in with porn consumers. In reality, it's the same old site in new clothes. Streamate itself is hard to pin down. Trying to find who actually owns it is dizzying: The domain belongs to Flying Crocodile Incorporated, which has a PO box in Seattle. Job openings point to a nebulous firm called NaiadDev, also based in Seattle (and hosted by FlyingCroc). But the company's custodian of records is one Rena Erotocritou, employed by "Ariel Secretaries Limited", a ghost of a company based out of Cyprus.The basic premise of the cam girl game is a simple one: You pay a girl for her time, and in exchange, she'll take off her clothes, talk to you, play with herself (and others), or any combination thereof. When your money is up, so's your time — the two of you part ways until you've got the cash and willingness to go at it again. And when that time comes, you'll have thousands upon thousands of girls ready to swivel and smile for you in real time. It's a massive catalogue of preening women of every variety: big, skeletal, black, white, Asian, American, Greek, Czech, etc. To find them, look no further than the Big Three of cam girl delight: Streamate, LiveJasmine and MyFreeCams. These three mega-networks advertise across the mainstream porn tube sites of masturbating ubiquity — PornHub, ClipHunter, etc — but are shells and shadows themselves. So how do you get in?I have considered opening up my profile again a few times since, and very well might once I get over the ‘what will people​ think?’ ​paranoia, and memorise the retort I have planned regarding the government youth unemployment in Australia: With youth unemployment currently sitting around 13%, creating your own job using the resources you already have (in this case, internet connection, webcam, studio lighting and cute knickers) becomes a much more viable option than waiting for callbacks from the 20 resumes you sent out last week. That said, the idea of my future prospects of employability could be damaged if this was discovered, and I do wonder about the percentage of money the site makes versus the percentages the models make. CONTINUED BELOW...

A Dose of SPN Positivity!

For those who know me, they know I love this show.... flaws and all! im critical sometimes, but not overly. Bottom line, I am addicted to the story and Im in love with Sam and Dean.  With Season 14 about to start, and we’re all getting antsy, too much negativity has been flying around, so I want to share some things i love most about the show, and maybe make some of you reflect for a moment and think “Yeah, that is pretty great” and smile.  Supernatural has been referred to as “The Little Show That Could” and to me, its such a fitting description. Logically, on the surface, it looks like it just can’t. I mean, how can a fantasy/horror show, survive with such a low budget, light special effects, and not very scary most of the time. I mean hell, they dont even have that many monsters that look like monsters, so why has it lasted longer than a season or 2? Let alone, 14 seasons with no signs of stopping yet. First and foremost is obvious. Sam and Dean and the actors who play them.  This essay will be full of gushing about these boys, so if you dont feel like enduring such a hardship, scroll on past. if that interests you.....

Yes these 2 fabulous men are the life blood of this show. Without them, we’d have nothing. THEY are the reason, this little show can, and does. Even those who like one and not the other, even if they dont realize it, the one they prefer is who they are because of the other. Both of their qualities and flaws can be directly linked to their influence on each other. If for some reason the other was gone for good, the one left will change drastically. As we see when one is dead or in grave danger, albeit temporarily, the other changes. Sam is no longer sweet, laid back and practical, and Dean is no longer funny, charming, and nurturing.  In fact, they both seem to become an amplified version of their brother. When Sam dies, Dean gets quiet, sometimes too quiet. He also gets methodical and focused. You may get lucky and just get shot in the back, but if he chooses to speak, he chooses his words to let you know shits gonna hit the fan. “You have my brother, and you have one chance, just one, to hand him over, and if he isnt in one peice, when I find you, and I WILL find you, I will take you apart” Sam on the other hand is boiling over with emotion. My boy becomes savage. He doesnt always choose a lot of words to say, he gets his whole point across most of the time with “WHERES MY BROTHER???!!!!” This... my friends, is good stuff! These things couldnt be done with such beauty without Jared and Jensen. Their offscreen relationship, whatever it may be, is wonderful. Theres no denying the love and respect they have for each other. They are very supportive of each other, and help make the other better at their job. They’re not typical actors who have a work relationship but otherwise spend time with each other. They genuinely enjoy being together, and this shows on screen. When two people are this good at their jobs, and with each other, you just have to keep watching. Other things I love about the show, are kinda small. Some maybe youve never noticed, but maybe now you will and enjoy them too, like... Brains vs Brawn: At first glance, we all go Sam=brains, Dean=brawn right? But thats not actually the case. Dean is far from stupid, and Sam is nowheres near a wimp. Dean teases Sam about being a nerd, and Sam doesnt mind, he kinda wears his nerdiness like a badge of honor. Dean will never admit to being a nerd, but he is. He’s read Vonnegut, knows every old west cowboy statistic, and likes LARPing. Sam, though a bookworm, is one tough mofo. hes tall and muscular and has shown to be a little freakishly strong. He can also take a great deal of pain. And though Dean is known more to be the fighter, he can be very warm and nurturing. And nerdy Sam can make you shit your pants with just a look if you piss him off just right. I absolutely LOVE this balance!! Its one of my favorite things! Old school vs New; A lot has changed in 14 seasons. The brothers have grown, as well as the story, but their roots are never forgotten. They’re still driving around in the same car. Hell. Baby has become the 3rd lead! Even though they have mom back, they never forgot her, or dad, and both were spoken of often throughout the series. They refer back to old days often, so we can all get a feel of nostalgia when we remember too. Most episodes bring the deep past up in one way or another, I love this! Loss and Death: I know so many of us complain that they die and come back too much, but I have a real appreciation for it, The circumstances are always different, and so are the methonds of coming back. Sometimes the death isnt serious, or they dont “seem” dead, like in First Blood or Dark Side of the Moon, when there may have been an initial “wtf?” we got to see them in heaven, and in first blood, they came right back. However there was deep seriousness in All Hell Breaks Loose, No Rest for the Wicked,  Do You Believe in Miracles, Swan Song, Red Meat and Beat The Devil that you felt the dying brother’s physical pain, and then the emotional pain of the surviving brother.  No matter how many times they die, they still hit these types of episodes out of the park. WE may know theyre coming back, but they dont. it still crushes them and I love this! Sam and Dean’s Sexuality: I love that their sexual natures are different, but theyre both okay. Dean is sexually active, enjoys porn and vocalizes some fantasies, Though Sam can tease him a little, its just brotherly ribbing, its not judgemental or trying to make Dean feel bad. Sam isnt overly sexual, he’s gone many seasons without sex at all. He doesnt appear to enjoy porn, we know he doesnt like strip clubs, and its NOT because he’s unattractive!! Dean teases him but he doesnt try to make him feel bad. When he has heavily suggested that Sam get laid, its just because he wants him to have fun. Dean even said he appreciated that Sam wanted to stay pure and waited. Otherwise, its okay that Sam is (at least kinda) asexual. Neither are shunned or judged because of their sexuality. Winsync: This is one of the greatest things. if they didnt do this, we wouldnt care, we would never say “It would be a much better show if the brothers mirrored each other, or did the same thing at the same time” but for whatever reason, TPTB wanted this, and it works so well! Its an intimacy we can see without the show going OTT bromantic. Its the connection, the closeness, and being soulmates. I LOVE this! Soulmates and Brothers: Normally a show will make soulmates out of lovers. It’s not often they do it with siblings. It helps justify their deep love and devotion. It adds an additional layer to their relationship. It makes them so tied together that they will share eternity in heaven together, and not just in their memories. This was a very good decision made by Kripke and crew, so we will all know they cant live without each other, even if they just lived in different homes. I love this! Meta Madness: Though I dont like all the meta episodes, I do love the fact they can do them, and DO do them. Because the whole premise is the supernatural, nothing is impossible, even AUs and cartoon worlds. Sometimes I might roll my eyes, but its awesome to me that they can experiment this way and see how it goes. I Love this!! The Bros are Oblivious: Sam and Dean have been through basically everything, and have seen and done everything, yet they seem shocked when people say theyre famous, or when they heard people tell stories about them. Occasionally they grasp their importance, like when they tell people they save the world, but they were impressed that Asa fixed killed 5 Wendigo, and had an Angel Blade, and Father Luca met the Pope. I mean God hung out at the bunker and made them pancakes! Their Heads Dont Get Too Big: Every once in a while, TPTB make sure we, and the boys, remember that they are only human. Even if they lock away Satan, kill Death, save God’s life, they’re just men. Remember when Bobby died and Dean was sure he wouldnt because “its just one bullet!” ? I can see how it would seem so silly to Dean, and even to us, that someone who has lived through so much, could die from a stupid little bullet. I think that one of the smartest things the show has done in ages, was to have Sam tortured by Toni and friend. Sam was so bold and cocky (and need I say sexy?) telling Toni he’d been tortured by the devil himself, and what could she do to him... He soon learned Hell torture or not,  cold showers still suck, blow torches to the feet still hurt like hell, and a mortal human can still fuck with his head. And Dean, well he can still be put on the injured reserve list from a jacked up leg. IMO S12 was great for re-humanizing the Winchesters. I love this! Comedy to Tragedy: Some of the best episodes, started out funny and ended in a tear jerker. Mystery Spot, Just My Imagination, and Beat The Devil top my list. I love the emotional rollar coaster, Coming away exhausted from an episode is the bestthing I can ask for! They havent tried it the other way around, tragedy to comedy, and thats good. If you are crying at the beginning and laughing later, it doesnt justify the grief and you may feel let down and hollow after. SPN is great with having some humor in even the most depressing episodes, but they know when using it and leaving it out is best. I love this! Brohugs: My #1 favorite thing, aside from the hug in 6.1, they have all been beautiful. Not once, have the boys lost the love, or even repeated the same hug. Each one conveys a different message, a different emotion, but all say “I love you more than everything” and I wont ever get tired of them! I would do anything for a single hug in my whole life that had such love in it, as any Winchester bro hug! I.LOVE.THIS!! Now I hope if you read this far, you got to smile a few times, and a spark was added to the fire that you fell in love with 14 seasons ago. Here’s to S14, i hope its filled with all of these wonderful things!

