#AFT

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Christopher Wiggins at The Advocate:

Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, was in Texas for the second time this month on Thursday, where she delivered a speech at the American Federation of Teachers national convention in Houston. The AFT is the second-largest labor union for teachers in the country. In the speech, she reiterated her unwavering support for LGBTQ+ rights, condemned Republican book bans, and called for an assault weapons ban. Harris spoke passionately about the recent surge in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in red states, particularly the “don’t say gay” laws that have proliferated across the country. She recounted her early advocacy for marriage equality, sharing, “In 2004, on Valentine’s Day weekend, I was one of the first elected officials in the country to perform same-sex marriages.” Harris has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to LGBTQ+ rights.

“It pains me so to think that, 20 years later, there are young teachers in their twenties who are afraid to put up a photograph of themselves and their partner for fear they could lose their job,” Harris said. She promised to fight to protect teachers and students from discrimination, affirming, “Every American should be free from bigotry and hate.” Harris also condemned the wave of Republican-led book bans that have targeted educational materials dealing with LGBTQ+ issues and racial history. She called out the hypocrisy of those who seek to restrict academic freedom while claiming to champion free speech. [...] “While you teach students about our nation’s past, these extremists attack the freedom to learn and acknowledge our nation’s true and full history,” she said. “We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books. Can you imagine?”

Vice President and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris spoke at the American Federation of Teachers conference Thursday in which she spoke against censorious book bans, unwaveringly defended LGBTQ+ rights, and called for a renewal of an assault weapons ban.

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: Kamala Harris centers LGBTQ+ rights in speech to teachers’ union

[arussmeow]

waiting for the sunshine court in the original edition in your language, but at the same time reading posts on aftg is like walking through a minefield every time you start reading a post and then yell, bumping your eyes into spoilers and nervously scrolling down lol (that’s why I always look at hashtags)

[achelous2]

Biliyorum yoruldun. Ama dinlenmek de güç ister..

[no-1-rosalind-lang-apologist]

[parasocialqueen]

wtf this fic (the later parade - hoursafterhours) is going to ruin me

Wdym “Jean won’t ask them what they believed about the news coming out of Edgar Allen, but his body is enough to sway an opinion if it’s bendable.

His body is the only proof.”

[gentlemanmotorslifestyle]

[deepdeanvsweston]

I really truly believe that Bertie would have turned out exactly like Daisy had the murderer in Arsenic For Tea not been Stephen and my evidence is one (1) piece of dialogue on pg 125:

"Which means we're trapped!" said Bertie. He sounded quite excited about it. "Trapped with a dead body."

He is just as excited as Daisy is!!! Bertie would have become a detective like her had the murderer not been Stephen because then it was too close to him, too real and unexpected. Hazel had Su Li, and Bertie had Stephen, but Daisy hasn't had a murderer turn out to be someone she was emotionally close to.

[marimarra]

Thinking about the traumatised blonde haired characters 💔💔💔

This is very specifically about ash lynx and Andrew minyard

[eternal--returned]

Paul Cupido ֍ Treasure (2024)

[polldermodel]

heb jij op het moment een aft? (zo'n wittig plekje in je mond dat zeer doet)

[lonestarflight]

Northrop/McDonnell-Douglas NATF-23, the Navalized Advanced Tactical Fighter version of the YF-23

"A proposed naval variant of the YF-23 known as the NATF-23 was considered as an F-14 Tomcat replacement. The original YF-23 design was first considered but would have had issues with flight deck space handling, storage, landing, and catapult launching reasons requiring a different design."

"The naval NATF-23 variant was different in many ways to the USAF version; the diamond wings were located as far back as possible, and the aircraft has conventional canted vertical tails instead of the ruddervator with serrations for low RCS and increased maneuverability at low speeds for aircraft carrier operations, folding wing capability for flight deck storage, reinforced landing gear, tailhook and canards for landing on aircraft carriers and thrust vectoring nozzles. The intakes were also different as they were a quarter circle with serrations, with a bumped compression surface. The NATF-23 had an increased 48 ft wingspan while the length was reduced to 62 ft."

"The NATF program called for the procurement of 546 aircraft along with the USAF's planned procurement of 750 aircraft."

"The NATF's internal payload was 4AAAM/AMRAAM, 2 AIM-9, AND 500 RDS 20MM. No external load was mandated, but provision for external carriage of weapons was desired."

May 7, 1991 Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"The Major Aircraft Review, launched in early 1990 under Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney, reduced the peak production rates of both the ATF and NATF, from 72 to 48 and from 48 to 36, respectively. This had the effect of substantially increasing the program cost. In August 1990, Admiral Richard Dunleavy, who was in charge of Navy aircraft requirements, stated that 'he did not see how the NATF could fit into any affordable plan for Navy aviation.' The ATF Dem/Val flight-testing was accomplished from August 1990 through January 1991, but this had little impact on the prospects for an NATF. In early 1991, consideration of the NATF was finally dropped after it was determined that the F-14 could meet the Navy's air superiority needs through 2015. There was, at least initially, an option to restart the NATF program in fiscal year 1997, although that has since been abandoned."

source, source, source, source

[achelous2]

Bazen ilerlemek için dalgalarla savaşmak yerine onlarla birlikte hareket etmen gerekir..

