Sorry For Being Absent For So Long. Again. I Faced With Some Health Difficultis And They Take All My

Before January ends, I’m going to magically and extremely be blessed by the universe.

If you are scrolling through Tumblr trying to distract yourself from something you don’t want to think about, or you’re looking for a sign. It is going to be okay. Just breathe. You are alive and you matter. 

Can we talk about this scene?

So General Amaya’s group finds a guard station abandoned, and one lone guard who failed to signal them.

The guard apologizes and makes an excuse,

Causing the others to turn away and drop their guard.

But the soldier signs “danger” covertly in front of his body,

Tipping off Amaya,

Who then proceeds to save the soldier’s life and get him out of the line of fire.

This tells us 2 things:

1) General Amaya is a super-perceptive, stone-cold badass,

2) This soldier is at least passingly familiar with Sign Language, and used it to give a warning that tipped off the fighting party to the ambush without getting himself killed. He almost certainly knows ASL because his commanding officer is deaf and uses it to communicate with her army. Having a disabled general just saved this man’s life.

I just love that The Dragon Prince gave us a fantastic example of how accessibility (i.e. incorporating ASL into an army to accommodate deaf soldiers) can improve the overall quality of an organization, in a way that also created a tense and well-paced action scene. This show, man.

i like when ppl reblog posts “so&so just did this by taking adderall” and its usually an amazing or wild feat and i just gotta say, as someone with adhd. this is why my insurance doesnt cover adderall. this is why adderall is classified as a narcotic in my state. im glad yall are havin fun abusing meds i need to live. hope it was worth it.

A sudden, terrifying thought

When you see an animal with its eyes set to the front, like wolves, or humans, that’s usually a predator animal.

If you see an animal with its eyes set farther back, though—to the side—that animal is prey.

Now look at this dragon.

See those eyes?

They’re to the SIDE.

This raises an interesting—and terrifying—question.

What in the name of Lovecraft led evolution to consider DRAGONS…

As PREY?

God, but the entire “Watch House Riots” sequence in Night Watch is such an excellent lesson in not just how to de-escalate but the importance of de-escalation. The way Vimes insists upon members of the “mob” coming in and watching the surgeon care for the injured man, the insistence on two copies of Lawn’s statement about what happened, the way he made sure to humanize the officers and made good and damn sure that none of them had a weapon – that he did not have a weapon, nobody could say he had a weapon.

Because this was a delicate situation, and it was up to him – the present person of authority – to ensure that the situation did not turn into a riot. It wasn’t up to the untrained civilians, it wasn’t up to the green newbies who didn’t know what they were doing, it wasn’t up to anyone above him. It was on him, to look at the crowd and prevent a riot from breaking out.

Everywhere else, you got people reacting, people panicking, people acting in fear and making things worse and getting people killed – but at Treacle Mine Road, the doors were open and the lights were on and nobody was armed and everything was above-board and the only person who got hurt was a self-inflicted injury he made a full recovery from.

I just… I think that’s such an important sequence, and it – almost more than any of Vimes’s other Moments of Awesome – really shows just why Sam Vimes is such a good policeman, even more than just a good man.

the maple leafs injured both of the hurricanes goalies so they put their fucking zamboni driver in the net LMAO

I think you’re probably right that of Harris as the nominee it might be difficult to hold more Senate seats, but I also don’t think she is likely to be the nominee in 2024 unless Biden dies between now and then. The old guy has wanted this his entire life and I don’t think he’s giving it up for anything other than his death.

Dysentery Florida guy is probably a better candidate to run against Biden (because of the age thing)  I’m not actually too sure how he’d hold up against Harris, although my instinctive reactions is that he get the benefit of the sexism assumption.

Do you think it’s better if the Democrats don’t manage to scrape together a ultrafine minority and instead let the Republicans hold the house without trying to break off any of the Republicans into switching sides?

How bad 2024 Senate is probably comes down to Georgia, and whether the Dems have some wiggle room to let their most vulnerable incumbents take some unpopular votes.

And of course Joe Mansion probably use this as an excuse to vote against all of Joe’s agenda and then somehow managed to get re-elected in a R +40 state because he sold his soul to Satan.

Looking ahead to 2024 (never too early, haha), do you think Dems controlling the Senate and having a 50-50ish House could actually hurt them? My fear is that Dems will pretty much have to own whatever happens over the next two years, whereas if the GOP had won both chambers, Dems in 2024 could have more easily campaigned against them.

Also, to the extent that the midterm fallout hurts Trump and boosts DeSantis, I worry that Dems will be facing a decent GOP nominee in 2024 who they're going to underestimate. Anyway, sorry to rain on what was a shockingly good week for us!

ladyofpembroke asked: I know this might be too soon, but for the senate elections in 2024, where do you think dems should focus their attention on flipping a seat considering they have very competitive elections for incumbents in WV and MT? All republicans incumbents seem to be in extremely republican states. to me, the mostly likely would be trying to unseat Hawley in MO but that’s still a long shot. What’s your take?

I agree with you both in that the 2024 Senate map is a bloodbath for Democrats since we hold Ohio/Montana/West Virginia Senate seats, which are likely to flip red since people don't ticket split anymore. So, I agree with @ladyofpembroke the DSCC should focus on protecting Brown/Tester/Manchin as well as Baldwin/Casey/Stabenow/Sinema in Wisconsin/Pennsylvania/Michigan/Arizona as well since especially is Harris is the nominee, there's no guarantee she wins those states either although I think Biden wins the latter 4 and carries those Dem Senators over as well.

But here's the key thing: voters don't really know the difference between a 219 Republican House majority and a 290 seat Republican House majority, they just know Rs hold the House, so when Republicans overreach and repeatedly say and do insane shit, voters will punish them. Also, if Democrats hold a trifecta, they'll be held accountable for things that aren't even their fault like government gridlock due to the filibuster but if Rs hold the House, Dems can just blame them for the gridlock.

And, I'll worry about DeSantis once he's polling above Trump in primary polls when weighted by education lol.

Hi there I adore your wriding on Dracula and especially how wonderful and sinister/sweet (is there a word for that? There should be a word for that.) Your Jonathan/Mina is. Is your plan for the novel/sequel to be published? Or will you be putting it up online either behind a pay wall or for free? If it's to be published formally I hope and wish you all the success with finding a publisher that you deserve because once again your writing is terrific.

if you have already answered this my apologies.

First, thank you, my ego is always happy for the confidence boost

Second, hopefully it gets finished and published! Something about Dracula Daily really hammered home how disappointed I've been with the bulk of Dracula-based media and how shoddy the pop culture understanding of it is. I want Barking Harker (and maybe some other Dracula-adjacent projects I'm poking at right now (🤐) ) to get out on the bookshelves.

Likewise for SO MANY COOL IDEAS that other folks have come up with since this book club started. Everyone should take a crack at writing and publication for their plots too! Don't just leave it in fan fiction where only a few of us will see it! We have to get our stuff out in the wider world so the characters and ideas we love get the limelight they deserve.

The other factor is that of course the SNP has managed to take Labour and LibDem seats in Scotland. If the exit poll is correct. This is going to absolutely suck

if the SNP is on 55 how the fuck are the Tories on 368