#Anarchy in Prague

[fashionlouist]

Louis wore a Vetements Anarchy Logo Cap in Black while recording the new Back To You (Studio Version) in Prague 2023.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Anarchist bookfairs in December.

1. December 6th-8th

22nd Madrid Anarchist Bookfair (Spain)

2. December 7-8th

Buenos Aires Anarchist Bookfair (Argentina)

3. December 7th

21st New Orleans Bookfair (Louisiana)

4. December 7th

San Antonio Sliding Scale Anarchist Bookfair! (Texas)

5. December 7th

Prague Winter Anarchist Bookfair (Czechia)

6. December 8th

3rd Libertarian Fair for Children: "Building Anarchy" (Mexico)

7. December 13-15th

25th Anarchist & Libertarian Publishing Fair (Italy)

8. December 14th

São Luís Anarcho-Punk Fair (Brazil)

9. December 14th

Presidente Prudente Anarchist Bookfair (Brazil)

[dustedmagazine]

Jealous Yellow — Czech Vampires (Erste Theke Tonträger)

Jealous Yellow’s Benjamin Rea wrote Czech Vampires while holed up with COVID in a hipster neighborhood in Prague mid-tour. Imagine that, a young man alone, worried about money and how to get home, sick and hallucinating, unsupported by friends or family, putting the whole experience to music that is just as feverish, frightened and claustrophobic as the situation he found himself in.

The album hangs loosely on a conceptual framework involving illness and vampires, with voices speaking in Czech drifting through between tuneful punk songs, wavery new wave reveries and lurching, dopplering experiments in electronic sound. At its most accessible, the music sounds like early GBV (also concerned with vampires but on Titus) or the hammering, chiming post-punk anarchy of Deeper. Yet it’s always falling apart, always melting down to essentials, calling to mind the pastiche electronic, proto-hip hop of Beck’s Mellow Gold or the no wave stews of mid-period Liars.

All of which is to say, there are some damned good songs on here, however interspersed with unintelligible intervals. Take for example, “Polygraph,” which flares in buoyant melody, surging with keyboard daydreams, while punching the time with rigid bass and drums. Rea chants disconsolately, obliquely, thoughts centered (possibly?) on the mind/body problem. His lyrics are hard to parse. He likes to rhyme words with no obvious connection. “Hard to say/Either way/mouth talking/mind separate,” he muses in an opening salvo, the logic of nightmares holding his thoughts together, but barely. “Sweat Out Yr Good Clothes” is another relative banger, swaying pendulously on an iterative riff. It has the ease and flourish of 1980s New Romantic music, the trebly bass-driven agitation of Devo.

More propulsive tracks put the bass way forward, a la thunderous “Perms for Pearl” or driving “Dirty Hand.” In this latter track, deadpanned chants finish with electro-shocked yelps, slick little melody flourishes run into thumping machinery. A theatrical voice seesaws through phrases, as the keyboards cavort in somersaults. “Dirty hands, eew” says someone and the track ends just like that.

Elsewhere the crabbed claustrophobia of communicable illness comes through in all or mostly instrumental interludes. In “Baker’s Dozen,” blotty synths and altered voices runs a click track gauntlet. It’s dance-y but dissolving as you watch. The title track blasts woozy, tone-shifting synths, putting big blotches of silence between them. It lurches forwards like a horror movie monster, awkward but full of threat. A miasma of illness envelopes the cut, as Rea recounts the symptoms, “Belly sick, licked, embrace the excrement.”

Czech Vampires is absolutely not one of those albums where every track is gold. Always messy, febrile and exciting, it has its moments. These 14 songs run through disorienting landscapes and only sporadically achieve clarity. In short, there’s a lot to get through, not all of it great, but the high points make it worthwhile.

Jennifer Kelly

[forexmania-site]

Prague Institute of Crypto Anarchy — plotting to bring down the dollar

Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards ETHPrague 2023 was held at Paralelní Polis in the Czech Republic Pavel Sinagl PRAGUE — In 2007, a group of Czech guerrilla artists scaled a transmitter tower belonging to the country’s national television station and hacked into a live webcam of the Krkonoše mountain range typically used during the weather segment. In the midst of a live broadcast on June 17…

[yuli-ban]

@nolanthebiggestnerd helped me visualize one of the cringiest scenes in Anarchy in Prague so I can get a better feel on how to write it.

Basically, Chenxing gets her hands on a Chaos Emerald.......prop. And then this happens, and she winds up getting beaten through a cinema screen. I think that combo + environmental destruction gives Rockette, like, 50,000 points?

And I think that’s what gets me the most. Yeah, here’s a psychotic pink-haired girl with four robot arms, video game logic in a literary story, and you’re fighting physicalized versions of your inner demons a la any retro tournament fighter... but no Chaos Control. Is nice, consistency!

Big thanks to Nolan! And be sure to stop by the subreddit.