[no-1-rosalind-lang-apologist]

Juliette, the Girlboss Trope, and Structural Change

From what I’ve observed, stories with “girlboss” protagonists tend to be less likely to critique existing power structures and end up focusing more on slightly tweaking surface level aspects of them to allow the protagonist to prove themselves within the context of the existing system. To me, this is extremely interesting within the context of These Violent Delights because Juliette is arguably initially set up to fulfill this archetype. Because she is a girl, her claim to the status of heir is questioned by those around her more than it would be otherwise. She feels more pressure to be ruthless and to do whatever she can to earn the respect of those around her. Toward the very beginning of These Violent Delights, she threatens to kill Tyler when he attempts to upstage her, saying that she will kill him before she lets him take her heirdom away from her. Without knowing that These Violent Delights is a Romeo and Juliet retelling, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect Juliette to become the leader of the Scarlet Gang and somehow fix things from the inside at the end. She is well set up to be the Strong Female Protagonist ™ who takes what is owed to her and is hardened and kickass and ruthless and doesn’t let interfering men get in her way. 

But importantly, regardless of how much Juliette initially knows it, this is a facade. The image of the hardened ruthless heir may be one that Juliette encourages, but it is a heavily distorted reflection of who she truly is. Because at her very core, though she was raised to be the heir of the Scarlet Gang and therefore should be the literal personification of the continuation of the blood feud, that is not who Juliette is. Throughout the duology, her main motivation is protecting those she loves. At first, she believes that she can do this by working within the existing system. She tries to legitimize herself as heir within the existing power structure of the Scarlet Gang. However, the Scarlet Gang Juliette is set to inherit is one built upon a foundation of fractures that legitimizes its existence through the perpetuation of the blood feud to the extent that to solve the blood feud, or even seek to calm it, would be a violation of its very nature. The Scarlet Gang could never accept a leader that sought to do this, nor could the White Flowers, who equally rely on the blood feud as a source of power, accept the figurehead of their rival gang as an ally. To do so would be a fundamental betrayal of the nature of these two groups. Thus, Juliette must choose between legitimizing her position as heir, bringing more suffering upon the people and city she loves in the process, and giving up her position as heir and forfeiting her power. 

But if Juliette forfeits her power, who does she forfeit her power to? After all, if she merely walks away, the blood feud will still exist. The refusal of one person to fall in line cannot topple an entire system. The answer comes back to Tyler who, unlike Juliette, truly is meant to represent the continuation of the blood feud. He feels the need for vengeance and hatred at his core, and is constantly suspicious of Juliette, recognizing her lack of loyalty though it is incomprehensible to him. Ultimately, there was never room enough for both of them. When Juliette threatened his life in These Violent Delights, she did so out of fear of him usurping her place. Little did she know, he already had. In representing the longevity of the blood feud, Tyler, not Juliette represents the longevity of the Scarlet Gang. While she was the heir in name, he embodied the very lifeforce of the gang. In a way, he almost represents the Juliette that could have been. And that is precisely why Juliette had to kill him.

Though Tyler’s death is foreshadowed by Juliette’s initial threat in the first book, when she shoots him in Our Violent Ends, it is not the callous, unfeeling kill of an heir pushing aside the final obstacle before claiming their rightful place at the top. Instead, it is Juliette’s final severance from the vicious cycle of the blood feud and the illusion of her status as heir. She recognizes that the power she would wield as the future leader, or even the true heir, of the Scarlet Gang stakes its legitimacy in the continuation of the blood feud, and therefore, she would lose legitimacy as a leader if she were to act against the blood feud. This is further demonstrated when Lord Cai tells her that she can choose between dying a White Flower and being heir following his discovery of her relationship with Roma, representing her direct defiance of the blood feud, and her murder of Tyler, representing her sabotage of the longevity of the blood feud and her rejection of her status as heir.

By this point, Juliette has established that she cannot live as a part of the blood feud. She put a bullet through its heart, firing on her own kin to do so. Because the blood feud has no future, she can no longer pretend to occupy the role of heir. But at the same time, in killing Tyler, she has rejected her place within the blood feud. She cannot die a Scarlet, and she cannot die a White Flower because she refuses to be either. In the end, it is not her and Roma’s apparent deaths that aid the end of the blood feud. Instead, it is their rejection of its perpetuation through their rejection of their statuses as heirs. Their continued survival after their apparent death and the birth of their daughter stands in direct defiance to the division brought on by the blood feud. Though, as is further explored in Foul Lady Fortune, this division is still very present, Roma and Juliette’s continued survival both acknowledges that the kind of change required cannot be brought about by the efforts of one titular protagonist, no matter how world ending their sacrifice, and gives hope for a better future. Unlike the girlboss protagonist, Juliette rejects the status quo and achieves her goals by rejecting power. Instead of seeking to be the figurehead of change, which would also be extremely ahistorical, she does her part and steps back, acknowledging that as a singular person, she does not and should not have the power to fix everything. In the end, she watches from the outskirts of Shanghai, and though she is doomed to forfeit her place within her home to protect the people she loves, she is safe enough to live with her husband and raise her daughter and use her remaining connections to do what she can. Because in the end, one person cannot fix everything, no matter how powerful they are. And the spark of hope represented by Juliette and Roma’s continued survival and the birth of their daughter as well as the protection offered by their weapons ring is enough. 

[4449fandom]

The old Brooklyn Roundhouse crew

[leechloach]

Got my second AFT today... She's so cute, I love her little white bracelets. She's like a year and a half older than my male which means she's much bigger than him which is really funny.

Think I'm naming her Portia :)