#I hope their families get deported first

[cyarsk52-20]

Black ppl warned them brown men and they gave them their arss to kiss

Latinos For Tr*mp, WHAT DIDN’T CLICK?! Since 2016, he’s said he didn't want us here! They literally held mass deportation signs at his rallies and you thought you were exempt because you’re “legal?!” Welcome to the finding out phase you stupid MFers.

Now I’m for ICE deporting them. Deuces

Latinos, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, etc. for Trump y’all looking real fucking dumb right now and you can quote me on that. 🤡 🤡

Don’t asked me for any protests or anything I’m a four year sabbatical I’m resting and relaxing

I put my middle finger up to protesting and marching from 2025 to 2029 and that’s just fine by me.

[nutonmydraco]

✶ 𝗠𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧. . . 📜 .ᐟ

📂 ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ includes: matt sturniolo, chris sturniolo, and more. . .

🪞fluff / 🧚🏻 smut / 🧷 angst / 🐇 a wattpad original

𝗝𝗨𝗦𝗧 𝗟𝗜𝗞𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗠𝗢𝗩𝗜𝗘𝗦 ‧₊˚ 🎞️ | short series

🎟️ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ in which i write a few short series based on iconic romance and rom-com movies we all know and love <3

i. the proposal ✷ matt sturniolo x fem!reader

y/n is an executive editor for a book company in manhattan, new york. while she may be a powerful woman, many of her workers despise her. when y/n learns that she’s going to face deportation and has to return to canada, she does the unthinkable. she lies through her teeth and reveals to her boss that she’s getting married to her assistant, matt sturniolo.

🪞 / 🧷 ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ coming soon in theatres.

ii. 10 things i hate about you ✷ chris sturniolo x fem!reader

on the first day of school, finn instantly falls for the most popular girl in school; cassie. his plan to ask cassie out is destroyed when he learns that she’s forbidden to date until her ill-tempered, hates-all-men, un-dateable older sister, y/n, does. desperate, finn finds a possible match all over the school for y/n until he comes across the perfect one—the ‘bad boy’ with a bad reputation, chris sturniolo.

🪞 / 🧚🏻 / 🧷 ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ coming soon in theatres.

iii. to all the boys i’ve loved before ✷ conrad fisher x fem!reader

five times. that’s how many times y/n has fallen in love and for each guy, she’s written a love letter that she keeps hidden in an old box. the letters remain a secret until y/n’s little sister sent all five letters to each guy it was addressed to. y/n was unaware of it until conrad fisher walked up to her one day, the folded paper in his hand. in an attempt to get his ex-girlfriend back, conrad proposes an idea that they should date. well, pretend to.

🪞 / 🧷 ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ coming soon in theatres.

iv. roman holiday ✷ matt sturniolo x fem!reader

it’s 1953 and princess y/n has arrived in rome, italy. overwhelmed by her suffocating schedule, princess y/n escapes from the palace in the middle of the night and into the cobblestoned streets of rome. lost and frightened, she runs into an american freelance journalist, matt sturniolo, who shows her what it’s like to live a normal life.

🪞 / 🧷 ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ coming soon in theatres.

v. the parent trap ✷ harry styles x fem!reader

divorced parents. two daughters—twins. after meeting at summer camp, anya and juliette devise a plan to switch identities to give each other a chance to spend time with the parent they’ve missed. if their scheme goes well, they have a chance to bring their mom, y/n, and dad, harry, back together and become a family again.

🪞 / 🧷 ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ coming soon in theatres.

+ more. . . <3 soon.

𝗗𝗜𝗘𝗧 𝗣𝗘𝗣𝗦𝗜 ‧₊˚ ⛪️ | one shots

🪽₊˚⊹ ━━ in which i write one shots for you! my inbox is open, so if you want to leave a request, feel free to let me know!

NOTE . . . .ᐟ requests that include certain kinks (e.g., piss kink), incest, anal, threesomes, and any other topics i find uncomfortable will be ignored.

i. little black dress ✷ chris sturniolo x fem!reader

❛❛ i wanna see the way you move for me, baby. . . ❞

in an attempt to move on from a brutal breakup with her piece-of-shit boyfriend, y/n gets dolled up for a frat party her friend had begged her to come to. hoping to just forget about it all by getting wasted, y/n is taken by surprise when she meets a frat boy, chris sturniolo, who had his eyes on her and her little black dress from the moment she walked in.

🧚🏻 ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ coming soon.

one night stand, fratboy!chris, nsfw

ii. only angel ✷ harry styles x fem!reader

❛❛ it turns out she’s a devil in between the sheets. . . ❞

famous popstar, harry styles, is performing at the 2017 victoria’s secret fashion show and he’s more ready than ever. while performing ‘only angel’, harry is captivated when an angel herself, y/n, steps out to walk down the runway. after the show, harry takes it upon himself to ask if he could take her out for dinner—only to end up stumbling into harry’s hotel room to do more french kissing than talking.

🧚🏻 ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ coming soon.

famous!harry, model!y/n, nsfw

iii. juno ✷ chris sturniolo x fem!reader

❛❛ give me more than just some butterflies. . . ❞

rumors have been going around that famous popstar, y/n, and rapper, chris sturniolo, are dating after months of being spotted together by fans and paparazzis. attending y/n’s show for the first time, chris is taken by surprise by the ‘freaky position’ she does on stage, all while looking at him. of course, fans go insane.

🪞⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ coming soon.

singer!y/n, nflplayer!chris, fluff

iv. i can see you ✷ matt sturniolo x fem!reader

❛❛ and i could see you up against the wall with me. . . ❞

y/n has been thinking about this guy in her english class—his hair, his face, his glasses. they’ve never spoken before, but y/n can’t help but develop feelings for him. maybe it’s the way he talks, or walks, or maybe it’s just his face. y/n finally gets the courage to talk to him, lying that she needs help with an assignment but he sees right through her. the only problem is that he’s her professor.

🧚🏻 ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ coming soon.

professor!matt, student!y/n, older!matt, both are consenting adults, y/n is 21+, nsfw

+ more. . . <3 soon.

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗔𝗟𝗖𝗛𝗘𝗠𝗬 ‧₊˚ 📰 | series

☁ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ in which i write multiple series filled with angst, fluff, and smut!

i. don’t blame me ✷ chris sturniolo x fem!reader

❛❛ lord, save me, my drug is my baby. . . ❞

y/n has had a secret admirer for months. every morning is the same thing—a note falls out from her locker, talking about her smile, her beauty, her everything. she throws each note away, and never thinks about it again. after being partnered up with chris, the quiet boy, in chemistry class, she forms a genuine bond with him. things begin to change when boys she has ever dated and her enemies were found in the woods, lifeless.

🧷 ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ coming soon.

obsessed!chris, killer!chris, quiet!chris, nsfw, angst, thriller

ii. sweet relief ✷ matt sturniolo x fem!reader

❛❛ it’s just something only we know. . . ❞

y/n has despised her brother’s best friend for years, but no one seems to know why. every time matt comes over to their house, y/n’s mood turns sour. growing tired of it, her brother, jax, forces y/n and matt to spend time together by leaving them at their family’s beach house. with no choice, the two spend the night together, learning to get along. as unexpected feelings surface, both agree to keep their new understanding a secret from jax—for now.

🪞 / 🧚🏻 / 🧷 ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ coming soon.

brother’s best friend, enemies to lovers, nsfw, angst

+ more. . . <3 soon.

𝗦𝗟𝗜𝗣𝗙𝗔𝗦𝗧 ‧₊˚ 🩹 | fics

⛓️‍💥 ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ in which i incorporate my wattpad fics on tumblr and continue them <3 and also make new fics with designated names for oc’s instead of ‘y/n’ !

i. fool’s gold ✷ chris sturniolo x fem!oc

❛❛ i know your love’s not real. . . ❞

bianca sinclair is the new girl in somerville high school. this being her senior year, she vows to not let boys distract her. that is until she meets chris sturniolo, the football player who’s known for also being a player outside of the field. things take a turn when bianca is asked to tutor chris in spanish and they spend more time together outside of school. in attempt to make his ex-girlfriend jealous and hide the fact that he has a tutor, he asks bianca the unthinkable—for her to be his fake girlfriend.

🪞 / 🧷 / 🐇 ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ coming soon.

fake dating, footballplayer!chris, madison beer fc

ii. the great war ✷ matt sturniolo x fem!oc

❛❛ my hand was the one you reached for. . . ❞

ellsworth, maine became a silent town days after the sturniolo brothers moved in across the street from adelaide westwood. adelaide can’t help but become more curious about the enigmatic boy who smoked more than he talked, matt sturniolo. fear hovers over the town when a series of murder is reported, and she suspects that matt is the killer. surely, he’s hiding something, right? adelaide makes it her mission to unravel the truth matt seems to be secretive about, that is if he is hiding anything at all, before the whole town drowns in a bloodbath. or worse, before she’s next.

🧷 / 🐇 ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ━━ coming soon.

thriller, biker!matt, cindy kimberly fc

© . . . all rights reserved. no part of this publication is allowed to be reproduced or copied. i put a lot of my time, effort, and energy into making all of these possible and the last thing i want is for someone to take my hard work, copy it, and claim it as theirs. in other words, plagiarism isn't tolerated.

