#Black Flag Reference Document

[whatdoiknowjr]

Grasping Power: Playing with Spellcasting Assumptions

I know, I just posted these this morning, but I wanted to make sure I stored the information somewhere more permanent than social media, and expand some thoughts. Let me know what you think. #5eSRD

I’m pulling together some thoughts I was moved to post on social media regarding the standard D&D spellcasting classes. I don’t know if any of this is incredibly profound, but I’ve also learned that I can’t trust social media as a storage format for my thoughts, so here’s hoping you don’t mind me sharing. Over the years, I’ve posted many articles about the philosophical differences between…

[dragonnarrative-writes]

Part 2 - Work Introductions

Autumn Embers Masterlist

CW: Mentions of child loss, mentions of medical neglect/abuse, mentions of reproductive abuse, mentions of pregnancy complications and death, mentions of racism, sexism (in an omegaverse way), Brandon (unfortunately living), real world references

Data entry and analysis isn’t the most exciting job in the world, no matter what kind of fancy title you’re given, but it pays the bills. Working on a military base isn’t ideal, but the benefits are nothing to sneeze at. And most days, you get to sit alone and uninterrupted, in your own office, instead of in a cramped cubicle.

On Tuesday, you’re startled out of your audiobook by a gentle knock on your desk. Sherry, your immediate superior, gives an awkward little wave and waits for you to finish your line and mute your music.

“Hey, I’m so sorry about this,” she says, as soon as your headphones are clear. “You remember those port reports from Honduras? Some of the senior analysts have some questions for you? They’re currently in a meeting and requested some clarification…?”

You wait, but she doesn’t say anything else. “…what do they want to know?”

“Oh, they didn’t tell me, I’m sorry,” Sherry says. “They asked if you could… Well, they need you to attend the meeting. Right now.”

“Do I even have the clearance for that kind of meeting?” You stand without waiting for an answer and disconnect your laptop from the dock. With it tucked under your arm, you grab a notebook and pen, as well as your water bottle.

Sherry leads the way out of the office. “I know you submitted these reports two weeks ago, and your notations are excellent. I think the problem is with one of the flagged ship manifests, but they wouldn’t clarify why they were concerned. Couldn’t get a word in edgewise.”

Her apologetic air suddenly makes sense. “Brandon’s in there, isn’t he?”

Sherry grimaces. “I’m so, so sorry. It’s him and a few alphas. There’s an American CIA agent as well.”

“So I absolutely don’t have the clearance for this meeting,” you sigh. “Great.”

A short elevator ride and two halls away, you take a fortifying breath before you step into an occupied meeting room. Brandon’s is the first face you see, and when he sees you the corners of his lips turn up in an infuriating smile. Next to him, another senior analyst’s eyebrows pop up, but Andrew actually looks happy to see you.

Before the door can close behind you, a blonde, American alpha stands and offers her hand in a no-nonsense shake. “Kate Laswell. We appreciate you being so prompt.”

“Of course,” you answer. Unfortunately, your attention is a little torn. All four members of the 141 are sitting at the table, looking at you curiously. Sergent MacTavish grins like a wolf. Captain Price tips his chin up just enough that you know he’s scenting you. Lieutenant Riley, face covered from the nose down in a black neck gaiter, gives you a quick once over that makes you want to shiver. But you’re a professional, so instead of fleeing you take the nearest seat, across from a smiling Sergent Garrick. You fold both of your hands on top of the table, the very picture of accommodating and helpful, “What can I assist you with?”

“Why’d you flag this shipping manifest,” Brandon asks. The projector at the front of the room switches to a document that would be barely legible, even without the distortion of zoom.

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” you tell him, flipping your laptop open. “What’s the file name?”

“Honduras,” Brandon says, Port Cortez.”

“Puerto Cortes,” you correct. And seeing as it’s the largest seaport in Central America, I’ve combed through literally hundreds of manifests, you think, but don’t say. “I’m going to have to ask you to be a bit more specific. The projector isn’t easy to read.”

“You flagged this manifest for a Korean ship.”

You jump when Sergent Garrick says, “Christ, mate, just give her the file name.”

Lieutenant Riley gives a cough that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. You think you see MacTavish still grinning at you out of the corner of your eye. Laswell rattles off the document name without looking.

As soon as the document loads, you know exactly why Brandon and Andrew are confused. And you know that the following conversation is going to be so unpleasant that you shoot off a quick email to take the rest of the day off once this meeting ends.

You take a deep breath, let it out slowly. “The manifest is inconsistent with previous patterns from that particular port and that particular captain and crew. As I noted, the four containers from Venusian Pharmaceuticals wouldn’t have made it on the ship do to political and economic pressures.”

Brandon doesn’t bother to look at you when he asks, “What pressures?”

Laswell interjects before you can answer, “Leaked internal communications provided evidence that Cloudstone Pharm was selling tampered heat suppressants and birth control in various black markets. The 4B movement in South Korea had been calling for an investigation for years by that point. A lot of omegas were killed because of mis-labeled medications. Pregnancy and birth related complications.”

“I remember that. It was, what, five, more years ago?” Lieutenant Riley asks. “Had an entire re-brand. Cloudstone to Venusian. Everything went from blues and whites to greens and yellows.”

“Okay, so the containers had a bit of extra security to get onto the ship,” Brandon says, before you can get over the shock of two alphas in a room who know anything about even the broad strokes of omega health care. “There’s protesters at every major port for one thing or another.”

“Even if they’d gotten on the ship, they wouldn’t have made it to Puerto Cortes,” you counter. “The captain lost two of his kids because of their medications. He’s had his crew dump the containers and alter manifests before. He was investigated for it, but his crew wouldn’t speak against him.”

Brandon frowns. “How do we know he didn’t get paid off?”

How do we know the omegas weren’t worth less than a cash payment? Your throat feels like closing in on itself. You keep your voice as steady as you can. “He wouldn’t have been.”

“How do you know?”

Andrew, eyes darting between you and Brandon, tries to interrupt. “Well-”

“Because he made the autopsy reports for both of his sons public,” you answer. You have to force your jaw to unclench. “Along with pictures and videos of how sick they were before they passed, before anyone knew what was really wrong with them. And the executives of Cloudstone, an American company, laughed. Called them slurs and ignorant animals in emails and meeting memos that were later leaked to the public.”

Across from you, Garrick is not smiling anymore. “That’s… disgusting.”

“Cloudstone struggled to recover in eastern Asian markets, even with the re-brand,” you continue, then take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “And all of this was in my report.”

“Your job isn’t to provide those kinds of references. You’re not trained for it. There were a couple of links to articles,” Brandon dismisses. “Not enough to-”

“One of his sons experienced total organ failure,” you interrupt, closing your laptop. You know your scent must be all over the place, but the subject matter was already touchy. Now he’s questioning your work and misrepresenting your job duties? Oh, fuck him. “Because he was on incorrectly administered fertility treatments that were disguised as birth control, he had a high-risk pregnancy with multiples. And then his medications were switched with heat inducers. His other son had rapid onset neuropathy and multiple strokes within a week. Neither of his sons wanted to have children. One of them couldn’t, biologically, because it would have killed him anyways. And their partners decided that they didn’t care.”

Brandon wrinkles his nose at you. “No need to get so worked up.”

You practically feel the way your scent goes hot and acrid. Where most omegas have a distress scent that is sickly sweet, yours is much closer to an alpha’s shock scent. Your parents used to call you “Wildfire” because of it. You watch the hairs on Garrik’s arms stand up.

You can barely smell Andrew’s nervous distress over your rage. “Okay, yeah, that’s plenty. The captain wouldn’t have taken the containers.”

“Is there a reason you didn’t consult the references I added into the report?” You know the sudden calm in your voice, the relaxing of your posture, is at odds with the way your anger scent gets stronger. You’ve been told it’s a sensory nightmare, so you only do it when someone tells you you’re not calm enough. You fold your hands on the table again. “Because I included original and translated sources, according to the standards of the department.”

The room is silent. All seven alphas are agitated. You can only pick out MacTavish’s scent, muddled and frustrated. Andrew opens his mouth, closes it. Finally says, “I didn’t receive the references.”

“Senior analyst Lawrence received the full report directly,” you say, holding eye contact with Brandon. “But I know how emails can get lost. I would be happy to send them again. I’ll CC you, and request that your access to the full drive be confirmed. Sir. Is there anything else I can assist the team with?”

Laswell scrawls something on a sticky note and passes it over to you. “Please also include me on those emails.”

You give her your most demure smile. “Unfortunately, Agent Laswell, I don’t have the clearance to send reports outside of the department. I would be happy to help you coordinate that with senior analysts Lawrence and Bennett.”

You pluck the sticky note from her hand, stand, and gather up your laptop, notebook, and water bottle. When you have everything, you pass behind her to where Brandon and Andrew are sitting. Deliberately putting yourself at Brandon’s back, you hand the note to Andrew with a placid smile. “Agent Laswell requests that you provide her with the full report.”

Brandon smells disconcerted, trapped in his seat with your scent roaring as you stand just inside of his blind spot. Andrew, for his part, only hesitates for a moment before taking the offered sticky note, looking from you to Laswell to Brandon and back. “Thank you.”

“Of course, sir.” Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth. “Is there anything else I can assist you with?”

“I… believe that will be all…?”

“Of course, sir. Thank you, sir.” You cement your little performance with a perfectly deferential partial curtsy to Andrew, then to the rest of the room. “Please do not hesitate to let me know if there’s anything else I can do the support the team.”

As the door shuts behind you, you hear Captain Price’s voice for the first time. “Goddamn. That is a woman capable of murder.”