Trivial Pursuit (Domark, Spectrum, 1986)

Gallup all formats chart, Your Computer Vol. 7 No. 1, January 1987

Trivial Pursuit the board game divides the world of knowledge into six categories; six wedges of cheese for six spaces in a wheel with six spokes. In pursuit of rounded knowledge from Trivial Pursuit the computer game of the board game, there seems no better framework to adopt than its own.

By the time 1986 turned into 1987, electronic games had become well established as a leisure pursuit in their own right. For the teenagers of the time, they had been popular in some form for their entire lives. The ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 had been out for five years, and increasing numbers of parents were being persuaded of their educational and fun value. That would carry on -- I got my own Commodore 64 several Christmases later. As discussed a few entries back, computer games were sold in the biggest high street shops. Meanwhile, sports are a familiar subject for AAA. Making games about subjects people already know well is an easy route in for an audience. Taking an already popular activity like football with its own set of defined rules and turning it into computerised form is an even more obvious thing to go for, on both the developers’ side and the players’. With that background, it is no surprise at all to find other existing leisure activities being successfully translated into computer games. The board game Trivial Pursuit was of a similar age to the Spectrum and C64, still in an initial swing of popularity which meant that an electronic version of it wasn’t trying to replace a well-established favourite like Monopoly, but offering an alternative or addition to the fun thing you’d recently come across. The computer game’s manual explicitly calls it a game that “the whole family (Mum and Dad included!) enjoy enormously.” On Christmas Day 1986, many British families must have gathered round the Spectrum after dinner for a game of Trivial Pursuit.

Computer science, particularly at the kind of price that was able to reach large numbers of game-playing households, had only advanced so far. This presented some technological barriers to recreating the Trivial Pursuit experience. Representing the colour brown, for instance, was apparently an unachievable task, and so the art & literature wedge becomes black. Still, Trivial Pursuit is a very viable candidate for transfer to computer form, comprising as it does of a series of trivia questions with a limited appendage of choosing movement and collecting tokens. So the dice also go, replaced by a random dart-throwing animation which captures a miniscule fraction of the tactile sense of ceremony, but mostly the game is intact. Expanded on, even, since the board game couldn’t offer musical rounds where listening to “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain” is an essential part of the experience, or easily offer picture rounds. The one remaining issue is that of the mechanics of answering questions. I assumed going in that there would be some kind of multiple choice arrangement, but the actual solution is much more simple and elegant. The game just poses each question and then asks whether you got it right, Y/N? Players of the board game similarly get an answer written down and have to determine among themselves whether the player asked it answered satisfactorily, so why should a computer recreation of the experience be any different? The psychology of presenting an irreversible button-press and relying on players’ honesty in this way is nonetheless a fascinating sideshow all of its own.

I’ve talked previously about the strength of games as ways of presenting spaces. Trivial Pursuit has several spaces to present. One is the board, a recreation of a physical object with functionality retained and resemblance to the original object at the forefront. Another of its spaces is the more completely imagined room in which the question master paces backwards and forwards, surrounded by items to represent the different question categories. Sometimes it goes dark, giving the idea of an image being cast by a projector, the game turning into both test and lecture at the same time. Among the items in the room is a world map up on the wall. And what is a chart but a map of territory, of tangible or intangible space? The Gallup charts by which we are finding our way through the AAA journey are maps of their own territory, suspended between imaginary and real. SalesSpace, we could call it. In SalesSpace, the things that count are time and format and sales, and that’s what’s reflected in the picture of relationships between games that charts of SalesSpace show. In SalesSpace, board game recreation Trivial Pursuit and World War II shoot-em-up 1942 sit together in the same top ten. In SalesSpace, Trivial Pursuit goes between well-remembered arcade games Paperboy and Gauntlet along the route through the UK’s #1 games. Look along the right axes and what you might have thought of as very separate places turn out to be right next to each other.

One of the first things that’s obvious on playing Trivial Pursuit the computer game is its commitment to being as accessible as it can. It’s notable that it uses the keyboard’s arrow keys for directional controls, rather than QAOP or one of the other arcane combinations other Spectrum games tended to go for. Anyone was clearly meant to be able to turn up and figure out what was happening as quickly as possible, and that holds up. Admittedly if I didn’t already know the rules of Trivial Pursuit I would need the manual at hand, but that goes for the board game too. Past that, the basic action of answering trivia questions is fun, its questions are pretty well-pitched as easy but not too much so, and the attention to detail seems reasonable (I haven’t encountered any Hugh Jackilometresans so far). The choice of questions goes for timelessness, even more than the board version since the music question choices are backwards looking, presumably to keep the sound samples copyright-free. Where it doesn’t achieve that timelessness, the perspective on what has changed in three decades makes for intriguing wrinkles -- you could probably still ask “What was Mrs. Fawlty’s Christian name?” but not in those words. Trivial Pursuit is one of the most straightforwardly entertaining games I’ve played for AAA so far.

But is it art? It’s not a question that I’ve engaged with on this blog elsewhere, because it’s not very interesting, but it’s one that somehow doesn’t go away. An inferiority-complex-driven need to justify video games to outsiders as being art seems to have infinite lives. Worse, within some very loud pockets of game culture, that need sits alongside a vicious refusal to tolerate the kind of cultural criticism that art tends to get. Sometimes the same people are the ones saying both, and more. There’s no place for politics in games, apparently. Narrative events only ever happen inside the context of the narrative and not a wider context of authorial choice. Games should just be fun, OK? But, of course, the right kind of fun. The wrong kind of fun means a non-game, a phrase I became familiar with as I re-engaged with video games in the Wii and DS era and read NeoGAF, a gaming forum which was relatively open and welcoming (i.e. it was merely toxic rather than a seething hellscape). Wii Sports was a non-game. Non-games are successful games which are too popular and do too many things which games don’t do to count as games. In a weird inversion of the ‘how is this art?’ Turner Prize winner phenomenon, the mainstream audience sees non-games as a perfectly fine type of game and the enthusiasts proclaiming themselves at the centre of the culture completely deny non-games a place in the category. Not in the sense of them being too lowbrow, but of trying to define them out completely. Trivial Pursuit would surely have counted as a non-game. Which is nonsense, obviously. It provides an experience of a virtual space that’s dependent on the player’s actions, producing an emerging narrative within its bounds. I can’t work out a plausible game definition which wouldn’t include it without going absurdly narrow. Its selection of questions is a meaningful creative decision, illustrating and reinforcing what knowledge is seen as worth knowing. As for the wider art question, let’s just say that I have an equally tough time with any argument that identifies Frank Bruno’s Boxing as art and doesn’t do the same for Trivial Pursuit.

One of the more successful tactics of the kind of gatekeepers who talk about non-games is an appeal to history. They were here first. People who want something different than monolithic hardcore games are trying to change the rightful way of things proven by time. The whole idea of non-games has that idea of definition-by-precedent built in. Yet find the right maps and this appeal to history is revealed as not only bogus, but bogus even within the boundaries of its own arguments. Casual games and casual players have been here thriving all along. As 1986 turned in 1987, more people were going to their local high street WHSmith and buying Trivial Pursuit the computer game than were buying anything that has outlasted it as an emblem of retro gaming. The world mapped out by the games charts has always been a big one with room for many perspectives and interests. It’s not surprising, because it’s the same story for other media. And yes, other media have their own purer-in-the-old-days crews, too. Music discussions are crowded with talk of how things were better in the past when real music ruled. But significantly, it’s almost as common to see the response that there has always been music of different types in every era, even if it’s likely to be phrased as ‘there has always been disposable pop’ or something more derogatory. The narrative of aberration can’t stand when enthusiasts are engaged with the reality that refutes it. It’s much tougher for ahistorical nonsense to gain any credence when reality is a matter of public record, the charts that map history still accessible. But what if your medium has failed to keep its history up so well? What if the only history most get to see is filtered through the nostalgia and commercial goals of a specific set of winning viewpoints? What if Gauntlet is commemorated but Trivial Pursuit isn’t? Then the gatekeepers can just keep on pretending that the current version of what they don’t approve of is a new aberration, restarting their game to fight the same fights over and over again from a position of illusory strength. The selective retention of knowledge is anything but trivial.

Q: What was the UK’s best-selling computer game at the turn of 1987?