💌 below are clickable tags i’ve included to make it easier for you to navigate through my page when i start posting more!

��᭡.

gian <3

[howlettloki]

Less smut, more meaningful words with such eloquence, well executed plot, characterizations and world building.

A Loki (Marvel)/Reader Fic Recommendation

If you’re like me, who loves to read longer fics then this blog post is for you. This list features beautiful books I have read featuring Loki and the reader for the past 5 years. This is long overdue I have been planning to do this for a while now. I’ll do my best to share all of them in one post (might probably edit this once I remember more). One thing, I really love when an author finds a way to not use Y/N. Enjoy the list!

Completed Fics

Frostbite by Maiden_of_Asgard

Synopsis:

Iceland is nice - sure, you probably should’ve picked a time of year when the weather was a little warmer, but it isn’t too bad, and at least you’re away from your desk job, right? It’s a pretty big adventure.

You’ve always said that you wanted more adventure in your life.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This one you’ve probably read, if not go check it out. It’s one of the best out there. I mean, need I say more?

The Proposal by BirdsofHermes

Synopsis:

An AU gender-reversal of the 2009 romantic comedy The Proposal. You work for Loki Laufeyson at Asgard International Publishing. He accidentally lets his work Visa expire and is about to be deported back to England, so he blurts out that he's marrying you. Now you have to convince an immigration inspector as well as your own family that you're in love with Loki or he gets deported for life and you face five years jail time.

Review:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I have read this more than one can count fingers in their hands.

Broken Crown by Michelleleahhh

Synopsis:

Your betrothal to Thor was convenient - brokered as an alliance between two powerful families.

Your marriage to Loki... is unimaginable.

Review:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Please proceed with caution and read the tags. When I read this the first time, I was new to this world but I remembered enjoying reading this piece. I just recently re-read this, and I just found some minor stuff I didn’t really enjoy. Overall the story and the plot got me hooked however, there’s just few chapters that I feel could’ve been explored more and executed better. Still, I enjoyed reading this the second time around.

Fǫruneyti by Evaldrynn

Synopsis:

A story in which a herbalist makes a decision that will drastically change her life, and in which a prince begins to realise that there might still be hope for him yet. A tale of danger, adventure, friendship - and, ultimately, love. 

Review:

⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

This one I stopped reading at 70%, I have certain icks when it comes to reading and once I reach that ick jar I’m done. It was still beautifully written, got me hooked and all, loved the progress. What can I say, I love slow burns.

The Devil Inside by Ursus_minor

Synopsis:

You're a free lance artist and just running short of rent money for the month, so when your good buddy Thor offers you a one-off job at his sister's company, you take it - even though helping his little brother out with some paperwork sounds awfully tedious

I always wondered what Loki, Hela and Thor would do if they were 'mere mortals'

Review:

⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

It’s deleted but I was lucky enough to have read this way back 2020. It was one of my favorite back then, because it was hard to find a long fic where Loki is not the God of Mischief but just a mere mortal living amongst us. I honestly forgot most about this story, I only remember bits and pieces, you’re Thor’s best friend and he helped you gain money by working under Loki, like the synopsis said.

A Study In Suit by lowkeyorloki

Synopsis:

You've worked too damn hard to get into Professor Laufeyson's course, and you're not about to let your pesky attraction to him get in the way. Your Professor, however, has other plans.

Review:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Professor Loki. That’s it.

From the Void, With Love by pilotisms

Synopsis:

Torn from time, you have to navigate the TVA with the one person who singlehandedly tried to conquer NYC. Turns out you & him have a future-past. Time is weird.

Review:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is one of the best I’ve read, this is my second to The Proposal. I fucking love this you have no idea. Wished there was a longer sequel though.

Litklœði by GoldTrimmedSpectacles

Synopsis:

“And the sire promised that he would spend the rest of his days searching for the cure of the flower disease which took his friend. And he did find this cure, but not without a cost,” Frigga explained and stroked Loki’s head as the illusions vanished. “But now, when one is fraught with flowers in their chest, a völva can remove these flowers with seiðr – saving the victim’s life and removing the vines from their lungs.”

The Allmother paused and looked at your small, childish face. Her smile was kind and full, but her eyes lay empty and sad. The knowledge of yet to come lay heavy on her features.

However, be warned my child, that with the removal of lung flowers the feelings of unrequited love will be removed too. As will any remaining trace of friendship. So be careful how you give your heart, my dear. You may never know what you could lose.

Review:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Hanahaki Disease AU? Anyone? This one is from my previous blog post. Pure feelings. Loved young loki and young reader.

In Progress or Abandoned Gems

Mea Culpa by OlympianWine

Synopsis:

Six years ago yours and Loki's relationship came to an abrupt and messy end, leaving resentment and hurt in its wake. Now you haven't heard a whisper of him in years, until he turns up at his brother's wedding, seemingly changed for the better, and you're thrust into facing both him and the memories you had buried. But a dangerous figure from Loki's past looms overhead, and Thanos is determined to hunt Loki down and make him pay for betraying him.

Review:

💔💔💔💔💔

I mean based on the synopsis who wouldn’t want to read that? Last update was last year, here’s to hoping it’ll update more or I’m gonna have to kms.

Anagapesis by OlympianWine

Synopsis:

You have a perfect life; a loving husband, a beautiful baby. But when it all comes crashing down, you must put survival ahead of sentiment and turn to a darker prince - your husband's brother. Loki is cruel and cold, and he hates you with a burning passion. Or so you think.

Review:

💔💔💔💔

Just when you think you’re falling, he makes you remember what type of person he is. I feel for Loki, but he’s just cruel man. I wish there was more so I could understand him a bit more.

Seiðmaðr by GoldTrimmedSpectacles

Synopsis:

Amidst the fallen brethren of the Vanaheimr war against Muspelheim, the dark prince of Asgard finds himself lost and riddled with amnesia. His words are barbed, his tongue is gilded and his eyes are sharp. He has no recollection of his name or family, but he soon comes to realise that perhaps it is best for the past to be shadowed by the future, and that life as a beloved commoner is better than life as a miserable prince.

Review:

💔💔💔💔💔

I’m a sucker for fantasy and a well executed world building. I love how I’m instantly transported into the world created by the author and I feel alive inside. I wish there was a way to find out what happens next. I just love this so much I wish there was more.

[spiderpunkofficial]

I'm not even joking jm genuinely scared for if Trump wins this election, cuz like as a young trans kid thinking abt the fact that I literally won't have rights if he wins is genuinely horrifying to me and all my family talks abt is how they hope Trump wins so 'all those immigrants get deported and those f@ggots get their rights finally taken away'

(NO BRO THIS IS SO REAL, I'm a trans kid as well, and it's fuckin' stupid. ALSO, HELLO PEOPLE, HE IS A CRIMINAL?? THE FUCK???? And people fucking wonder why we are declining in economics, and just general intelligence. And I'm not saying Kamala would have been perfect, nobody would have been, but BITCH. Trump has literally said "I am the best president for the black people, since Abraham lincoln" like first off, no you aren't, shut the fuck up. There's a lot of baggage there, but AGAIN TRUMP IS A CONVICTED FELON.

A CONVICTED FELON CANT GET A REGULAR JOB, SO WHY DID WE JUST GIVE ONE THE HIGHEST JOB POSSIBLE???

Sorry I'm just fucking pissed about it. As a person, as a kid who has to grow up in this society, as a trans person, as everything. -mod.

[my-castles-crumbling]

Hi!!! Hope you're having a good day. Um, okay so I'm a minor and a legal immigrant to the us (I moved here July 2024) is the ICE going to have any issues with my family or friends? Is there a risk of me getting deported? I don't know anything much about us politics and this scares me :((

Hi!

Okay so this is a really good time to remind everyone that I am Just A Guy and I'm going off of my limited knowledge and non-professional, priviledged life experience.

Legally, as of right now, you should not be able to be deported. However, (this is going to sound awful, but that's because it is) if you LOOK like you are from another country...as in, if you are not white, and/or you have an accent, then yeah there is a risk of you and your family having problems. I have a feeling that there will be a lot of assholes from ICE that will look first and ask questions later, and the problem with that is, if you can't quickly prove you are in the US legally, you could run into huge issues.

I have seen that many people, especially people who assume they may run into a problem, are carrying around copies of whatever proof they would need to prove they are in the US legally. (If anyone with more education with me has a reason why this is a bad idea, lmk!) I have also seen people carrying red cards with their rights on them, that way they know how to react should they be approached by ICE.

I don't think you need to completely freak out. But I do think it's a good idea to be prepared, stay informed, and know your rights <3

[horpyna]

On May 18th, The Deportation of Crimean tatars Day...