[communistkenobi]

I think a large problem with how we got to this stage of "man is gender neutral" discourse is that a lot of queer people refuse to engage with feminism. I've been seeing it brought up a lot recently, but it's true. Someone who doesn't see a problem with referring to a trans woman as "dude" probably also doesn't believe in patriarchy to begin with. We need to start doing feminism 101 on tumblr again.

I think this is true and I also think this issue extends to the fact that white liberal queerness is the societally accepted conception of lgbtq issues broadly - the fact that pride flags litter the windowsills of small businesses and banks, that lgbtq merchandise is its own market, that western conceptions of gayness and especially transness are the internationally imposed norm (eg, we are pathological exceptions to cishetero society and should be accepted on the grounds that we are scientifically proven to be legitimate by medical and psychiatric institutions, presented with an awkward flair of “okay so we’re not saying being transgender is a mental illness, but it is caused by a mental illness” + framing of gay people as “they’re just like straight people! they can get married and have children just like you!”). Many many queer people of colour have pointed out how much this predominate western framing of lgbtq identity as a “white person thing” (partially because white queer people are just as racist as non-queer white people, also because of aforementioned western imperialism) puts them at odds with their own communities, giving people in those communities a “rational” reason to oppose lgbtq rights on the grounds of resisting western imperialism. Israel’s pinkwashing is a particularly instructive and stark example of this, positioning lgbtq freedom as being contingent on genociding and destroying Palestine - this doesn’t mean it’s okay to be homophobic obviously, but this sort of imperial imposition of queerness as part of the package of western domination creates the conditions for “rationally opposing” lgbtq rights and equality within colonized communities and ultimately causes intersecting levels of harm for lgbtq people in those communities. You can read decolonizing trans/gender 101 by b binaohan if you want more on the subject, I’ve only read the intro so far but it was very instructive (thank you @/molsno for spreading this link around! - she also has a post with a bunch of transfeminist writings if you want more of that). There's also this video by FD Signifier about Dave Chappelle's transphobia that talks about anti-Blackness in white trans/queer spaces and the intense homophobia and transphobia Black lgbtq people face as a result of this that I found insightful if you want to listen to something instead

ANYWAY, all to say - I think the larger problem is that queerness in western contexts (which tumblr is firmly situated in) is overwhelmingly white and liberal, which means that even if these spaces were to incorporate feminist frameworks in their analysis of oppression, they would be incorporated as liberal feminist frameworks, which are fundamentally transmisogynistic and racist, and fundamentally attached to the imperial project of the west (I recently read this article called Beyond the Coloniality of Gender by Alex Adamson discussing some of the problems with western feminism. they demonstrate this through a case study on western feminist objections to genital cutting in certain African countries + analysis of decolonial trans and intersex feminisms more broadly - if you click "show document" in the upper right hand corner of the page I linked it allows you to access the full article).

I’ve always struggled to articulate the exact issue we're discussing, because at a certain point a lack of knowledge is not to be blamed -the larger issue at hand is that the western political + economic apparatus has incorporated queer assimilation into its project. This does not mean that queer people in the west are safe from homophobia or transphobia (see: current transphobic hysteria across North America and UK in particular), but it does mean that white western queer people have incredible political and rhetorical leverage to dominate these conversations using white liberal analytical frameworks, which can only lead to transmisogynist and white supremacist conclusions about the nature of oppression. I think the only way out of these path-dependent "everyone is oppressed by patriarchy" conversations is a larger decolonial political and social project - part of which necessarily incorporates feminist analysis, but feminist analyses that are decolonial, marxist, and transfeminist in nature, and the only way these frameworks can be comprehensively adopted is through a larger decolonial turn

[entropyrpgs]

Kobold Press, one of the largest DnD creators, is creating their own system due to the recently announced changes to the Open Gaming License (OGL 1.1). Above is the video announcement on Twitter. Here's the blurb from the website:

As Dungeons & Dragons moves toward the 50th anniversary of the game, foundational changes are afoot in the tabletop roleplaying game arena. While we wait to see exactly what shape the Open Gaming License might take in this new era, Kobold Press is also moving forward with some clear-eyed work on work on a new Core Fantasy tabletop ruleset: available, open, and subscription-free for those who love it: Code Name — Project Black Flag. To receive future announcements and to register to playtest this ruleset, please sign up using this form.

When the new Open Gaming License and an updated System Reference Document are made public, Kobold Press will review the terms and consider whether they fit the needs of our audience and our business goals.

The kobolds are looking forward to the continued evolution of tabletop gaming, and we aim to play our part in making the game better. Rest assured Kobold Press intends to maintain a strong presence in the tabletop RPG community.

The form to sign up that is mentioned above is located here: https://koboldpress.com/kobold-press-announces-new-core-fantasy-experiment/

This could easily move the needle on how WoTC goes forward with this plan, but no matter what I think they've lost a lot of trust with the community.

[cobrastrikes421]

LGBTQ art

Bisexual fact:

Overall, 4% of U.S. adults say they identify as bisexual, according to an August 2023 survey by the Center. Younger adults are more likely than older Americans to describe themselves as bisexual. the term bisexual was used in Dutch for the first time in 1877, to refer to a hermaphrodite who had their sexual career as both a heterosexual woman and a heterosexual man. Later, the term bisexuality is used to represent both the double sexual-object choice and androgyny.

Aromantic fact:

Aromantic people can also form non-romantic relationships of all types, as well as being able to enjoy sexual relationships. They may also choose to have children, and studies indicate that aromantic individuals are no less likely to have children than alloromantic individuals. One of the earliest uses of the modern term "aromantic" dates back to 2005. The early online community around aromanticism formed on the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), an online community around asexuality, and social media platforms such as tumblr.

Progress fact:

a reinterpretation of multiple iterations of the pride flag. The original 'rainbow flag' was created by Gilbert Baker in 1978 to celebrate members of the gay and lesbian political movement. It comprised eight coloured stripes stacked on top of each other to evoke a rainbow, a symbol of hope. Daniel Quasar (xe/xyr pronouns) is the creator of the Progress Pride flag, a combination of the original Pride flag by Gilbert Baker, the Trans Pride flag by Monica Helms in 1999, the More Color, More Pride flag introduced by Amber Hikes in 2017, and a black stripe from the Victory Over AIDS flag, inspired by Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, to represent those lost during the AIDS crisis. This flag design “forces the viewer to confront

Aro/ace fact:

Aromantic asexual people are colloquially known as "aro-ace" or "aroace". Aromantic individuals are also able to experience platonic love and may have committed friendships, and some form intimate non-romantic partnerships called "queerplatonic relationships". the early 2000s as a way for individuals to explore and understand their experiences of limited or absent sexual and romantic attractions.

Agender fact:

agender" was actually on the Internet! It was born in the year 2000, on an Internet forum called UseNet. In a chat room discussion entitled alt. messianic, a user posted the following: “God is amorphous, agender, so image can't be a physical or gender or sexual thing.” Agender is a term used by individuals who do not identify with any specific gender or who experience a lack of gender altogether. Agender people have a sense that their gender identity is completely neutral, or does not exist at all. They may use words like "genderless" and "gender free" to describe themselves.

Trigender fact:

In Ancient Greece, Phrygia, and the Roman Republic and Empire, Cybele and Attis were worshiped by galli priests (documented from around 200 BCE to around 300 CE) who wore feminine clothes, referred to themselves as women, and often castrated themselves, and have therefore been seen as early transgender figures. The exact origin of the term "trigender" is unknown, but it has been mentioned as early as 1998. The prefix tri- means three, so "trigender" literally means "three gender".

Gay fact:

2400 BCE, are speculated to have been gay based on a representation of them embracing nose-to-nose in their shared tomb, though critics say that they were likely brothers. In 1978 Harvey Milk became the first openly gay man elected to public office in the United States, and the first openly gay or lesbian person to be elected to public office in California, when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. "The green (Community) and teal (Joy) in the flag represent Nature. I thought this was important because love between men is often seen as “unnatural” in the eyes of society and in religion. Furthermore, gay men have historically used green flowers and plants (Carnations, hyacinths, etc.) to symbolize our love, reinforcing our connection with Nature. The white stripe is adopted from the Trans Pride flag because trans, nb, and GNC men are often erased or talked over and need explicit representation.

Pansexual fact:

the hybrid words pansexual and pansexualism were first attested in 1914 (spelled pan-sexualism), coined by opponents of Sigmund Freud to denote the idea "that the sex instinct plays the primary part in all human activity, mental and physical". created to differentiate between the bisexuality flag, which also has three horizontal bars. It was created on the internet sometime around 2010, and has gained popularity since then. The Pansexual symbol combines the male, female, and transgender symbols into one, new, P-shaped symbol representing pansexuality.

Demigirl fact:

The earliest demigirl flag was created on April 15th, 2014 by Tumblr user kyriefortune. The second demigirl flag was created on August 24th, 2015 by pride-flags based on Willow's demiguy flag. Another flag was posted on the same day by pride-flags also based on Willow's demiguy flag. A gender identity term for someone who was assigned female at birth but does not fully identify with being a woman, socially or mentally. transgender pride-flag, retaining the central white & pink stripes representing enbies & women, but with 4 added horizontal stripes of different shades of grey to signify a disconnect and/or uncertainty associated with this gender-identity.

Hope you all had a great pride month. Can’t wait to do more of them.

What pride art should I do next year?

[scotianostra]

Happy St Andrews Day.

As part of our Patron Saint’s Feast Day the Scottish Saltire is proudly flown and many people add it to their posts on social media to celebrate the day, but how did Scotland adopt the saltire?

There is no actual date, or in fact nothing in our written history of the time, but legend has it that in AD 832 the king of the Picts, ‘Aengus MacFergus’, ( Anglified to Angus but some stories say Hungus) with the support of 'Scots’ from Dalriada, won a great battle against King Athelstane of the Northumbrians. The site of the legendary battle became known as Athelstaneford in present-day East Lothian.