[prussianmemes]

5. Květen - Výročí Pražského povstání

May 5th - Anniversary of the Prague Uprising

It is the 5th of May and the Third Reich is in a state of collapse on all fronts, as the Führer has already been dead for several days. However, fighting still continues as Nazi forces continue to resist in the Reich and in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

The Red Army - led bravely by Marshall Konev - detaches from the east to Berlin, and then hurries south to Prague. In the West, General Patton's troops advance through Plzeň. The people of Prague are determined to stand up to their occupiers, and preparations for an uprising are underway. Karl Herman Frank, the butcher of Lidice and a loyal National Socialist to the very end, threatens on the radio that any uprising will be drowned in its own blood.

Over the evening of the 5th of May, barricades began to appear in the streets of Prague. The rebels were armored with light weaponry - rifles, machine guns, Panzerfausts, and a determination to fight the enemy at any cost. The Germans attacked these positions with heavy weapons, armor, and even dive bombing runs. In Bohemia at the time, there was a strong Wehrmacht group 'Mitte' under General Schroeder and the SS division Wallenstein preparing for an attack.

The Germans relentlessly attacked these barricades, and were recorded having even used Czech women and children as 'human shields' for their advancing troops. The fighting only intensified at the old town hall on the 8th and the 9th, as the conflict descended into anarchy.

Joining the Czechs was Vlasov's collaborationist 'Russian Liberation Army', defecting from their German commanders to join their brothers in arms. It is necessary to point out however, these units were back then and still are today rightly considered controversial.

The Wehrmacht eventually agreed with the Czech National Council to withdraw from the city, however fanatical SS units continued their fighting and violence against local citizens. The Prague Uprising came to an end in the early hours of the 9th of May, with the arrival of the 1st Ukrainian Front of the Red Army and Marshall Konev, completing the liberation of the city.

In the fighting, about 3.500 partisans, 1.000 liberating soldiers, and 2.000 civilians were killed.

ČEST JEJICH PAMÁTCE! HONOUR AND ETERNAL GLORY TO ALL OF THEM! ✌🏻🇨🇿

[only-johnny-deppp]

3 years ago, on September 15, 2018, the Hollywood Vampires realized a special show at the DiverCity Tokyo Plaza, in Tokyo, Japan.

> This show marks: * The second and last time the Hollywood Vampires performed in Japan. The Vampires first played in Tokyo, on November 11, 2016.

* One of the weirdest shows the Hollywood Vampires realized. Some of the Vampires consider this probably “the most awkward show they ever made”, but on a super positive way. According to them, different from all the other shows where the audience scream at the top of their lungs throughout the whole show, the japanese audience was the most quiet and respectful of them all. Although they were really enjoying the show, only some were singing both due the language and mostly to respect those who were there to have a good time. After each song instead of screams they heard applauses followed by silence as they wait for the next song. After the show, the Vampires also saw how the the venue was almost clean, once the audience cleaned their on trash, and during the fast Meet & Greet they were treated really well and formally, asking if they could touch, hug, take a photo and thanking several times. That’s why they also consider one of the best audiences.

* The seventh time Johnny wore a cap during part of a Hollywood Vampires show in 2018. The first on June 14 on the show in Mönchengladbach, Germany, the second on June 16, in Birmingham, England, and the third on June 20, in London, England , the fourth  on July 5, in Switzerland, the fifth on July 7, in Lucca, Italy and sixth on July 8, in Rome, Italy. This also marks the tenth time Johnny wore a cap or hat.

* The first show realized after the 2018 Tour, but not considered part of the tour. This was a special show sponsored by the Japanese beer company, Asahi. The Vampires played a second show in 2018 on December 8 on Alice Cooper's 2018 Christmas Pudding.

* The first show with a really limited audience, supported by a beer company and with tickets won, and not bought.

The special event, titled “Johnny Depp live in Tokyo” was a special sponsored by Japanese beer, Asahi and limited for 1,000 Japanese aged 20 years and over fans who had to collect stickers from 500 ml or 350 ml Asahi Beers from March 13th to May 31st, apply on the seal sheets and send them to Asahi Executive Office. The winners were determined by lottery and won a pair of tickets to enjoy the show (the tickets couldn’t be bought).

* This is the third shortened show the Vampires realised on the 2018.

The first show was on June 13, 2018 in Prague, Czech Republic and the second on June 24, during the 2018 Graspop Metal Meeting in Belgium, The setlist was identical to the show in Belgium and they performed only 15 songs instead of 19. 5 songs were cut and one was changed. Instead of “Combination”, they performed for the first time “Red House” by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. 

SETLIST: Hollywood Vampires -  Zepp DiverCity, Tokyo, Japan (September 15, 2018) 