...and the way this knowledge lingers through my family. my grandma grew up in north Kazakhstan, USSR turned it into a melting pot of ethnicities with the frequency they were sending the deportees there. my grandma's family were deportees from Ukraine on both sides, but to them it happened way before USSR came to existence (it just shows how it was the same old system, just repackaged). my grandma recalled living among not only kazakhs, ukrainians and russians, but also chechens, ingushs, jews, germans, and of course, crimean tatars. many of these demographics were often under supervision, meaning they were not allowed to leave, they had to go and mark their presence every morning, the had limited options in employment. it especially concerned the Crimean Tatars. they were already very poor, having arrived literally barehanded to the foreign, unfamiliar, colder land. on top of that, the were treated like social outcasts due to the "traitor" status. it in turn, barred them from getting better employment. so they were set up for poverty regardless. they lived along the coast line of the river in handmade huts. i don't have the details about how they lived through wintes, but considering what i know now, they probably didn't. Many crimean tatars, that survived the deportation itself, died within the first few years.

Now, compare it to the fact that even PoW germans, who were also contained in this town, were later allowed to settle and develop. they're was no way to know if they were just bystanders or ideologically motivated in the past, during the war. but i find it fucking telling that potential former nazis were given a chance to a normal life, but their victims, who spent years under nazi occupation, were branded as traitors of the State and denied a chance to live normally, even after such a detrimental uprooting, after a literal genocide. USSR was probably hoping they would go extinct on their own from poverty and isolation. Those, who carried on, would still live in the shadow of this false accusations, as well as their children and grandchildren.

And in 2014 russia came back with the same policy. Crimean tatars, who just then managed to begin reclaiming their land, were shunned again. There's political and ethical persecution against them going on since 2014 till this very day. it a crime that international community allowed it to happen again, and that somehow it wasn't a good enough reason enough to seriously oppose russia back then, when we still had time.

[hot-edits-of-the-ice-cold]

Being a Gotham fan right now, especially an Oswald fan

is kind of weird after the USA presidential election this year 😭

Spoilers for season 3 episode 16/17:

I love Oswald and think he had more potential as mayor than Aubrey James, but that's in a world where the person in power needs to have connections to the crime world!! 😐

And oddly enough, this real-world election, which happened about 6 years after similar events in the show, was kind of similar to Oswald rise to power after Ed's betrayal:

Both gained a part of the people he wanted out of the city the last time: A big part of Oswald's campaign was getting "Hugo Strange's monster" out of Gotham but they were his "Army of Freaks" the second time around — one of Trump's big things during his first campaign was building a wall bordering on Mexico, whereas the third time he tried to get elected, he managed to gain support from Latino Americans, including people whose family member could have to leave under his policies 😯

Not to mention that they both tried to steal the election.

At the moment watching Gotham and the news can be a bit much for me, do any people feel similar?

Cause so many of the things Americans are facing are dystopian elements in gotham:

police corruption (immunity)

a criminal, who has and will contintue to express his dislike of (certain) people, becoming their leader

bad healthcare (abortion too probably, maybe contraception 👀)

poverty

families breaking apart

gender-based violence (I hope no-fault divorce won't be ended)

ostracism/deportation

If you want to see specific examples, here's the edit I made of the parallels:

The Dystopian World of Gotham (Can Be Seen as a Modern AU/Parallels to the USA in 2024) on Youtube (I recommend you watch it there because of the format but it's also on Tiktok)

In any case: please someone edit chief of staff!Ed with eyeliner 💚 Like next to tanned!Oswald or something 💜 Let's ignore that Trump has an actual chief of staff too 🤫

[Edit: someone pointed out that they thought my comparisons made the real problem seem smaller & mentioned a few other things like reading into this that I meant to call latinos monsters, (what the hell?) 🤨. If you feel similarly, you can check out my clarifying response]

[catesartworks]

Isekai Maid Asks #6!

The catalyst for Bridgette's memories are her becoming a maid. It's almost always a little too late for her to escape, because she is financially tied to being a maid by having family to support. But yes, she has run away before (like when she was Damla). She was able to live a normal life for a while, but she died before her 23rd birthday. So I guess it's not impossible, she can run away, but eventually she is drawn to being a maid in her next life.

Oh shoot! I remember hearing about that one a few months ago when it was out for people who paid coins. I think it was called "I Will Live the Life of a Villainess."

Many villainess webtoons are dismissive of workers rights (considering the glorification of capitalist ventures, monopolies and rampant servant/commoner abuse). So sorry you had to see read that, that must really suck especially if you're invested in the story and the anti-union plot points come out of nowhere. :(

She could've possibly intercepted the assassination on Clara, which is how Dimitri (Phoebe's new Love interest) was able to stop Phoebe from being framed for Clara's death. He got rid of the evidence pointing to Phoebe being the culprit that Erica tried to have planted on Clara's body. But at the end of the day, it was something that Erica wanted to do and only tried to stop it at the last possible second.

Ultimately, Erica was supposed to be the adult in this situation (at least in certain terms, since Phoebe was 24-25 when she reincarnated and had the mind of an adult, but the physical appearance of a child). Clara would've had to be removed from Erica early on, or Erica would have to let her go.

Erica didn't execute Clara in the first timeline, but she was still capable of harming her because she often set her up dangerous situations to get her to bully Phoebe. I think that if Erica had come to terms with the fact that she needed help, and didn't force Clara to feel like she had to do what she said in order to "heal" her, it wouldn't have gotten so terrible.

Phoebe certainly didn't help when she antagonized Clara, and targeting Clara while not holding Erica to the same standard. It made Erica more brazen in a way, because she knew she would get away with it and "rescue" Clara from Phoebe. But Phoebe, having the brain of an adult from her past life, was more concerned about living out her revenge fantasy than helping Clara, who she saw as being "two-faced."

I don't think I have space for "prince is the love interest, he has blonde hair and he thinks everything is a game." Like for example "The Condemned Villainess Goes Back in Time". The prince is clearly trouble, but the protagonist straight up ignores him basically saying "I'm using you for entertainment, if you lose against your sister I'm dumping you." And then sympathizes with him for "having a hard life in the palace." Yeah, ok.... I don't think I have space for it because it would be a completely different story altogether. But if I do use it, it will be in passing.

A modern cafe with a door to another world might function very differently than how it was initially intended. If they were really shady, they'd probably attempt to have free labor. But thankfully there are contingencies in place that make it harder for them to do so. They'd have to go through paperwork for taxes, and that means (depending on the area) personal identifiers, logging hours, phone numbers, etc. But I think a smaller shop would be able to get away with it more. Overall, I'd hope it'd blow up in their faces, because eventually their workers will have to come across labor laws of some kind. There are posters, OSHA, safety instructions, etc. The owners of the cafe would probably blackmail or threaten them (like when workplaces exploit immigrant workers by threatening to have them deported).

Evil Bridgette would have knowledge before Demeter tries to kill her. She'd probably get fired after chapter five when Lord Demeter threw a cup at her, because she would straight up wack him with the plate from the tea cart. Evil Bridgette would have to give up on ever trying to find hope or friendship. She would make the stone herself, and she wouldn't try to cross dimensions with it. She'd just turn the current world she's in to match her needs. Bridgette would routinely get fired, not really caring about it.

Seasalt would look at Demeter and think, "this guy's really pasty." He'd think his looks got a downgrade, and maybe the money isn't worth it.

If Cordelia wasn't white passing, she'd live in the attic of the Demeter estate. She'd have a pretty lavish room, but wouldn't be allowed to leave or be seen in public. Montgomery Demeter (her birth father) would've kept her, even if she wasn't white passing. She'd fall in love with Anette's male counterpart, Bel, but could never meet him. Her personality is more naive and sheltered.

Hello Boppinrobin! Thank you so much for the kind words, I really appreciate it! :D

As for your question about Fawn, she knew about Julietta's resurrection magic. But she also knew that she used it strategically. She wasn't confident that Julietta cared enough about her to resurrect her, so she constantly felt that she had to prove her worth. To be the kind of person that Julietta would consider a friend or a confidant.

Fawn's biggest insecurity was that she wasn't good enough, or that she wasn't worthy enough to be loved as a result of being an illegitimate child and being abused by her parents. Which is why she "fawns" over people to compensate for it.

As for your second question, I actually had no idea about that history of pets and black families! The more you know! I actually based the ducks off of the love that the people of Turkey have for cats in places like Istanbul. I thought about how ducks are both cute and protective, you don't want to get attacked by them! So they would be misunderstood a lot, like cats are misunderstood as being unloving. But like any pet, cats are very lovable if given time and understanding.

Thank you so much! ( ; 7 ; )

Hello! Thank you so much for reading "This Isekai Maid is Forming a Union!"

I think that a lot of reincarnators are people who were very miserable in their previous world. They were put down upon, had bad luck, or were failed by society in some way.

Being isekai'd into nobility is sort of like winning the lottery. It's very overwhelming, they're elated, they have money, status, and looks now, but it can also be a curse.

It can bring out the worst in people. It shows who they are when no one is looking, when they can get away with anything. It can make people who before didn't have such wealth, or privilege into someone they might not have expected to become.

So yeah, many are crappy people in the first place. But a lot of them were just people who succumbed to their insecurities and fears.

As for Charlotte, yes! We will have more backstory on her soon! It's actually one of the first things I drew out for this season in my season three sketchbook. I can't wait show it. :D

Not well. They had very little painkillers, long recovery times. If they had more kids after the standard first two in their "happily ever after", then complications were more likely. Phoebe was especially unprepared, since she had four kids, and felt obligated to have her last child, Claire. She had really bad postpartum depression.