A: Trivial Pursuit.

alright then i answered one of them oc questions things for both versions of ira bc like. why wouldnt i. first answer is 1976 58y/o rhodesian ira, second answer is 201x 16y/o houstonian ira. i just wanted to figure out how different they really are. questions from here. if readmores still dont work on mobile im sorry lmao

what are some things they have strong opinions about?

he has sort of a cioranian attitude to the value of life, like, hes one of them “theres always reason to kill a man, theres no way to justify his living” types. he doesnt believe in nationalism per se but he does believe in war, hes literally a mercenary, and hed probably get along just fine with someone like mike hoare, but hes not one for unnecessary cruelty. hes kind to who he considers innocent. if he was alive today i can see him getting grouped w/ like, anti-natalists, right-wing “primitivists,” people who browse /fo/, people who think theyll thrive in the post-apocalypse even though they cant even spin yarn, people who dont understand fallout, you know, those types, but i like to think his attitude wrt civ is closer to perlmans or, well, mine. its a good thing he doesnt live in internet times. he thinks technology makes people complacent and weak and hes fallen into the trap of the “noble savage” myth; sign of the times. he could just as easily live off the grid in like, alberta, but he chose to stay in southern africa bc of his colonial attitudes & fetishization of the “less developed.” (sidenote, if youre like, new here n reading this for some reason, yea i write like really really bad characters were talking irredeemably evil here, just like, know that im aware of that.) also he detests hippies for both bad and good reasons ⸻ not much, really, hes an opportunist, a hedonist, hes selfish, goes w/ the flow. he thinks denying yourself pleasure for no reason is microfascism — not in those words — and while he doesnt think that selfishness leads to a bettering of overall society, hes no randian, he feels justified in what he does. hes uh, a mercenary in spirit and ive always intended to have him join the marines n later work for a pmc but were nowhere near there yet

what traits do they like in other people? what traits do they not like?

he likes people (men, that is) that are exactly like him. he likes Narrator bc hes just as quiet, as patient, as stubborn, as antisocial (using that the right way here, i like, know about psychology), as violent, as old-timey-ly masculine as he is. he can tolerate clade (his former accountant) bc she keeps to herself and shes loyal to a fault, but he doesnt go out of his way to like, actually talk to her. he likes will bc he reminds him of what he was like as a child living with his matabele mother. ⸻ he hates everything he perceives as weakness, but hes not all that open about that, i think hes not even 100% aware thats what it is. he needs to be talked back to. he lacks compassion, doesnt know how to deal w/ anyone whos less resilient and abrasive than himself.

do they have a significant other? if so, who?

i mean, theres Narrator — thats kinda what this whole thing is about. but theyll never think of each other that way. its complicated. theyre uh… closer to being marlow and kurtz than to being boyfriends. idk how to explain it. its bad. ⸻ hes fake-dating millah for appearances and secretly seeing jack, im not sure about the details either so im not getting into that, but hes eventually gonna meet will; ive written their first encounter like ten different ways and i still dont really know what i wanna do w/ them........ also Complicated

whats their friend group like? what role do they play (leader, mom friend, etc.)?

he lives in a hut he built w/ his bare hands on the edge of the kalahari. his friends are one horse and one vaalboskat. ⸻ he uses his friends but they use him too. hes reasonably popular bc hes athletic n wealthy, but i think the only one of his friends who really truly sees thru his act is millah, and bc he doesnt take her seriously as a threat, she has more control over him than he realizes.

do they care about their physical appearance? whats their routine like?

nah ⸻ not really. he showers too often and his hairs kinda dry but other than that hes like. Normal. idk i dont care about these things

do they have any physical or mental disabilities?

i dont think so ⸻ he has adhd

what would they die for? kill for?

oh hes not picky. he joined the military at 17, hes made peace w/ the prospect of dying. hes been more uncomfortable w/ the thought of growing old, actually. and again, hes literally a mercenary. not a big deal to him. ⸻ i dont think hes selfless enough to die for anyone. hed kill to protect the people he cares about, but thats more just bc hes possessive. im sure thats gonna come up eventually. i cant really write shit w/o weaving murder in somewhere.

do they have any magical powers or abilities? if its a realistic world, what religion do they follow?

absolutely the fuck not i hate magic. hes not religious, actually feels a little intimidated by religion. in one version of his story he spends his 50s on east nusa tenggara where he doesnt live far from a church, and he makes peace w/ the concept of god thanks to the influence of catholic-raised Narrator, but i doubt hell ever actually step foot into a church, or temple, or mosque, or what-have-you. hes internalized some things during his upbringing though that he doesnt classify as religious. little superstitions. he likes to keep objects that may be used for divination around his house, but he never touches them. ⸻ not religious, but if he had to pick, like to pretend, hed say baptist.

do they celebrate any holidays? how do they celebrate?

nah ⸻ like, the regular american ones. hell welcome any excuse to drink and to socialize, and id say his favorite holiday is the 4th of july, really just bc he likes warm weather and theres not a lot else you can celebrate in the middle of summer. hes not attached to the significance of any holidays. hes not crazy about christmas but he likes his family well enough and hell go along w/ it all, just to have sth to do. hes not good w/ time off.

if they were the protagonist in any book series, what series would they choose? alternatively: what would be their favorite book?

he doesnt really read but hed feel right at home inside heart of darkness or maybe the thin red line. or maybe sth by mccarthy ⸻ hes 16 he hasnt read jack shit. i wanna say deleuze would probably resonate w/ him bc hes a total self-insert but i really dont know. i try to keep the intertextuality way low bc i hate that shit in most fiction, so like, i try not to think too much about other books here

do they have any vices?

uh he drinks and he occasionally smokes opium but compared to most of my characters hes pretty okay wrt that ⸻ yea like… all of them. already said hes a hedonist make of that what u will

do they play any instruments?

nope ⸻ violin but he hasnt been practicing a lot lately

what would their favorite ride at an amusement park be?

hes never been to one ⸻ i feel like hed be into sth really lame… like you know that video by jenny nicholson, top ten lame things to do at disney world? sth like that. like hed go just to get a specific food item or to admire the infrastructure

what animal would they say best represents them?

hyena 100%. the spotted kind. id say tortoise also but hed find that insulting ⸻ id say hyena but hed be reluctant to answer that bc hes a Youth and he knows what a furry is

how do they act when theyre drunk?

vulnerable. little more talkative. he talks to himself (or the cat, rather) sometimes ⸻ more abrasive/tactless/impulsive. he talks w/ his whole body and feels like moving/running bc, again, self-insert

which era of history would they most like to live in?

the old west, like early to mid-19th century, maybe late 18th. that or like the really olden days, like mid-paleolithic ⸻ idk maybe like ten or twenty years earlier. i think he fits the 21st century pretty well. hes a curious person though and if he had a time machine hed go Everywhere at least once

whats their favorite food?

ah thats. complicated actually i have a whole list of foods that remind me of Narrator but ive never gotten around to making one for ira. hm. he likes poultry, like ostrich. white fish. dry/salty foods. sour fruit. breadfruit. fatty dark meats, blood sausage. hes not picky though, hell live on pap and water if he has to. ⸻ i genuinely dont know. im not used to the contemporary western setting yet like… pop tarts exist in the same world as he does and im not comfortable w/ that yet. like, branded food articles wrapped in plastic. thats so weird to me. i guess he likes (american) pizza w/ greens on it, like spinach? and seafood. sour candies, maybe, i dont think he has much of a sweet tooth. he puts salt n butter on potatoes and cottage cheese on pancakes.

what songs remind you of them?

conveniently theres a whole playlist rite here

whats their favorite season and why?

dry season. he doesnt like cloudy/foggy weather bc it makes him feel trapped when he cant see as far. ⸻ summer. i honest to god think people liking cold weather is a conspiracy like im not sure thats even biologically possible. like summer is the obvious answer here

which d&d class would they play as?

nah we dont do nerd shit round these parts

whats their favorite expletive?

he like, barely talks ⸻ nothin weird thats for sure, we campaign for simple straight-forward language in this house. having a Favorite is inherently at odds w/ that. bad question

whats their favorite candle scent?

no scented candles in the desert ⸻ sth fruity but not sweet, like mixed berries, sth red or purple

how do they feel about death?

he doesnt ⸻ hed feel cheated by life if he died young. he has a lot to see and do and itd like, bum him out not to get to do that but hes not afraid of death

do they collect anything? whats their most prized possession?

he lives pretty austerely but he does keep little rocks and gems and bones and pieces of wood n such. also coins from all the countries hes been to bc hes a simple old man. i wanna say his most prized possession is his hogs tooth bc he does value the marines a lot still. its where he first met Narrator :-) ⸻ he really appreciates gifts people give him, things that remind him of people. jack carved him an eagle once

do they play any sports?

no ⸻ nothing too organized. i dont think hes on any school teams bc idk if he has the time but that might change. he does run/hunt/fish/shoot

what one place do they really want to visit and why?

he likes deserts, wide open spaces. hes been to the kalahari n namib but not the gobi/sahara/simpson etc, so, those. no ice deserts though those scare him ⸻ polynesia/southeast asia, just tropical places in general. bc theyre nice what do you want me to tell you. tropics good

what languages do they speak?

northern ndebele, afrikaans, english (w/ various influences), some vietnamese ⸻ english, some cajun french, some spanish

what are some items they always carry? what weapon do they favor using if they exist in a world where weapons are necessary?

hes got his fal obviously and he does always carry a knife, just to be safe. more out of habit than actual necessity (not to imply rural areas were safe in the late 70s, but he lives in the literal wilderness, hes not much of a target. stays away from roads and all that.) ⸻ man hes really not as classy as i want him to be :/ he probably has like, a glock 17 w/ ten thousand pointless modifications n some uglyass stipling pattern. hes a little bit paranoid + irresponsible n carries all kinds of shit he doesnt need, mostly way too much cash

which emoji would they use the most?

no ⸻ he doesnt have a phone, hell maybe use a burner if he has to. this is an anti-phone household

what fantasy race would they be? if they already are one, pick a different one.

absolutely not

do they want to start a family? if they already have one, describe it.

no ⸻ no

what stereotypical high school clique would they fit into?

hed swing between the jrotc kids n the stoners honestly, but still mostly keep to himself ⸻ hes like, too much of a jock for the Delinquents, too much of a Delinquent for the jocks. hes really only popular bc hes rich-ish n blessed w/ good looks, and by association w/ millah

whats one thing that they dont need do they waste the most money on?

he doesnt ⸻ everything. hes really wasteful. he buys more food than he can eat, clothes he never wears, etc etc, hes terrible

what kind of shoes do they wear?

combat boots or just traditional sandals. the terrain around his house is mostly grass and flat boulders so he goes barefoot a lot ⸻ regular tennis shoes, nothin too fashionable bc he cant be bothered to keep up w/ trends, but usually clean n new. hiking boots when hes not w/ his regular friend group

do they believe in ghosts, aliens, and the occult in general?