[Intro] Bela Lugosi's Dead [Bauhaus] & The Last Vampire [Hollywood Vampires] 1) I Want My Now [Hollywood Vampires New Song] 2) Raise the Dead [Hollywood Vampires Original Song] I Got a Line on You [Spirit cover] 7 and 7 Is [Love cover] My Dead Drunk Friends [Hollywood Vampires Original Song] 3) Five to One / Break On Through [to the Other Side] [The Doors cover] 4) The Jack [AC/DC cover] 5) Ace of Spades [Motörhead cover] (Chris Wyse on lead vocals) 6) Baba O'Riley [The Who cover] (With acoustic intro + drum solo by Glen Sobel) 7) As Bad as I Am [Hollywood Vampires Original Song] 8) The Boogieman Surprise [Hollywood Vampires New Song] 9) I'm Eighteen [Alice Cooper cover] Combination [Aerosmith cover] (Joe Perry on lead vocals) 10) Red House [The Jimi Hendrix Experience] 11) People Who Died [The Jim Carroll Band cover] [Hollywood Vampires New Song] (Johnny Depp on lead vocals) 12) Sweet Emotion [Aerosmith cover] Welcome to Bushwackers [Hollywood Vampires Original Song] 13) "Heroes"[David Bowie cover] [Hollywood Vampires New Cover] (Johnny Depp on lead vocals) 14) The Train Kept A-Rollin'[Tiny Bradshaw cover] 15) School’s Out/Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2) [Alice Cooper and Pink Floyd Cover] Outro: Anarchy in the U.K. (Sex Pistols Album Version)

[argyrocratie]

“My short stay in Prague was enough to convince me that I was not mistaken in hoping to find in Bohemia all the elements necessary for a successful revolution. Bohemia, in fact, was then in the most complete anarchy. The revolutionary conquests of the month of March (die Märzerrungenschaften, according to the favorite expression of the time), already annihilated in the other parts of the Austrian Empire, were still in full bloom in Bohemia. The Austrian government still needed the Slavs and it was unwilling, was afraid, to apply reactionary measures to them. Also, in Prague and in all Bohemia, the unlimited freedom of the clubs, of the popular meetings and of the press reigned without restriction; this freedom went so far that the Viennese students and other refugees from the Austrian capital, who in Vienna would simply have been shot, walked openly in the streets of Prague and lived under their own names, all without having anything to fear.

Everyone, in the towns and in the villages, was armed and discontented; discontented and distrustful, for one felt the approach of reaction and one feared losing the rights one had recently won; in the villages, they feared the return of the threatening aristocracy and the re-establishment of the old serfdom; finally, the enlistments which had just been announced had brought discontent to its height, and everywhere, in fact, people were ready for an insurrection.

 On the other hand, there were then very few soldiers in Bohemia and those who were there came from Hungarian regiments worked by an irresistible spirit of revolt. At that time, when students met Hungarian soldiers in the street, they approached them shouting: “Long live Kossuth!” And the soldiers answer with the same cry, without worrying about the presence of the officers; when Hungarian soldiers were sent to arrest a student for a fight or fight with the police, the soldiers fraternized with the students and, together with them, they beat up the police. In a word, the dispositions of the Hungarian regiments were such that as soon as the news reached of the revolutionary movement which had just broken out in Dresden, the half-squadron cantoned on the frontier mutinied and hastened to cross into Saxony without having received any orders.

 (...)

Finally, to complete this picture, it should be added that Austrian finances were then in a deplorable state: in Bohemia, we no longer knew state notes, but notes issued by private persons; every banker, every merchant had his assignats; there even circulated small coins in wood and leather, such as exist only among peoples occupying the lowest degree of civilization.”

-from Mikhail Bakunin’s “Confession” to the Tzar Nicholas I (1851)

[gagosiangallery]

Katharina Grosse at Gagosian Rome

October 13, 2020

KATHARINA GROSSE Separatrix Opening reception: Saturday, October 31, 12–8pm October 31–December 12, 2020 Via Francesco Crispi 16, Rome __________ The philosopher Leibniz had a theory of the so-called “separatrix,” the “between” two things that are contradictions. There’s always a line. On one side this is blue, and [on the other] this is red. In reality, red has embassies in the blue, and blue has embassies in the red. And Leibniz says fifty percent of this line, this structure “between,” is order, and fifty percent is anarchy. —Alexander Kluge Gagosian is pleased to present Separatrix, an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by Katharina Grosse. This is her first solo exhibition in Rome. Separatrix coincides with Grosse’s major installation It Wasn’t Us, currently on view at Hamburger Bahnhof–Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin. Grosse embraces the events that occur as she paints, opening up surfaces and spaces to chance. In massive in situ paintings—where she uses a spray gun to propel unmixed color over objects, rooms, buildings, and even entire landscapes—and autonomous works on canvas, paper, and sculptural supports, she stylizes gesture as a spontaneous mark of personal agency. In July 2020, Grosse started working in a new purpose-built studio in a remote coastal area in northern New Zealand, where she spends several months each year. There, secluded in nature, she began a new body of work, imbuing the medium of watercolor with the directness and immediacy of her spray paintings.