I'm so happy you liked it! ( ;w; )

Here it is btw below!

Your headcanon on the author being POC is correct! "Flowers Thrive in Autumn" and "The Wicked Woman Delivers!" was written by an East Asian author. She is biracial (half-Korean, half-white) and grew up in both Seoul and Manhattan.

She's currently on a writing break, but might work on other works in the future!

Phoebe knows about other reincarnators, like Clara, but she doesn't pay them much mind. She thinks they make big mistakes that prevent them from reaching their full potential. And in a way, she feels like she has "won" against them in the game of life.

It's actually a coincidence! I probably should've based her more on a historical figure, though.

Thank you so much! I think that villains who genuinely believe in what they're doing is very interesting and helps keep them grounded. Sometimes I see villains that don't really believe in what they say, but I think that sort of cognitive dissonance is difficult to portray without coming off as insincere on the author's part (at least for me haha).

It can come more like "see they're sneaky and you shouldn't trust them!" rather than...

They cannot cope with the truth.

They have no interest in the truth and use their arguments to further their goals as the ends justify the means because they sincerely believe their goals will be beneficial in the long run.

They simply believe in their own lies and cannot tell the reality they have made from the the reality around them.

So, I'm very happy you like my villains! ( ^ w ^ )

Emilie and Clara had feelings for each other in that timeline, but Clara was dealing with Dimitri stalking her and had to flee the country to avoid him. It would've put Emilie in danger if he found out Clara liked her.

Misty mourned the death of her daughter Clara, but tried to live peacefully. Emilie kept in touch with her, and made visits to make sure she got out of the house.

Brooke was trapped in a time loop with her serial killer viscountess boss. First timeloop she was murdered on a whim, second she tried to help her lady escape the timeloop and was murdered again. On the third loop she said "f*ck it" and killed the viscountess.

After Brooke killed her boss, she was arrested and executed for killing a noble. While it was tragic, Brooke was finally able to escape the timeloop she was trapped in afterwards.

They quit. They couldn't get revenge per se, but Simon was able to expose the lady's wrongdoings by spreading the word about Deliliah's actions and starting a union newspaper to protect people like Muriel, who he couldn't help.

It was sort of a mix between the two. Fawn genuinely loved her lady Julietta, but was savvy enough to know her lady wasn't always the most informed. She just didn't want to rock the boat.

As for Clara, she wasn't exactly happy with her awareness due to being so young and not being able to handle it well. It made her upset that she was always killed for the protagonists' story (or she had a vague understanding that protagonists use and discard their servants). She wasn't hateful to Phoebe, but it was clear she didn't want to get too close to her.

Thank you! And thank you for reading Isekai Maid! :DD

Fawn is Limpetta. She was the product of infidelity her mother had, and was abused by both her parents. Her mother especially was violent to her, and she was treated lesser than her older siblings. She wasn't allowed to be loved, because if she was, her stepfather would see it as her mother "choosing another man over him again."

Everyone knew Fawn was illegitimate, and that her birth father was a wealthy merchant bachelor who wanted nothing to do with her.

[uboat53]

In light of the election, a word to those who voted for Trump.

I'll admit, I've run out of sympathy. It's been eight years of him being overwhelmingly in the public limelight and he was president for four of those. You all know who he is now and you still voted for him.

And I get it, you'll claim that you voted for him for "the economy" and that you don't support all of the ways in which he's a terrible human being, but I have a hard time believing that considering that the average Trump voter doesn't actually even know what Trump's economic policy will be. Look, America had a decent economy under Trump the first time, not because of anything he did, but because he inherited a decent economy from Obama and spent all his time doing petty things like the Muslim ban rather than screwing up the economy. Don't believe me? Find any graph you like of the US economy and show me where his policies changed anything dramatically from the pre-Trump trend (at least, before he completely screwed up the pandemic).

And, look, if he'd just been promising vague, back to normal-type things, I might believe you that it was the economy, but he hasn't. Since the start of his campaign he's been promising to implement massive tariffs on all imports; something he can do, by the way, without Congressional approval. Tariff, by the way, is another word for tax; he's going to add a 10% (and more!) tax to every single thing that the US imports, and we import a lot. Inflation, by the way, has been back down to reasonable levels for months, this is the type of thing that would cause it to spike back up again.

So, yeah, I don't believe you that you voted for him because you were very concerned about the economy; if you were very concerned about the economy you would know all of that already. No, you didn't vote for him "in spite of" the racism and the lawbreaking and the bigotry, you voted for him because of it. The economy was just a fig leaf.

And if that strikes you the wrong way, if you think I'm wrong about that, if you think I'm judging you in bad faith, sit for a minute with that feeling. Ask yourself, why did you vote for a racist? Why did you vote for a criminal? Because you did. Whatever reason you tell yourself you did it for, you still did it. And millions of people around the country and around the world are going to suffer for it.

And, if the economy, as just about every economist predicts, crashes under the weight of Trump's tariffs and other terrible economic polices, I'll admit that my reaction to your shock will probably not be what you'd like either. As I said, I'm out of sympathy after eight years. You voted for a criminal and a bigot in exchange for a "good economy" and the most likely result is that you will still not get it.

I hope that all of the women who will die because they're unable to access abortion care find peace and that their families will too. I hope that all of the immigrants who are deported and the communities they're ripped from are able to heal. I hope that all the gay and trans people who will be attacked and denied support by their own government find what help they need. I hope that all of the Jews and ethnic minorities who are murdered all over the country by white supremacists emboldened by Trump are able to find peace as well. I hope that all of these people are able to survive the economic shockwaves that are coming.

As for you, I'll admit, as unsympathetic as I am generally, I still have my humanity and that leaves me with at least a small bit of hope for you. I hope that you one day discover the humanity to, even if your assumptions about the economy were somehow correct, risk a little bit of what you have to prevent the suffering of others. I hope that you aren't one of the many people devastated by the economic policies you've voted for. I hope that you eventually realize what you've done. I hope that you'll take responsibility for what you've unleashed and work to combat the bigotry and crime that is coming. Ultimately, though, I hope, when you do realize everything that's happened and everything is said and done, that you can forgive yourself.

[itscherrylipsforme]

I am a latina born in the states (now living in the UK) and sincerely I just want to scream and cry right now

For the queer and disabled people out. I fucking love you. I wish I could just give you some kind of comfort right now, but I can't even find the words to calm myself down. I am with you. I know you want to end with everything, but listen to me, don't do it. Just don't, it's not worthy. Please stay with us, we love you. We will get through this together, I promise

And for the people who chose not to vote or voted a third party in order to punish democrats, I want to send a big fuck you to all of you. Congratulations, you had the possibility to do some good and you picked your intellectualism above everything. This also goes for the male latinos who voted for Orange Guy, you have betrayed your women, children and even your people who also dreamt of cross the border and make it to the USA as you or your families once did. Qué son vuestra gente, carajo!!!

I am a second-generation immigrant. I got only three hours of sleep today due to the nerves, and had a panic attack while I checked the statistics. The barrio latino where I was raised was vandalized when Trump first won, some of my family members were deported or unfairly arrested during demonstrations back then. It was five a.m here at England when my abuela called me up and I had to tell her not worry because that wouldn't happen again. That may have been the first time I had ever lied to her because those were words I can't be sure of anymore. I was hoping to move back to the states and to my family as soon as I could if Kamala won the elections. Now everything seems pointless

I can only hope this is a nightmare we will wake up from in four years. Stay strong, and safe

I know my pain may not be as important as the one coming from those who are living there on the moment. Yet I need to rant to get it off my chest, sorry for it

[magiarec]

🆘🏠 WE NEED SAFE HOUSING.

We moved across Canada last year to escape severe medical abuse, but our living situation rapidly degraded. Our next door neighbour is a violent racist homophobe who has dedicated the last year of my life to harrassing us. More details will be under the cut. After months of searching we finally found a new apartment an hour away, and can have it any time in the next two weeks as long as we have the money. We do not have that much money. We can cover moving costs, the remainder of rent on our current place, and all our normal medical/etc bills. We've asked family for help and gotten a resounding "bootstraps" from them. Mutual aid is my only hope.

Our triad is LGBT (what, all at once? yes!), severely mentally ill, two of us are disabled, and one of us is latina. I'm currently still trapped waiting on a reply from immigration, legally can't work yet, and I don't feel safe doing sex work here when an arrest could mean deportation.

🌈 ♿ £0/2000

total cost: deposit (600), rent (1200), eating this month (200)

Here’s what we’ve been trying to get away from for a year. TW for racism, homophobia, slurs, child abuse, assault, graphic violent/sexual threats, sexual harrassment, fatphobia, the police having to get involved, and anything else that I can add if you need. I’m going to list these in the order they happened.

• Tried to break into our house during a four hour long extended breakdown. Hammered on the door til it dented. Threatened all of our lives multiple times. This went on until 2am. First police report.

• Spent a week hammering on our door or window and screaming “WAKE UP” at any time between 4-6am if she heard us using the kitchen the night before.