St Andrew visited the Pictish leader in a dream before the battle and told him that victory would be won. When the battle itself was raging, a miraculous vision of the St Andrew’s Cross was seen shining in the sky, giving a boost to the morale and fighting spirit of his warriors. The result was a victory over the Saxons, and the death of Athelstan. Thus, after this victory, according to the tradition, the Saltire or St Andrew’s Cross became the flag of Scotland, and St Andrew the national patron saint.

While there is no written reference to the battle in Scotland from the period it was said to have taken place, this is not surprising, as it was a time for which we have little or no documentation for anything. The earliest written mention of the Battle of Athelstaneford in Scottish history comes from years later in the newspapers of the day, if you follow my posts then you know I dip into these “Chronicles from time to time, the first one to mention Athelstaneford is the Scotichronicon, written by the Scottish historian Walter Bower.

The Scotichronicon has been described by some Scottish historians as a valuable source of historical information, especially for the times that were recent to him or within his own memory. But he also wrote about earlier times, and this included the battle at Athelstaneford.

Bower’s account includes the scene where Aengus MacFergus is visited by St Andrew in a dream before the battle. He was told that the cross of Christ would be carried before him by an angel, there was no mention of a St Andrew’s Cross in the sky in this version. It was in later accounts, from the 16th centuries onwards, that we have the description of an image of St Andrew’s Cross shining in the sky

Bower was writing in the early 1400s. The bitter and bloody struggle to retain Scotland’s independence was not just a recent memory but also a current reality for him. Parts of Scotland were still occupied by England, and Bower had been involved in raising the money to release Scotland’s king, James I, from English captivity.

Also, Scotland’s early historical records and documents had been deliberately destroyed during the invasion by the English king Edward I. This was done in part as an attempt to remove historical evidence that Scotland had been an independent kingdom. The idea was simple: take away a nation’s history and you strip it of its identity and justification for its independent existence. The theft of the Stone of Destiny was part of this process, the Black Rood which was believed to contain a piece of the Cross Jesus was crucified on was also removed, I have covered both these in previous posts.

Part of Bower’s motivation in writing his Scotichronicon was to help restore this stolen history. He was a scholar and a man of the church. In his time, the figure of St Andrew had become a prominent presence in Scottish society.

The greatest church building in the land during his time was the Cathedral of St Andrew, which housed relics of St Andrew himself. It had taken over a hundred years to build and wasn’t formally consecrated until 1318, just four years after Bannockburn. The ceremony of course included Robert the Bruce and at it thanks was given to St Andrew for Scotland’s victory.

Less than 100 years after this, in 1413, the University of St Andrews was established and Walter Bower was one of its first students. By this time, the Cathedral of St Andrew was a place of pilgrimage, with thousands travelling there to venerate the saint’s relics. A pilgrimage route from the south took in the shrine of Our Lady at Whitekirk, not far from the site of the battle, and many pilgrims took a ferry across the Firth from North Berwick, where the ruins and remains of the old St Andrew’s Kirk can still be seen close to the Scottish Seabird Centre.

So as he sat down to write his history of earlier times, he was able to trace this connection to St Andrew, using the limited earlier written accounts, such as those of earlier Chronicler I’ve mentioned before, John Fordun, who lived in the 1300s. While Fordun doesn’t specifically mention the location of Athelstaneford, he records a battle which took place between the Picts led by Aengus and a force from the south led by Athelstan, and said the location of the battle was about two miles from Haddington. The account of St Andrew appearing in a dream to Aengus is also described by Fordun.

This creates a powerful link to the development of the written version of the story. Let’s remember Bower came from what is now East Lothian. Let us also remember that people in the early centuries stored and passed on much of their historical knowledge not in the written word but in memory and handed down oral traditions. People told stories, remembered them and told them to the next generation. Undeniably, some details would be forgotten or changed over time, but the bones of the story would be handed down. And that would include reference to locations of significant events in the local landscape.

Bower will have had access to this rich oral tradition of local stories based on handed-down collective memories of past events, which is perhaps why he was able to name the location. The later writers who added to the story of the battle will likewise have found new sources in the oral tradition to add to the narrative. Even in the 19th century, cartographers mapping the area were able to identify locations traditionally associated with the battle from local people who were custodians of ancestral memory.

This is how the story of the Battle of Athelstaneford and its connection with St Andrew and the Saltire has evolved.

The village is home to the National Flag Heritage Centre which occupies a lectern doocot built in 1583 and rebuilt in 1996. It is at the back of the village church. Today the village is surrounded by farmland and has little in the way of amenities. Tourists can follow the "Saltire Trail", a road route which passes by various local landmarks and places of historical interest.

Athelstaneford Parish Kirk has a connection with the subject of my post last week, author Nigel Tranter, who was a prominent supporter of the Scottish Flag Trust. He married in the church, and in April 2008 a permanent exhibition of his memorabilia was mounted in the north transept of the church. Items include a copy of Nigel Tranter's old typewriter, a collection of manuscripts and books, and other personal items. The display was previously at Lennoxlove House, and prior to that at Abbotsford House, the home of Sir Walter Scott.

[best-non-english-word-torunament]

hey, im not much of a linguistics person, just wondering what is the flag in your header? what do the symbols on it represent? :0

I'm assuming you're referring to this map in my header:

It's an interactive map from glottolog called GlottoScope that can be found here. It shows one dot for each language, as well as endangerment status and documentation status. The full symbol explanation can be found there, but in general the colour shows endangerment (green is not endangered, red is nearly extinct and black is extinct) and the shapes how extensive the best description of the language is: circles are long grammars (350 pages+, captures almost every aspect of the grammar), squares are grammars or grammar sketches (less extensive but at least 50 pages) and triangles are things like description of a single feature, a collection of text, a description of the sounds used, a dictionary or a wordlist (couple of hundred words max). Go there and play around with it! You can zoom in and see language names for all of them.

[talkingpointsusa]

Fake psyops and real Neo-Nazi's; A look into Charlie Kirk and Jack Posobiec's unhinged Rumble show

There's an Eagle behind my shoulder because MURICA!!! (Source: The Charlie Kirk Show on Rumble)

So, Charlie Kirk has been acting like a complete moron lately. He put out an "expose" on Martin Luther King Jr. that was essentially just him being a mask-off racist and parroting myths and rumors about MLK and now he's in hot water for saying that if he saw a black pilot he'd be automatically worried that they are unqualified.

The episode we are covering today is not his main show, it's from a show that he puts out on Thursdays with a guy named Jack Posobiec called ThoughtCrime. If that name doesn't immediately set off any alarm bells, this might not be the right blog for you. Lets get into it.

Trigger warning; pretty explicit discussion of racist remarks made by the four panelists on this show and others. Towards the end of the post these guys endorse somebody who is extremely racist and they get super disgusting about immigrants in the middle.

Wait a minute, who the hell is Jack Posobiec?:

I'm glad that you asked completely hypothetical viewer, Jack Posobiec is a complete lunatic and a possible Neo-Nazi.

Before he was a famous figure in the far-right media ecosystem, Jack was a US intelligence officer in the navy who was a key figure in promoting and lying about far-right conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate. Jack's Pizzagate coverage, in case you are wondering, consisted of him and his friend live-streaming some kids birthday party on Periscope and getting kicked out. As it turns out, live-streaming some kids birthday party on the internet comes off as extremely creepy. People took this as a sign that Comet Ping Pong had something to hide and Pizzagate started trending soon after.

He also allegedly took a sign reading "rape Melania" to an anti-Trump protest in order to slander the protestors. He eventually got his security clearance revoked for trying to downplay the Charlottesville Unite The Right Rally by pointing to the medias lack of coverage to shootings in Chicago.

Jack also has recorded ties to Neo-Nazis. He has a documented history of paling around with Neo-Nazi activist Richard Spencer. Jack has also used coded language such as the triple parentheses meme, an antisemitic dog whistle where one puts triple parentheses around the name of a Jewish person that originated on a white nationalist blog called The Right Stuff.

Golly, I wonder who "them" refers to.

The Southern Poverty Law Centre has a fantastic deep dive into Jack Posobiec's consistent association with white nationalists but in short, this guy at the very least has Neo-Nazi sympathies. The fact that Charlie Kirk is doing a show with him is pretty mask off in and of itself.

The Debunk:

Jack isn't the only new face on ThoughtCrime. Tyler Bowyer and Blake Neff are also co-hosts and they also have...interesting histories lets say.

Blake Neff was a former writer for Tucker Carlson Tonight who was fired after posting some truly insane racist remarks on a forum called AutoAdmit. I won't repeat what he said here but trust me....it's bad and it involves the n-word. Think about it this way, you've got to be pretty damn racist for Tucker Freaking Carlson to fire you. Again, the fact that Charlie is hanging out with this guy on air raises a lot of red flags.

I could find less info on Tyler Bowyer. He's a member of the Republican National Committee and the chief operating officer of Turning Point USA and the COO of Turning Point Action. He apparently sued Arizona's governor in an effort to overturn the 2020 election on the basis of voter fraud. The suit got rejected.

Here's something you need to understand about ThoughtCrime before we get into the debunk, this is where Charlie lets loose his most deranged takes. Sure, he says a lot of unhinged stuff on his own show but ThoughtCrime is truly the wild west of right-wing lunacy. We'll definitely cover more of it in the future.

Anyway, here's how they start off.

02:32, Charlie Kirk: "So, what is going on with Barbie?"

Jack Posobiec: "So, you know, Charlie, just real quick. You know, it's very strange, I was out reporting on the campaign trail today earlier today, had to fly in for ThoughtCrime, and I just made sure -- right before I went up, I said 'guys could you tell me the name of my pilot by chance before, before I get in', I'm not gonna name the airline, United, and they said 'his name is John Smith' and I said 'OK, wonderful, thank you so much'."