Envisaging the blank sheet of paper as a topographical record, Grosse experimented with a wet-on-wet technique using vibrant pigments, allowing them to swim and intermingle across the surface, leaving behind iridescent pools and blooms. After returning to her Berlin studio, she transferred what she terms the “consequences” of these watercolors to a series of large-scale paintings, setting the canvas horizontally, adding dilute acrylics using a brush, and then tilting the support to produce multidirectional drips and currents of color as a secondary gesture. Taking a cue from Leibniz’s theory of the “separatrix,” Grosse revels in the alternating moments of order and chaos that arise from visual thresholds—moments of collision and diffusion in medium, material, and hue. Her approach is scientific as well as painterly: she analyzes the material properties of paint, water, and canvas in advance, using their alchemical interactions to effect specific visual occurrences. Fields of color osmose into one another and collide like cultures growing in a petri dish; a sweeping brushstroke transforms into a matrix of neurons. In Grosse’s hands, the microscopic details of her process are magnified, resulting in towering formal compositions that attest to moments of flux and sudden clarity in her working process. Katharina Grosse was born in 1961 in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, and lives and works in Berlin and New Zealand. Collections include Centre Pompidou, Paris; Kunsthaus Zürich; Kunstmuseum Bern; Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany; Lenbachhaus, Munich; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; and Museum of Modern Art, New York. Recent exhibitions and in situ works include Two younger women come in and pull out a table, De Pont Museum, Tilburg, Netherlands (2013); WUNDERBLOCK, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2013); psychylustro, Mural Arts Philadelphia (2014); yes no why later, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2015); Seven Hours, Eight Rooms, Three Trees, Museum Wiesbaden, Germany (2015); Untitled Trumpet, 56th Biennale di Venezia (2015); Rockaway!, MoMA PS1 at Fort Tilden, New York (2016); Asphalt Air and Hair, ARoS Triennial, Aarhus, Denmark (2017); The Horse Trotted Another Couple of Metres, Then It Stopped, Carriageworks, Sydney (2018); Wunderbild, National Gallery, Prague (2018); Mumbling Mud, chi K11 art museum, Shanghai, and chi K11 art space, Guangzhou, China (2018); and Mural: Jackson Pollock/Katharina Grosse, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2019). Is it You?, a major installation and a group of paintings on canvas, opened at the Baltimore Museum of Art on March 1, 2020, and continues through January 3, 2021. It Wasn’t Us opened at the Hamburger Bahnhof–Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, on June 14, 2020, and remains on view through January 10, 2021. _____ Katharina Grosse, Untitled, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 149 5/8 × 78 3/4 inches (380 × 200 cm) © Katharina Grosse and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany 2020. Photo: Jens Ziehe

[wifelinkmtg]

this blog can be cast from your graveyard

yeah what’s up it’s that thing again where i look at magic the gathering card art purely for how hot the women in it are, but it’s not sexist because i’m lesbian. where the fuck were we.

RAVNICA ALLEGIANCE

right, everyone’s favorite Prague-inspired squabbling ecumenopolis. it’s got mermaid surgeons, ghost vicars, sphinxes-at-law, and demonic burlesque troupes, but the real way you can tell it’s a fantasy setting is all of these women are tops. we’ll take it by guild, starting with

AZORIUS

jk Azorius is entirely composed of bureaucratic surveillance cops and prosecuting attorneys. ACAB, next!

SIMIC

Simic is also a wash, i’m afraid. you might think that’s because these mad biologists have grafted crab limbs or worse onto all available women, but i would hope you’d know me well enough to know that’s not a deal-breaker. no, the real reason none of them make the cut is because they’re all a bunch of nerds.

GRUUL

okay anarchy in the UK time

Nikya of the Old Ways (art by Ryan Pancoast)

pros: tall, good tattoos, great hair, a very coherent personal aesthetic, will definitely step on you. cons: the logistical difficulties of centaur-human relations, difficult to touch her without accidentally impaling yourself on any number of bones, will definitely step on you fatally. conclusion: a great last fling if you’ve just been diagnosed with something terminal, but Nikya is probably too high-risk in any other circumstance.

RAKDOS

someone say BDSM circus act from hell? no? well, they’re here.

Spikewheel Acrobat (art by Alexander Deruchenko)

hey do you feel like your life is missing some excitement? have you been having Gay Thoughts about Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn? do you have an extremely robust renter’s insurance policy? if you answered yes to all three of these questions, good news! Spikewheel Acrobat is statuesque, very athletic, currently single, and has gotten her one-night-stand-to-burn-ward-visit ratio down to about one in three!

Judith, the Scourge Diva (art by Wesley Burt)

the neat thing about Judy here is that you immediately know exactly what you’re in for and whether or not that’s something that appeals to you. you WILL call her mistress, you will NOT speak unless given permission, and there will be NO aftercare of any kind except medically necessary. if you’ve been waiting for an M-rated Maleficent lookalike to flog you into a blood trance, Judy’s your girl.

ORZHOV

[insert True Blood AMV set to Take Me to Church by Hozier at 75% speed]

Kaya, Orzhov Usurper (art by Yongjae Choi)

look, every time a woman power-walks at the camera in one of these pieces she makes the list, it really is that simple. the boots don’t hurt, the cape surely doesn’t hurt, but the hottest part about this is the room full of people who obviously aren’t happy that Kaya here has killed their ghost capos and is now in charge, but equally obviously are completely unable to do anything to stop her. power walks are hotter against a background of impotent resentment from a humiliated criminal syndicate, and that’s just science.

Seraph of the Scales (art by Magali Villeneuve)

Magali just paints very pretty women very consistently. they’ve always got good cheekbones and lustrous hair and i never have much to say about them, but they go on the list. hey, goth angel, tho!