• Followed me up and down the road when I ran errands calling me a disgusting pig, the d slur, and a pedophile. Followed all of us down the road more than once screaming at us for being worthless [d slur]s while she was a mother.

• Told her children I was a pedophile, and that I might kidnap them one day. Loudly. In front of their friends. Described in graphic detail what she assumed I would do to them if I did.

• Waited on our doorstep for me and pulled out a fistful of my hair when I tried to push past her to get inside. I have not left the house alone since. Second police report.

• Multiple months of her waiting until after midnight to begin blasting religious sermons or the same fucking eminem song six times through our conjoining walls.

• Began weighing our fire escape grates down while screaming at us that she’d burn us alive to ready us for hell.

• Waited until I was home alone and then came up to the door and began calmly telling me that she’d, quote, “cut my clit off” before offering to bring her guy friends over to rape me straight.

• Taped naked photos of herself to our bedroom window.

• Brought a fucking ant infestation into the basement apartments we split and tried to punch me in the face when I told the inspector we’d been putting down traps and all of the bugs came from her side of the building.

• Chased my husband down the side of our house, spat on his face, and tried (almost succeeded before we both tackled it shut) to kick the door open. Third police report that they actually bothered to come out for, and the first one where the officer who arrived took the genuine threats and physical assault seriously.

It’s going on trial tomorrow. Our landlord has had months to evict her for the assults, or not paying rent, or the harrassment, or the way she keeps threatening to shoot his family and calling them the N word. He has told her instead that we’re “probably” moving out soon for the past year and she insists she’s staying until that point - a thing we found out this week when confronting him about her still being here. We also found out that his plan to rent us her bigger unit is contingent on us furnishing it and leaving it for two months when his family comes to stay for a wedding in August.

We also also found out that when the baliffs said they can’t evict her until he does [basic legal step that she could contest] [... that he could have done last year] he decided it wasn’t worth it. So he’s going to illegally evict her. By waiting u til she leaves next week, unlocking her unit, loading her belongings into a van, changing the locks, and installing a gate. His plan is to have her arrested for tresspassing when she tries to come back to her house.

This is insane. It is not legal, it’s deeply unethical even if I hate her ass, and there is no way in hell that she will not just blame us for it when it happens. My husband leaves for work at 4am. She knows this. I am dead fucking certain she will attack him or us before the week is out if we remain here. I am terrified and traumatized and need your help. Please, please help.

[cer-rata]

A (long) review of the first 5 issues of Wonder Woman (2023) *Full Spoilers*

So I'm a bit of a lapsed comic fan. I grew up on my dad's collection of 90's comics and kept up on and off until the new 52 which did a lot that really put me off. And frankly Marvel wasn't doing much better so I kind of moved onto different fandoms and some smaller runs. Recently however I've decided to try to get back into the hobby more seriously, and while there have been some books that I've really enjoyed, there's been a lot of meh plots and inconsistent characterization pretty much everywhere across the major publishers.

But I was nonetheless excited to see a new Wonder Woman ongoing. Out of the trinity, Diana was always my favorite (a fact that I, as a little closeted boy, kept secret for years. More on that later) and I was aware of some of Tom King's works and was pretty impressed with his "Vision" run, so I was cautiously optimistic about the prospect of a popular modern writer giving Diana some love, and was hoping for a story with some modern nuance and uplifting fun.

The bag has been...mixed at best.

So I'm going to try to be fair about this, because writing genuinely good and transformative comics isn't easy, especially when your editorial is completely unhinged. That being said I do have some serious concerns that I think are really important to talk about.

I'm also lapsed so I haven't read everything religiously the past couple years, so if I get something about canon wrong please correct me in the notes.

I'm going to break this down into a couple of sections to help organize my thoughts. The art is gorgeous generally so I'm not going to spend too much time on that. Let's start with:

Plot

The name of this arc is Wonder Woman: Outlaw, and the first issue is devoted to setting up that premise. The action kicks off when an amazon gets into a bar fight with a group of sexist men, and ends up slaughtering every man in the establishment. The government reacts to this development poorly and ends up ordering the forced deportation of the Amazons that had settled in the states. We're given narration by a mysterious figure, detailing how Diana and her friends lobbied and fought against this obvious injustice but failed, laid over images of an Amazon resisting her deportation with violence, and being gunned down in front of her wife and daughter.

But how, you ask, was the government able to rush through this bizarre reactionary stunt?

Well you see, this is all a part of a scheme by the Sovereign, the CEO of sexism and an American "king" whose family has used the "Lasso of Lies" to control the country for it's entire existence. He showed up in WW #800 with Trinity seeking him out for information, which explains why he's narrating this story. A Wonder Woman book where she isn't the POV character? I'll get more into that later.

Anyway the Sovereign wants to run all of the amazons out of the country or kill them, whatever works, as he believes they're a threat to his rule and masculinity as a whole.

So he's in the background. The foreground antagonist is Sargent Steel, who's been tasked with leading the Amazon deportation and is actively hunting Diana, who he eventually corners as she's paying her respects to the men that the rogue amazon killed. He tries to assassinate her, obviously fails, and Diana extracts some information from him and begins her investigation. See it turns out that after running out of other options, she's trying to hunt down the rogue amazon and figure out what's going on in the hopes that she solve the tensions.

So that's the basic premise of the arc, Diana is trying to solve a murder mystery while being actively hunted by the government. It's not a bad premise on its own honestly, so I was intrigued. The first issue is pretty, well laid out and interesting. The problem is that the following issues don't really deliver on that premise.

Instead of detective!Diana, we spent issue #2 on a (gorgeous) fight with the actual US army, intercut with a flashback of Diana's trial by combat in order to leave Themyscira in the first place. It really is a beautiful issue that really drives home how much of a badass she is, especially since she ends up not killing anyone in the process. Somehow. She did throw tanks at people so...I'm not sure how she...anyway.

Issue #3 is Diana walking into Steel's base, bulldozing through all the security and then bullying him to get some more information about the case, where she finds out that the Amazon is pregnant. Intriguing right? Meanwhile we see the Sovereign showing a young soldier around his house, which is filled with old American historical artifacts. See he wants this kid to push the narrative that Wonder Woman emasculated him and took away his pride, but the soldier doesn't really care? He's actually excited to have fought a superhero and live, and he thinks she's cool. So that won't do, and we're shown the capabilities of the Lasso of Lies, as the Sovereign uses it to implant feelings of discontent and depression into the young soldier, while also ordering him to write a manifesto about Wonder Woman taking his manliness and then to...kill himself. The idea being to create some bad press and push public support away from Diana.

Issue #4 is my favorite in the run so far, devoting most of it's time to watching Diana give a terminally ill kid who idolizes her the best day of his life. I'll get into it when I talk about dialogue later but I think it's the truest depiction of Diana so far, you get to see her kindness, generosity and wisdom. There is a nice moment where she comforts the kid about destiny and soothes his feelings of otherness in the face of the expectation that he should be drawn to a male hero. It's really nice. But also kind of a strange decision in the scope of the plot. As much as I love this moment, I think her taking a day away from her mission of stopping this political disaster and being on the run to just hang out with a kid is...odd from a pacing standpoint. With the lack of effort she's shown so far in dealing with Steel and the machinations of the Sovereign, and the threat to the Amazons happening mostly off screen and with very limited access how Diana's feeling about it all because she's not the narrator, it all wraps up in not feeling very urgent. It's mentioned that she's trying to control her emotions and that makes sense in theory, but with the way she's drawn and written she just seems unbothered.

Meanwhile, Amanda Waller tells Steel that they're just going to throw all of Diana's villains at her and call it a day.

Issue #5 Deals with the Wonder Girls, Cassie, Donna and Yara trying to convince Diana to accept some help. She challenges them to trials where if they can beat her she'll allow them to assist. It's kind of a neat concept, but it highlights a strange piece of this characterization of Wonder Woman: her desire to work alone.

It's...very Batman of her in ways that don't make much sense in the narrative and in the broader scope of her characterization. And it would be more understandable if the conflict was more focused, Diana hunting down Cheetah to try to reform her, a more personal mission. But this literally involves all of her people and could lead to actual war between the states and Themysicra. It seems weirdly shortsighted for her to shun help from adult Women who she's trained and worked with in the past. The rationalization that she doesn't want to endanger them falls completely flat because they're already in danger.

Also what is Yara referring to here? She acts like there's history of them working together and it not working out. Why do they insist on trying to make her a Wonder Girl in the first place?

Anyway they all lose but then ignore the terms of the wager and show up in her apartment in their costumes, not taking no for an answer. And like that they ignored that foolishness, but then I'm bothered that we spent almost an entire issue on this pointless conflict that didn't really teach us anything useful.

But I did say almost, and the rest of the issue is devoted to Steel and the Sovereign convincing some of Diana's greatest foes to join up on a squad to take her down.

Which is...a choice. Don't get me wrong, it's a cool sequence, and It's not an unusual conceit in comics to collect a bunch of villains to take down their nemesis, but as far as I was aware, in this continuity:

Giganta and Silver Swan had buried the hatchet

Circe also helped Diana defeat the upside down man, and seemingly dropped her animosity (and...I...I thought she was trapped in a mirror. How did they get her out?) But regardless, why on earth would Circe agree to work for anyone, especially the US gov?