First of all, I seriously doubt that this happened. John Smith is one of the most made up names in the history of made up names. If it did, it just indicates that Jack is a racist who automatically assumes that anybody with an ethnic name or background can't be a good pilot.

I talked about this with Matt Walsh, but the diversity hire argument is built on the bedrock of a racist conclusion that minorities cannot be good pilots. This is a completely racist and insane conclusion to make however this argument is being made in the right-wing media, just in barely coded language about diversity hires.

03:40, Jack Posobiec: "Barbie, Margot Robbie, snubbed for the best actress category. Greta Gerwig for best director, also snubbed. But you know who got nominated for best category? That's right, Ryan Gosling for Ken. And for the, as Rush used to call them, the feminazi's out there it was basically like 9/11 because the patriarchy got the achievement while the women were told 'well, you are not allowed on stage. You have to stay in the kitchen.' And it just goes to show you folks, we're back, we're so absolutely back."

Jack's really stupid sexist remarks about women "having to stay in the kitchen" being a good thing aside, yes, the Barbie Movie got snubbed at the Oscars with the exception of Ryan Gosling.

The issue isn't necessary just with the fact that Greta and Margot got snubbed, the issue is that it highlights a streak of sexism that exists within the Oscars. The Barbie Movie was a massive critical and financial success and was directed by a female, yet she isn't being recognized for it. Same with Margot Robbie starring in the film.

At the Oscars, this turn of events is more common than you might think. A 2020 study published by Emerson College showed that men are almost twice as likely to win best picture than women. Many people feel like the snubs revolving around the Barbie Movie highlight this issue. I don't think that this is really the most important story in the world since we are facing more important issues as a society right now, but it's certainly interesting to think about.

06:35, Blake Neff: "The New York Times has this big headline; 'For Barbie Fans Online, a bitterly ironic Oscar snub. Margot Robbie missed Academy Award nomination for actress, a fact that was a little too on the nose for some.' I will note, the Oscar category is for best actress. So the implication is she got left out due to sexism but she just didn't get the nomination compared to other women competing in the same category--"

First of all, this ignores the fact that Greta Gerwig got snubbed for best director. Unless the category is "best female director" and everybody got it wrong, the snub for best director was questionable at best.

Second of all, the point is that Margot Robbie was excluded from the Oscars whilst her male co-star Ryan Gosling wasn't. It isn't that she was excluded from best actress in of itself, it's the people in the movie that they chose to include and exclude.

07:05, Blake Neff: "Maybe some of them played dudes, it's all the rage these days."

....That's not how gender identity works.

07:09, Blake Neff: "So, it fits into this realm in cinema where they just complain about things that are not real and don't happen."

I'm not sure if Blake has seen a right-wing YouTube channel before but you guys complain about movies all the freaking time! Tim Pool alone could probably rebrand into a right-wing film criticism channel without much trouble.

07:17, Blake Neff: "A few years ago they had a Captain Marvel come out, it was one of the stupid superhero movies, and they acted like it was the first time a woman had ever starred in a major motion picture but in fact many women have starred in motion pictures and best actress has been an Oscar category going back, as far as I know, to the original Oscars."

I am starting to think that FOX was looking for an excuse to fire Blake before his forum posts were discovered because this is absolutely daft stuff.

Absolutely nobody on the planet thought that Captain Marvel was the first time a woman starred in a major motion picture. It was the first time a woman starred in a Marvel movie so people were talking about that. He's arguing against a point that's stupid....so stupid that nobody was making it!

Anyway, Blake isn't done being a complete goon.

07:54, Blake Neff: "Well they have nominated some women for best director even though the best directors are in fact men so there is in fact that."

Agnès Varda, Lilly Wachowski (a trans woman no less!), the aforementioned Greta Gerwig. I could go on and on.

09:04, Charlie Kirk: "I don't really watch movies because they're all CIA psychological operation programming."

To InfoWars with you Charlie! Anybody who thinks that Charlie Kirk is a serious person should take some time to think about that statement.

I guess Tyler isn't so important to this show, makes sense because he is the only one of these guys who hasn't made the news for being an outright racist on the internet. I love how he's sitting quietly going "yeah, I work here too!"

13:16, Jack Posobiec: "The end of this movie is that Barbie is superior to Ken and that women are superior to men and that women are not allowed to be held accountable, women are not allowed to be subject to objective standards of anything, because women of course, the main thing they want is to be the center of attention and have everyone talking about them and if everyone is not then it is obviously because of sexism and is because of misogyny. That is quite literally, quite literally, the message of this film."

That's not what I took away from Barbie when I watched it at all but go off I guess. The fact that Jack's review of the movie just turned into a rant about how much he hates women should probably clue you in on how he drew that conclusion.

See what I mean about this show being mask off? This is the kind of thing you'd expect to hear on Hanna Pearl Davis' channel (which I plan on covering very soon. Watch this space).

14:57, Jack Posobiec: "It's just a movie. Guys, like, you're stupid if you think it's just a movie, like honestly. This is one of the most high-level democrat operations that's been going on for a long time in our country. If you wanna know why DEI, if you wanna know why all this political correctness stuff is being pushed at the highest level, it's because people get their understanding of the world from Hollywood movies and if you don't understand the influence they have on our society then, like, maybe stop watching the show."

You heard it here first ladies and gentlemen, the Barbie Movie is a psyop that's being backed by the Democratic Party. Why? To trick people into....treating women like human beings I guess.

It's such a successful and well-funded psyop that it got snubbed at the Oscars. This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever even if we were to just go with the information that Jack and Co have provided. Unless of course, you understand the real reason why Jack has spun this conspiracy which is that he is a misogynist who feels threatened by women far more famous and influential than himself.

15:40, Charlie Kirk: "Jack, thank you. Let's get onto the Texas topic here. Blake, what is the latest? There seems to be a big cascading effect on Texas."

So, I guess we're going to be talking about the "border civil war" now. Blake Neff is absolutely one of the last people I would go to for information about this story. So, what happened?

Well, in essence, the supreme court allowed border patrol agents to remove razor wire that Texas installed along the border to deter migrants from entering the country as a part of it's Operation Lone Star campaign. The razor wire itself was a cruel and inhumane policy that did nothing but dehumanize and harm migrants attempting to find shelter in the United States. The Justice Department argued that the razor wire made it difficult for federal border patrol agents to effectively do their jobs.

Once the razor wire was taken down, Governor Greg Abbott turned around and issued the order for more razor wire to be put up, directly defying the Supreme Court.

Since then it's been a complete shitstorm with blog favorites like Matt Walsh and Tim Pool declaring that a civil war is imminent. Whatsmore, there's a trucker convoy headed to the southern border to start a series of rallies. I can see that going sideways REALLY quickly and so did Alex Jones who preemptively declared any violence at the border to be a "false flag". Essentially, all of the hateful conspiracies like the "great replacement theory" are starting to come to a head and shit might get really messy really quickly.

Anyway, lets see what these morons have to say about this situation.

16:03, Blake Neff: "So, big story this week, other than New Hampshire, is that Texas has been fighting over whether they should allow 3 million people into the United States every year in an endless flood tide of humanity until they inundate the entire country or they could not allow that to happen."

This whole "army of migrants" narrative is soaked in the rights paranoia about foreigners replacing them and turning America into a non-white nation.

The fact of the matter is that the right wants there to be a crisis at the border. Without a crisis at the border, the right can't fearmonger about migrants on the campaign trail. Why else would they repeatedly block the democrats efforts to curb migration at the border? Biden also managed to remove a higher percentage of migrants in his first two years than Trump did during his last two years.

Their coverage on this is actually pretty boring to be honest. But lets power through. Here's Blake being a hypocrite.

19:41, Blake Neff: "It's so reckless. You have this, especially on the far-left of the Democrat party, they're really loving the idea of 'lets stoke this crisis as much as possible'."

Every single right-wing propagandist has been extremely inflammatory about this story for clicks and Blake is doing it right now. Whatsmore, the party he supports is literally taking steps to stoke this crisis as much as possible by shooting down Biden's deals for tightening security at the border.

20:22, Charlie Kirk: "Now the spirit of the decision, not the text of the decision, basically is like 'Hey, let the federal government determine border policy'"

Charlie is wrong on a lot of levels here.

First of all, razor wire is actually pretty ineffective at deterring migrant crossings at the border and only serves as an unneeded hazard for federal border patrol workers whilst also being an inhumane way of handling migrants. When the razor wire was up, people would either tunnel under it or use scraps of cloth to climb over it. The razor wire has also led to people getting caught in it and drowning, including a pregnant woman. This wire also prevents the federal authorities from saving these peoples lives. It's just unnecessary cruelty for the sake of it and fails at the thing it's stated to accomplish.

Also, if Charlie cracked open his Turning Point USA Constitution for more than twelve seconds, he'd find a little something called the Supremacy Clause. This clause states that federal law has greater authority than state law. So the Supreme Court didn't just make this up on a Tuesday last week in order to screw Texas over, it's the law and Governor Abbott is flagrantly breaking it. Charlie is in essence describing something that's already in place.

Anyway, Charlie seems to realize that Tyler has been spending the show presumably staring off into space whilst drooling and tries to get him to chip in. This is a bad idea.

21:46, Charlie Kirk: "So Tyler, I wanna get you in on this. Tyler was, he didn't chirp in, get it? Because chirp is a theme here on the Barbie thing and that's fine. Tyler, what are the politics of this? You've radicalized me on the border over the years, you're seventh generation Arizonan. This is a winning issue, it's becoming like the issue, the grassroots are on fire, swing voters, independents. Talk about the politics of this."

I refuse to believe that Charlie Kirk needed to be radicalized on the border. Anyway, here's Tyler talking about the politics of the border. It's dumb as all hell.