Priestess of the Forgotten Gods (art by Zack Stella)

black and gold ALWAYS go well with blood sacrifice. a classic look for any season.

Pitiless Pontiff (art by Yongjae Choi)

oh shit okay fuck everything but this particular Devil Wears Prada vampire AU holy fuck this is hot her look is unassailable the camera angle puts you very much in your place. absolute power rolls off her like perfume. jesus.

like...okay here’s the way this plays out: if you are a very, very good girl you may be permitted to kiss the length of her calfskin boot. at the top, when you raise your inquisitive eyes to hers, she places a gentle finger under your chin and tilts your head up, then to the side. when she bites your neck it will be slow and deliberate, and she will suck just enough blood to leave you swaying and light-headed, before wiping her mouth and saying, very quietly, “that’s all.”

[afewmarvelousthoughts]

Stay Ch. 10

Master List: @afewmarvelousthoughtsadmin

Pairing: Natasha X Reader (Female)

Summary: You have a gift, the ability to see other people’s innermost secrets. For years you used it to gather intel for the highest bidder when you take on The Widow. After she becomes more than a mark the two of you spend years stealing moments. Post snap you wait in your designated meeting place, look back on the sordid past you share with the woman you love and hope against everything that she’s still alive.

Warnings: Physical violence, light smut, feels

A/N:  I love that Only For A Moment and Stay both reached big milestones (for me anyway) this weekend. I really thought I wouldn’t have chapter 10 ready but then it just kind of spilled out of me in one painful rush (thanks, music).  

Thank you so much for loving my girls like you do! Things are about to get... interesting for them. Don’t hate me.  

This is another longer chapter (at least in comparison to how I’ve been structuring this and OFAM) but I hope y’all like it! 

Tags are open!

@mywinterwolf @disagreetoagree @breezy1415 @peachthatdrinkslemonade @5aftermidnight @jeromethepsycho​ @marvel-randomness @daniellajocelyn @katecolleen @yanginginthere @wonderlandmind4 @piensa-bonito

- Post Snap -

You must look like a fool. Sitting alone in a hotel bar, at the end of the fucking world, smiling from ear to ear. That or you look like you’re about to snap.

Laughing a little at yourself you slam back what’s left of your drink and decide to head up to your room. As much as you don’t want to leave the bar, want to hover here until you see her walk through those doors, your body demands sleep.

It had taken you almost two whole days to get to Vienna after the… whatever the fuck that was. Planes were grounded, roadways littered with cars filled with nothing but ghosts. Chaos growing with every passing hour.

Most civilians didn’t ever truly realize just how razor thin the line between order and anarchy was at any given moment. They put faith in their institutions to hold society together without knowing that their institutions were made of nothing but poorly kept secrets and dust. Now they’d know since it felt like half the fucking planet had dissolved into just that… dust.

Regardless, that long journey left little room for sleep. Add to that the ridiculous amount of liquor you’d consumed in the last 20ish hours… you were spent.

Once in your room, you practically face plant on the lush bed. Darkness consuming you immediately. Hoping that you dream of her.

You do…

A few hours later you wake up drenched in sweat. Immediately you bolt for the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before your stomach contracts, filled with nothing but fucking bourbon… it’s about as unpleasant as throwing up can be.

“Fuck,” you groan, leaning against the wall clutching your abdomen.

Why that memory? Of all the things for your brain to pull out of the archives, it had to be her… covered in blood.

You think back to what it was like at the beginning. After Prague.

For two people who made their living in the world's underbelly, you couldn’t help but feel you didn’t deserve just how good the past year had been. Together you had seen the world, worked some jobs and lived as much like two normal people in love as you could.

Like any couple, you formed your routines. Wherever you were the first person up would make the coffee so the other would awake to sleepy kisses and the sweet smell of caffeine. Usually followed by a long shower together. She would always order you a Makers if she made it to the restaurant or bar before you and you’d order a Stoli or Grey Goose martini if you did. Natasha actually liked doing laundry so she would do the both of yours and you would handle folding and hanging (not that either of you carried much). Between jobs you’d train to keep one another sharp, you were even good enough to beat her more than once.

Movie nights were frequent. Just the two of you curled up in whatever hotel you found yourselves at with a few rentals and take out. Sometimes you’d kill days doing that. Other times you’d land in a city and never check in anywhere, just squat in one place or another exploring until you got bored.

It wasn’t all pure domestic bliss though.

Her dreams could be soul crushing. You’d awake to her cries a few times a month. Sometimes she’d want to fuck the memory away and you’d happily oblige. Others she would just want to curl into your arms, you’d hold her, stroking her hair, and kissing her tenderly until the tremors stopped. She never had to talk about the dream unless she wanted… most times you saw or at the very least felt them. They’d haunt you for the rest of your life. Not just the images themselves but because you couldn’t go back in time to save her from them…

More than once, mainly at the beginning, you had disagreements about jobs. You took one for a prominent South Asian crime syndicate she deemed too risky. The two of you argued for days about it. Finally, she conceded and while it was close, it all worked out. A few hits she took you thought were more than a little tasteless but ultimately you both decided to let the other do what she did best and generally stay out of it. Leave work at work.