Grail was never that focused on Diana in the first place, but I could see her wanting to kill her for kicks, but again, why would she agree to work with lesser beings and take orders from mortals?

Angle man is nuts, so, sure

And Dr. Psycho does hate Wonder Woman with a passion so sure.

But this doesn't take into account that if they were to be written correctly, Circe or Grail on their own are justice league threats, and even with the Wonder Girls helping that would be an uphill battle. And then you add all the others, and factor in the dubious choices here in relation to established canon and it leaves me concerned that none of these villains are going to be used properly to their potential, or written in character. The idea that they were convinced to do this in the first place is hand-waved away, likely because there are no real persuasive arguments to get someone like Grail or Circe to job like this.

But enough of that tangent. This upcoming slug fest raises the question: What happened to the investigation into this rogue Amazon? 5 issues in and all we know is her name and that she's pregnant. Diana doesn't even know her name though, because if she did she'd realize that she actually knew the woman. So 5 issues in and the main plot has taken a backseat to watching Wonder Woman be a badass and including a bunch of villains. And don't get me wrong, I love a badass Wonder Woman. I was absolutely thrilled watching her go to work on people. But if you strip away those exciting set pieces and try to follow the plot and themes, there's not much substance there.

And you know, now that we've got an overview of what's happening, let's talk about the greater ideas here.

Themes

So King clearly wants to investigate misogyny in this book, with his villain Johnny Sexism. Uh. I mean, The Sovereign, an old white man who hates women and believes in the divine right of kings and wields the literal Lasso of Lies. And his unwitting sidekick, Military Industrial Complex Man, AKA Sargent Steel.

So it's not inherently bad to personify an social issue. Comics often work in shorthand like that. The issue I have here is that when you have a mastermind character who has manipulated everything behind the scenes, who is ALSO a caricature of a social problem, instead of providing interesting analysis of a systemic problem and its sources and methods, you instead attribute it all to One Evil Man. Which is painfully reductive and misguided. Sexism is complicated, much more complicated that one evil wizard deciding that women are the problem. It's like if you created a vampire slave owner who had been manipulating the country from the shadows and created the system of racism. It's bizarre and not really analysis to suggest that you can just solve social issues by stopping individual bad actors.

The bit with the soldier really crystalized this for me. We are given a kind man who has no misogynistic tendencies, and then the CEO of sexism forcibly implants it into his mind. He's shown personally bullying the president into submission, manipulating Steel, most overt examples of sexism can be tied directly to the Sovereign, which is a bizarre choice that really flattens the narrative weight. Couple that with the fact that the Sovereign is shown to be completely ill-equipped to actually stop Diana. She literally walks through all of his roadblocks, doesn't seem like she's out of control of the situation outside of the opening explanation that she wasn't able to save her sisters. The only real threat so far is the team of villains, and that's framed as Amanda Waller's plan. Why isn't she the villain of this book? And he's the narrator. In a book about sexism, immigration and tribalism, the voice we hear the most is that of the Sovereign. And he doesn't have anything particularity interesting to say. He's not scary, he doesn't seem particularly competent and he provides no interesting analysis so I'm left wondering, why are we centering his perspective over Diana's? In a book lead by a feminist icon, about the evils of sexism, we are completely locked out of her head. She barely gets a chance to speak, and when she does it's clipped and robotic. There's no personality, and certainly no continuity to her popular depictions. I'm all for writers reaching for topics, trying to make social commentary. Some of the best arcs we've ever gotten deal with real issues. But you have to A: Know what you're talking about and B: Actually talk about it. Sexism bad, men bad--it's not enough, it's not analysis, it's not revelatory and by creating such ridiculous caricatures of hyper masculinity, you make it very easy for the average male reader, who I assume you're trying to engage with, to separate themselves from the equation. It's thematic window dressing, and frustrating to see in a Wonder Woman book of all places. I don't think that only woman can write women, that's ridiculous and removes the responsibility to be better from male writers. But, if you're going to talk about social issues that apply to a group you're not a part of, you'd better know what you're talking about. Hell even if you're in that group you still have to know what you're talking about. This is feminism that starts and ends with "Sexism bad" and it's 2024, we have to be smarter about this.

That being said, I think issue #4 has bits of the right idea. Seeing Diana representing something greater than the sexist division that the world perpetuates is great. I felt incredibly seen as a little boy who loved Wonder Woman, and that moment of kindness meant a lot. We're given believable symptoms of sexism, from Jack's dad being uncomfortable with his son idolizing Diana. and Jack having internalized that judgement. It's handled gently and instead of just beating us over the head with obvious allegory, it shows us a taste of what Wonder Woman stands for: a better, more loving world. And it's mostly because it's the most insight that we get from her about how she thinks. The best part of the book about Wonder Woman is, shockingly, the part about Wonder Woman. Why can't we get more of that?

Dialogue

Man it's weird. King is clearly snappy, with a decent sense of humor. There's lots of fun exchanges in this book, particularly the backups, which I'll get to soon. He's pretty good at dialogue, which makes the way he writes Diana so bizarre. Awkward sentence structure, aloof characterization, the grating repeated use of "No thank you" as some sort of catch phrase. What? king has taken the warm beating heart of the trinity and made her distant and robotic. It's kind of impressive. And some of the rationale is that she's in emotional turmoil and trying to maintain appearances. But that's not reflected in the art at all, even when she's alone. We're told that she's conflicted and angry but almost never shown it. She feels like a side character in her own book most of the time. Speaking of side characters:

The Backups

So the running plot here is Damian Wayne and Jon Kent...babysitting? raising? Diana's daughter Lizzie Prince, who is eventually known as the hero Trinity in the future. And it's cute, particularly when they're all younger. King really gets Damian and Jon's characterization and writes some really fun exchanges.

Issue #4 and #5's backups are a little weaker but still really fun.

So my question is...why is the best characterization in this Wonder Woman book the backups starring the Supersons? I love the Supersons! Why are they here? Why would Diana choose them to watch her daughter? Why isn't she on Themyscira or being watched by any of her adult friends, especially those who have actual experience with children? It's fun but feels shoehorned and poorly reasoned. Honestly? I get the feeling that king wants to write this more than he does the main book, and it's mind boggling, because I wouldn't hate him writing supersons, and his version of Jon is the most Jon we've gotten in a while. So why is he writing Wonder Woman?

Conclusion

I think I'll keep reading, mostly to fuel my desire to see what they do with her actual villains, but it's not the smart book I was hoping for. It takes pretty big liberties with characterization and recent canon and there's not much actual commentary to find here. The art and the action are incredible, but the story that should be supporting it is pretty anemic and frustrating, with moments of genuine quality that makes the rest of the book even more disappointing.

Honestly? Just read Amazons Attack instead. Better dialogue, better pacing, better characterization, just more fun.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

What do ordinary Palestinians think about Hamas? The war? How are they surviving amid cascading tragedies? We spoke to them. Listen.

By: Joseph Braude

Published: Nov 3, 2023

Watch this video of a grieving woman in Gaza cry out. She says: “All this is because of the dogs of Hamas.” She’s immediately—literally—silenced.

Why?

Since taking power in a 2007 coup, Hamas has violently repressed all opposition to its rule. There is much to repress: recent Palestinian survey data shows most Gazans distrust Hamas, want an alternative government, and prefer economic development over war. But their individual voices are rarely heard. Those who speak out face prison and torture.

Some foreign journalists try to cover these voices but face deportation for doing so, while others show little interest in Palestinian grievances unrelated to the conflict with Israel.

My organization, the Center for Peace Communications, has been helping the population breach this communications blackout by interviewing Palestinians across the Strip, from all walks of life, about their travails and aspirations. A mother who dreams of her children getting a proper education. A photojournalist punished for taking pictures. A young couple who hopes to start a family, outside of Gaza. 

Earlier this year, we released their testimony in a series called Whispered in Gaza: 25 short segments, using video animation to protect their identities, accompanied by Gazan polling, rights reports, and reportage.

Following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, we reconnected with these and other Gazans to gather new testimony. We sought to understand their reaction to the Hamas assault and their views of the developing war, and to document their struggle to survive amid cascading tragedies. 

We are partnering with The Free Press to showcase their voices in a new series called Voices from Gaza, which you can watch below. 

* * *

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In the first episode, a resident of Gaza City shares widespread Palestinian anxiety that international humanitarian aid for Gaza will not reach the people who need it. In Gazans’ experience, he says, “When Hamas distributes the aid, only Hamas members get the aid.” The same applies to Gaza’s healthcare system, where “Hamas families get preferential treatment” and even the most urgent needs of others “could be delayed for a long time so that Hamas loyalists are treated first.”

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When the October 17 explosion in a Gaza hospital triggered an international debate over who was to blame, Gazans we spoke with felt the terms of the debate were wrong. “I’d rather tell you who’s responsible for making people need to go to the hospital in the first place,” a speaker says in Episode Two. “Hamas bears responsibility for all the wars, but we’re the ones who pay the price.”