22:10, Tyler Bowyer: "I mean, I wanna harken back to a law that was passed in Arizona that was very controversial at the time. It was, at the time Arizona had a supermajority Republicans in the state senate and they passed a law called SB1070, I don't know if you remember this. It was the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods act and this was the-

Charlie Kirk: "Arizona used to be amazing man."

Tyler Bowyer: "It was, oh we we were so good. And Senator Russel Pierce, rest in peace, he passed away last year, was the author of it, was the prime sponsor, and it was supported by a majority of, the supermajority, in the state legislature here. And this is -- it made it a crime, a misdemeanor crime, for an illegal alien that gets caught here without any kind of paperwork whatsoever. It was a crime, there was financial crime, there was you'd get thrown in jail, and ultimately we would send them back to Mexico. And that was basically aiding ICE with doing it's job, because ICE wasn't doing it's job at the time, during the Obama Administration. The second piece to this was you could go to jail if you hired or aided or helped an illegal alien."

I can see why Tyler hasn't spoken that much up until now, he's about as articulate as an intoxicated long-haul trucker. Also, would you believe that he's leaving some stuff out about SB1070? Shocking, I know.

One of the provisions allowed the police to arrest people without a warrant if they suspected them of being an illegal immigrant. This extremely dystopian provision was struck down. What wasn't struck down however was the police being able to demand somebodies papers and investigate their immigration status if they suspect them of being an illegal immigrant. All this did was invite unnecessary racial profiling on minorities, including those who immigrated legally. Also, the fact that you guys just mentioned that you've been complaining about the border since Obama is really not a good look.

24:48, Tyler Bowyer: "It has nothing to do with Mexican immigrants, it has everything to do with people coming and jumping our border from all over across the world."

Then why are you guys ranting about the Texas border so much?!

24:54, Charlie Kirk: "So Tyler, help me understand the psychology because the border fight, whether we like it or not, is largely being driven by Chamber of Commerce people right now. And I don't think they want it, I just think that it's so popular, it's such in demand, it's such a crisis. I mean Abbott's a nice person, he's a chamber guy, he's better than Bush, he's not a movement conservative but he's acting like one, how do you explain that?"

This is such a stupid question, let me answer it.

This entire "border Civil War" is just a bunch of political grandstanding meant to help Trump get back into power. Greg is absolutely a movement conservative and I get the sense that Charlie is struggling to communicate to this audience that a guy he's stated isn't on their team is on their team now.

"Oh yeah, he's not a movement Conservative....he just behaves exactly like one. But he's not one of us because...well he just isn't, ok?!"

Tylers answer is so boring and nonsensical that it doesn't even warrant transcripting.

26:32, Charlie Kirk: "So, Jack, I wanna get you in on this. You and I, Jack, are on a group chat with somebody we really respect, please don't say the name, but he's someone we respect, he comes to our shows, he speaks at our events, and he's very worried that what's happening in Texas is gonna spark a civil war and we debated this in chat. Jack, can you just strongman this argument and why it's wrong?"

I am 99.9% sure that "mystery person" is Steve Bannon.

Anyway, Jack chips in.

26:50, Jack Posobiec: "Well so, there's -- there's a couple pieces of it and so we do need to talk about the wider situation of whats going on. So, we have Abbott there obviously saying that he's not gonna back down to the Biden Administrations pressure. The Supreme Court ruling, I think a lot of people have taken this out of context and they're saying that the Supreme Court told Texas to take down all the razor wire or that the Biden Administration was gonna take down all the razor wire and that's not actually true."

They authorized federal agents to take the razor wire down, I'm not sure how it could be more clear.

Jack's answer gets even more rambly and he starts ranting about BLM. In this rant, he drops what might be one of the most blatant distortions of the truth that I've seen while writing for this blog.

28:34, Jack Posobiec: "And unfortunately of course, we are not the BLM people. Our side is not going to get treated like them. The City of Seattle just agreed to a ten million dollar deal to pay the activists as they called them, the members of ANTIFA and BLM who were burning down Seattle and set up CHAZ in 2020, ten million dollars because of the police tactics used in CHAZ. That's what happens when the left gets activated and does direct action."

See, this is a great example of how slimy Jack is.

The City of Seattle didn't "make a deal" with the protestors, they settled a lawsuit with 50 protestors who were met with excessive force by the Seattle Police Department.

How excessive you ask? Well, just ask Aubreanna Inda who was hit in the chest by a blast ball and sent into cardiac arrest. One of the plaintiffs was an already disabled veteran who was teargassed and tackled by the police. So yeah, pretty goddamn excessive.

All of this is absent from Jacks retelling of the story and if you just took his word without doing any research, you would assume that Seattle just gave ANTIFA and BLM ten million dollars out of the blue. It's a completely bald faced misrepresentation of the story and it's designed to manipulate their audiences into thinking that the left just gets off easy with everything and are actually rewarded for destroying cities and rioting. Never mind that bodycam footage presented in court proved that these protestors were peaceful and facts be damned!

30:20, Jack Posobiec: "Lets say some illegal immigrant gets shot or gets killed or, as we saw last week, drowns and then they blame it on Greg Abbott. They say 'This is your fault you white male Christian governor. You did this' and they'll turn that guy into the next George Floyd."

Charlie Kirk: "So they want Jorge Floyd, is what they want. They wanna try to have a young man who is trying to come into the country, five or six years old, get drowning and they say 'Oh my goodness, look at this' and then they try to make it go viral and it's because of the open borders, ok?"

If five or six year old children are drowning at the border, there's clearly a massive problem on Greg Abbott's side that needs to be addressed. These guys don't care though.

30:54, Blake Neff: "They just have all of these professional photographers with HD cameras, there was a thing last summer that was like this. The New York Post had like 'This mother and child are crawling through razor wire on the border and thank goodness there was this professional reporter with an HD camera right there to photograph the entire thing the whole time.'"

"Yeah, look at these psychos.....practicing journalism. That's sick man!"

Even if there is an open border, which there isn't because the border is more highly guarded than it ever has been but lets leave that aside for now, wouldn't it make sense to have reporters there to cover it? God, these people are complete idiots.

31:58, Charlie Kirk: "Remember, when there's an issue that is not going in their direction in election years, they need a psyop. George Floyd was a psyop. And even Blake will agree, I'm not saying that the actual incident was but the all in platforming and overemphasis on that incident. And by the way, there's a lot more to that incident than people would ever think. A lot more. In fact it's more and more clear that George Floyd was not murdered and he was either drug overdosed or there was something else regarding it right? Regarding that."

Tyler Bowyer: "Derek Chauvin did nothing wrong."

Oh my goooooooddddddddd.

The myth that George Floyd wasn't murdered has been debunked countless times but just to humor Chuckles and co, the autopsy showed no evidence of a drug overdose. Chauvin was taped murdering George Floyd and if he was a white conservative we wouldn't hear the end of it, and you know what it would be just as repulsive if it were a white conservative because murders murder!

Also, this conspiracy theory makes no sense. So, some unspecified issue wasn't going in the Democrats direction so they waited until the police murdered a black man on video tape and then amplified it. That's the most circumstantial and luck based evil plan on the bloody planet.

I guess everything is a psyop now. I declare this blog to be a psyop!

32:31, Jack Posobiec: "If you go to the Wikipedia article for, they call it the Standoff at Eagle Pass, you guys gotta pull this up. The Standoff at Eagle Pass. They're already describing it on Wikipedia, left wing platform, as if it's some kind of battle. They're listing the governors on one side, they're listing Biden on the other, and it already says 'casualties and losses, three migrants drowned.'"

This is so stupid. So apparently Wikipedia, a platform that literally anybody can edit by the way, is where the CIA announces their psyops to the world. Also three migrants did drown, two of them children.

I don't get what Jack's point here even is. Does he think that Wikipedia doesn't create new pages for literally any major event almost immediately?

33:53, Charlie Kirk: "Let me tell you what the cartel does. This is a true story and I heard this from two separate border patrol agents. The cartel will throw a three year old in the river and do you know what Texas National Guard and border patrol does? They go out of their way, they mobilize everyone to go save the three year old that's drowning. Do you know what that does? It creates a diversionary affect and then the got aways hundreds of miles away scatter into the country. That's what's happening on the border, the cartel is throwing kids into the Rio Grande river on a daily basis."

Lets not mince words here, this is fucking disgusting.

So, Charlie is using some made up story that he allegedly heard from border patrol agents that doesn't really make any sense (you're telling me that every single border patrol agent focuses on the kid. Surely some stay behind to protect the border) to justify border patrol agents letting children die.

Think about it, the conclusion that Charlie is trying to draw is that we should let kids die. Otherwise you'd be letting people from the cartel into the US. Maybe he didn't mean it that way but it sure as hell comes off that way. And that's not even mentioning that border patrol agents have been ordered in the past to push children into rivers so it's really the opposite.

Screw Charlie Kirk.

36:59, Blake Neff: "And by the way, you know, drunk driving is not a felony he said even though it kills thousands of people a year. But, you know, who cares about a crime that's disproportionately committed by illegal immigrants."

Here's a whole study about how this claim is bullshit. At the end of the day, there's no statistical relationship between illegal immigrants and drunk driving.

They start talking about some Great Replacement bullshit and by this point I am praying for them to switch over to the next topic because these guys takes on the border are so fundamentally incorrect.

I'm assuming these guys took one look at the Supremacy Clause, thought "wrong supremacy", and then just never read it again. And they keep saying that Biden is on the side of the migrants, no he's not. Ignoring the fact that they are portraying migrants in the extremely racist light of being "invaders", they are completely ignoring the GOP's repeated efforts to turn down all of Biden's policies that give them what they wanted.

There's not much more in the section about the border that we need to talk about. It's just Chuckles babbling about the Great Replacement Theory. They talk really graphically and exploitatively about child sex trafficking and it's really gross.