really dont like how aliens are always grouped in w/ esoteric shit bc like, thats like asking if you believe in atoms honestly. no shit “aliens” exist thats like not up for debate. both iræ would agree w/ me here. 70s ira doesnt believe in like, Ghosts per se, but he has some vague concept of spirits that he got from his mother. he sees/feels them when hes half asleep. ⸻ 2010s ira doesnt believe in jack shit

which deadly sin do they most correspond to? which heavenly virtue?

nooo cardinal sins dont work that way theyre not hogwarts houses. its so much more complicated than that thats impossible

if you had to choose one tarot card to represent them, what would it be?

hmmm four of swords? knight of coins? eight of cups? this is hard ⸻ seven of swords? nine of cups? the devil? i dont know

what do they consider to be their best quality? what actually is their best quality?

his strength, which is really just his callousness and lack of convictions. and uh. i guess his independence ⸻ same here for the first part. and. maybe his loyalty? i dont consider loyalty a good thing personally idk

what do they consider to be their worst quality? what actually is their worst quality?

his lack of social skills maybe? he doesnt need them too often of course but like, the first time Narrator showed up at his doorstep he was genuinely nervous and that did fill him w/ some semblance of shame and in his eyes he should be good at everything, so like. that. really its his lack of conviction and his timidness/avoidance of the world ⸻ his dependence on others/lack of discipline. really its his lack of compassion, like, obviously

Did Any Republicans Vote To Impeach Trump

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Did Any Republicans Vote To Impeach Trump

Overview Of Impeachment Process

See also: Impeachment of federal officials

The United States Congress has the constitutional authority to impeach and remove a federal official from officeincluding the presidentif he or she has committed an impeachable offense. Impeaching and removing an official has two stages. First, articles of impeachment against the official must be passed by a majority vote of the U.S. House of Representatives. Then, a trial is conducted in the United States Senate potentially leading to the conviction and removal of the official.

In most impeachment trials, the vice president presides over the trial. However, in impeachment trials of the president, the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court presides. In order to remove the person from office, two-thirds of senators that are present to vote must vote to convict on the articles of impeachment.

Rep Liz Cheney Wyoming

The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack, Cheney wrote. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not.

Cheney is the highest-ranking House member to vote for Trumps impeachment.

First Impeachment Of Donald Trump

First impeachment of Donald Trump Members of House of Representatives vote on two articles of impeachment Accused Donald Trump, President of the United States Proponents December 18, 2019 February 5, 2020 Outcome Acquitted by the U.S. Senate, remained in the office of President of the United States Charges Voting in the U.S. Senate Accusation Article I Abuse of power Votes in favor Acquitted Accusation Article II Obstruction of Congress Votes in favor

A request by U.S. President Donald Trump to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and his son sparked the scandal. Events

The first impeachment of Donald Trump occurred when Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, was impeached by the House of Representatives of the 116th United States Congress on December 18, 2019. The House adopted two articles of impeachment against Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate acquitted Trump of these charges on February 5, 2020.

Two days after the acquittal, Trump fired two witnesses who had testified about his conduct in the impeachment inquiry: Ambassador Gordon Sondland and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. Vindman’s twin brother Yevgeny Vindman was also fired.

Article Of Impeachment Introduced

has original text related to this article:Article of Impeachment against Donald J. Trump

On January 11, 2021, U.S. Representatives David Cicilline, along with Jamie Raskin and Ted Lieu, introduced an article of impeachment against Trump, charging Trump with incitement of insurrection in urging his supporters to march on the Capitol building. The article contended that Trump made several statements that encouragedand foreseeably resulted inlawless action that interfered with Congress constitutional duty to certify the election. It argued that by his actions, Trump threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government, doing so in a way that rendered him a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution if he were allowed to complete his term. By the time it was introduced, 218 of the 222 House Democrats had signed on as cosponsors, assuring its passage. Trump was impeached in a vote on January 13, 2021; ten Republicans, including House Republican Conference chairwoman Liz Cheney, joined all of the Democrats in supporting the article.

United States V Nixon Ruling

In a much-anticipated landmark ruling on July 24, 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered President Nixon to release all White House tapes, not just selected transcripts, pertinent to the Watergate investigation. The unanimous ruling in United States v. Nixon found that the president of the United States does not possess an absolute, unqualified executive privilege to withhold information. Writing for the court, Chief JusticeWarren Burger stated:

We conclude that when the ground for asserting privilege as to subpoenaed materials sought for use in a criminal trial is based only on the generalized interest in confidentiality, it cannot prevail over the fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of criminal justice. The generalized assertion of privilege must yield to the demonstrated, specific need for evidence in a pending criminal trial.

A short while after the decision was made public, Nixon issued a statement saying that, while disappointed in the result, I respect and accept the courts decision, and I have instructed Mr. St. Clair to take whatever measures are necessary to comply with that decision in all respects. The president was at the Western White House in California at the time, where he remained through July 28.

Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler

Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington State said that she would vote to impeach because she believed that the president had acted in violation of his oath of office.

I understand the argument that the best course is not to further inflame the country or alienate Republican voters, she said. But I am a Republican voter. I believe in our Constitution, individual liberty, free markets, charity, life, justice, peace and this exceptional country. I see that my own party will be best served when those among us choose truth.

Gop Leader Mccarthy: Trump ‘bears Responsibility’ For Violence Won’t Vote To Impeach

Some ambitious Republican senators have never been as on board the Trump train as the more feverish GOP members in the House, and the former might be open to convicting Trump. But their ambition cuts two ways on the one hand, voting to ban Trump opens a lane to carry the Republican mantle in 2024 and be the party’s new standard-bearer, but, on the other, it has the potential to alienate many of the 74 million who voted for Trump, and whose votes they need.

It’s a long shot that Trump would ultimately be convicted, because 17 Republicans would need to join Democrats to get the two-thirds majority needed for a conviction. But it’s growing clearer that a majority of the Senate will vote to convict him, reflecting the number of Americans who are in favor of impeachment, disapproved of the job Trump has done and voted for his opponent in the 2020 presidential election.

Correction Jan. 14, 2021

A previous version of this story incorrectly said Rep. Peter Meijer is a West Point graduate. Meijer attended West Point, but he is a graduate of Columbia University.

Republicans Vote To Convict Trump In Impeachment Trial

WASHINGTON Seven Republicans voted Saturday to convict former President Donald Trump in his Senate trial, easily the largest number of lawmakers to ever vote to find a president of their own party guilty at impeachment proceedings.

While lawmakers acquitted Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, they voted 57-43 to convict him short of the two-thirds majority needed to find him guilty. Still, with seven Republicans joining all 50 Democrats in voting guilty, the Senate issued an unmistakable bipartisan chorus of condemnation of the former president that could have political implications for a GOP conflicted over its future.

If I cant say what I believe that our president should stand for, then why should I ask Alaskans to stand with me? Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told reporters.

Besides Murkowski, other Republican senators voting against Trump were Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania.

Underscoring the perils of affronting Trump and his legions of GOP loyalists, by late evening top Republicans from at least two of the defecting senators states had blasted them.

Most of the defecting Republicans had clashed with Trump over the years. Burr and Toomey have said they will retire and not seek reelection when their terms expire next year, and Murkowski and Collins have histories of clashing with Trump over health care and other policies.

Presidents Constitutional Duty To Faithfully Execute The Laws

On December 3, 2013, the House Judiciary committee held a hearing formally titled The Presidents Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws, which some participants and observers viewed as an attempt to begin justifying impeachment proceedings. Asked if the hearing was about impeachment, the committee chairman responded that it was not, adding, I didnt mention impeachment nor did any of the witnesses in response to my questions at the Judiciary Committee hearing. Contrary to his claims however, a witness did mention impeachment rather blatantly. Partisan Georgetown University law professor Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz said, A check on executive lawlessness is impeachment as he accused Obama of claim the right of the king to essentially stand above the law.

Susan Collins Of Maine

Ms. Collins, 68, a senator since 1997, was just re-elected to a fifth term. She has long been critical of Mr. Trumps actions, extending to the Capitol riot.

That attack was not a spontaneous outbreak of violence, Ms. Collins said on the Senate floor after the vote. Rather it was the culmination of a steady stream of provocations by President Trump that were aimed at overturning the results of the presidential election.

Fate Of 10 Gop Impeachers Since Capitol Riot Shows ‘going Against Trump Is The Death Knell’

The 10 Republican members of Congress who voted to impeach President Donald Trump for his role in instigating the mob that marauded through the Capitol on January 6 knew the riot would be a historic turning point for the country. What they didn’t realize: The events of that day might also mark the beginning of the end of their own political careers, and that their actions would give Trump and politicians loyal to him a rallying cry to help them retain control of the Republican Party.

Six months after the riot, the impeachers are the GOP’s most endangered incumbents. Nine of the 10 already face credible primary challengers ahead of next year’s midterm elections, and all have been the targets of relentless attacks from Trump and his supporters, as well as on social media from once-supportive constituents livid about their impeachment vote. Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, stripped of her leadership role in the House for her persistent criticism of the former president, has absorbed the most venom. But Trump seems bent on exacting revenge on the entire group, calling out the names of each of the GOP representatives who voted to impeach him one by one in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, then telling the audience: “Get rid of them all.”

“If any of the 10 are up against a primary challenger who’s a Trumper and who can breathe, walk and talk at the same time, they’re gonna lose.”

Trumps Ready To Fight

Fox News reports that the only Republican who voted to impeach Trump that isnt facing a primary challenger is Rep. John Katko .

They write that Katko appeared to get back into good graces with GOP leadership quickly after his impeachment vote and noted he was one of the faces of a border trip with House Republicans earlier this year. 