That worked until she was given an order to take on a job with a fellow Red Room alum.

- December 2005 -

“Natasha… I don’t fucking like this,” you could have held your tongue about anything else but this.

“It’s not a discussion, baby. Remember? We have a rule-”

“Yeah. We do. But… kids.”

“There won’t be any children there. They’ve been moved to a new facility-“

“That’s not it,” you hand her one of her knives, “Children are involved. If the KGB wants the research they’ve been doing-”

“Y/N, I-”

“You know it can’t be good, Nat,” your voice is rising. “We were both kids once, used and-“

Her eyes shoot daggers at you, “Do you really think that didn’t cross my mind? I’m not happy about this. But if I refuse I’m putting a target on both our backs. I won’t.”

You sneer, “I don’t want any part of your justification for this one, Natasha.”

It didn’t matter that the hospital would be empty. You read the briefing. The two women were to slip into a donor event celebrating the new hospital’s opening. Snag the two lead doctors, bring them back to the old facility, get all the research that was still being stored there, destroy the evidence. No witnesses. No survivors.

Her arms wrap around you from behind, a soft kiss just under your ear. “Please tell me you don’t think I would do anything to harm a kid… I can’t-“

You turn in her arms to face her, “I know you wouldn’t honey. I know. But… if they’re performing research on… children. Fuck. I just, I don’t know.” Your foreheads rest together.

“I look at it like taking from the wolves. The men in charge of whatever they’re doing are going to die tonight and-”

“It can’t be taking from the wolves if you’re handing the knowledge to a different pack.”

The look on her face is pained. “I’m sorry,” she releases you going to the closet to pull out her gown for the evening and you plop onto the edge of the bed. She sighs heavily, “Look if there’s anything too bad I will make sure the KGB doesn’t get their hands on it. I’ll bring the other agent to you and…”

Your eyebrows cock-up, “Don’t you think her winding up dead will be more than a little suspicious?”

“I didn’t say dead. Head injuries are tricky things,” she smirks and winks.

“You’re diabolical,” your smirk matching her own.

She saunters over to you in nothing but her underwear and holsters and straddles you. Taking your face in her hands she kisses you hard, “You love it.”

Honestly, you did. Your hands slide slowly up her muscular thighs before hooking onto her underwear and you nibble her bottom lip.

She groans, “I don’t have time.” You don’t respond, just slide your fingers into the front of the lacy garment. Her head falls back as she grinds against them.

“You sure,” you whisper into the hollow of her collarbones. She shivers, “Can’t stay a few more minutes?”

“I can’t be late,” she says laughing at the look of disappointment on your face. “Tonight.”

“That’s so far away,” you whine playfully as she pulls your hand away and licks her own moisture off your fingers with a wink. A hum of pleasure rumbles in your chest.

“You started this,” she nips at your fingertips. “Deal with it,” she places a quick kiss on your lips before getting up.

“Bitch,” you say with a wink as you fall back on the bed your own hand sliding the zipper of your jeans down.

“Oh hell no!” Natasha pounces on you, pinning your hands by your head. “Don’t you dare.” Her kiss is hungry as her tongue fills your mouth, hot, wet, everything you want. “You had better wait for me,” she whispers into your ear before nibbling at your earlobe.

“Fine,” you sigh out.

As Natasha slips into the sleek black gown your mouth waters. The silhouette perfectly hugs her curves and the plunging neckline is just enough to tease while still remaining tasteful for the event. She catches you taking her in as she slips diamond studs into her ears.

“What do you think?” She asks as you stride over to her, spinning her to place her back against the wall before placing a passionate kiss on her lips.

“I think,” you kiss her once more, “you need to make sure this shit goes fast because if not I may have to crash the party to bring you home.”

“I’ll be sure to inform my colleague of the dire situation.”

“Good,” you kiss her once more. “Be safe.”

“I will.” She pulls away from you and steps into her pumps, grabs her clutch and coat. Tenderly she cups your face in her right hand, “I love you, Y/N.”

“I love you too, honey.”

4am, she should be back by now. You sit on the open window, fully dressed and armed, booted foot anxiously bouncing as you smoke your fifth cigarette in a row. You’ve been arguing with yourself for the better part of the last hour.

She had, of course, told you just where the hospital was. You could make it there on foot in less than a half hour. However, if you showed up and blew the mission she would have your ass and not in the way either of you wanted. Part of you didn’t care and wanted to rush in guns blazing. The other was saying you were being a paranoid idiot. Natasha could handle herself.

Sighing you duck back into the room, deciding the latter is right. Let the woman do her job, Y/N. Don’t be the hovering girlfriend. The thought barely finishes crossing your mind when something in the city blows, just powerful enough for the aftershock to rattle the hotel windows.

You bolt to the window, a few car alarms scream and the sky is red in the direction of the hospital.

“No,” you say into the cold night. Without hesitation you swing out onto the fire ladder and climb down, jumping the last few feet too eager to begin sprinting in that direction.

Even though you’re running as fast as you ever have in your entire life it feels like you’re in quicksand. You stick to the back routes, avoiding any emergency vehicles or dispersing crowds. Heart thundering. You’re practically blind with determination.