Charlie does a segment that's basically just an obscenely long ad for extremely sketchy "emergency health kits". Charlie tries to defend his stupid-ass and racist comments about black pilots and it's ridiculous. He thanks Jordan Peterson, Tim Pool, Matt Walsh, and Candace Owens for their support. I've covered all four of them except for Candace (and believe me, she's coming) and they all are complete idiots and awful people. It's so useless, just Charlie going "Yeah, I'm not racist....I just said something that sounds racist and you misinterpreted me." Let’s look at a little bit of it, we don't need to look at too much but it's so ridiculous.

1:02:03, Charlie Kirk: "What I was saying is that DEI creates and fosters sinful, unwholesome, thought patterns."

No, that's on you Charlie. Being a racist is a choice YOU made. And again, DEI doesn't mean that people are lowering the standard for minorities and hiring unqualified people. His entire argument is that the left made him racist because of DEI.

Anyway, they just circklejerk about how the left transformed him into a racist. I don't get why we are talking about pilots given that this discourse is about Boeing planes having structural defects that the pilots can't control.

1:09:00, Blake Neff: "Like I said, people online just totally lost their minds over this. And when I say lost their minds, I mean like pointing, sputtering, crying, vomiting, pooping themselves, pulling the poop out of their pants, smearing it at their faces, screaming at the mirror."

Ah, so what conservatives do when they see a trans person just trying to live their life.

Also, I don't know if I speak for the entire left but when I saw the video of Charlie talking about black pilots I just thought "Oh, Charlie being a dick again. Maybe I'll cover this on my blog, maybe not." and just moved on with my life.

1:09:17, Blake Neff: "One of the people doing this was a fellow, Jack is also very familiar with, his name is Will Stancil."

Charlie Kirk: "See, I'm unfamiliar and uninitiated with this whole topic."

Blake Neff: "Will Stancil, he's got about 70,000 Twitter followers. He is a liberal. You can put him on the screen, 162. He's got what we call an IPA bod, I don't know if he's done a bench press or another weight."

Charlie Kirk: "He's also got a low vitamin D level."

Blake Neff: "Yeah, he doesn't have the best physical expression of the genes within his body."

What exactly do you mean by expression of his genes?

Also, I don't like knocks on peoples physical appearances. It's a super pointless and immature way to argue and leads to absolutely nothing productive. That being said, these guys are absolutely ones to talk. Charlie alone has almost exactly the same build as Will.

Anyway, Will apparently got into some Twitter fight with a guy named Steve Sailer who these guys like. Guess what? He's another white nationalist! He works at VDARE and published a book entitled America's Half Blood Prince: Barack Obama's "story of Race and Inheritance. These naturally should set off a five alarm fire of red flags in any reasonable persons mind but in case you aren't convinced that this guy is a white nationalist, here's a quote from one of his writings:

"Five out of six African-Americans have IQs below the white average. But not talking about this IQ difference has singularly failed to make it go away. The black-white gap has remained roughly one standard deviation for the last 80 years." - Steve Sailer.

Can't get more obvious than that I'm afraid. Naturally, these goons love Steve. You know that old saying about he who sits with Nazi's....

1:10:36, Jack Posobiec: "I think I finished our last episode saying. I said it very quickly but I said 'Shout out to Steve Sailer, the godfather of ThoughtCrime.'"

These guys declaring a person who works at a white nationalist website to be the godfather of their show is such a poetic end to this post that I just have to end it here. Also, I am fed up with these four guys so there's that.

Conclusion:

Just wow. I knew ThoughtCrime was a very mask off show considering that it's only syndicated on Rumble but holy shit! We've learnt that every movie is a psyop and that these guys are fans of a goddamn white nationalist! That's a level of insane that I didn't expect.

Anyway, I wish Charlie all the worst and all of you all the best. Cheers and I'll see you in the next one.

[kushblazer666]

Love them ISIS Terrorist group is created by Israel(Mossad) linked to Al-Qaeda that is made by the CIA and America is controlled by Israel. Discreetly expanding and profiteering by means of War, Deception(False Flag Operations), Diversion(Media Manipulation) & Usury(Federal Reserve).

Government funded terrorist groups such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf, Hamas, Hezbollah and Boko Haram, serve as an ever-present manufactured terrorist threat created for False Flag Operations to prevent peace, used constantly to justify repressive measures(Occupation), political agenda or ethnic cleansing at home and in expanded objectives abroad.

ISIS - ISRAELI SECRET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE (fake & impostor Black Flag, attacking and killing for the expansion of Israel and America's war profiteering in the Middle East)

HAMAS - 1% Mossad Case Officer, 30% Israel Defence Forces, 20% Foreign Mercenaries & 49% Palestinian Recruits, 100% Made by Israel (Occupation Of Gaza and its Offshore Gas Fields)

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=394582034027313&set=a.106178499534336.15523.100004265593324&type=1

EDWARD SNOWDEN (Intelligence Contractor)

The only solution for the protection of the Jewish(Zionist) state, is to create an enemy near its borders. Intelligence services(CIA, MI6, Mossad) of three countries created a terrorist organisation(ISIS) that is able to attract all extremists of the world to one place, using a strategy called “the hornet’s nest”. NSA documents refer to recent implementation of the hornet’s nest to protect the Zionist entity by creating religious and Islamic slogans.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/isis-leader-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-trained-by-israeli-mossad-nsa-documents-reveal/5391593

DR.BILAL PHILIPS (Canadian Muslim Teacher)

I have consistently informed them that ISIS is an un-Islamic group of thugs who have exploited the need of Muslims of Iraq and Syria and sabotaged the legitimate struggle against the Assad regime by attacking other Islamic groups and falsely claiming the revival of the caliphate.

ISLAM IS AGAINST TERRORISM/SUICIDE

QURAN 4:29

O you who have believed, do not consume one another's wealth unjustly but only in lawful business by mutual consent. And do not kill yourselves or one another. Indeed, Allah is to you ever Merciful.

QURAN 2:190

And fight in the Way of Allah those who fight you, but transgress not the limits. Truly, Allah likes not the transgressors.

QURAN 60:8

Allah does not forbid you to deal justly and kindly with those who fought not against you on account of religion and did not drive you out of your homes. Verily, Allah loves those who deal with equity.

True Muslims do not cooperate in terrorism, get involved in politics or acts of oppression. They dont give negative image to Islam, kill innocent civilians, cover their faces and act like bandits. True Muslims strive in a positive way and struggle in peaceful manner.

https://www.facebook.com/rajah.soliman.92/media_set?set=a.106178499534336.15523.100004265593324&type=3my like has gone on the wrong post

[mithliya]

Is there any reason why every person I shared evidence that “black pilled” harasser group IS totally connected up with actual radblr bloggers has refused to publish the ask? Is that omission on purpose to craft a better “anyone who brings them up as a real problem is sooooo crazy” narrative? Like no being harassed online is not the same as irl systematic oppression and I’m literally on the side of lesbians are right about this but I’m also really concerned about the level of tolerance many have for that group… who may well be false flag orbiters just trying to troll like I get they may not even be lesbians. But they for sure have taken in a collection of “feminist” women on here happy to follow and amplify and write apologia for their posts. I already sent all the evidence of that but if you want it again I can send it again. You can also go look up each blog mentioned in that receipt post of misogynistic harassment and go through their notes. I will be documenting that before reporting them all as much as possible.

what r u referring to? i don’t think i got other anons about who they’re tied to

[ukreplicaswisswatchesx352j]

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The Tudor Pelagos was introduced in 2012 and has quickly gained a reputation for its durability and water resistance, making it a favorite among divers and watch collectors alike. With its titanium case, helium escape valve, and luminous markers, the Pelagos combines advanced features with a classic aesthetic.

2. Examining the Weight

One of the first indicators of a fake Tudor Pelagos is its weight. The genuine Pelagos is made from titanium, which is lighter than stainless steel. If the watch feels heavier than expected, it might be a counterfeit. Always compare the weight to a known authentic model if possible.

3. Checking the Dial and Markers

Pay close attention to the dial and hour markers. The genuine Tudor Pelagos has a matte black dial with clear, luminous hour markers. Fakes often have shiny dials or poorly applied markers. Use a magnifying glass to inspect the details. Authentic watches have crisp, well-defined printing, while fakes may have smudges or inconsistencies.

4. Inspecting the Crown

The crown of the Tudor Pelagos is another critical area to inspect. On the authentic model, the crown is engraved with the Tudor logo, and it operates smoothly without any resistance. Fakes may have poorly executed engravings or feel rough when turning. Additionally, the crown should screw down tightly and not feel loose.

5. Serial and Model Numbers

Every authentic Tudor watch comes with a unique serial and model number. These can typically be found between the lugs on the case back. Ensure that the numbers are correctly engraved and match Tudor's records. Counterfeit watches often have incorrect or missing serial numbers, making this a vital step in validation.

6. Assessing the Case Back

The case back of the Tudor Pelagos is also an area where fakes often fall short. Authentic Pelagos models feature a brushed finish and the Tudor shield logo. Counterfeit versions may have a polished finish or poorly executed logos. Use a loupe to examine the engraving closely.

7. Movement Matters

One of the most significant differences between a genuine Tudor Pelagos and a fake is the movement. The authentic Pelagos is powered by Tudor's in-house movement, which provides precision and reliability. If you have access to the watch's movement through an open case back, look for the Tudor branding and the quality of the craftsmanship. Fakes often use inferior movements that can be identified by their irregular ticking sound.

8. Documentation and Packaging

When purchasing a Tudor Pelagos, always ask for the original box and papers. Authentic watches come with a warranty card and a manual. If the seller cannot provide these documents, consider it a red flag. The packaging of a genuine Tudor watch is also of high quality, with the logo prominently displayed.