He did, however, join Cheney, Kinzinger, and the other Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, in also voting to establish a 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol protests.

Supporters of a Jan. 6 commission are settling on a backup plan to fully probe the Capitol attack: a select House committee

But theyre worried that even in a best-case scenario, itll become a total circus. New from me:https://t.co/uGbsdGKcbX

Sam Brodey June 7, 2021

In April, CNBC revealed that Trumps leadership PAC Save America has $85 million on hand heading into the midterms, something one person with knowledge of the matter describes as a gargantuan sum of cash.

Another report indicates Trump is teaming up with Newt Gingrich on a new MAGA doctrine for the Republican Party, using the famed Contract with America as a framework.

With an eye toward winning back the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections, Donald Trump has begun crafting a policy agenda outlining a MAGA doctrine.

And hes teaming up with Newt Gingrich to do it. https://t.co/TpXUUGUQHP

POLITICO May 26, 2021

    Read this NextonThePoliticalInsider.com

Trump Calls For ‘no Violence’ As Congress Moves To Impeach Him For Role In Riot

This time, there will be more. Some Republican senators have called on Trump to resign, and even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he is undecided at this point.

Trump’s impeachment won’t lead to his removal even if he is convicted because of the timeline. The Senate is adjourned until Tuesday. The next day, Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president. But there’s another penalty the Constitution allows for as a result of a Senate conviction that could be appealing to some Republican senators banning Trump from holding “office” again.

While there is some debate as to the definition of “office” in the Constitution and whether that would apply to running for president or even Congress, that kind of public rebuke would send a strong message that Republicans are ready to move on from Trumpism.

Rep Tom Rice South Carolina

Rep. Tom Rice, representing South Carolinas 7th Congressional District, voted to impeach Trump, though he had not spoken out publicly about his decision prior to the vote.

In a statement after the vote Wednesday, Rice said he was not sure whether Trumps speech before the mobs attack amounted to incitement of a riot, but any reasonable person could see the potential for violence.

Once the violence began, when the Capitol was under siege, when the Capitol Police were being beaten and killed, and when the Vice President and the Congress were being locked down, the President was watching and tweeted about the Vice Presidents lack of courage, Rice wrote.

I have backed this President through thick and thin for four years. I campaigned for him and voted for him twice. But, this utter failure is inexcusable.

Opinion: Democrats Missed The Boat With 17 Republicans Who Voted To Impeach Trump

This message is for all the Democrats who criticized the 191 Republican representatives who did not vote to impeach Donald Trump and the 43 Republican senators who did not vote guilty.

Its easy, even justified, to say they acted cowardly and disregarded the plain facts, but we have since witnessed the wrath of the Republican Party.

For the 10 representatives and seven senators who voted to hold Trump accountable, their state party organizations have either censured them, or are planning to run primary candidates against them, or both. These 17 men and women are pariahs in their own party. 

More:Ohio House Republicans plan to talk about expelling indicted Rep. Larry Householder

Its easy to be virtuous and criticize others, but how many of us have been tested in this way? Put aside that the Republican Partys rancor is unjustified, these 17 men and women have suffered the consequences of voting against their party. This episode should be a learning point for Democrats as to what will be expected of them in the future.

Its only a matter of time before the tables are turned.  

More:Gonzalez joins Democrats in call to impeach Trump. Here’s how local representatives voted

In a perfect world, perhaps we should expect more politicians to stand fast to principle and disregard the consequences. But our world is far from perfect. Maybe the better approach is to commend these lonely 17 Republicans. They presented if just for a moment a light in a dark world.  

‘a Win Is A Win’: Trump’s Defense Team Makes Remarks After Senate Votes To Acquit

Despite the acquittal, President Joe Biden said in a statement that “substance of the charge” against Trump is “not in dispute.”

“Even those opposed to the conviction, like Senate Minority Leader McConnell, believe Donald Trump was guilty of a ‘disgraceful dereliction of duty’ and ‘practically and morally responsible for provoking’ the violence unleashed on the Capitol,” Biden’s statement read in part.

The president added that “this sad chapter in our history has reminded us that democracy is fragile. That it must always be defended. That we must be ever vigilant. That violence and extremism has no place in America. And that each of us has a duty and responsibility as Americans, and especially as leaders, to defend the truth and to defeat the lies.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called Saturday’s vote the largest and most bipartisan vote in any impeachment trial in history,” but noted it wasn’t enough to secure a conviction.

The trial “was about choosing country over Donald Trump, and 43 Republican members chose Trump. They chose Trump. It should be a weight on their conscience today, and it shall be a weight on their conscience in the future,” he said in a speech on the Senate floor.

With control of the Senate split 50-50, the House managers always had an uphill battle when it came to convincing enough Republicans to cross party lines and convict a former president who is still very popular with a large part of the GOP base.

Richard M Burr Of North Carolina

Mr. Burr, 65, a senator since 2005, is not seeking re-election in 2022. Despite holding Mr. Trump immediately responsible for the Capitol riot, he had voted against moving forward with the impeachment trial, and his decision to convict came as a surprise.

As I said on Jan. 6, the president bears responsibility for these tragic events, Mr. Burr said in a statement on Saturday. The evidence is compelling that President Trump is guilty of inciting an insurrection against a coequal branch of government and that the charge rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. Therefore, I have voted to convict.

Gop Congresswoman On Voting To Impeach Trump: I Felt Like I Had To

January 17, 2021 / 9:55 AM / CBS News

The atmosphere on the House floor was tense, as members argued over whether President Trump should be impeached for his role in the assault on the United States Capitol:

“If inciting a deadly insurrection is not enough to get a president impeached, then what is?” asked Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas.

“The president didn’t even mention violence last Wednesday, much less provoke or incite it,” said Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla. “You have created a mockery out of the impeachment process.”

Only four times in American history has Congress impeached a president.

1868: Andrew Johnson, for breaking a law that barred him from firing his Secretary of War.

1998: Bill Clinton, for lying under oath about his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky.

2019: Donald Trump , for abuse of power withholding military aid in an effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Biden family. 

2021: Mr. Trump, once again.

Correspondent Rita Braver asked, “Where do you think this impeachment will go down in history, in terms of the seriousness of the offense?”

“This impeachment levels the most egregious charge ever made against a U.S. president summoning a mob to the capital, and then inciting that mob to commit insurrection,” said history professor Allan Lichtman of American University. He said the vote in favor of impeachment was stunning because ten members of the president’s own party the most of any impeachment in history voted “yes.”

Here Are The 10 Republicans Who Voted To Impeach Trump Over The Capitol Siege

10 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump after the US Capitol siege.

On Wednesday, the House voted 232-197 to charge Trump with inciting the January 6 insurrection on the US Capitol.

New York Rep. John Katko became the first member of his party to publicly support impeachment, and he was closely followed by Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the third highest-ranking House Republican.

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On Wednesday, 10 House Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues to vote for President Donald Trumps impeachment after he incited a deadly riot at the US Capitol last week.

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives began impeachment proceedings against Trump on Wednesday and charged him 232-197 with incitement of insurrection.The New York Times reported that the White House expected roughly two dozen Republicans in both chambers to break ranks and come out in support of impeachment.

Trump saw far more defection from his party than in his first House impeachment in December 2019, when no members of the GOP caucus voted to impeach him on charges of abusing his office and obstructing Congress.

All 10 Republicans who voted to impeach released forceful statements directly denouncing Trumps provocation of the January 6 violence and his lack of response to the danger to the Capitol.

Read more:

Trump Acquitted In Impeachment Trial; 7 Gop Senators Vote With Democrats To Convict

The Senate on Saturday voted to acquit former President Donald Trump on a charge of incitement of insurrection despite significant Republican support for conviction, bringing an end to the fourth impeachment trial in U.S. history and the second for Trump.

Seven Republicans voted to convict Trump for allegedly inciting the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, when a mob of pro-Trump supporters tried to disrupt the electoral vote count formalizing Joe Biden’s election win before a joint session of Congress. That is by far the most bipartisan support for conviction in impeachment history. The final vote was 57 to 43, 10 short of the 67 votes needed to secure a conviction.

Republican Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania all voted guilty.

The vote means the Senate cannot bar Trump from holding future federal offices.

Moments after the vote concluded, the former president issued a statement praising his legal team and thanking the senators and other members of Congress “who stood proudly for the Constitution we all revere and for the sacred legal principles at the heart of our country.”

“This has been yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our Country. No president has ever gone through anything like it,” Trump said.

Rep Jaime Herrera Beutler Washington

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washingtons 3rd Congressional District criticized both the presidents rhetoric, which she said incited the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, as well as his actions during the violence.

Hours went by before the president did anything meaningful to stop the attack. Instead, he and his lawyer were busy making calls to senators who were still in lockdown, seeking their support to further delay the Electoral College certification, she claimed.

Herrera Beutler also cited Trumps speech in response to the attack, during which he told his supporters you are very special and we love you, while also asking them for peace.

Alabama Gop Says Trump Impeachment A Sad Day For America; Lone Democrat Votes To Charge President

Members walk on the floor as voting begins in the House of Representatives in the first article of impeachment against President Donald Trump at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2019. APAP

President Trump became the third president to be impeached Wednesday after the House approved two articles of impeachment abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in a vote that went largely along party lines.

Alabamas House members voted in line with their political parties, with the states lone Democrat voting to impeach Trump while the other six Republican members voted against the articles of impeachment.

The articles of impeachment stemmed from a whistleblower complaint that Trump sought to withhold congressionally-approved military aid to Ukraine in exchange for an investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden. Joe Biden is running for president in 2020 and is considered to be one of Trumps main Democratic rivals.

Three House members from Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham; Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Saks; and Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Fairhope gave speeches on the House floor earlier Wednesday in explaining how they would vote.

