#wills identity is personal w James in a way it is with no one else but James is so fucking oblivious of undercurrents it comes unbalanced
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I literally woke up in the middle of the night like God will dark rise is so fucking screwed. The line that’s like. “Everyone wanted to kill the Dark King.” What’s the part where he looks at Violet helplessly, haunted, almost pleading for mercy? But of course he reveals nothing of substance to anyone. Elizabeth is too young to understand but the reader knows what “Her relationship with that boy was…unnatural” can mean. Tying him to bedposts? Failing to strangle him? What else? Never not even once seeing beyond a mythological identity Will himself didn’t know he had? What did he think was the reason? That he was just intrinsically hateful? Of course he says nothing. Of course Violet can’t trust him- he’s given her nothing as painfully real as what she’s given him. So he gives her the sword hoping at least he can die at the hands of someone he loved, but even that doesn’t work out - she gives the sword to a Visander still furious at SARCEAN. The pattern continues; no one looks at Will, who vomits when he realizes what’s happened to James, Will who is much of a liar and killer and sneak as Elizabeth accuses but nonetheless wants to be different. Even when he doesn’t remember his own past. There’s no way out for him that doesn’t hurt. Hope this obsession passes soon given the one and a half years of waiting required for book 3
#dark rise series#dark heir#rarely does a cliffhanger pain me so much#bc rarely am I ever THAT invested in a plot I am sad to say#nona the ninth was so cathartic in of itself I’m content marinating before alecto#BUT PACAT ONLY EVER GIVES EMOTIONAL CRUMBS#have any of these bitches ever known peace fr#maybe this is what reading princes gambit and not immediately having the follow up might’ve been like#honestly it’s possibly damen and Lauren just generally had less problems tho#more than his relationship even with James. will/Violet is perhaps the genuine source of like. I WISH HED GIVEN HER A REASON.#the narration that describes Violet as Will’s star in the night…….. like fuck fine#will can’t reach any level of genuine intimacy with James bc the mess of fraught noncon dynamics is this massive unspoken horrible thing#wills identity is personal w James in a way it is with no one else but James is so fucking oblivious of undercurrents it comes unbalanced#and will knows it. but (as far as we know) violet isn’t reborn has no history with sarcean the dark king she’s literallt just Some Guy#and that almost makes it worse???????? that they are so loyal to each other even as he’s keeping a massive secret?#they weren’t dated or destined to entangle the way will is w characters like James and Katherine#and I think that makes his rship with Violet possibly the realest and truest experience of trust and love will has ever had#like it’s nothing bro. truly she knows nothing about him other than his lies of omission and her faith in him goodness which may or may not#beiltimately justified. but that was probably as honest and close will ever got to anyone. and him to her.
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Other Youtubers Included (4) Masterlist
part one, part two, part three
A Stolen Ring (ao3) - orphan_account
Summary: Dan’s not normal. Why?
He's not human, he has a mysterious ring, and he hates Phil Lester. They have a strange past, one filled with bullying and avoidance, but when Dan turns into an incubus, everything changes. He struggles with his identity and cries himself to sleep most nights, yearning to be normal. And somehow the universe makes it worse by bringing him and Phil together - in the most literal sense.
All Because of Him. (ao3) - Howellsprincess
Summary: Someone leaves a baby at Dan and Phil's flat. Dan doesn't know what to do with a baby, he can barely take care of himself.
Always Wanted to be in a Phandwich - dicktsunami
Description: Dan and Phil’s relationship is electric, and Tyler takes the opportunity to be part of it.
Butterfly (ao3) - A_Million_Regrets
Summary: Phil Lester, a lonely writer, finds a dying boy with beautiful black wings on a cold, rainy night in a dingy alleyway. He recognizes the boy as one of the winged men hated by human society. They are considered to be wild, ferocious beasts, but Phil's sympathy forces him to help the boy.
What happens when the boy, considered to be a wild beast, gets too attached and follows him home with an innocent, dimpled smile?
Chapter Two (ao3) - HandleWithCare
Summary: All Phil wanted was the newest Stephen King novel. What he found instead was even better and may have even changed his life. No matter how good or bad chapter one is, sometimes, you just have to be brave and turn to chapter two.
Cheers (ao3) - ahappyphil
Summary: Phil and Zoe have a tipsy chat in America. Phil says a bit too much
DBC - full-dark-no-starss
Summary: It’s 1995 and five kids are stuck in detention the night of year eleven prom. There’s the bad boy; Dan, with his battered leather jacket, bad attitude and lame crush on Phil, the hot-headed geek who hates him. Then there’s Emma; the strange red-head with no voice, Louise, the pretty rich girl and Joe, the guy who’s captain of every sport in the school, but his only interest is drama.
Something happens that night, forever trapping the five of them in Batley Arts High School. They maintain their ambitions and aspirations despite being dead for twenty years…
Desires (ao3) - A_Million_Regrets
Summary: What would you do if you were suddenly hauled from your inauspicious life and dumped into an unforeseen catastrophe with your worst enemy?
Dan Howell and Phil Lester completely and utterly hate each other. They fight every time they meet, and all of their friends are tired of it. But one day, these two hot-headed, reckless men stumble through a secret passage in a mysterious old house and wake up on a strange island uninhabited by other intelligent life forms. They only have each other and no way to escape. Will they fight to death, or will they learn to trust each other in a world where no one else exists? Can they put aside their mutual hatred for each other to survive this misfortune?
(don't know what I'd do)If I Lost You (ao3) - plsdontfightme
Summary: In which Dan and Phil are going on a rescue mission. Things do not go as planned.
Fall Like a Teenager (ao3) - cafephan
Summary: “Okay here’s one, mister tough guy,” Louise bites her lip for a moment, though it’s almost immediately replaced with a smirk. “I dare you to kiss someone you’ve never kissed before.”
Or,
The group of friends take part in Truth or Dare, Dan is too willing and Phil is unprepared.
For me, For you, For us (ao3) - Jay_Maria
Summary: It's Phil's first day at Uni and all he's expecting is a quiet uneventful year filled with a lot of school work, new friends, and opportunities for his future.
However everything that he thought he knew changes when he meets Daniel James Howell, hands down the most beautiful person he has ever seen, Dan intrigues him from the very start.
Dan however, wants nothing to do with Phil, he's hiding a few secrets of his own and he seems to want Phil as far away from him as possible.
But when destiny pulls two people together, sometimes it's best not to stay away.
Hawk and Dove (ao3) - aprilflowers96
Summary: In a world where super powers plague people all over the world, Dan Howell fights to keep his emotions and pyrokinesis under control. After years of success, Dan is outed and whisked away to a school that claims to teach him to use his abilities "safely". Still unable to control the fire that seems to rage under his skin, Dan's only solace is in his roommate Phil, who can't seem to stop turning things to ice. While trying to end the corruption at The School, the team discovers the real reason they're being held. In an explosion of fist fights, super suits, and betrayal, Dan and Phil try to do what they feel is right.
Here's Hope (ao3) - CanYourDan
Summary: In the past Omegas were treated terribly, however due to new laws in England, this practice has become illegal. Phil Lester works for an Omega rescue center, and so far things have been all business, however when a maltreated Omega named Dan comes in, things become complicated for Phil as he does the thing the center always advises against, his heart becomes involved, and he feels like it's breaking.
home is where the heart is. (ao3) - orphan_account
Summary: 16 year old Daniel Howell had always felt out of place in his dad's fancy apartment or under the Singaporean sun. Life was not bad, but being the son of a British expatriate banker divorcee with commitment issues meant that there was never a home.
Inspired by the only constant in his life, a similar aged British youtuber by the name of Phil Lester, Dan decides to move to his supposed homeland Britain on a whim, in the hopes of escaping his bubble of isolation, and maybe find the place where he truly belonged.
Somehow Dan lands himself in one of the few notorious all boys boarding schools in Britain, one that has bizarre traditions, vicious inter-house competition and way too many attractive boys; and a roommate who had been Dan's best friend all along, even if Phil Lester hadn't known it.
Dan finally found home.
I'll be the boy with the silver lining (you'll be the boy with the cinderblock garden) (ao3) - elusive_eventuality
Summary: This was it. Today was the day. The day Phil was going to ask Dan to marry him.
OR
Based off of this prompt:
Phil asks Dan to marry him at vidcon in front of all their YouTube friends who weren't even aware they were together
It’s Okay if it Doesn’t Rhyme, Right? - cherryblossom-phil
Summary: AU based off the movie “Music and Lyrics”; Phil Lester’s a “has-been” - a jaded popstar slowly fading into obscurity. But when UK’s new princess of pop, Zoella, asks him to write her next single, Phil gets a chance at reinvention. There’s just one problem - he’s never been good at writing lyrics, just the music behind it. Enter Dan Howell, the strange young man who waters his plants and has a way with words.