When you’re close enough to the scene to not only know it was unquestionably the hospital but to smell the fire someone grabs you. Panic surges you. You spin, unthinking. You sweep the assailant's feet from under her and pin her to the ground. It’s only then that you realize that the person covered in ash and blood is Natasha. Tears clearing a path down her cheeks.

“Honey!?” You gasp jumping off her. She sits up trembling, wheezing. “Oh god,” kneeling next to her you begin to check her over, there was so much blood. “Nat…” your hands come way red and black.

“Not,” she tries to suck in a breath and coughs, “mine,” she barely gets out.

“Ok. Ok, that’s good.” You can see the lights from the sirens and hear people far too close for comfort. “Come on,” you help her to her feet noticing that they’re bare, “let’s get to the hotel.”

“No,” she gasps panic filling her face head shaking frantically.

“What? That may not be your blood but bab-“

“They know,” she coughs, loud and violent, “not… not safe.”

You stare at her for a long minute trying to understand what she means by ‘they.’ “Ok. We can’t stay here though.” Her head shakes in agreement. “Different hotel?” She nods yes.

A handful of blocks in the opposite direction of your hotel there’s a questionable inn. You pay the half drunk attendant in cash and sneak Natasha in a few minutes later. She’s gone quiet, distant, her head lolling to one side as you sit her on the bed.

You turn the shower on, brown water spurts from the head concerningly before finally clearing. Steam quickly fills the stall.

“Honey,” you gently turn her face to yours. She looks at you but her eyes are cloudy. It hits you then that you’re not feeling anything from her. Not one single emotion is rising to your senses. Panic fills your stomach.

You will your voice to be steady, you have to be strong for her. “We need to get you cleaned up. Come on, baby.” Gripping her shoulders you guide her up onto her feet. She doesn’t fight you, moving like a living doll.

By the shower, you unzip the back of the now ruined dress and slide it off. Without prompting she steps free and pulls her underwear off as you unbuckle her holsters. Quickly you strip down too and bring her into the stall.

Placing her in the stream you grab a washcloth and begin to tenderly clean the grime from her. As the soot slips down the drain you see the blooming bruises on her face, her body. A few cuts would need stitching you note as rivulets of red seep from them. That was the least of your concerns right now. Still, she had absolutely no emotion, nothing, just a void where there should be… anything. You had seen and felt shock before, this wasn’t that. At least not how you’d ever known it to manifest.

With her as clean as you could get her here you guide her out. Drying her off and wrapping her in a towel before drying yourself off. Still nude you guide her to the bed again and sit her on the edge. You’re about to go dress when her fingers rise to the thick pink scar on your abdomen, lightly tracing it.

“Honey?” You ask softly, unsure how to read this.

“Why?” Her voice is a rasp.

“You know why,” you tilt her face up. “I knew you were worth it.” There’s a quick searing lash of emotion from her, so intense you almost stagger back. It’s too fast for you to even grasp what it is.

“What if you’re wrong?” There’s still no emotion in her words. Hollow.

“I’m not,” you lean down so your face is level with hers, “I am not wrong, Natasha. You’re worth everything to me.” She doesn’t react just stares blankly at you. Sighing you go and get back into your clothes.

She needed clothes, you needed a way to stitch her up, you needed some of the things in your hotel room. In the dirty bathroom mirror, you see her looking at her hands, static-like emotions coming from her. That was at least somewhat better.

Grasping her hands in yours you keep your voice level, “I’m going to go to the hotel,” you expect a fight but her eyes only search yours, “I’ll be careful. But there’s shit there we can’t leave and I need the med kit to stitch you up.” She nods. “I’ll leave you my gun and a knife,” her weapons were likely buried in the rubble of the hospital.

Pushing a few damp strands of hair from her face, “Will you be ok here? Be honest, Natasha.”

“Go,” her voice low. “Sooner the better. Before they have time to get there.” You want to know who this they are but you figure it’s best saved for later.

“Ok,” you kiss her forehead and slip your boots on. “I’ll be back.”

“Y/N,” you turn to her. “I love you.” There’s a whisper of that familiar intoxicating emotion with that word.

You smile, “I love you too, honey.”

At your hotel you climb back up the fire ladder, sending your sixth sense ahead of you to try to sense anyone in the room. It seems clear so you climb back into the window.

Hastily you stuff your duffel bags with the essentials, some clothing, basic toiletries, weapons, and the med kit. You take one last look around the room, the memory of your earlier flirtation filling you with a strange dread, and head out the door.

The whole trip took maybe an hour. As you walk back through the lobby of the inn you notice the front desk guy isn’t there but think nothing of it. At your door, you softly knock.

“It’s me, honey,” you wait, thinking she’ll open it but there’s nothing. Swallowing the bile rising in your throat you quietly set the bags down and pull your Ka-Bar out before slowly unlocking the door.

Your senses don’t pick up on anyone. There are no lingering ghosts of emotion from a struggle and everything is just as you left it. Methodically you open the closet, look under the bed, but there’s nowhere else for someone to be in this tiny room. She’s just gone.