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The same rejection of Hamas’s war footing was shared by a woman we spoke with who took umbrage at Hamas claims that Gazan civilians, not Hamas fighters, had perpetrated the October 7 atrocities targeting Israeli civilian men, women, and children. “If I saw a hostage or knew where they were,” she explains in Episode Three, “I’d take them and hide them in my home. I’d bring them back home [to Israel].”

Contrary to Hamas propaganda, she says, “Ending Hamas is the demand of young and old alike in Gaza.” For her family, the demand is deeply personal: “My older brother was murdered by Hamas in front of our eyes,” she says. “Fifty-four gunshots all over his body, his blood spilling in front of his children.”

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“Ashraf,” a 28-year-old evacuee from Gaza City now residing in Khan Younis, saw his brother murdered by Hamas as well. Both had been involved in peaceful demonstrations against Hamas. We wanted to know whether such activists would support the toppling of the regime if it came with the heavy human toll of an Israeli ground assault.

“We welcome any change that will save us from this indignation called Hamas,” Ashraf says in Episode Four, “whether by Jews or non-Jews.” But he also worries that the war will end with Hamas in place: “If Hamas remains, there might, for example, be a truce, and in a year or two Hamas would repeat the same scenario. In those two years, I’ll go backwards 50 years—and I need two good years just to get back on my feet. I have no house, no life, nothing.”

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Hamas’s grip on portions of Gaza is already slipping away, however. In Episode Five, “Fadi,” a youth activist from Gaza City who has also fled south, describes growing chaos in Khan Younis as the remnants of Hamas’s security apparatus vanish into the ground. He also explains how some civilians are stepping up to fill the vacuum. “We’re forming youth councils and defense committees to organize people in the bread lines, or other stations,” he says.

* * *

When the present war ends, hopes for reconstruction and a decent government in Gaza will rest largely on the Palestinians who join a post-Hamas administration of the territory. In the past, Gazans have shown great courage in trying to bring change on their own. Veterans of Gaza’s 2019 anti-Hamas street demonstrations, for example, braved gunfire and prison to make their voices heard, but received neither support nor solidarity from the outside world. 

In drawing attention to Gazan voices opposed to Hamas, we aim to show that a different, brighter, and more peaceful future is possible—one that merits international support—because of the Palestinians in Gaza who yearn and strive for it. As one of the speakers, who you can hear below, in our original series put it, “The makings of our dream are all here.” 

==

The original "Whispered in Gaza" project, originally published from January 2023, is still accessible on YouTube and Instagram.

Gazans have been trying to be heard for years. And now not only do they have to contend with silencing by Hamas, but with being spoken over by western college idiots infected by an antisemitic neo-Nazi mind-virus and a blood-lusty urge to commit genocide, aka "decolonize."

[aliciameade]

Darkness at Dawn - Ch. 6

Title: Darkness at Dawn Author: aliciameade Rating: M/E Pairing: Stephanie Smothers/Emily Nelson Summary: Even Bonnie & Clyde met their fate eventually.

Set five years after "Baby."

Also on AO3

Happy Pride Month. 😈

“Back so soon?” 

Stephanie smiles at the guard manning the visitation desk after passing her freshly printed Rhode Island driver's license through the window. “Couldn’t stay away. You all make it so hospitable.”

He registers her in the system with a laugh and returns her ID. “Make sure you stay on this side this time, Ms. Smothers.”

“I’ll do my best,” she replies politely, though she knows she’s about to wish she was on the other side. She drops her wallet into her purse and takes a seat, waiting until they call her name.

It has taken months to resurrect her old life, to get her documentation in order, and to work with her attorney to dismantle her manufactured identity. Most of what they’d established in Santorini had been seized by the government; Greece didn’t hesitate when it came to finding sources of money. But she was able to transfer ownership of her bakery to her assistant manager. Was able to send a note to Emily’s football team, assuring them that Coach Reid was okay and that she’d had to return to the USA for a family emergency and sent her apologies and is cheering them on from afar. She could only hope that news of their arrest and deportation hadn’t gotten to the students, even if all the parents knew.

She spent hours on the phone with their friend Helen, who’d been so good to them for so long and looked after their boys without question. She had a lot of questions and Stephanie answered them as politely and vaguely as she could get away with, mostly deflecting to ask about their friends in the community.

It’s taken months to petition the court to finally allow her to visit Emily. Detective Summerville had the district attorney fight it every step of the way, arguing the two of them together were too dangerous, but her attorney had won out: the argument? Emily Nelson is in prison. There’s nothing Stephanie visiting her could possibly do that would result in more broken laws.

She can’t help the tears that come when she sits down across from Emily for the first time, a pane of glass and a lifelong prison sentence separating them. She picks up the receiver and presses her hand to the glass. Emily does the same.

“Hi, baby,” Emily says, emotion evident even in her own usually steady voice. “You look good.” She’d put extra effort in today; she wanted to look especially nice today.

Emily looks good, too, despite her time in prison. Emily will always look good to Stephanie.

“Are you okay?”

“Surviving,” Emily says cooly. “But I miss you. I miss knowing you’re close.”

“I miss you, too, Em. Why did you do it?” she asks, voice croaking as the tears overwhelm her. “Why?”

“Because you didn’t deserve any of this. You’re too good for this. Too good for me.”

“That’s not true at all. Don’t say that.”

Emily shakes her head. “Look at me, baby. This is who I am. It’s who I’ve always been.” Stephanie knows she’s harkening back to her life before she became Emily Nelson. That she and her dearly departed twin sister had burned down their home and killed their father. “Enough about me; how are the boys? Tell me what’s going on. Tell me everything.”

Stephanie gives her as much of an update as she can in the thirty minutes they’re allotted. She and Miles are living in a small apartment in Providence. She’d chosen it, much to Sean’s dismay, to be close to Nicky as Sean was now a professor at Brown University. The boys had been through so much; they deserved to be allowed to remain brothers. Sean finally agreed to allow Stephanie to see Nicky, but only in public, in a controlled setting to ensure she doesn’t kidnap him. Not that she would, not now. His life is finally stable again. He’s in his first year of high school, like Miles. He still calls Stephanie ‘mom.’ It irritates Sean something fierce, but he doesn’t interfere with it, and he doesn’t monitor their phone calls anymore. She has a job at a local bakery. Miles had played baseball in the Spring and was now thinking about hockey. Nicky was trying out for wrestling.

She’s been working on explaining to the boys everything that happened, though she’s elected to leave out the violent details. They’re old enough to know their mothers didn’t make the wisest choices, even if, at the time, they felt like the correct ones to make, that they were chasing a utopia that perhaps they weren’t owed. She’d explained that Emily had a twin sister who was troubled, and they’d used that to their advantage to erase Emily and her secrets, to collect life insurance benefits, and to live a new life together. She’d explained that it was wrong and selfish and that it had been what they thought was the easy way out.

Time proved that it was not.

“I’m working on it,” she answers when Emily asks if Sean will ever allow Nicky to visit her. “He might be coming around. Your confession took the wind out of his sails. He wanted you to suffer and I think he’s starting to realize you’re suffering in your own way now. Give it time.”

Emily wipes away a shed tear and nods. Stephanie was released six months ago. Emily hasn’t seen her son in more than two years. “All I got is time.”

“Five minutes!”

Emily bitterly laughs at the coincidence of the officer on her side of the glass warning her that she’s almost out of time.

“Do you need anything?” Stephanie hurries along the conversation. “How’s your commissary? I can make a deposit today while I’m here.”

“No, I’m good.” Emily looks down at her lap. “Listen, baby, you have to go live your life now.”

Stephanie’s heart stops. “That sounds a lot like you’re saying goodbye.”

“I am.” When she lifts her head, there are tears on her cheeks. “You can’t throw away your life for me. You have to live it or I did this for nothing. You deserve to be happy.”

“But you’re the one who makes me happy!”

“I can’t do that anymore. Not from here.” Emily presses her left hand against the glass again and Stephanie remembers how it used to look with the wedding band Stephanie had placed on her ring finger. “If you meet someone, don’t shut them out. Promise me you’ll let yourself find happiness. I need you to promise me that.”

Stephanie hadn’t expected this. She hadn’t expected Emily to break up with her. She’d expected today to be the first of a lifetime of visiting her wife in prison, and had already been organizing her life to take the situation into account. She aligns her hand with Emily’s and struggles to reply.

“I love you, baby. That’s never, ever going to change.” Emily says it with such conviction that Stephanie can feel her heart crack. “Promise me you’ll let yourself be happy.”

Stephanie’s shaking her head, tears streaming down her face. “I promise,” her voice cracks over the words. “But I’ll still come visit you. I’ll bring Nicky as soon as I can. And I’ll bring Miles; he wants to see you, too.”

“I’d like that,” Emily says as she pushes tears away with the sleeve of her maroon sweatshirt. “Thank you for giving me the best years of my life.”

The sob that escapes Stephanie makes Emily follow suit.

“I love you,” she says, trying in vain to reach Emily through the glass. “I’ll never love anyone the way I love you.”