Kick Off (ao3) - jestbee
Summary: Dan used to play football but now he's stuck coaching a second league team thats in danger of relegation. He's fallen out of love with the game, his team hates him, and Phil Lester, the coach of their biggest rivals, is the most annoying person he's ever met.
Luckily life is a game of two halves and things are about to take a turn for the better.
Living is Easy with My Eyes Closed (ao3) - TheUKAmazingDan
Summary: September 19, 1976
Dan Howell liked pretty things and a pretty guy, but not the one who was interested in him. No, Dan was infatuated with someone he couldn't have.
Looks Can Be Deceiving (ao3) - Phanfictionhoe
Summary: The new kid that scares everyone because of his looks teaches Dan that you really shouldn't judge a book by its cover.
Misunderstandings (ao3) - iwoulddieforthisship
Summary: Phil was breaking up with him. Dan was sure.
Pure angst with a happy ending, no spoilers tho, you'll have to read to find out lmao, hope you enjoy
Patterns (ao3) - gravityplant
Summary: In which the university student Dan moves into his first apartment, completely alone in the world for the first time. The lack of friends he compensates with overworking. But then there's suddenly Phil. Charming, shy Phil, with the most childish smile Dan's ever witnessed. Suddenly nothing's ever the same.
Pretty Odd - phillestatos
Summary: Dan Howell, piano teacher and speedster, craves chocolate cakes at three in the morning. He meets a baker named Phil who owns the only store opened at three in the morning and who bakes the most delicious chocolate cake in the world. It’s a pretty odd love story.
Red, Lies and ‘I Love You’s (ao3) - philsdrill
Summary: Phil and trans!Dan are at Playlist Live and run into a complication when Dan gets his period during a meetup. Phil and Louise come to the rescue. Fluff.
soap. (ao3) - manchestereye
Summary: dan doesn’t expect his first tour with his band to be this chaotic, but life finds a way to surprise him.
Sometimes being a vampire can really suck (ao3) - tol_but_smol
Summary: Soulmate vampire AU! Every vampire has a soulmate, they can be human, vampire, any gender and when they meet you know their your soulmate.
Thanks to Tyler - phanisinlove
Summary: Tyler finds out that Dan likes Phil and that Phil likes Dan. Tyler then plays match maker, kinda.
The Colour Thieves - lestericalphan
Summary: The Government has banned colour, creativity, and homosexuality in Braith, the Black and White City, in order to provide only the necessary requirements for life, but some escape the confines of the city to become Colour Thieves, vowing to return the world to the way it ought to be. Dan, a perfectly normal citizen, gets kidnapped by a band of Thieves, stealing him away from all he knows for unknown reasons. But will they change Dan’s way of thinking or just scare him away?
The League (Phan AU) (ao3) - orphan_account
Summary: The League of Specially Trained Individuals is a global criminal group who work in the shadows. They never get caught and they never leave a trace.
Dan Howell and Phil Lester were trained to fight and die for the League, but when Dan's father tries to make their lives a living hell and Phil questions his allegiance, things will go awry and no one will be safe.
to all the people i've loved before (and the one who actually made me fall in love) (ao3) - natigail
Summary: Phil doesn’t crush on people often, but when he does the emotions seem to overwhelm him. The only way he knows how to deal is to write love letters. They were never meant to be read.
The most recent letter threatens to ruin his relationship with his big brother Martyn, so in a fit of panic, Phil finds himself turning to the boy who was the recipient of the very first love letter for help. Even if he is Dan Howell, the school heartthrob.
Who's Taking You Home Tonight? (ao3) - whatkindoffanfics
Summary: October, 1944. While World War II rages on, Dan Howell finds himself thrown into the secretive world of Bletchley Park, a headquarters for intercepting and breaking the codes of encrypted German messages.
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hey savior. (ii);
(gif’s not mine!!!)
author’s note: she’s here and SHE’S a tease. honestly, listening to some sad songs made me just get really emotional in this. hope u all enjoy! i’d love some feedback :) and remember i love natasha! that’s it.
warnings: EXTREME! bad writing
word count: 2098
I looked the way James shifted his body to the side, grunting a bit but not letting the pain wake him up from his sleeping state. Deciding it was best to leave him be, I exited his room, looking at the guard that stood sharp next to his doorstep. “Pierce wants to see you.” He told me harshly, I turned around to meet his gaze and nodded, walking towards the most dreaded part of this building. He had about three people at his door, not wanting anyone to disturb his peace, as if he had any. “He wanted to see me?” I asked his guards and they opened the door, not answering my question.
I stepped into his office, if you can call it that. It was an old building, walls creaking and ceiling leaking kind of building, so the only thing that made this an office was his big brown desk in the middle of the room and a fancy chair that didn’t suit the sight. “I knew a child couldn’t do it.” He said as he sat back on his chair and looked at me. I crossed my arms and raised my eyebrows, waiting for him to proceed his sayings. “Kill her, knew I couldn’t put it on your innocent shoulders.” He only half joked.
“You didn’t think of my innocence when you sent me to kill all those people for you in the last what, two years?” I rested the palm of my hands on his desk, staring at him. “Besides, taking a child from an organization that already trained her to kill, I don’t think innocence was here to begin with.”
“But she’s different,” he took a deep breath before he went on. “You can’t kill her.” I rolled my eyes and moved to turn away from his desk, not willing to hear anything he says anymore. “Yeah we get it, you know everything.”
“Am I wrong?” I stood still, trying to figure out what to answer to shut him up. “I missed, hit her shoulder. Yeah, you’re wrong.” He chuckled, standing up and walking towards me.
“You never miss, (y/n).” I raised my head, turning my gaze towards his figure that was now close to mine. He caressed his finger across my forehead to my cheek, I clenched my jaw as he held my cheeks in his hands. He added more force to it, his face turning into a light shade of crimson, getting angrier with every second that goes by. “Don’t try to sell me that crap,” his grip started to hurt, “I know you, and you didn’t kill her. Just like your partner there, you failed your mission.” He let go of my face and turned his to me, his lips letting the sound of chuckle escape them again. “I won’t let you two morons destroy what HYDRA has been working on for the past 70 years.” He leaned against his desk, trying to read my expression.
“Which is what, by the way? Don’t think you ever mentioned it to us considering we do your dirty work.” I popped my jaw, slight pain still felt against my cheeks. “You need to focus on your missions, not mine.”
His hands went up towards the door, signaling for me to leave. “And remember, you won’t have any second chances.” I nodded, walking towards the door, walking into the balcony and getting some fresh air into my lungs. I looked at the hallway behind me, seeing as there were so many guards walking back and forth. Calming myself down, I went back into the building, keeping my chin up and walking towards my room. Walking past James’ room again, I saw Rumlow about to enter his room with three people behind him. Walking fast, I hurried to stop them in their tracks. “What is this about?” I told them as I blocked them with my hand and foot at the doorstep.
“Move, (y/n).” Rumlow sighed with an annoyed look on his face, already not willing to deal with anything I was up to. “Well,” I locked his door, “I might just think about it when you tell me what are you doing here.” Getting closer to his face I could practically feel how his eyes were rolling to the back of his head. He looked back at his men and and then returned his gaze to me, putting his face close to mine, “D’ya think we were finished with him?” His look sending me chills down my spine, “his treatment ain’t over. Now move.” He took a step back, waiting for me to oblige. “Did Pierce order this?”
“Who else?”
“Sounds a bit weird, considering the fact I was just talking to him and you were no where near.” It was my turn to move towards him, raising my finger to his chest. “Now you are the one should move.” As if guarding James’ room, I stood still. “I’m not going to listen to a child,” he took a deep breath before trying to push me away, his men following him. “Well I’d consider it, you know, since I was the one who got that bruise up your face.” I held a tight grip on his arm and he clenched his jaw.
“Why are you even protecting him? Aren’t you supposed to be heartless or some shit?” This this it was one of the men who spoke up, getting tired of the whole situation. “Or not care since you’re going to die anyway?” Another man butted in, making Rumlow scrunch his face and look at the man behind him with a devastated look. “Does she not know?” Another one whispered.
“What is this about?” I furrowed my brows at the men who acted like children in front of me. “Clearly she doesn’t.” Rumlow looked right into my eyes again, a creepy smile appeared on his face. “What, did Pierce assign you to assassinate me after all of this?” leaving out a hint of sarcasm, Rumlow squinted his eyes as if he was thinking and nodded while saying, “Well something like that. Only it won’t be me it will be those rocket planes SHIELD worked on and,” He clearly did not know what personal space is at this point, “it’s going to be you and half the population that put HYDRA at any risk, along with your friend back there.” He kicked the door and I looked behind me, then slowly towards the men that were in front of me.