Sewell said she was supporting impeachment with a heavy heart.

In his floor speech, Rogers said the Democrats along with their cohorts in the Deep State and the mainstream media tried to hijack our Constitution.

Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Hoover, said Democrats did not make a case for impeaching Trump.

Notes to self: past, change, and most probable route of  future development. [JiraOro thread]

Orochimaru is now going through a shift in thinking in the JiraOro roleplay story. I need to type it out for me to understand it. No need to read it. 

No but seriously, Nikki, I'll put it under a readmore and let you choose whether to read it or not. I mostly fear that you'll sit back and think "okay so this is probably the best guess on how it will end" and then we will neveeeer write the two agaaaiiin. ;A;

Fears aside... If you read it, do leave a comment for my effort, as I started writing this halfway the football match and finish it only now. I think myself clever for having been able to put it into words. 

The situation at the start of this OroJira story  Orochimaru is convinced he does not have any goodness left in him any more. He thinks he has lost everyone and everything. He's like Sasuke. He’s in darkness. So deep, that he is beyond saving. He aims with is bad actions ("someone has to do the dirty work") to give children better lives in a better world than had been offered to him. ”Results justify the means,” he said.       This 'calling', to make a better peaceful world for the next generation, is in his mind the only good aspect about him. Fulfilling role of 'fixer' is how he can live with himself. Take these good intentions away, and their absence will expose he's just monster. That he’s the same type of monster as the villains who hurt him as a child. So he clings to this role. “I’m different. I’m doing these horrible things for the greater good.” He fills himself with self-deception, because deep down he knows he is wrong.

Telling him he's awful, and why he’s awful, make Orochimaru go either... 1) smirking arrogant because it means he's successfully changing the world.  2) trying to convince you he IS doing the right thing. This is akin to "LALALA I CANT HEAR YOU. I HAVE MY HANDS OVER MY EARS. I'M A GOOD PERSON LA LA LA." Orochimaru is so lost, that he can't be reached.

A big danger: at once acknowledging the immense scope and amount of wrong he did in his life, will utterly destroy his heart. It will destroy his sanity. So he doesn't acknowledge it. He only acknowledges the surface -- that he has no chance at redemption. 

No redemption? He's doubting that now. This doubt is sparked by the training process. The training shows that no matter how bad Orochimaru is, Jiraiya will always call him out on it, and tell him to be behave. He appeals to an inherent good nature in Orochimaru's. He has a firm believe in that inherent goodness.

That's so novel.

Like... “What does Jiraiya see in me? Is he right?? I want him to be right!!!!! Sure, there are punishments. But those can be suffered through. And they pass. And then there's the orgasm reward... :))) .”

He loves the rewards. He loves feeling good. He loves being loved. He loves being called 'Good boy'. He likes 'Good', because it makes him feel forgiven, and 'boy', because youth was before his sins. His eternal obsession with youth, eh?

This training gives him a break from his exhausting sin-denying. This training proves that not all that he touches crumbles/rots/dies, but that he can make a person happy. He enjoys serving for the sake of giving away attention and love and spoiling Jiraiya. This shared happiness gives him hope. Hope, that they can connect because somewhere deep down there IS good in him.

This brings me to how powerfully Orochimaru loves Jiraiya. Jira (bitterly?) believes there is hope for Orochimaru. That belief makes every piece of Orochimaru’s world-making wobble. Orochimaru’s previously rock-hard convictions become unsteady.      Jiraiya is the one he trusts most in his life, more than even Kabuto. He now trusts Jiraiya more than he trusts himself. Jiraiya is often right. Orochimaru now distrusts his own decision-making. He now distrusts his own mind. But he relies on his friend. “If Jiraiya thinks there’s hope, it must be true, right?”

He likes to think it could be true. 

Nikki, remember that meme? That silly meme where I had to fill in stars for Orochimaru’s romantic/platonic/sexual feelings to a muse... and when you messaged me Jiraiya's name, all the options were maxed out to ten stars? xD

He LOVES Jiraiya. 

He loves how good Jiraiya can make him feel, both physically and spiritually. He enjoys the safety, friendship, banter, homeliness, attraction, powerlessness, humour, being useful, because Jiraiya doesn’t back down he feels like he’s found back his equal. His other half. He feels loved. 

At the start of the story Orochimaru intended to make Jiraiya part of his dark world by trying to convince Jiraiya that the “end justifies the means”. That attempt failed SPECTACULARLY.

To keep Jiraiya from leaving him, Orochimaru set out try to change himself to become part of Jiraiya's world. First stop was his (mutually agreed upon) physical submission. Orochimaru is changing his behaviour. But Jiraiya won’t stay if it’s just sex, because it cannot be “just sex” between them. There’s too much history. 

Now Orochimaru has begun mentally submitting, too. Not being allowed to speak and not being able to think because he feels so good, has been a powerful agent of mental change.      This is where the big shift is happening now that I need to get down in text.      Orochimaru begun to acknowledge (in those muse&mun converstions) that he cannot bear to keep Jiraiya around if Jiraiya isn't happy. Nikki, this feeling is escalating to a degree I had never dared to predict.       Jiraiya's happiness is now the most important thing to him in the entire world. It’s vital. Sex might feel nice but it doesn’t heal an aching heart. Keeping Jiraiya captive by force (as was the very first plan) is out of the question. Awful! How could he have ever thought up such a horrible scheme! Orochimaru has already begun to rely on Jiraiya’s judgement more than his own. The way to keep Jira... and to make him happy... is to become good. It’s the only way. He now knows this. He’s preparing for this. 

Orochimaru MUST change. 

The Talk: gaining insight in the consequences of his past actions.  This talk will happen at SOME point, probably. In this talk he needs to learn what damage he has done so he know what to NEVER do again. 

He first has to acknowledge he has hurt Jiraiya immensely. 

He must listen to his thoughts.

Acknowledge his pain respectfully. 

Learn what harm he did to Jiraiya. 

And only when Orochimaru understands the full scope of his actions, he can try to give Jiraiya some peace and tranquillity. 

This talk is not for him. This talk will be for Jiraiya. (Because I’m super duper interested in your Jiraiya’s coping mechanisms and his pain and his making-sense-of-the-world). (And because I love hurt/comfort. Let my muse give comfort. It will be a ‘fix the canon’ thread!) (No one can dish out pain like you do so I dread this thread too. Never anger a calm man, is a saying. A tumblr roleplay saying should be, Never ask angst from the Fluff/Smut Queen.)(But I’m dumb). 

He loves Jiraiya. He doesn’t want him to hurt. Doesn’t want him to hurt in Orochimaru’s presence or absence or anytime at all. Jiraiya’s happiness is more important than his own. 

Hearing about Jiraiya’s pain is going to hurt him as fuck, but it will be a manageable size. It is 'merely' the severe damage he has done to his most important friend. This talk in my replies won't be about Orochimaru's hurt, not about Orochimaru’s traumas, and won't be about the unphantomable damage Orochimaru did to the entire world (which would destroy him). This talk will be bite-sized (but he’ll still almost choke on it) aims to give katharsis/resolution. 

Failing this talk, means that he's going to need to let Jiraiya (or the loved one) go. Their happiness is more important than his own. (I've encountered this version of events with Sasukes and Anko and an OC.) 

Succeeding this talk, meaning if he can give Jiraiya some form of solace. This interaction will fulfil the same function as Orochimaru (in canon) giving Sasuke solace by summoning the Hokages. This person whom he loves and is the first one he can connect to, will become his moral compass. He will become devoted to them. He won't ask for forgiveness. He will only ask if they're happier now. 

Let's suppose they touched hearts, then how will that change him? Lovingly supporting this one person he hurt before, by now doing good, so the Precious One is happy, gives off a feeling of success. Actual /warmth/ in his chest, no self-deception. This spark of warmth will catch onto his rotten heart and become a tiny flame of light in his chest. This successful attempt will give him back his faith in his ability to do good for the sake of goodness (instead of evil for the sake of goodness). 

He will want repeat his successful experience by helping more people reach happiness the right way. With this special person by his side (Jiraiya/Sasuke), Orochimaru can now actively try to acknowledge bigger and bigger chunks of his past misdeeds. And bravely begin working to correct them. 

Suddenly he is already halfway on the path back to the light.

If Orochimaru has loved one to walk beside him on that path... (a person who Orochimaru can give his brand of intense spiritual and physical love, a person who shuts down villainous behaviour as soon as he suggests it, and for whom Orochimaru can be a caring support ideal housewife) ... then Orochimaru too may just finish the path all the way out of the Darkness and back to the Light.

The Enemy of the World, now turned gentle.

That would be nice... I think.

......

Thoughts?

Shadowlands Beta Shows That Maybe You Can’t Go Home Again

July 13, 2020 3:00 PM EST

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands makes the nearly two-decade-old game more new-player friendly, while also spiffing up several old systems.

I’ve been playing World of Warcraft off-and-on for the better part of two decades. It’s been a lot more off than on for the last few years, but the point stands that I’m a long-in-the-tooth WoW player. As each expansion launches, I hope that Activision-Blizzard can find a way to recapture the magic from the game’s early days and bring me back in a massive way. Recently, I had the chance to hop into an early preview for the upcoming Shadowlands beta. Does it finally bring back those heady days from the 2010s? Not really, but I’m also not sure if that matters anymore.

Let’s start with the good in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. One of the biggest deterrents to WoW picking up new players is the massive slog of getting to max level so that you can play the new content.

Blizzard has tried a few different ideas to fix it, but, at least from my perspective, none of them have really alleviated the problems. Even if my friends can just jump a character up to the level of the current expansion, they’ve never felt comfortable sticking with the game.