On the little notepad by the phone, you notice writing that was not there before. One word.

Sorry.

[momentophyta]

"Birds! Look at the troubles happening in our world! Anarchy - discontent - upheaval! Desperate fights over territory, water, and food! Poisoned air! Unhappiness! I fear we are lost. We must do something! I've seen the world. I know many secrets. Listen to me: I know a king who has all answers. We must go and find him."

Dox-Prague, Petr Sís: On flying and other dreams

[cvokhauz]

3 & 99 (it's so good to see that someone is still going these!!!)

3 - How many tattoos i have and what they are:

Three. Mountains in white ink on my calf, tengwar for “unwill” on my left ankle (because my life philosophy seems to be based substantially on quotes from silmarillion porn, i blame @thearrogantemu entirely, go read her fic) and a personal sign combined with A for anarchy on right ankle (tiny). All of them I did myself but I’m going to go get a machine tattoo done at some point after Christmas.

99 - Have you ever met someone who didn’t seem real?

Yes, several people, mostly chance encounters. When I was leaving for borading school abroad, nothing seemed real and on the train to the airport I met this guy Diego from Peru and I was nervous and thought, might as well practice my spanish, so we started talking and got really deep really quickly, and he hugged me and wished me all the best in the new country, and I did the same for him, and we never saw or talked to each other again.

A clarinetist from Prague, very beautiful, very quiet, straight looking but apparently not straight. I still don’t remember exactly how or what happened but I was dazed for days afterwards, wrote several poems and never saw her again.

A poet from Brno, he looks like Švejk, is a serious functioning alcoholic, pábitel and generally looks like someone out of a Hrabal book, but he’s entirely real, and his poetry is entirely unreal. If you saw him you would never in a million years think he wrote that, but it’s incredible.

thanks!!

[ritchiepage2001newaccount]

Sometimes it’s kind of fun watching people prove that they have never actually read Marx, and can’t accurately define terms like, communism, socialism, Marxism or anarchism. Let’s start with Marxism, what it is, and what it is not; Marxism is a system of analysis used to examine existing structures, and how they function. It is NOT a prescription or system for organizing society. Marx’s Das Kapital or Capital is a work of Marxism .

Socialism is an umbrella term that covers lots of different types of organizing systems, some involving the state, some not, some religious, some secular, but all involving the pooling of resources, and democratic control of same (gaslighting you on that final point, has been going on your entire life)..

Anarchy, or anarchism comes mainly two forms, Libertarian-Socialism and Anarcho-Communism. Both eliminate the state, with workers controlling the means of production through the ‘soviet’, or worker’s council, with ALL political power devolved down to that communal level, but the latter group bans all private property, but not personal property. If you’ve ever read the Communist Manifesto, then you know that Anarcho-Communists are the only true Communists, and that various government systems billing themselves as communism (Leninism, Maoism, etc., etc...) are perversions of Marx’s concept. Pointing this out got Trotsky, and many others, killed by the opportunists that co-opted the Russian Revolution. Theoretically, Leninists say that they plan to seize the levers of control, and then over time, dismantle the state, relinquishing all control to the soviets (worker’s councils), or communes, if you prefer, until the state is destroyed, whichwill finally match the definition of actual communism, and the entire reason for the term, so when you say, “China’s Communist government” you are already in trouble. Again, communism is about eliminating government.

And after seventy years, neither the Russians, nor the Chinese ever dismantled anything. In fact, China is more authoritarian than ever.

Don’t believe me? Read it for yourself.

Actual communists call those people ‘tankies’, because anytime anyone tried to set up a soviet (worker’s council) or co-op of any kind, Moscow would send the tanks (think of the Prague Spring).

Which makes Soviet Union two lies in one name, and USSR four lies in one acronym. Books enjoy being read, and reading the two I’ve mentioned is the best protection against the superstitions imposed on you, your entire life.

“North Korea is a monarchy, but my TV keeps telling me they’re communists.

I guess it’s a good thing North Koreans’ TV’s are telling them the same thing.” -Me :)

In any case, saying communism only works for small groups kind of stumbles onto the point, by accident, because it was never meant to do anything else. Most true communists and libertarian-socialists, dream of a stateless world, quite apart from what you probably imagined about them, but most settle for living and working in communities within states, like the Kibbutzniks in Israel, the Zapatistas in southern-most Mexico, our on-again/off-again allies in north east Syria, and many other communities large and small, dotted all over the world, some religious and some secular, and some, right here in the USofA.

That’s right, there are people living outside the rat race, right here in America... Something must be done... ;) PS Yeah, Marx quotes the Bible, which is what’s being alluded to in that meme, and that’s not the only instance... :)

P P S Mutualism and Libertarian-Socialism are basically synonyms.

[yuli-ban]

Thank be to Thy Noly Holan, aka @nolanthebiggestnerd

Respectively...

Muriel Morash

Gideon Morash

Because I’m a racist, I made them siblings. I’ve been meaning to commission some art of these two sibs for months, but I just never got around to it because I was too busy being racist to the Irish.

Remember, the Subreddit Is Watching You.