“So, massacre?” I gulped, wishing I wasn’t that petrified of the plan, thinking of all the people out there that did not do anything but HYDRA’s fucked up like that. Thinking of James, who has done nothing but follow his orders and definitely did not deserve to get killed by the organization that ruined his life, I felt my blood boiling. Anger and fear was thumping loud in my nerves, clenching my fists trying to get it together and not lose it in front of the apathetic men. Not giving them the advantage of seeing me in a tangled state, I chuckled. “Sounds like something they would do. Anyway, get the fuck away before I get Pierce and you know, even if I die, he would still listen to me till my last breath.” Spitting these words out of my mouth was a risk. Rumlow knew to this day Pierce had tried everything in his power to keep me safe, seeing as I was so young, he never let any of his men touch me. This was something he couldn’t protect me from. Like he said, they worked on this plan for like what, 70 years? He couldn’t let someone like me, ruin this plan. He was well aware children were going to die here, so another one couldn’t bother them. Not that I needed his help, he was repulsive, I knew that. Maybe it was just a way for his sick mind to keep me to himself, needing me to help them succeed, maybe it was something else I wasn’t really trying to figure out. Either way, I was certain I didn’t need their help.
Especially now, knowing I was about to get murdered by the hands that ruined every bit of my life. Well, the hands that worked with the reason my thoughts aren’t over a cute boy I saw down the hall, but rather are filled with how will I get out of this situation alive. Putting up a strong face, Rumlow spit next to my shoe and hissed at me, turning his head to the left and his men following close behind, leaving me alone. Leaning against the door, trying to get my breathing even, I unlocked the door and stepped into James’ for the second time in these last 24 hours. Panicking, I saw bright green-blue eyes staring back into mine, his expression cold while mine was definitely not. “James,” I let out a shaky breath, he didn’t move. “Are you okay?” I stood still, not aware of what he heard or what he remembered. “Steve.” He blinked a few times before turning his gaze to the floor. I knew not to ask any questions, not to startle him with more confusion that already flew through him. “His name was Steve, but I can’t remember anything.” I could hear the frustration in his voice, even if he was awake he probably couldn’t focus on anything that was going on behind the door, his thoughts and memories overwhelming him. I sat at the edge of the bed and looked at him, at his defeated state. They ruined him, ruined his identity and switched it with what they wanted him to be and yet, they were to decide if he lives or dies.
“Well, I guess you were friends if he gave you a cute nickname.” My voice was weak to the point I wasn’t sure if he even heard me, but his gaze shifted towards mine and he sighed. I couldn’t possibly continue with their plan with everything I know, right? I was taught to fulfill my mission, but this felt wrong. Letting them take the lives of innocent people, felt wrong. Emotional, that is what they used to call me in the red room. They focused their training on getting me to not let my emotions overcome me, knowing it would distract me from my target. Looking at James I can’t help but let myself get emotional, he didn’t deserve this no matter how many people would disagree. I knew I couldn’t let this plan go through, couldn’t let HYDRA win and hand them the ending they seek. Everything about finishing this mission felt wrong.
So I gave myself a mission, knowing this was the only way I could go through with this mentally and physically. No matter what, with the given opportunity, I will stop them. Bare hands or with help, dead or alive, this wasn’t about me anymore.
The next day rolled around and I woke up in my own bed, went to train and later on sat in the room filled with HYDRA agents while going through the next mission that was assigned to us. “Agent (y/l/n), you go with Pierce while he is with the World Security Council, making sure everything goes as planned and keeping an eye on our boss.” Nodding, they made me go through the entire plan again. Walking in as Pierces’ guard, making sure they all had their electrifying pins. James was assigned to make sure the gigantic jets weren’t touched or pulled down by any outside source. Basically, he had to fight Steve making sure him and his friends won’t be anywhere near them.
I wasn’t assigned to kill Natasha on this mission, leading to Pierce’s words echo in my head “And remember, you won’t have any second chances.” While I try to figure out his motive. What was his play here? I thought he wanted me to prove I could kill her, instead he sends me to guard him? Did he expect her to be in the room, or he just gave up on trusting me with this case and let James have her, knowing he will finish it like the boss wants to. I hoped she was going to appear in the consultation room, and that James wouldn’t get a hold of her.
Training starts right after everyone knows and understands their assigned mission. Everyone throwing fists and shooting at moving targets while preparing for probably their last mission before HYDRA takes over the world, or so they thought.
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taglist(i cant believe i have this): @mylifeissucky123 @itsanallygator @redqueenstorm
#natasha romanoff#natasha romanoff imagine#natasha romanoff x reader#bucky barnes#bucky barnes imagine#bucky barnes x reader#marvel imagine#avengers imagine#aaaGGHHDSG i am not sure about this part don;t HATE MEEEEE this is awful
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Hey Room! Thanks for replying to my Q. But if Illya was that lovesick for Katarina since he was 6, doesn’t it give a stench of classic transference to the Red/Liz dynamic? Like, Illya couldn’t get Kat, so he sees her daughter as his second chance . . . with Kat really. Liz was supposed to be the woman Red “loved and lost” in Cape May, but if Red = Illya, then that description must apply to both girls.
I would see it as such if Red chose to whisper Kat’s name as his final word, or a memory of her flashed across his mind before his impending almost execution, or if he talked about her as the woman he loved/his heart/his life. But it’s always clearly Liz, there isn’t even a touch of ambiguity to this. If he still harbored feelings for Kat, they should have surfaced in these key moments but they didn’t. His past relationship w/ Kat has an influence here, I don’t deny that, but I don’t believe Red sees Liz as a replacement or consolation prize. He sees her as her own person, and if he fell for Liz, he fell for Liz bc she fits his type just like all the other women he has fancied before – 99.9% of whom were not her mother. He’s loved before but not the way he loves Liz now.
And I should have worded my response better re: the lovesick puppy thing bc I don’t think he’s been in love w/ Kat since they were 6 or that it’s some sort of guiding constant in his life. They likely lived separate lives on different continents, for starters, and she wasn’t interested in him that way. And I mentioned somewhere else how I see an inconsistency in his attachment to Kat in “Rassvet”: he isn’t devastated when he thinks she committed suicide, at least nowhere near as affected as he was by Liz’s death, which undercuts the whole selfless lover-hero image that seemingly follows soon after she comes out of hiding to ask for his help. There are no hurt feelings, no stinging sense of betrayal in the way he interacts w/ Kat (it’s almost like “oh, you’re back, good, wanna make out?”), yet it was all there after Liz came back from the dead, which already suggests different depths of emotional involvement.
Ilya’s repeated insistence to honor a pledge he made when he was 6 is the takeaway in “Rassvet”, imo. “My word is my bond” and “loyalty above all else” are still the most important guiding principles in Red’s life (both in business and personal relationships), and this is also what Ilya – or through Ilya, Dom – kept emphasizing as the only reason to help Kat. Treating a childhood promise as a serious, binding contract is a very Red thing, imo. How much actual “in love-ness” went with it remains to be seen since this is Dom’s version of the story and Red is clearly not happy w/ it.
But this signature compulsion is there in Red’s relationship w/ Liz, too. He promised her to keep her alive and safe, to give her the life she longs for, and he is not stopping until he succeeds but he also has his own agenda unfurling in the backdrop of their relationship. So he pledged himself to Liz, too. This compulsive aspect of the “lovesick puppy act” is what I think these two dynamics have in common, that’s why I said that Ilya’s behavior around Kat fits w/ how Red behaves today. This super intense loyalty to a select few stems from who Ilya/Red is as a person at his core, and it’s independent from romantic/sexual feelings but it’s easy to confuse/conflate the two, esp if one is young(er) and/or lonely like Ilya/Red was ~30 years ago.
And all this naturally brings something James once said to mind:
“I think in life, people have this confusion about love. We all want to fall in love so badly that we are almost willing to lie to ourselves, to force ourselves into believing that we are in love when we aren’t. It’s too bad, because in so doing, we cheapen it. I don’t think we recognize the depth of the emotion at all. It’s entirely transformative and we think of it as a blurb on a Hallmark card. When you’re in love, you can’t control it. It’s when you can’t take charge of what you feel, when you are completely powerless in the face of the emotion. When it happens, it happens in spite of you.” [x]
In “Rassvet” Ilya is, in fact, taking charge and Dom emphasizes this by calling him “the architect of this charade”. He gets himself transformed as part of a deliberate plan, a power move, he came up with and had to talk Kat into. Liz, however, is unintentionally yet inescapably transforming him in ways he is 100% unable to control, and she is transforming him back to who he used to be (a lá Beauty and the Beast). She tears right through every design he’s ever come up with, zigs when he zags, and lands him in the most insane situations he had no intention of ending up in (most recently: the execution chamber).