“I know, baby.” Emily kisses her fingertips and touches them to the glass in front of Stephanie’s lips. “I know. Listen, I gotta go.”

She hadn’t noticed the guard standing right behind Emily. They’d gone overtime.

“No! Em!” She watches Emily hang up the phone as the guard pulls her away by the chain around her waist until she disappears through a metal door.

Her own receiver falls to the counter and she drops her head to her hands, sobbing uncontrollably until a woman, another visitor she supposes, takes her gently by the shoulders and helps her all the way out to her car.

She doesn’t remember the drive home.

~*~*~*~*~*~

[girljeremystrong]

cat!!!! hi!!!! i want to get my non-reader friend into reading. he probs won't read anything over 150-200 pages so i'm trying to find an entertaining short book. all the short books i love are essays or philosophy or things i think he could like in time but would probably find dry at the start (especially cause he hasn't read anything recreationally for years). so im at a loss and wanted to know if u have any recs for short books that are page-turners/easy to read <3 hope ur having a good day beloved xo

hello my love <3

first of all sorry for replying late but i was sleeping and then i had to go to the BANK but anyway i have compiled a little list of books i loved that are under 200 pages. there are lots of classics that are shorter and i've included them even though i think some of those would be stuff that you or him might have already read!

contemporary fiction

open water by caleb azumah nelson: THIS IS SUCH A GREAT ONE that i can't imagine anyone not enjoying. truly. it's a love story between two black young british people but it's far from a tiktok romance novel. it explores themes of race and masculinity and vulnerability and it's soft but also very real and it's wonderful. honestly if i had to only recommend one it would be this!

small things like these by claire keegan: very good and quietly hopeful story of a man in a little irish town at christmas. everybody was talking about this book last year and with good reason, it's great.

whereabouts by jhumpa lahiri: the story of a woman in the town she lives in and how it can change in a year. this is an introspective one but jhumpa lahiri is a genius so it reads very easily and it's so wonderfully written.

interpreter of maladies by jhumpa lahiri: short stories, mainly dealing with indian characters in the US. they feel absolutely universal while teaching something about culture and belonging. won the pulitzer in 1999.

how not to drown in a glass of water by angie cruz: a woman narrates the story of her life to her counselor who's trying to find her a job. it's funny and hopeful and memorable. the author is so great (she wrote another one called dominicana that is a masterpiece although is longer!)

kim jiyoung, born 1982 by cho nam-joo: the story of a new mum living in korea that explores the estrangement of being a woman and having to give up so much. it's definitely more serious but it's written very well and it doesn't feel heavy at all.

swimming in the dark by tomasz jedrowski: this one is incredible. it's the story of a polish university student who falls in love with another man in the 1980s in an obviously very repressive society. so he's in love but he wants protest and he can't ignore the struggles and the disparity around him. it's very political but also lyrical and tender.

someone who will love you in all your damaged glory by raphael bob-waksberg: okay this breaks 200 pages at 256 pages long. but it's so good. everybody would love this. it's by the creator of bojack horseman if that can be an incentive somehow. it's a collection of stories that are so unconventional and bizarre in the most incredible way. they are funny stories and sweet and absurd and sad. i really loved reading this book.

infinite country by patricia engel: the story of a colombian family dealing with deportation. it's from the pov of elena who is the eldest daughter. it's a beautiful book that deals with very real struggles and it does it beautifully.

classics

recitatif by toni morrison: very short story (about 20 pages) but so clever and so well written of course. it's the story of two women who have known each other since they were children. they lose touch and then they reconnect when they're older. one of them is white and one of them is black, but the author never tells you which is which. so it's a great story about race.

the cossacks by leo tolstoy: the story of a man who loses his fortune and retires to a cossack village. it's very russian... but it's very well written and definitely explores some of the themes that tolstoy will then explore in war and peace like the purpose of life and war and his love of nature.

white nights by fyodor dostoevsky: again very russian. but less than 100 pages long! it's the story of a young man living in st petersburg who one day meets a girl and they become fast friends. they both feel like outcasts, so together they feel like they can belong. it is actually great.

giovanni's room by james baldwin: lots of baldwin's books (both his fiction and non-fiction) are short ones actually. this one is the story of a man in paris who, while waiting for his girlfriend to get there, falls in love with a man. it's an incredible story dense with love and passion and shame and it is wonderful.

the old man and the sea by hemingway: old man tries to catch big fish after not being able to catch any fish for a long time. but also so much more than that and nobody made me read this in school so i only read it at 25 and it blew me away. everybody told me it would be so sad but i think it's actually hopeful and a little bit it is a story about community? and it tells you that there's people waiting for you to come back.

of mice and men by steinbeck: again i read it in my mid twenties and loved it. it's a gut punch. it's about two men clinging together as laborers in california. it deals with what it means to feel powerless in a tyrant world.

franny and zooey by salinger: one of the best books ever i think. franny and zooey are brother and sister and they are two young people experiencing existential doubts. it's a book about family and about growing into adults and about the alienation that comes with that. salinger knows how to write young people in a crisis so well and how to make it engaging and entertaining.

having compiled this list i now see that my tastes definitely are oriented in a certain way but i hope at least one of these can work for your friend. i tried to include all the shorter books that i have read and loved and i think that generally anyone could enjoy them, but you never know!

hope you're having a great day too!!! mwah!!

[jillianfahey]

Bad Batch Crosshair - Modern AU (Cross middle fingers the Government)

So in my last one Lyni is basically going to be deported due to not being legal and having a terrorist use her as a bargaining chip. In the stress induced state, she and Cross get engaged. This is what happens next.

***********************************************************************

Crosshair woke up in Lyni's apartment with his arms around her slender form and a giant smile on his face. This is all that he had wanted, now she was his fiance. Looking around the world had not seemed so bright in ages.

Making breakfast for Lyni and the kids he remembered that tonight was the eighteen month anniversary of the day he found out about the twins and got her email address. So it was really the anniversary of them being friends. Smiling he decided to make her a picnic to celebrate. It had been a few days since he had proposed to her and he had bought the ring he had been considering for it. So now it was time to make it official. But that would wait until their picnic that afternoon.

The ringtone saved for Fox's work phone range though the quiet apartment and his heart sank. No good news ever followed when it rang in the middle of one of his cousins shifts. Picking it up he heard his cousins voice, "Crosshair, is Lyni with you?"

Swallowing, "No, shes at work. What's wrong?" A sudden dread, "Is it the twins?"

"No, the kids are fine Crossy." Old nickname, not good. Fox continued, "The higher ups have given the requirements that Lyni would have to meet in order not to be sent back to the cult."

"What are they?" Crosshair's voice came out harsher but his cousin didn't blame him.

Sighing, "Cross, they need proof of citizenship." Continuing on, "If there was a visa it could be negotiated but we both know that Lyni doesn't have any legal paperwork to be here."

It was true. That's how they had met Riyo Churchi in the first place, to try and get that legal paperwork straightened out. Crosshair asked, "Marriage has given a green card before right?"

"Yes but..." then Fox seemed to realize, "Cross are you just going to marry her to keep her here?"

"No Fox," taking a deep breath, "I'm engaged to her, but we haven't announced it yet because I just barely go the ring yesterday."

Fox was swearing softly on the other side of the phone before saying, "I'll call Riyo and she'll get on the paperwork for Lyni to be a military wife." Blowing out a breath, "You'll get some flack for this Cross."

"I know," he answered, "but if it keeps Lyni and those kids safe I will take whatever is thrown at me."

There was a soft chuckle on the other side of the line, "I know vod'ika." Then the two said their goodbyes and Crosshair was left in the quiet again.

**********

Lyni got the call from Riyo as she was walking home and ran to Crosshair's arms when she got there. They discussed the hope their marriage brought to the table and decided then and there they were marrying ASAP. So each showered and changed before going to Riyos office. Crosshair was in dress uniform and Lyni was in a floor length , long sleeved blue dress that matched her eyes perfectly.

At Riyos office they got all the paperwork done and submitted into the systems there. And then they went down the plaza with her to the little marriage ceremony at the court house and submit paperwork there as well. Crosshair and Lyni were legally and lawfully married.

********** The next day was a Saturday and they were having a family picnic to celebrate. There was going to be a reception on the Sunday after to officially introduce Lyni to the family as Crosshairs wife.

Laughter rang through the air as the Shadow and Brutal played tag with Wrecker though the park as Hunter kept an eye on them. Tech has started recording them amused and Phee leaned on his shoulder contentedly. Crosshair was sitting with his back against a tree, Lyni between his knees with back against his chest laughing softly as she watched the kids run around happily.

Suddenly the peace of the day was broken by an official call berating Crosshair for finding a loophole that would not allow the higher ups to get rid of their problem by sending Lyni away and getting information in return. A few choice words showed exactly what he thought of that and then he looked back to where he let his wife who was now talking to Phee. A soft smile broke on his face as he looked at Lyni reveled in the thought, my wife."

************************************************************************

So yeah, Crosshair did an F-you to the idea of sending Lyni back to a violent cult. And the fact that he got to marry her is a triple bonus. Now he is just waiting for the adoption papers for the twins to go though and they'll be an official family.