9. Purchase from Reputable Sources

To minimize the risk of buying a counterfeit Tudor Pelagos, always buy from reputable sources. Consider retailers like Luxe Replica Watche, which specializes in authentic luxury watches and provides quality assurance. Research the seller, read reviews, and ask for references if necessary.

Conclusion

Spotting a fake Tudor Pelagos requires attention to detail and an understanding of the watch's characteristics. By following the tips outlined in this guide, you can confidently distinguish between genuine and counterfeit models. Always prioritize buying from reputable sources like Luxe Replica Watche to ensure you’re getting an authentic piece.

[continuation-connections]

[ Message launched from Continuation Connections admin services ]

Master Post: Introduction to Continuation Connections.

Welcome to Continuation Connections; a connection portal for fringe realities that have not yet made it to the same point in the timeline as other blogs!

This (ooc: roleplay) blog's services / content is as follows;

Statement Services

Due to the nature of a particular Entity fragment used to power this service, statements regarding the supernatural can be recorded or obtained from the Continuation Connections databank. To find a full list of 'Statement Services', please refer to the tag "#statement prompt' (OOC: This is basically a 'challenge me to write a statement' tag.)

Service Prompts

Occasionally, documented services performed under the Continuation Connections asks will be 'reposted' to this blog. To find a full list of 'Service Prompts', please refer to the tag "#service provision prompt' (OOC: This is basically a 'let me make up a cursed artifact / user group' tag.)

User Groups

Several user groups exist under the flag of Continuation Connections, as their variation of Tumblr - due to fringe reality dilations - are not compatible enough to form their own blogs. Each user group will have different sets of users, including an 'Admin', a 'Secretary' and the typical 'Member'. To find a specific 'User Group', type "oc group:" followed by the coloured part of a user group's name. [EG: Turnfire = #oc group: turnfire"] For specific user groups / ocs, see here. (OOC: This is how I plan to interact with other blogs.)

Other

When requesting the services of those using Continuation Connections, please have patience. Due to fringe realities encountering more 'black spots' than most, there will be periods where this connection blog goes inactive.

If we do not respond within 3 ~ 5 business days, please consider sending us a private message.

Thank you for visiting Continuation Connections, and enjoy your day!

[ Message brought to you by Continuation Connections: Reach Across the Primordial Void! ]

-------------------------------------------------------------------

OOC Notes

Hi sorry for the long master post, I wanted to be thorough.

Please note that this is a roleplay blog for TMA/TMP RPs. I will not be accepting donation asks, reblogging off-topic blog posts or sharing many OOC posts.

General Rules

Typical common-sense rules apply to any asks / interactions.

I will not reveal my identity / main blog until I am comfortable to do so.

Anonymous asks welcome as long as they are courteous and on-topic to the blog's nature.

I will mainly stick to sending Service Prompts relating to current TMA/TMG RPs, or interacting as a character once in a blue moon. Who knows, I don't know what I'm doing.

Also yes I drew both the icon and the backdrop. It was fun.

[trixsterwood]

Black and Decker Home Utility / Drill Powered Tools Reference Post, Will Update

Reach out if you have info or share the obsession

A accumulation of my knowledge for my drill powered tool obsession, a living document. Black and Deckers Home Utility Line were the trail blazers in this sphere from about 1950-1970. These tools were created because a good motor back then could be as much as a decent tool these days, and simple tools are sometimes sold this way still if they need to be cheaper then the cheapest brand (china/cheap stores), weight is a concern for shipping (china) or a motor is unnecessary (a paint mixer)

Owned hand drill powered (in order):

Disk sander (new, china, store, many brands, accepts standard disk pads)

Drill press (old, cast iron, hard/$ to ship, medium rare, mine is 1960's black and decker cast iron and only works w/ vintage B&D's but generics do exist. Moderns tend towards cheap aluminum crap, also in euro vid)

Paint mixer (new, common, currently sold in stores, was also in the original B&D kits)

Lathe (new, rare, mine's a portable crappy brandless 90's kit I got second hand (50cad), want to convert to morse taper, never seen one sold new, there's a rare/heavy cast iron B&D one, also euro vid)

Half sheet sander (old, box, medium rare, only seen the one brand but it has no name, I have the original box, going to try more in-depth searching, no manual in my box, foam bottom)

Circular saw (old, rare rare if with guard. Almost all sold ones are an adapter to an open blade, but a few ones with safety covers and 'feet'/plates exist. Mine has no makers mark, there's a euro one that's also a tablesaw, I've seen mine around rarely, there's a rare foot one from B&D, a foot one from SHER, will research and update)

I want drill powered:

Electric grinder/sharpener, preferably dual disk (chinese ones have no toolrest, but can get one there easy, also home depot, there's a few varieties with rests but unsure any brands, B&D only sold an adapter chuck to a standard stone like china)

Jigsaw (hopefully monday buying one, medium rare, mine may have a brand visible, there's many brands for this inc B&D and euro vid below)

Quarter sheet sander (never seen one, but it surely should exist??)

Oscillating disk sander (never seen one online, may not exist)

Buffing wheel (either china or bulk set, original B&D, sold rn, difficult part is adapter chuck, can be diy'd)

Better drill lathe (old cast B&D preferably)

Router (never seen, may not exist)

Reciprocating saw (rare, but a few brands exist)

Band saw (medium rare, only seen on B&D, was sold new in 1987, plastic body, parts still replaceable 2024)

Original home utility line stand (likely as part of a bulk set buy)

Angle grinder (only seen in euro vid)

Scroll saw (only seen in euro vid)

Triangle pad corner sander (never seen)

Table Saw (may diy with circ saw, in euro vid)

6/19 on the list rn, 31.6%

References:

A bunch of rare tools here, only seen in this one euro video, no idea the brand, blue and silver, looks like bosch or old style ryobi, more research needed, may be able to google translate some search terms. Working timeframe is 1960-1980, may be soviet era, german flag on pfp, many soviet era tools had no branding and are hard to track or source, esp with sanctions. Could try other ex eastern block countries ebay pages? According to comments it came as a giant set and only works with that specific drill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYQ-0DgqYPc

[marezablr]

okay i feel like an important part of this document is being missed and that's leading to alarm so:

you are not going to get in trouble for using anarchist symbols

not to defend the fbi (because. the fbi) but to prevent anxiety:

the fbi explicitly is referring to anarchist violent extremism. the document states, in bold, that the use or sharing of the symbols/phrases isn't on its own evidence of violent extremism/illegality. they say the same thing for all the entries in this document.

that doesn't mean they haven't, aren't, or will not monitor people for slogans. there is the whole thing over 'antifa' alarmism. and also marginalized groups tend to get policed harder than other groups for essentially nothing. we know this.

but, as of right now, you probably don't have to be too worried about the fbi making it a habit of arresting twitter users for having a black flag in their pfp.

IMPORTANT!!!

I’ve only seen like one person talk about this and it’s super important that this gets out there

Multiple punk symbols and sayings have been added to the FBI’s domestic terrorism guide

Things included are

The symbol for anarchy

ACAB and 1312

The three arrows pointing down in a circle

Eat the rich

Those are a few but it also mentions anything anti-fascist and anti capitalist

So if you live in the US please be careful

[nanas-45]

The Many Shades of Blue: A Journey Through History and Science

Blue, one of the three primary colors in both the RYB (traditional) and RGB (additive) color models, is situated between violet and cyan in the visible light spectrum. This captivating hue is typically associated with wavelengths ranging from about 450 to 495 nanometers. It often features a subtle blend of other colors; for instance, azure incorporates a hint of green, while ultramarine includes traces of violet. The blue we perceive in the sky and sea is due to Rayleigh scattering, while the Tyndall effect explains the blue of human eyes, and distant objects appear more blue because of aerial perspective.

A Historical Palette

Blue has held a significant place in art and decoration throughout history. Ancient Egyptians valued lapis lazuli for jewelry and ornamentation, and in the Renaissance, this stone was used to produce ultramarine pigment—the most expensive color of its time. By the eighth century, Chinese artists employed cobalt blue for their renowned blue and white porcelain. European artists used blue extensively in cathedral windows during the Middle Ages. For centuries, the vegetable dye woad was used in Europe until it was replaced by the more vibrant indigo from the Americas. The 19th century saw the rise of synthetic blue dyes and pigments, gradually replacing their natural counterparts. Dark blue became emblematic in military uniforms and, later, in business suits. Blue’s associations with harmony made it a fitting choice for the flags of the United Nations and the European Union.

Cultural Impact and Preferences

Across the United States and Europe, blue often emerges as a favorite color for both men and women. Surveys have shown it as the top choice in several other countries, including China, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Historically, blue has been linked to concepts such as harmony, confidence, masculinity, intelligence, calmness, and even sadness. This color evokes a sense of infinity and imagination while also representing coldness and distance.

Etymology and Linguistics

The English word "blue" derives from Middle English bleu or blewe, originating from Old French bleu, which has roots in Germanic languages. In heraldry, the term azure is used for blue. Interestingly, some languages, including Russian, Spanish, and Mongolian, distinguish between light blue and dark blue with different words. For example, in Russian, голубой (goluboy) refers to light blue, while синий (siniy) denotes dark blue. Similarly, Japanese and Vietnamese use the same term for both blue and green, reflecting a different cultural approach to color classification.

The Science Behind Blue

Blue light falls within a wavelength range of 450 to 495 nanometers. Blues with shorter wavelengths appear more violet, while those with longer wavelengths shift towards green. Isaac Newton was among the first to document blue as one of the seven colors in the visible spectrum, alongside indigo, which he included between blue and violet. In the RYB color model, used in painting and traditional color theory, blue is a primary color, combining with red to form violet and with yellow to create green. The RYB model was historically used in color printing, but the introduction of the cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK) model offered even greater accuracy in color reproduction.