So the first part of the quote above feels more Ilya/Kat atm, and the last bit is 100% what I see when I look at Red and Liz’s relationship and, perhaps not by accident, that last bit is also what made it into actual canon dialog btw Red and Liz, and it’s been repeatedly stated how only Liz can render Red powerless and how she is his kryptonite. Liz.
So I don’t think Ilya/Red truly felt for Kat in the past what he – in spite of himself – ended up feeling for Liz in the present (true, all-consuming love). But he follows the same “my word is my bond” principle in both dynamics.
I can def see him being irritated by how Dom chose to reduce his relationship w/ Kat to some sanitized fairytale, but I still don’t think Dom believed that lying through his teeth was the way to dispense closure here. It’s Dom who warns Red at the end of S5 that Liz is never gonna stop digging for his true identity, then again tells him that she was gonna find out sooner or later anyway, so he did Red a favor by ripping off that band-aid. Liz was desperate to know Red’s real identity and Dom gave it up, hoping/thinking it would be a small price to pay for a way forward. Dom himself is sick and tired of secrets and hiding, living that way has cost him so much already and he knows nothing good ever comes from it, so I don’t think that heaping full-on lies on this issue was his go-to move here. I could be wrong, of course, but for now, I am rolling w/ “most of what Dom said he believes/assumes to be true but stuff was omitted that will end up re-framing things once they are revealed”.
But nothing (potentially) traumatizing was revealed here? things Red wanted to keep from Liz were revealed and he clearly did not like it or the way Dom chose to tell it, but “I know you used to be Ilya who made a huge sacrifice to protect my mother and me” is not quite in the same league as “I know you killed Sam” or “I know I killed my father” as far as devastating revelations go. I think Red’s reaction matched that + he was also still fuming and hurting from the confirmation of her most recent betrayal, so that’s also coloring his response and mood here, imo, making him so tightly wound that only a few twitches escape as he listens to her.
That smartass Popeye remark was not his immediate response, it’s not a response to “I know you’re Ilya”. It’s a deflection that comes when she – sensing an obvious hole in the story – starts questioning why he kept Reddington’s identity once the alleged reason of taking it on was satisfied. That’s when he says, “I am what I am. … Popeye the Sailor Man.” to avoid the topic bc – imo – now she is truly close to knowing everything and he needs to stall to figure out how to handle this entirely new playing field.
I think his reaction to her at the end of “Rassvet” is a unique mix – previous methods of (now half-hearted) deflection w/ an undercurrent of surprise, fear, anger, uncertainty + a touch of “you disappoint yet impress” he also voiced at the end of S5.
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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has had an unconventional political career. When first elected in 2012, she became the first Hindu and first American Samoan voting member of Congress. Before that, she was the youngest person ever elected to the Hawaii Legislature but left it behind to deploy to Iraq with the Army National Guard. She is a progressive favorite with a conservative record. She grew up in a mixed-race, mixed-religion1 household that preached both vegetarianism and homophobia.
Now, Gabbard is launching a long-shot campaign for president of the United States, although she still hasn’t made her promised formal announcement. She has little name recognition outside Hawaii, and at age 37, she is only just constitutionally eligible to sit behind the Resolute desk. Fittingly, if she wants to win the Democratic nomination, she’s going to have to follow an unconventional path to get there.
First, it’s very hard to become president — or even get nominated for the job — if the top line on your résumé is U.S. representative. I count 10 such candidates who have run for president in either the Republican or Democratic primary since 2000.2 None finished higher than third place. John W. Davis, in 1924, was the last major-party presidential nominee whose highest previous elected office was the U.S. House.3 The last — and only — sitting U.S. representative to be elected president was James A. Garfield in 1880. It’s hard to stand out when you’re just one of hundreds of legislators, and Gabbard is no exception. Pollsters didn’t ask about Gabbard in a single poll between Election Day 2018 and her announcement earlier this month, a sign that she hadn’t yet made a splash in the invisible primary. And in three national polls released on Tuesday, she registered no higher than 2 percent (3 percent if you limit the field to only the candidates who have announced thus far).
That doesn’t mean Gabbard can’t build a core of support from scratch. She is undeniably a very talented politician, as observers of Hawaii politics can attest. When she first ran for Congress in 2012, she trailed the primary front-runner, the well-known former mayor of Honolulu, by 45 points in early polling, but she wound up defeating him by 21 points. According to the most recent Honolulu Civil Beat poll, she is now Hawaii’s most popular elected official, with a 61 percent positive and 24 percent negative rating. She won her 2018 general election with a whopping 77 percent of the vote, albeit in a very blue district.
Gabbard’s brand in Hawaii is strong thanks in part to her unique combination of identities. As her website puts it, “As a mixed-race woman, combat veteran, martial artist, lifelong vegetarian, and practicing Hindu, she also is the embodiment of the type of diversity which is at the very heart of what America was founded upon.” However, it’s not clear that what helps her in Hawaii will help her in a nationwide primary. The U.S. has a smaller share of Pacific Islander and military voters than Hawaii does, for instance. Her youth and gender look like they could be electoral strengths, at least on the surface: We estimate that around 30 percent of the 2020 Democratic primary electorate will be millennials — a group that Gabbard, having been born in 1981, can uniquely appeal to. And there is evidence from 2018 that Democratic primary voters are going out of their way to vote for women in the Trump era. But on the flip side, it’s naive to assume Gabbard won’t face at least some ageism and sexism in how she’s perceived and covered.
Most likely, though, none of these factors will be as important as Gabbard’s ability to appeal to the left wing of the party. According to Chad Blair, a reporter and editor at Civil Beat, Hawaii’s many progressives are the single biggest source of Gabbard’s political strength. Nationally, she made headlines in the 2016 primary when she quit her position as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee to endorse Bernie Sanders, frustrated with the DNC’s reported favoritism toward Hillary Clinton. In the popular imagination, the episode established her firmly on the progressive side of the “progressive vs. establishment” divide.
There’s just one problem: Although she has voiced support for progressive positions like Medicare for all and free college tuition, her actual record skews moderate. She has broken from her party on votes to increase restrictions on refugees and weaken gun control. She has introduced legislation supported by GOP donor Sheldon Adelson and interviewed for a possible position in Trump’s Cabinet. She has a -0.280 DW-Nominate score, which measures politicians on a scale from -1 (most liberal) to 1 (most conservative) based on their congressional voting records. That made her more conservative than 83 percent of House Democrats in the 115th Congress.
True-believer progressives also balk at Gabbard’s lengthy opposition-research file, which is bulging with ties to controversial figures and lingering questions about her conservative upbringing. While some say her opposition to military intervention in Syria makes her an advocate for peace, others say it makes her a “mouthpiece” for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In 2017, she was widely rebuked for taking a meeting with Assad, an act that legitimized the accused war criminal, and saying she was “skeptical” of the U.S. conclusion that Assad had used chemical weapons. The previous year, she was one of only three members of Congress to vote against a resolution condemning the Syrian government’s use of force against its own people.
Closer to home, Gabbard grew up a spiritual follower of a Hare Krishna sect that has been accused by former members of being an authoritarian cult. Its teachings ran the gamut from environmentalism to anti-gay activism, something that has already created headaches for Gabbard’s presidential campaign. As a teenager, Gabbard worked with her father, a fervent crusader against gay rights, at the Alliance for Traditional Marriage, which supported conversion therapy and helped pass an anti-same-sex marriage law. At least twice as a state representative, Gabbard referred to LGBT-rights advocates as “homosexual extremists.” She has since apologized and released a lengthy statement affirming her support for same-sex marriage and “LGBTQ+” rights, but as late as 2016, she told Ozy magazine that her personal views remained unchanged. In 2017, she told the New Yorker, “Just because that’s not my lifestyle, I don’t think that government should make sure that everybody else’s lifestyles match my own.”
Overall, Gabbard is a good example of why the “progressive vs. establishment” narrative is a flawed one. Really, party divisions unfold along two dimensions: ideology (progressive vs. moderate) and tone (establishment vs. anti-establishment). Gabbard is an anti-establishment moderate, and it’s not clear if there’s an appetite for that in a primary. Then again, that’s what Trump was — and GOP primary voters didn’t seem bothered by his controversies and frequent departures from conservative gospel. The big question for Gabbard is whether Democratic voters are also willing to look past similar imperfections for the right messenger. And like Trump, she is a compelling messenger.
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Friendship ending
A lot of people have had friends dump them because they either voted for Trump or don’t hate Trump enough.