To a large degree, Shadowlands rectifies most of the problems in a variety of ways. First, is the new level squish. Now, instead of needing to quest your way through 120 levels to hit the cap, you only need to hit level 60. That, in itself, greatly speeds up the process, but the team has taken another step further.

Shadowlands introduces a brand new starting zone meant to bring new players up to speed with how WoW and MMOs in general work. As someone who’s been playing around in Azeroth since he was 16, it’s tough to say if this is successful. I mean, I certainly think it is, but I’ve also spent thousands of hours in this game. So, I’m not the best judge. That said, there are copious tooltips and tutorials that seem to clearly communicate how to play WoW.

The new zone also does a great job of getting you into some real action. Instead of meandering through the early stages of WoW, you’re instantly thrown into an ogre plot to raise a previously dead dragon. Sure, you still get to fight off a few quillboars, but your tour of Exile Islands feels like much higher stakes than fumbling your way through the Valley of Trials.

The whole thing culminates in a mini-dungeon experience that shows new players what it’s like to play with a group. Obviously, this is much easier than a typical dungeon, but it at least gives you an idea of what to expect when you move onto the Wailing Caverns or whatever.

Importantly, once you finish your hour-long onboarding, you can choose where you want to level. This is actually a great step because it lets players jump straight to Battle for Azeroth content, helping to set the stage for Shadowlands.

Forcing new players to play through each expansion was always a big ask lore-wise. If you’re not playing the content as it comes out, the story is incredibly dense and tough to follow. You don’t understand why this person is a Warchief or what made that banshee lady go crazy. The new system seems to make everything much easier to follow.

However, as a returning player, I continue to have many of the same problems that pushed me away from WoW in the first place. This early version of the beta lets you play through a good chunk of the coming content and so much of it just feels like the same soil we’ve trodden over and over again.

On the surface, the covenant system is intriguing. You get a meaningful choice between four different factions, each with their own set of rewards and abilities. In my own time, I played as a new member of the vampiric Venthyr. It’s a fun take on classic vampire tropes and their unique ability, Door of Shadows, is a hoot.

Basically, it gives any character a sizable teleport every 60 seconds. As someone who has spent days of my life soloing old raid content, the possibilities for this tool are tantalizing. I also want to call out how gorgeous the zone looks. The Gothic theme is prevalent throughout the entire area, giving it a darkly suitable vibe.

However, the zone’s design incorporates a ton of verticality, which leads to both confusion and annoyance. I completely understand why Blizzard doesn’t let you use flying mounts at the start of an expansion. That said, this zone is begging for that option.

I also got my first hands-on time with some of the marque end-game content coming with Shadowlands. Unfortunately, most of these just seem like iterative versions of things we’ve already played with and gotten bored of.

For instance, each covenant has its own Class Hall-like area that you can upgrade. These remind me of a streamlined Garrison, which is fine but doesn’t get my jimmies rustled. Then there are the new Adventures that just feel like a better version of the old missions. Again, improving a feature and making it engaging isn’t a bad thing. It’s just not enough to excite this particular old man. The one area that has me excited is The Maw. This procedurally-generated dungeon looks like it could add some intriguing content to grind.

So maybe this is all a “me” problem. After all, I’ve mostly stopped playing World of Warcraft because everything was starting to feel too similar. The new content didn’t seem to justify the time sink.

Plus, playing the game under beta conditions is from far ideal. It’s expected (it is a beta after all), but between locked off content, work in progress cutscenes, and more frequent crashes than you’d like, it’s tough to get a real feel for what Shadowlands can become.

That said, WoW continues to feel like a game in drastic need of a sequel. WoW 2 is a long-running joke and will likely never happen. However, there’s only so much you can expect the developers to do with a game that can almost legally vote. I love World of Warcraft. It’s easily in my top five favorite games of all time, but it’s hard to imagine myself coming back without some much more drastic changes.

Of course, if you aren’t as jaded as me, Shadowlands certainly seems on its way to being another solid World of Warcraft expansion. The covenants alone should inject tons of replayability into the experience. And the freshened up systems will likely be welcome for long-time players who haven’t lapsed in their commitment.

July 13, 2020 3:00 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/shadowlands-beta-shows-that-maybe-you-cant-go-home-again/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=shadowlands-beta-shows-that-maybe-you-cant-go-home-again

tarak,

lets not beat around the bush, i miss you. like alot.

im not even going to get into what are the things that keep reminding me of th time we had, because thatd be me listing out my every minute of the day. yes, there are times when i remember you not for the good-reasons, but mostly i end up wanting to think of you instead of living in such a denial of ‘im over you’.

i know you must be going through alot, im not trying to compare us here, on who is feeling it more deeply, quality and quantity- how much ever of a utilitarian i claim to be, i want to be stupidly selfish enough to say i feel it hit me very hard. especially when i see people around me claim their relationships to be like the epitome of perfection and love, i just cant help but think of the beautiful masterpiece we could have made together. 

they say ‘chaos brings art’., that, time will tell. until then, ill just sit around and feel things like how its supposed to be.

i hope its not that hard on you.whom am i kidding, how much ever i convince myself that you will get over me, by pouring alot of ‘hate’ like how your friends wanted you to, im still silly enough to hope that you wouldnt be that harsh on me. gosh, this is never going to happen is it? im only going to die in dissapointment of letting things go this far, and getting nothing in return(when i now have the chance) or do i?

i know you, i know the charm, i know how you effect people, and how much ever stupid and goofy you get around me, i know what you are- or atleast i knew. why did we let things go this recklessly? i was immature, but why dint we sort things out then and there. gosh, i just cant look at the word jodhpur without a little guilt., i cannot look at any word starting with a T, and has both R and K. 

do you have any idea how many songs have the word tara, taraka, in them? its like some stupid prank someone is pulling on me. my mom also began to ask me how youre doing, she out of everyone, made an assumption that my mood is practically proportional to my time on my phone and phone calls, which basically is only with you. so she goes like “oh, tarak dint call today” after few days, she began to wonder if things were fine with you, and i burst out angrily, that ‘you should be fine because youre avoiding me’. please be true! anyway, i dont care where this questioning is coming from, but i reasoned out how this equation of my good moods being equated with our calls, was a little irring in the beginning, because i dont think i need some ONE person to keep me happy. it was a troubling thought which i used to hold a grudge on myself for depending on you for what ever greedy reasons. but i began to realise how first, that wasnt the case. i wsnt greedy on this reason, i was just looking for a support and a person to share my happiness with. i was greedy maybe when it came to things like, eventhough i knew it was hard for you, i was still there poking things and making it harder for you. TO THE EXTENT THAT YOU NOW BLOCKED ME. WOW. im not blaming you, maybe you did the right thing. maybe if you dint do that, we could have pulled each others hair out in this menace. but did we really do the right thing if i am feeling this way right now? whats the point tarak?

its 10:10 right now. wow. 

honestly, there are times when i thank myself for this space, because i really enjoy doing things for myself, but by the end of the day, i really hoped that youd call or email, so that i could tell you about all the amazing things i read, watched, discovered and i desperately want to share them with you, but i cant!

i got back to my bubble, my day basically revolves around reading and arranging my library. i still hold heidi close to myself when i sleep every night. i really regret not finishing it for you. but i dont know how much meaning she hold to you anyway. shes my world, she is the first thing i was obsessed with, and i thought she’d bring you similar joy, but now we never know i guess.

ive been doing philosophy for NET, although i havent started in serious mode, illl get there soon. i applied for an internship navdhanya, and have made plans of what to do with life., quite roughly. i even made a bucket list, of things i should try, filled with things that fascinate me. sample, fireflies. i never saw them in real life. and now i feel bad just by that thought. but yeah, i was pretty serious wheni made that list, and i keep adding things into it every now and then. i dont know why i mentioned this now, but i felt like it. ohh, since im updating about life, i should mention how i spoke to dad(basically, a mail) about most of the things i could never say to him, mostly stressing on how now i should be left unbothered. 

since i couldnt give rockstar another chance, sorry boss, the thought of having to go through that actress’ bad acting for three hours was itself torturous., i found the screenplay/script of the movie., and let me tell you how good i felt after reading it. i had better actors in my mind, and i dreamt about it for a couple of nights. it was a rollercoaster. i think screenplays do that to you. its like reading the book instead of watching the movie, but rockstar has to do with the songs, and since i had a clue about them, i can justify now. and i think i understand you better now, but i dont know, my timing of watching the movie is like another satire. not just this one, many more. gosh, i have like an entire saga of things i could use to cry over to. the other day, i cried while reading tagore poetry, although that was a worthy reason, its crazy how i dont know what little thing could be a trigger.

but how much ever i might try to romanticize all of this, tarak, i really think apart from the happy and goofy times we spent, which dont actually matter as much if we look back(except for nostagia purposes) id say we both needed a better versions, and both of us seperately too needed to be honest with what we are.. not just in showing the other person. im talking about myself mostly. and, for what ever we had, id hate to call it, but because of the lack of a better word, lets admit, we were toxic. and i have to say, how much ever you tried to get over your ego and wanted to be a feminist, looking back at minute details of the interactions we had, plus from the ones you talk about to others, i realised how often there were times when you basically preached something and failed to follow. im slightly ashamed to admit this, but i have gone through a phase of man-hating when i realised the things i have seen around,  thats basically when i realised how these could be the things you failed to see, (and prolly reasoned out for good enough reasons) but somewhere deep inside, i know its not so.like i read it in some book, (which bt the way, i should say felt like i was reading line by line about you) because it talks about how men who seem woke, but still choose to do the same thing, although for different reasons(or so they claim) is another result of the system. and i just cringed at this thought. because im sorry, but i felt it multiple times in our stay together. 