[longlistshort]

(images of Lotus L. Kang's, “In Cascades”, 2023-2024)

The Whitney Biennial ‘s 2024 edition, Even Better Than The Real Thing, presents a large group of artists, working in different mediums, with many pieces directly dealing with social and political issues. The show does have a certain heaviness to it, but with all of the issues currently happening in the world it would be impossible for that not to be reflected in the artwork.

From the museum-

The eighty-first edition of the Whitney Biennial—the longest-running survey of contemporary art in the United States—features seventy-one artists and collectives grappling with many of today’s most pressing issues. This Biennial is like being inside a “dissonant chorus,” as participating artist Ligia Lewis described it, a provocative yet intimate experience of distinct and disparate voices that collectively probe the cracks and fissures of the unfolding moment.

The exhibition’s subtitle, Even Better Than the Real Thing, acknowledges that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is complicating our understanding of what is real, and rhetoric around gender and authenticity is being used politically and legally to perpetuate transphobia and restrict bodily autonomy. These developments are part of a long history of deeming people of marginalized race, gender, and ability as subhuman—less than real. In making this exhibition, we committed to amplifying the voices of artists who are confronting these legacies, and to providing a space where difficult ideas can be engaged and considered.

This Biennial is a gathering of artists who explore the permeability of the relationships between mind and body, the fluidity of identity, and the growing precariousness of the natural and constructed worlds around us. Whether through subversive humor, expressive abstraction, or non-Western forms of cosmological thinking, to name but a few of their methods, these artists demonstrate that there are pathways to be found, strategies of coping and healing to be discovered, and ways to come together even in a fractured time.

There’s a lot of great work to see. Below are just a few selections and some documentation from the museum.

For Lotus L. Kang’s In Cascades, (pictured above), the artist has hung sheets of photographic film from the ceiling that are gradually changed by the light inside the gallery. She refers to the exposure process as “tanning” and, like our skin, the film is changing over time with its environment. On the floor are little sculptures, as well as a a suitcase, all suggesting movement and change.

Kiyan Williams eye-catching outdoor installation Ruins of Empire II or The Earth Swallows the Master’s House, has the White House is sinking into the ground with an  upside down American flag at the top.

Maja Ruznic, “The Past Awaiting the Future/Arrival of Drummers”, 2023

The description of Maja Ruznic‘s painting from the museum-

Ruznic has said that The Past Awaiting the Present/Arrival of Drummers “looks at how multiple things can be true at the same time: birth, violence, pain, suffering, joy, and music.” She has described the horizontal format of the painting as inherently linear, implying a past, present, and future. The movements suggested by the figures’ feet—some in profile and others pointed toward the viewer—collapse these temporalities into a single symbolic image.

Isaac Julien’s immersive video installation was really absorbing. The sculptures added an extra dimension to what was on screen.

From the museum-

Unfolding across five screens, Once Again . . . (Statues Never Die) reflects on the life and thought of Alain Locke (1885–1954), philosopher, educator, and cultural critic of the Harlem Renaissance (played by André Holland) who urged members of the African diaspora to embrace African art in order to reclaim their cultural heritage. The installation includes sculptures by Richmond Barthé (1901–1989) and Matthew Angelo Harrison (b. 1985), opening up a conversation about Black artists’ legacies that extends across modern history. Julien has described the work as a form of “poetic restitution,” speaking to the ways museums have collected African art. The artist refines this critique by creating a visual and sonic meditation as a “diasporic dream-space.”

In the work, Locke contemplates the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford—where he was the first Black Rhodes Scholar—and the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia, founded by one of Locke’s interlocutors, Albert C. Barnes (1872–1951), played by Danny Huston. Barnes also debates a skeptical Locke on his heritage, a sequence that distills many of the questions that the installation raises: Who gets to define Black modernism? Who has the authority to speak? How do men negotiate power, or queer desire?

Mary Lovelace O’Neal, “Twelve Thirty-Four “(From the “Doctor Alcocer’s Corsets for Horses” series), 2023, Acrylic and oil pastel on canvas

From the museum about Mary Lovelace O’Neal-

Mary Lovelace O’Neal began the series that included Blue Whale aka #12 (from the Whales Fucking series), after two whales caught her imagination as she walked on a beach near San Francisco. “And watching them, I thought, imagine the tons and tons of water they must displace when they’re fucking!” It is this sense of excitement and desire on a grand scale, the energy of the light in their spray, that she worked to capture in paint—more than the image of the whale itself.

Such a dynamic, independent, sometimes slightly outrageous point of view has driven Lovelace O’Neal throughout her sixty-year career, which has unfolded alongside heated debates about what painting should or should not do and prescriptive views of Black artists and abstraction. While Lovelace O’Neal was deeply involved with the civil rights movement on a political level, she resisted calls to make representational paintings that would illustrate or inspire the struggle, insisting that forging her own path in abstraction—as she does in each of the paintings on view here—was equally relevant to Black life.

Cannupa Hanska Luger “Uŋziwoslal Wašičuta (from the series Future Ancestral Technologies)”, 2021

From the museum-

Cannupa Hanska Luger proposes: “This installation is not inverted . . . our current world is upside down.” For the artist, upending our grounding in time and space makes way for imagined futures free of colonialism and capitalism, where broader Indigenous knowledge can thrive. The work here, Uŋziwoslal Wašičuta (a Lakota phrase meaning “the fat-taker’s world is upside down”), celebrates Native technologies by using the shape of a tipi—a word that the artist has also turned into an acronym, standing for Transportable Intergenerational Protection Infrastructure (TIPI). Luger looks at the complex structure as an example of the innovations created by his ancestors of the Northern Plains tribes. Luger’s materials, such as deadstock fabric, found objects, and clay, reflect the artist’s commitment to sustainability and reuse.

(Work by Suzanne Jackson)

From the museum about all of the unique creations by Suzanne Jackson–

Suzanne Jackson made these suspended paintings without canvas, slowly building up many layers of acrylic, detritus, gel medium, and objects from the natural world, including seeds from her garden in Savannah, Georgia. Jackson has been experimenting with acrylic paint since the 1960s. “It’s painting another way,” she explains. “I don’t call it collage because it’s not another material. It’s all paint—acrylic on acrylic. And it’s suspended: paint suspended in space. . . . The paint becomes an armature for itself.” This “armature” is not fixed, however; Jackson thinks of the paintings as living things and is very open to the fact that they are malleable and will reshape. The layered paint seems to have a kind of agency and an ability to change independently. Looking at its iridescent quality up close creates an afterimage—a lasting mental image that continues even when a viewer has shifted their gaze away.

Two of Eamon Ore-Giron’s paintings from “Talking Shit”, Mineral paint and vinyl paint on canvas

From the museum-

These three paintings are part of Eamon Ore-Giron’s Talking Shit series, in which he reimagines deities from ancient Peruvian and Mexican cultures. Reflecting on a famous sculpture of the Aztec goddess Coatlicue, the poet Octavio Paz (1914–1998) traced an evolution from “goddess to demon, from demon to monster, and from monster to masterpiece.” This line of thinking resonated with Ore-Giron, who recognized that symbolic figures are continuously reimagined as cultures shift and collective and personal identities are redefined. The series title Talking Shit reflects the artist’s desire to explore this idea and a living ancestral past in ways that are open, informal, and personal.

In these works, Ore-Giron focuses on Andean folklore. He has pictured Amaru, a powerful, protean creature related to water and the underworld, as a zigzagging abstracted dragon. To depict the mythological rainbow made by the creation god Viracocha, Ore-Giron represented the celestial phenomenon as a double-headed snake moving through the sky.

Sections from B. Ingrid Olson's installation

From the museum about B. Ingrid Olson’s photographic and sculptural installation-

This installation intermixes two series, Dura Pictures and Indexes. Each work in the Dura Pictures series presents one photographic image physically embedded within another, what the artist describes as placing a “moment in time within a different moment in time, just like memory does of the past in the present.” The photographs were made in the artist’s studio and record B. Ingrid Olson’s own performative interactions with handmade props and assorted materials, such as mirrors or printed matter set within constrictive ad hoc spaces. The images alternate between showing a first-person vantage point with a torso or toes breaking into the picture plane, and offering a mirrored reflection of the artist, often only partially seen.

Proto Coda, Index is a single artwork with thirty constituent parts—each is a replica of one of the thirty reliefs made by the artist between 2016 to 2022. With concave interior surfaces and irregular hanging heights, the forms each suggest a container for a specific body part, like a piece of armor or a casting mold. The reliefs mark the entire length of the wall, serving as placeholders for an absent body, both fractured and multiplied.

Ser Serpas, “taken through back entrances . . . “, 2024

Ser Serpas’ large sculptural installation, assembled from found objects, grew more interesting when seen at different angles.

From the museum-

Describing sculptures like those included in this exhibition, Ser Serpas has said that “the act of making is a choreographed performance, of which the assemblage is the aftermath.” The performance begins in a city—in this case, New York, and specifically Brooklyn—with the artist collecting discarded objects that speak to her through their color, the ways they have become worn or torn, and their structural openness to being combined. Then she works with the objects’ orifices, odd junctures, and gravity to combine them into provisional sculptures. This process yields a feeling of potential energy just at the moment before an object’s collapse. The resulting sculptures become a kind of dual portrait: first of the city as seen through its cycles of consumption and decay, and then of the artist herself through the expressive choices she has made.

It’s often difficult to see many of the videos that are part of the exhibition due to time constraints. This year the museum partnered with MUBI and you can watch eight of the films for free on their site for a limited time.

On Sunday 8/11/24, the last day of the exhibition, the museum will be free all day with events that include making creature collages with Eamon Ore-Giron (whose work is pictured above).