And when they are forced to see that the friends they try to dump aren’t horrible people, they perform mental gymnastics to convince themselves that their former friends are horrible people.
The following is a long rant from one such friend of mine and my response. If you recognize who it is, I DEMAND you seek no reprisal from them. I am keeping them anonymous to protect their identity for just that reason.
... A leftist, really now. Ahaha, oh wow.
*Link to the post I made about Lincoln being shot by a Leftist*-Z
Yes, noted Confederate sympathizer and anti-abolitionist John Wilkes Booth. A leftist.I was already keeping you at a healthy arm's length while putting up a vague semblance of friendship for the sake of not rocking the boat on that one server we're in, but holy shit have you ever lost your damn marbles. I can't do this, lmaoI mean, you've got an impressive collection of bullshit on that blog of yours all around, but this? chef kissHonestly, on some level, you impress me. How someone can claim to be anti-establishment while sucking up to the establishment every possible way they can, how someone can claim to be "seeking truth" only to disregard all evidence that can't be traced back to some skeezy reactionary Facebook page or another delivered to you through the impermeable little bubble of right-wingers you've created for yourself along with the right wing side of mass media your purportedly loathe so much... tell me, just how much cognitive dissonance do you deal with on a daily basis?How does it feel to claim to be "pro life", or to claim that you care about others only to push for measures to restrict access to healthcare, or to vehemently yell against anything the government could do that would make it easier for people to come out of the vicious spiral of poverty?(edited)How does it feel to constantly pretend to care about minorities, but only ever use us as gotchas to other minorities that you've internally designated as universally bad in spite of any evidence to the contrary - not to mention, without ever listening to us if we tell you you did something wrong, instead cherry picking those of us willing enough to suck up to the establishment to tell you what you want to hear, so you never have to confront the idea you may have done something wrong?(edited)Hell, isn't that what they call "virtue signaling" in your circles?Beyond your dishonesty to others, ask yourself this: are you even honest to yourself? Aren't you robbing yourself of any kind of personal growth by doing all this? Are you really contributing anything positive to this world by constantly spreading unchecked factoids that instantly fall apart the moment you expose them to any actual scientific sources (you know, the ones people in your general political corner like to call "fake news"), or by spreading the idea that people in dire straits should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps?Or for that matter, by resisting any measure of change towards a fairer society and instead vocally gushing about the virtues of a system that, by its very nature, its very definition, its very -essence- is about fucking over who you can, and quietly plugging your ears to anything you hear about the many negative consequences it has for the world, or the people living in it?Come back to me once you've learned how to maintain a shred of integrity, I suppose. Maybe take some time to reflect on what it means to be a good person. I can't be friends with someone to whom I have to explain why they should care about other people.Goodbye.
This is my response:
In 1865 John Wilkes Booth, a Democrat, assassinated Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States.
In 1881 a left wing radical Democrat shot James Garfield, President of the United States who later died from the wound.
In 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald, a radical left wing socialist, assassinated John F. Kennedy, President of the United States.
In 1975 a left wing radical Democrat fired shots at Gerald Ford, President of the United States.
In 1983 John Hinckley, a registered Democrat, shot and wounded Ronald Reagan and paralyzed a member of his cabinet.
... In 1984 James Huberty, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 22 people in a McDonalds restaurant in San Ysidro, CA.
In 1986 Patrick Sherril, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 15 people in an Oklahoma post office.
In 1990 James Pough, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 10 people
at a GMAC office.
In 1991 George Hennard, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 23 people in a Lubys cafeteria.
In 1995 James Daniel Simpson, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 5 coworkers in a Texas laboratory.
In 1999 Larry Asbrook, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 8 people at a church service.
In 2001 a left wing radical Democrat fired shots at the White House in a failed attempt to kill George W. Bush, President of the US.
In 2003 Douglas Williams, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 7 people at a Lockheed Martin plant.
In 2007 Seung - Hui Cho, a registered Democrat, shot and killed 32 people in Virginia Tech.
In 2010 Jared Lee Loughner, a mentalliy ill registered Democrat, shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed 6 others.
In 2011 James Holmes, a registered Democrat, went into a movie theater and shot and killed 12 people.
In 2012 Andrew Engeldinger, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 7 people in Minneapolis.
In 2013 Adam Lanza, a registered Democrat, shot and killed men, women, and children in the Sandy Hook school massacre.
Leftist? Maybe JWB was, maybe he wasn't. But a Democrat, he assuredly was. Perhaps I overreached in saying he was a Leftist, but I should clarify that when I say 'Leftist' I don't mean 'someone on the Left'. I mean someone who believes The Left is the ONLY way. The same way I draw distinction between Muslims and Islamists. Islamists want to push it on others. Muslims are the broadest defition of those who follow Islam.
And what establishment am I sucking up to....? I don't watch Fox with any kind of regularity. I get most of my facts from self-described 'classic liberals' whose hearts are on the Left, but their minds are more centrist. They have intellectual honesty. I listen to Gavin McInnis to blow off steam, Bill Whittle for the Right of Center take on news and Sargon for Left of Center.
I don't care for the mass media because while I suspected that they were liars and obfuscating before, to finally have iron-clad proof of it is extremely liberating.
And I CHALLENGE YOU to show me where I said that women should not have access to healthcare. Or even hinted at it. What, you think because I know Single Payer is garbage that will create a pile of corpses. I'm against healthcare for women? I've even said that my stance on abortions is that it should be between the woman and her doctor, not the woman, the government, the doctor, some pencil pushers and more. Just as my stance on same-sex marriage is that it should be between a couple and the church of their choice, not to make it legally compulsory and simply flip the oppression over rather than making it fair and equal of measure. And where abortions are concerned, the parental rights of the father are nonexistent. Now, in cases such as incest and rape (Which if you look at the stats, represent a small minority of abortions) still strongly urge the mother to consider life, but if she chooses abortion, while I find it extremely distasteful (The child DOES NOT HAVE A SAY IN THIS) I fully understand and sympathize with the decision.
As for helping people out of poverty, you know what's the BEST way out of poverty that ISN'T a government program?
A job. A simple job. And if the government creates conditions that *encourage* job growth, then you accomplish the same end without making people dependent on the governmnet.
That's not to say that there shouldn't be charity for people who TRULY cannot help themselves. That's a given. But when you extend the scope of those within the perview of the government to give money to to include people who CAN help themselves, then you create dependents. And it's not that they're bad or lazy people. They're taking the least complicated route. If you get more money for not working than you do for working, you'll take the one that affords you free time to spend with your family, friends or on your own pursuits.
Constantly pretend to.... universally bad...? WHAT....? Dude, don't even try that one. Blah-blah, anyone Right of Mao is racist, blah. Pardon my French, but go fly a frikken kite. In my tabletop gaming group, my friend Paul, 2nd Generation Japanese immigrant, is the most decent and kind man I've had the pleasure of knowing. He's a good dad to his kids and a good husband to his wife. My freind Zach is from a huge Filipino family and he's the best GM I've ever met, short of my oldest brother. John grew up in a Cadillac before his parents legally became citizens and came up to America from Mexico. These are guys I trust, literally, with my life. And none of us give a crap what the other looks like.
And I admit, for a while I was 100% not on board with Transsexualism. But since then I've come to stand that an adult who has spoken to a therapist and doctor, sorted out their feelings and decided after consideration that they wish to transition is completely fine by me. It doesn't hurt me or anyone else and if they've spoken to a therapist, then they're not setting themselves up for something regrettable. Now, trans-trenders, who want the status of being special and different, but don't want to go through the heartache and effort of making that transition, I call out for their bullshit, because not only are they full of shit, they're robbing REAL transsexuals of their credibility, their agency and their respect. And for some transsexuals to come out and say 'You don't have a right not to have sex with a transsexual', can't you see how that would rub some folk the wrong way?
Don't even try to talk to me about science, friend. I studied biology, agricultural science and psychology and I know a thing or two and when someone obfuscates or has nothing peer-reviewed, then I get suspicious. Again, I'd sorely love for you to point out where I was 'anti-science'.
And if you're suggesting that Socialism is your fluffy 'Fair Society' then I suggest you travel to Venezuala. I have a friend who lives there and the picture he paints is NOT a pretty one. How do you define a 'Fair society'? Because I define it as a society that rewards effort. You do a hard day's work, you make a fair wage and you work your way up the ladder. You can't try to take luck or privilege into account on EITHER Socialism or Capitalism, because there is no way to quantify the variable of luck and when you look at privelege, then it exists in the pipedream of Socialism too, because the people running it will ALWAYS BE BETTER OFF than the people who are not. That's simple human nature. The Great Wheel of Life as the Buddhists describe still exerts its effect on a Socialist state as much as a Capitalist. But unlike Socialism, at least in Capitalism you have, barring disability, the same shot as anyone else does to earn a good living.