tarak, honestly how much ever im loving reading and researching, im afraid im getting very theoretical. now i cannot stop myself from pin pointing mistakes in everything, and am clearly missing out the beauty in things. if i learned one thing, love is for people who want to give up reason. if you are too calculated and stubborn, you can never love. im not saying im getting calculated and all brains-no-heart, but im slanting that way, and im just afraid i might never find redemption because i like this more. id choose this over love. for now. im sure time will prove me different, but let me tell you how much i value reading and art.

i guess we never spoke about this, why did we not? 

you know the whole ‘books are my bestfriends’? this is literally my life summarized. in my entire time at indus, i basically spent most of the time in the library, or in the washroom- where i used to sneak in, to bunk science classes. i had a reading tree also. under which i used to read in the sports period. prajeeth was a science guy, and the labs were right opposite to the library, so he used to keep a check on me, i often got late to catch my evening bus, so he’d make sure i dint. not to forget the music room. that was another room i spent some quality time in. while the library was in the first floor of the new building, the music room was in a circular room, on the terranc. the whole terrace was for music and art. we had a lot of empty open area where we were given assignments in. i love that place. id want to take you there one day, if, you know... 

so as i was saying, i just prefer reading and listening over anything. at this point, it feels like i know nothing apart from these both. i know you wouldnt agree with me being a good listener, but i know me, and i know im good.

well, now about us, i dont know. i really dont. i may say id be happy if you move on, and find yourself a woman, but i dont know if i can say it at this point, when im clearly meaning it. so, i can only hope for you to become a stronger person, collecting yourself from all of the past. and if you’re moving on, good for you., but id like to take my own sweet time with my memories of you,us, and laugh cry cringe all at once slowly. im not sating im attempting to get over you, because somehow that is making me think about you even more, and its actually making me want you for a whole different list of reasons. ill stick to this natural flow, and ill see you when i see you, years from now, or maybe more. somehow in the midst of some really stupid portions, there are some things you set a high limit in, for men to fill in- who might enter my life. so its going to be a big deal if i commit to someone tarak, and id still want to share about it with you, i dont know if that comes out from mere friendship or more, but i dont mind either ways.

i want to say this one last thing, because ive been wanting to say it for a long time, after the phone call.

it might be years later that we meet,and finally talk, when ever it is, how ever long it has been, if you turned out a good man, not just rational and responsible but realist and a romantic., id love for me to fall for you all over again, or maybe fall correctly* this time, until then ill wait.

 i want to wait. 

that’s me. there are surely many more things i want to say, but i will wait, like i said, and its not like youre going to read this, so its fine. ill look forward for what is coming, i hope you are healthy and are fine (at the least). i miss akbar, i hope aunty is not having a hard time seeing you break down anymore, i hope thats not the case, dont cry tarak! did you stop smoking? i was thinking about it on the 26th, i hope youre sticking to your resolution. i miss the smell of it, i sometimes open my specs-case to smell it, and it reminds me alot of you and red rum. its amazing. i miss it all, i miss you guys alot, i miss you babu. take care. 

xo

raaga.

Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield are out, and have been for a while and although the Official That Guy's A Maniac Review(tm) has yet to come out, suffice to say we've both ploughed a heckuva lot of hours into it, especially the online components and it's good. It's very good. However, before we take a deeper dive in a review let's look at who made the final cut. We wrote about 'Dexit' in the run up to release but now the games are out let's take a look at who is in and who is out. A bit of SPOILERS housekeeping first, we won't be talking about any of the new pokémon just which ones of the first 809 made the cut but there are some minor spoilers about pokémon with new forms so if you're still keeping yourself clean, look away now. Here's a handy chart of who is in and who is out at the time of writing. Look at it in amazement/despair. If you've ever played and liked a previous pokémon game, there's bound to be at least one or two you're astounded to see didn't make it in. Some codey fiddlers have discovered that it looks like a few more will be available over time and when Pokémon Home eventually releases but for the time being we're just talking about what's available in-game now. White squares means they're out, green means they're in and dark green means they've got a Galar new form. We'll be taking it in turns to pour several out for our lost pocket friends. You can play along at home by printing out this handy chart and crossing them off as we go! Who Deed? Cunzy1 1: Right let's get the biggie out of the way first. None of the starters apart from the Charizard line are in this game. Personally, it doesn't break my heart, especially all the shite dual typers but I can understand that a lot of people will mourn the 'mon they started their whole pokémon adventure with not being in this game. Richie: Only 400 made it this gen, including new ones. meaning over half have been culled including my bae, Lopunny! my oversexualised female pokemon team will never be realised in Sword/Shield :( apparently Pikachu killed her, skinned her and is now wearing her skin a la Silence of the Lambs "Would you Thundershock me?, I'd Thundershock me?" *tucks genitals between legs* Cunzy1 1: ALL THE FOSSILS ARE OUT! Yes. They were annoying version exclusives. Yes, they were annoying to breed as shinies. Yes, archeops' ability is debilitating. Rock types have suffered a significant loss. This is an affront to God. Is THIS the end of the road for Omastar? Richie: I think I will miss Klefki, of all the beauty-and-the-beast-esque inanimate objects brought to life I feel best about that priority move busting key ring. Cunzy1 1: Rip in peace pink fatties- jiggs 'n' wiggs, chansey 'n' bliss, lick'n'lik, miltank even alomomola. I guess we'll have to get our big exp boosts somewhere else. Extra sad to see jigglypuff not make the cut. Rest now puff, rest now. You've earned it. Richie: All of the Box fodder Legendaries, Mythologicals, and Ultrabeasts. Like you all know that using these are cheaty, and regardless of how many times you soft reset the game to favourable stats, does not justify their viability... plus Quite happy not to have to find 3 legendary birds/dogs/coconuts/dogs whatever again and again ad nausium Cunzy1 1: Also out, most of those rubbish bug types, grass two stagers and that pigeon and that rat one from most of the games. Goodbye venomoth, masquerain, happy butterfree, sad butterfree, that wormadam one and gosh we can't be bothered with forms anymore vivillon. As for the grass types bellend, hiphop anonymous, sunkist, punchy mushroom, other cactus man, venus flytrap man, bug blanket, grass monkey, flower lady and other other flower lady is gone. We shan't mourn ya. As for rattata, fat rat, beaver rat, eye rat, trump rat, pigeon, other pigeon, other other pigeon, other other pigeon are out. The pigeon pigeon is still in however and zigzag rat gets some love. Who Not Deed? Cunzy1 1: Gen fucking five that's who. Look at that chunk of green. We all know it's the worst generation right? Right? Richie: Thank fuck Musharna is in! I was so worried we wouldn't have the foetus pokemon. But I guess cutting it means that Gamefreak are Pro-Lifers. Scum. Cunzy1 1: Someone at NintendoPokemonCompanyGameFreak hates rock types this is 100% proof nobody can deny it, if they do they are a liar too. If you had to write down a list of the best rock types ranked best at the top and worst at the bottom and then choose the bottom half to put in this game you'd get the sol duo, sudowoodo, shuckle, corsola, onix and crustle and nobody can argue with me and I'm empirically right and tyrannitar is okay I guess and I like barbaracle but plenty don't. Crustle is fine.  Richie: Gamefreak like to thrust their eevee phallus in you, all 15 million of them. Eevee is forced down our throats and into the spotlight as their flavour of the weak PoI. Obnoxiously very little has changed short of getting a dynamax form if you have the Let's Go save file on your switch, same Evos... a let down. Cunzy1 1: Basculin. Good ol' basculin. Richie: Right, to be honest there is no end to the mon's we can see that made the cut, mediocre rarely used, super un-viable 'mons that have just lived in the shadow of a 'mon that just did it better for generations. Who asked for Beheeyem? It definitely felt that the top tier mons have been removed, bye Dragonite, Bye Salamence. Does this mean more balance to the force? Will we see NU move to OU, or just have teh OU decimate, (glances at Gyrados)... Remember to like and subscribe, donate on Ko-Fi, and on Patreon, remember that triple diamond subscribers get special scratch and sniff calendars with pictures of us using our latest sponsored sex toys we use  whilst dressed up as latest meme characters from video games in between streams to pay the bills,. The perfect Xmas gift for all the family. 1's in the chat if you are getting one for your granny. Who Different? Cunzy1 1: If you ever meet someone who says "Gosh darn it I'd love it if meowth had four forms, two evolutions and one of those evolutions had two forms" that person is ill. That person is sick and likely has ingested poison. Brain processing poison. But in their dying moments, they'd be happy with the 'pikachu treatment' this line is getting though and presumably they'll be spending a significant chunk of their playtime deciding who the sixth pokémon on their nothing but meowth team would be. I'm just joking, it would be a shiny meowth or meowth evolution. Richie: Stunfisk... Wow the forme change nobody asked for, and Mr Mime, he's different but equally as detestable, good work. Cunzy1 1: Furry-bait pokemon took a big hit but fear not, linoone and a new long tongued emo badger evolution will be the subject of badly drawn fan art for centuries to come. Richie: Lets deep dive in to old knobby baws Darmantian. Why does this exist, like before it kinna made sense it was based on a Daruma doll, but now its a snowman.. I.. I just dont like this design, I cant get on board with it. Cunzy1 1: Okay, I'm well aware I was just slagging corsola off up there but the new form is fantastic. Great idea as a climate revenge pokémon. Poignant even. Richie: Cofagrigus, my favorite defendy-baws annoyer. He has a new forme where he has become a slab of rock with a "rune" on it, sure lets just give him Ground typing... that will ...*squints eyes*... make him ..*raises pitch*... better? Cunzy1 1: Farfetch'd. New form, same old no viability. Richie: Dunsparce, you know we all heard the rumors, of forme changes and/or Dunsparce  evolutions. But alas no 'sparce-ing for us this game *sad dunsparce face*

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