I find it laughable that you sit there, where you are, and decry someone you know through occasional chats as either a good person or a not good person based on arbitrary variables.
See, the truth is that life is not as black and white as that. It's an exquisite composition of greys and other colors.
Sometimes life is good, sometimes life is not, but if you are free to self-determination (Something you DO NOT HAVE IN SOCIALISM) then you have a chance to better yourself. You DARE to accuse me of not caring about people out of one side of your mouth, while, with the other, propping up Socialism, which *DOES NOT CARE* about people to the point that a child is worthy of sacrifice due to SIMPLE INCONVENIENCE?! Sorry, but *fuck* that is the very cognative dissonance you accuse me of in plain and flagrant view.
I push myself to be a good person. I don't hurt people, I volunteer, I help the seniors at my church with many needs, I'm there for my friends and family and will drop what I'm doing to help, I treat everyone working retail with respect and actively try to make their day brighter, I don't care what color someone's skin is, I don't care if someone is disabled (My best friend back in Youth Bowling League and a better bowler than I, was a deaf boy named Arron), and I am generally considered to be very 'chill' in person and am so without chemical intervention. Does that make me a good person? I don't rightly know. I just do the best I can with what I've got. And I don't *dare* to assume that I have moral highground unless it's a truly clear-cut case. I've never killed, raped (Even though 3rd Wave Feminism insists that in every man there is a rapist that needs to be taught not to rape_) or stolen anything (Some shoplifting in my youth notwithstanding). In other words, I try to be a decent and polite person and let the world decide if I am or not a good person.
But what boggles my mind is that the line between good person and bad person is tied DIRECTLY to what side of the political spectrum they fall under. That is simplisticly childish. As is the 'Come back to me when you care about people' nonsense.
I will again wait for you to come to your senses and realize that life is not a cartoon with cartoonishly one-note people.
Genuinely warm regards,
-Zucca
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Harry Reid Has a Few Words for Washington https://nyti.ms/2RpFiwi
Harry Reid, suffering from aggressive cancer, has a few words for Washington. @MarkLeibovich, who famously chronicled the Senate leader in “This Town,” visits Reid in retirement in Henderson, Nev.
Harry Reid Has a Few Words for Washington
The former Senate majority leader on President Trump and Senator Chuck Schumer, and on why he doesn’t regret ending the filibuster for judicial appointments.
By Mark Leibovich | Jan. 2, 2019 | New York Times | Posted January 2, 2019 |
Early on the afternoon of Dec. 11, about an hour after an Oval Office meeting between President Trump, the Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and the incoming House speaker Nancy Pelosi devolved on live TV into a shouting match — a “tinkle contest with a skunk,” in Pelosi’s postgame grandiloquence — I pulled up to a McMansion in a gated community outside Las Vegas. I presented my ID and pre-issued bar-code pass to a security guard. Another guard emerged from a sedan in the driveway, instructed me to leave my rental car across the street and pointed me to the front door.
“I put this out here because I knew you were coming,” Harry Reid, the former Senate leader, said, pointing to a large gold menorah on his desk. It was not clear whether Reid had someone buy the menorah especially for my visit or just keeps one lying around in case some reporter of (nominal) Jewish identity happens to drop by around Hanukkah. (Reid’s wife, Landra, was raised in a Jewish household in Los Angeles before she and Reid converted to Mormonism together, after they married.) Either way, Reid seemed both amused and pleased with himself, as if he could see that I was not quite sure how to receive this odd-duck gesture. During his time in office, he always got a kick out of embracing the awkward panders of political life, even if — especially if — they mocked the refinements of smoother politicians than him.
Reid, who is 79, does not have long to live. I hate to be so abrupt about this, but Reid probably would not mind. In May, he went in for a colonoscopy, the results of which caused concern among his doctors. This led to an M.R.I. that turned up a lesion on Reid’s pancreas: cancer. Reid’s subdued and slightly cold manner, and aggressive anticharisma, have always made him an admirably blunt assessor of situations, including, now, his own: “As soon as you discover you have something on your pancreas, you’re dead.”
I had planned to visit Reid, who had not granted an interview since his cancer diagnosis, in November, but he put me off, saying he felt too weak. People close to him were saying that he had months left, if not weeks. Valedictories were planned, and lifetime awards were bestowed. Efforts were underway to rename the Las Vegas airport in his honor, preferably before his own time of departure. Reid refuses to believe that this honor will ever happen. “When I practiced law, I did a lot of personal-injury work, and I never spent one penny until that check was cashed,” he explained to me.
When I went to see him in December, he was confined to a desk near the front door of the house, unable to move without the aid of a walker that rested behind him. Still, he looked better than I thought he would. The last time I saw Reid, during the 2016 presidential campaign, he was wearing dark glasses and was still bruised from a freakish exercise-session mishap in early 2015, when an elastic band apparently snapped and propelled him into some cabinets, breaking ribs and bones in his face and blinding him in his right eye. The visible damage from this incident had abated at last. Wearing a tan sweater over a dress shirt, he looked about how he did a decade ago: roughly his current age, in other words.
Reid’s health, even before the cancer diagnosis, was a factor in opting not to seek re-election for a sixth Senate term in 2016. Over the last few months, he has had chemotherapy and two back surgeries and has suffered a range of other ordeals, some related to the accident, for which Trump delighted in mocking him. “I think he should go back and start working out again with his rubber workout pieces,” Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post in September 2016.
In fairness, Reid had dismissed Trump as a “spoiled brat,” a “con man” and a “human leech.” As Senate majority leader, Reid was essential to passing President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda, but his dead-eyed realism and morose tones always hung in contrast to the hope-and-change intoxications of those years. His den is adorned with a bright painted portrait of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — one of his heroes, whose view that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” was often echoed by Obama. But Reid himself always seemed more predisposed to believing that the arc of the universe bent toward an ornery brawl.
Reid once called the Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan a “political hack,” Justice Clarence Thomas “an embarrassment” and President George W. Bush a “loser” (for which he later apologized) and a “liar” (for which he did not). In 2016, he dismissed Trump as “a big fat guy” who “didn’t win many fights.” Reid himself was more than ready to fight, and fight dirty: “I was always willing to do things that others were not willing to do,” he told me.
During the 2012 presidential campaign, he claimed, with no proof, that Mitt Romney had not paid any taxes over the past decade. Romney released tax returns showing that he did. After the election, Reid told CNN by way of self-justification, “Romney didn’t win, did he?” Reid took rightful criticism over this. Still, in retrospect, there’s something almost quaint about the outrage over the episode; Trump routinely surpasses Reid’s unscrupulousness with a few tweets before breakfast.
Leaving Washington on the eve of Trump’s takeover, Reid insisted that he was happy to be escaping. Maybe, he allowed, it would have been different if Hillary Clinton had won. But “with this, no,” he told New York magazine at the time. “I’m not going to miss it.”
And yet, two years later, it was easy to sense him pining for not just the political action but also the particular political action of Trump’s Washington. “No one would enjoy the fight with Trump like Harry Reid would,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democrat who lost her re-election race in November. The president “is an inherently weak man,” she said. “Harry would smell the weakness and say, ‘Damn the consequences.’ ”
In some ways, Washington, under Trump, has devolved into the feral state that Reid, in his misanthropic heart, always knew it could become under the right conditions. Politicians are always claiming to be eternal optimists; Reid is no optimist. “I figure, if you’re pessimistic, you’re never disappointed,” he told me.
Reid has decided to live out his last years in Henderson, a fast-growing and transient Las Vegas suburb. His house is in the upscale Anthem neighborhood: a fortified village of beige dwellings of various sizes and otherwise indistinguishable appearances. There is a Witness Protection Program vibe to the place, accentuated by the security detail.
Reid attended high school in Henderson, hitchhiking 45 miles each way from his hometown, Searchlight: a drive-through smudge of a town between Las Vegas and Needles, Calif., which, in his youth, boasted at least a half-dozen brothels and not a single church. His acidic outlook was informed by his childhood, during which he endured extreme poverty and dysfunction and substance abuse in his family. He took up boxing in high school and put himself through George Washington University Law School by working as a Capitol Police officer. Back in Nevada, he was schooled in the piranha bowl of Las Vegas politics. This education included a stint as Nevada’s gaming chairman in the 1970s, which placed him in the cross hairs of the Las Vegas mob. (Some of the plot of the film “Casino” was based loosely on Reid’s experiences.) There were numerous threats to his life and at least one actual attempt (a bomb discovered under the hood of his family car).
The former F.B.I. director James Comey, after he was fired by Trump, compared Trump to the head of a mafia family, with its codes of silence and loyalty, its fear-based leadership style and fealty to a single godfather. “It’s not about anything else except the boss,” Comey said in a recent interview at the 92nd Street Y in New York. Others have drawn the same parallel, and I asked Reid if, given his unusually relevant professional experience in this area, it rang true. Reid expelled a quick and dismissive chuckle. “Organized crime is a business,” he told me, “and they are really good with what they do. But they are better off when things are predictable. In my opinion, they do not do well with chaos. And that’s what we have going with Trump.”
Still, Reid added: “Trump is an interesting person. He is not immoral but is amoral. Amoral is when you shoot someone in the head, it doesn’t make a difference. No conscience.” There was a hint of grudging respect in Reid’s tone, which he seemed to catch and correct. “I think he is without question the worst president we’ve ever had,” he said. “We’ve had some bad ones, and there’s not even a close second to him.” He added: “He’ll lie. He’ll cheat. You can’t reason with him.” Once more, a hint of wonder crept into his voice, as if he was describing a rogue beast on the loose in a jungle that Reid knows well.
The Trump era and Reid’s illness have occasioned an inevitable reconsideration of Reid’s legacy and all its contradictions. The Affordable Care Act, which Reid managed to navigate past the oppositional tactics of his persistent nemesis, the Republican Senate leader (and now majority leader), Mitch McConnell, has so far withstood McConnell and Trump’s efforts to dismantle the legislation. Reid was also prescient in urging the Obama administration and congressional Republicans to go public about the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election; the letter that Republican leaders agreed to co-sign weeks after they were briefed on the investigation did not identify Russia by name. “They did nothing — or nothing that I’m aware of,” Reid said.
But McConnell’s and Trump’s own most substantial accomplishment to date, the appointment to the federal bench of an unprecedented number of conservative judges, including two Supreme Court justices who might well end up hearing a challenge to the Affordable Care Act, was made vastly easier by Reid’s decision, in 2013, to get rid of the filibuster for judicial appointments. Reid remains unrepentant about this. “They can say what they want,” he told me. “We had over 100 judges that we couldn’t get approved, so I had no choice. Either Obama’s presidency would be a joke or Obama’s presidency would be one of fruition.”
Still, a certain nostalgia for the Senate leader has set in among Democrats, even those who had their disagreements with him. McCaskill was critical of Reid during their tenure together and did not back him for caucus leader in 2014. There are two major components of a Senate leader’s job, she said. “One is to make the trains run on time and getting things done that his caucus believes in,” McCaskill told me. “But the trains need to be bright and shiny while they’re running,” she added, referring to the communication and messaging part of the job that she said Reid was less well suited to.
McCaskill told Reid at the time that she did not plan to vote for him and explained her reasons to him. He replied that she was the only one of his nonsupporters who had the nerve to tell him directly. “Oh, no, why would I?” Reid told me when I asked him if he felt betrayed. “And I won, didn’t I?”
Reid’s successor is Chuck Schumer, his former caucus deputy who engineered much of the Senate Democrats’ communications and campaign strategy during Reid’s tenure. They had been close during Reid’s 12 years as Democratic leader, Reid serving as the arid desert yin to Schumer’s bombastic Brooklyn yang. When we spoke, Reid told me he did not wish to be seen as second-guessing Schumer. “My personal feeling should have nothing to do with it,” he said. But clearly Reid has more than a few of those personal feelings. He has told confidants that he felt Schumer was too eager to assume his job before Reid was ready to leave. Reid has also criticized, privately, Schumer’s instinct for accommodation with both McConnell and Trump.
In our conversation, Reid seemed incapable of not constantly reminding me that he did not wish to talk about Schumer, as if this itself was something he wanted me to emphasize. “I do not call Schumer,” he told me. Then: “I call him once in a while — not weekly. Let’s say monthly I may call him.” This sounded straightforward enough until he added: “I talk to Nancy often. I love Nancy Pelosi. We did so many good things, and we still talk about that.” And just the day before, he said, he called Richard Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who, along with Schumer, was Reid’s top lieutenant in the Senate and is now Schumer’s Democratic whip. “We came to the House together in 1982,” Reid said of Durbin. “We had wonderful conversations.” (Schumer declined to be interviewed; his spokesman said in a statement that Schumer and Reid “have different styles but they complemented each other well. They are still good friends and talk regularly.”)
In fairness, there’s little that any Democratic leader can do at a time when the opposing party controls the presidency and both houses of Congress, as Republicans did until this month. Durbin told me that he has sat with Schumer and Trump together at the White House. “They are discussing things at a New York level that most of us on the outside don’t understand,” Durbin said. “With Chuck, it’s his grandfather who had some business with Trump’s father or some darned thing. It’s a totally different ballgame.”
I asked Durbin whether this approach had yielded any results. “The obvious answer,” he conceded, “is it hasn’t worked very well so far.”
David Krone, Reid’s former chief of staff, is of the view that leaving Washington saved Reid’s life. “He wouldn’t be alive today if he had pancreatic cancer and he was still the Senate leader,” he told me. “He would not have made it.” Still, Krone said, “I think he misses it, definitely.”
When he was in Washington, Reid used to spend an inordinate amount of time on the Senate floor. “I was always afraid that I would miss something,” Reid used to say and told me again in Nevada. In retirement, he said, “For me to sit here and say I don’t follow politics — you wouldn’t believe me, O.K.?”
On the Friday afternoon before Christmas, just hours before the government shut down over Trump’s demands for more funding for a border wall, I called Reid to see how closely he was following this latest brinkmanship. “Landra and I have been watching the news; we have it on now,” Reid told me. The shutdown, he allowed, was “interesting.” Reid takes an anthropological interest in the changes that Trump has wrought on his old institution. “You can’t legislate when you have a chief executive who’s weird, for lack of a better description,” he told me. He said he could never understand how his former Senate colleague Jeff Sessions allowed himself to be so abused and humiliated by the president. “Why in the hell didn’t Sessions leave?” he said. “Same with Kelly,” referring to the departing chief of staff, John Kelly. “I’d say, ‘Go screw yourself.’ I could not look my children in the eye.”
I asked him if he could identify at all with Trump’s dark worldview. “I disagree that Trump is a pessimist,” Reid said, as if to allow him that mantle would be paying him an undeserved compliment. “I think he’s a person who is oblivious to the real world.”
One of Reid’s assets as a leader, when he was in office, was his willingness to feed the egos of his colleagues before his own; he was happy to yield credit, attention and TV appearances. Yet when I visited Reid in Nevada, I detected a whiff of, if not neediness per se, maybe a need to remind me that he has not been forgotten. He told me that he received a lovely call that morning from Barbara Boxer, the former Democratic senator from California. He gets calls from his former colleagues all the time, he said, and they tell Reid he is missed. He had a final conversation with John McCain over the summer, just before McCain died, punctuated with “I love you”s.
Reading Reid can be difficult. Is he playing a game or working an angle or even laughing at a private joke he just told himself? When speaking of his final goodbye with McCain, he broke into a strange little grin, his lips pressed upward as if he could have been stifling either amusement or tears. It occurred to me that Reid, typically as self-aware as he is unsentimental, could have been engaged in a gentle playacting of how two old Senate combatants of a fast-vanishing era are supposed to say goodbye to each other for posterity.
Reid seemed to recognize my puzzlement and shrugged. “As has been written since I left,” he told me, “I was kind of a strange guy.”
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Big Data, A.I., And The Future Of "Hate Speech"
Big Data has been an incredibly useful tool for businesses and consumers alike, as it helps businesses understand their consumers better and allows them to have much more detailed information regarding the consumer market. However, big data has the possibility to control our lives; and that possibility should not be ignored.
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“Hate speech” is still a somewhat hot topic, but this article is not about “hate speech” in the sense of what a private individual defines it, it is strictly about how the nation states themselves define it and what sorts of actions they take against it. Let us take a look at the Europe's hate speech laws and its history. Countries such as Latvia and South Africa also take action against “Hate Speech”. The fangs of “Hate Speech” entangles politicians and activists and even comedians. Geert Wilders has been in court because of his opinions on Moroccans, several members of Britain First have been imprisoned, and comedian Count Dankula has been convicted of teaching a dog to mock Nazis.
Several nation states have already started to act on their (new and old) hate speech laws. As time moves on, so will the inactive shock and passive rebellion diminish, leading to further implementations, actions and normalizations of these hate speech laws.
How does “Big Data” come into this? Keyword Analytics and Data Mining. Keyword Analytics is mostly the reason why those annoying Amazon suggestions come up whenever you do a Google search on a book or any particular item that can be bought from an online market, the way it works is that you generally buy keywords in that allows your website to be on the top whenever your bought keyword is used by someone else. Data Mining is starting to transform into the Nuclear Arms race of the Internet for several reasons, one of them being profit. More information about your customers means that you can further optimize your business to fit customer needs. A certain amount of data might be the difference between a successful business and an unsuccessful one. The means of getting a hold on this data might be a difficult path. Luckily for them, there are various social media websites and applications that have loads of data that are willing to sell for profit; one of them being Facebook, of course. This means that whatever you post on Facebook and various other websites and apps can be sold or given to various buyers that need this information. Standard business procedure, right?
Not all business agreements is between “company to company” and not all business agreements are “for profit”. Facebook’s data mining scandal gave us another reminder that Big Business looks at your info from a utilitarian standpoint rather than a humanistic standpoint, not a surprising fact, but an important fact to consider lest we forget again. Seeing as how our information and data is more of a resource than property that should never under ethical standards be transgressed on, we should consider possibilities and actualities that can change our lives. Out of many realities, one of them may be our “hateful” speech being limited. James O’Keefe’s journalistic piece on Twitter’s attittude towards “Pro-Trump and Conservative opinions” showcases this reality occuring right now.
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Private businesses, groups and companies trade information for profit. So what about this is scary?
One interesting part of that video is that one of the engineers claim that the US government pressures Twitter to ban certain celebrities such as Julian Assange. Discord is a growing social messaging app/social media platform that is also “fighting hate speech”, and while it is relatively small at the current moment compared to other platforms, it is growing at a really fast pace, and it is also becoming one of the top social media platforms to use when it comes to politics as there are countless political Discord servers filled with hundreds (sometimes even thousands) of people. To recap, private businesses, groups and companies trade information for profit. So what about this is scary?
In short, a lot. One question is “who is buying the information?”, a basic simple answer would be “other companies looking for more information on potential customers to see what they like and want”. That’s not the only correct answer, what if businesses like Discord partnered with groups like SPLC and various other anti-free speech organizations? Oh wait, they already do. But what about their ToS? Isn’t there anything that blocks them from doing such a thing?
Discord App TOS
An exhortation to always read the small print if ever I saw one. Let us return now to the journalistic work from James O’Keefe and the part where one of the engineers talk about how they are pressured by the US government themselves. Today’s governments, for whatever reason, does not like dissenting opinions at all, of course saying that openly would be a death sentence, so they hide their intentions under the guise of “Hate Speech”.
Another facet of Big Data and AI in “combatting Hate Speech” are algorithms and machine learning. For people that are unfamiliar with “machine learning”, it is, in basic terms, the computer literally teaching itself what its supposed to do. Four months ago ADL released a video about their new tool to fight “Online Hate”, ADL claims that the learning model is “78%-85% accurate”. That is not a unlikely result.
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As Europeans keeps on scratching their heads wondering what they should do, the poison disguised as an antidote is already being used in the USA. Antifa uses “in your face” street violence techniques whilst SPLC and ADL uses more legalistic methods. This double whammy has been successful at pacifying “wrongthink” for a very long time. The modern European mindset is a bit different from the modern American mindset; the American mindset loves to treasure their freedoms and rights, whilst Europeans really don’t put much emphasis on that in their lifestyles. This difference might enable European nation states to fight “Online Hate” using the US’ methods. The damage that European nation states can deal will be much higher than US since European nations have more legalistic ground to fight “hate speech”.
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One of the primary methods that I often talk about is the aforementioned “Keyword Analytics”. As we all know either by experience or knowledge, each group has their own niche language and inside jokes. It's a key aspect of friendships in human nature, the ability to find things amusing to which outsiders are not privy. This has visibly developed in the online realms, where Alt-Righters and far-righters have a very specific Imageboard style language-culture that is not that difficult to get a feel of for an average “Correct The Record” worker. If you, as a leader of a group or even as a nation state wanted to detect the persons and identities responsible for wrongthink, all you need to do is to use several algorithms that an engineer can easily manage to create, keywords, and then you will be able to detect tons of people that commit the horrid crime of wrongthink and “hate speech”. Nation states also have the ability to request data from companies such as Google, and they are more than happy to share information, especially if its really needed. AI and Big Data still has a lot of ground to cover; but it will cover it.
The future for online political discourse might be grim if Western governments play their cards right.
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Declaring Independence With Indecision
Each week in Curtain Raisers, we invite a local theater artist to attend a show of his or her choosing and discuss the results. On Sunday, actor Adam Chanler-Berat opted to see Mike Bartlett's Olivier Award-winning "The Cockfight Play," directed by James Macdonald, at the Duke at 42nd Street. Mr. Chanler-Berat's credits include Broadway's "Next to Normal" and the 2011 revival of "Rent." He's currently starring in "Peter and the Starcatcher," a prequel to the classic Peter Pan story.
When "The Cockfight Play" was over, Adam Chanler-Berat realized that its main character, John, was essentially a contemporary version of the one he was currently playing on Broadway: Peter Pan.
"The central dilemma of this play," he said, "is a boy who is not willing to grow up."
The similarities don't end there. As Mr. Chanler-Berat observed, both shows rely on the simplest of stagecraft: "The Cockfight Play" is staged in the round with no set, while "Starcatcher" relies on a veritable junkyard of do-it-yourself props. "The only tools they had were their bodies, their voices and their language," he said. "In 'Peter' we celebrate the same things."
But while one show is absolutely appropriate for children ("Starcatcher"), the other is absolutely not. (In fact, the actual title of the "The Cockfight Play" is one unprintable syllable contained therein).
Name issues aside, "Cockfight" is a relationship drama about an ambivalent young man, John (Cory Michael Smith), who unexpectedly falls in love with a woman, W (Amanda Quaid), while on a break from his beloved boyfriend, M (Jason Butler Harner). John is caught between two loves, unsure of his true identity, and M and W spend much of the play trying to clobber him out of his indecision.
Mr. Chanler-Berat had more empathy for John than the character's two lovers seemed to. "He's prideful of his youth, but it's debilitating," he said. "They talked about honesty a lot but the whole idea of honesty became unclear. What is honesty? Is it something you create? Is it something imposed on you?"
To Mr. Chanler-Berat, who is in his mid-20s, the production's exploration of ambivalence often felt like a critique of youth itself, and he suspected that the playwright had long since departed his 20s. But in fact, Mike Bartlett, who penned "The Cockfight Play," is only 31. Mr. Bartlett's characters "got underneath my skin," Mr. Chanler-Berat said, describing M as "controlling, manipulative and demeaning. I know that older gay man who has that obsession with youth."
M's relationship with John came across as "unsafe, unhealthy and selfish." As for John, "I was frustrated that he was just so weak. I think unhealthy relationships hinge on power."
Indeed, "Cockfight" explores the control that M and W each try (and fail) to exert over John, and the control he derives from not deciding. It's an agitated see-saw of power, played on the Duke's small stage with Miriam Buether's almost totally bare scenic design.
"Look at how intimate this is—they have zero playing space," Mr. Chanler-Berat said. "But very often when you're presented with a limit, the force of overcoming it is really quite thrilling."
Indeed, the spartan stage, with the audience's eyes peering down from all sides, only enhanced how trapped the characters seemed. "The place and the text were so intertwined, it was like they were made by the same person," he said. "I was thinking during the play: How tied in was the design concept to the writing?"
As it was theater in the round, Mr. Chanler-Berat could watch not just the tense and complex story unfold, but also its grip on the audience, (Although, at Sunday's matinee, a handful of people were sleeping. "That's a really expensive nap," he joked.)
Did he ever feel his focus diverted by being in the round?
"I was never distracted," he said. It was a noticeable contrast from "Starcatcher" and most other Broadway shows, where there's a vast separation between the orchestra and the balcony. "Everyone's even. You don't get more unified than that. It's like you share a secret that no one else will know. Even if people go to the show another night, they won't know the same secret. I love that."
It's what makes him proud to be a theater artist. "Sometimes I think, 'How do I justify the importance of my job?' But that human-to-human connection is such an important thing to experience."
Someday he'd like to take a crack at playing John. "I loved that they got to be up there for 90 minutes, how weirdly athletic that is."
In most plays, actors, even lead ones, get breaks; they enter and exit often, and make use of clandestine opportunities to drink water or take a breather. So it makes sense that Mr. Chanler-Berat has no complaints about appearing in all but 15 minutes of "Starcatcher," which runs about two hours. "I wouldn't want it any other way," he said.
Why does that uninterrupted intensity hold such appeal?
"That's what we dream about as actors," he said. "Falling into your scene partner's eyes and having that be the only thing that's required of you."
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