#Joint Review Board

[wausaupilot]

Your letters: Say NO to new TID district, writer says to Rib Mountain official

Writer encourages village of Rib Mountain official to stand with residents and vote NO on TID 2 district.

Dear editor, ~Open letter to Gaylene Rhoden, administrator for the village of Rib Mountain I am writing to strongly encourage you to vote NO at the upcoming Joint Review Board meeting scheduled for Oct. 2. You were in attendance at the Sept. 17 Village Board meeting and heard first hand the opposition from the residents of Rib Mountain.  As I am sure you are aware, in the tax incremental…

[hannahbarberra162]

The Crocodile's Gambit (Croc x Reader)

on Ao3

The Crocodile’s Gambit  (1/2)

Croc x F!Reader

Fluff in this chapter, angst and fluff in the next.

WC: 3.3k

Summary: Crocodile needs a chess partner before he impales Buggy out of frustration. Again. He finds one in a most unlikely place. Set after the abolition of the Warlord system, right before Cross Guild is formed.

~~~

There were a few things that Crocodile missed about Nico Robin. The first being, she was incredibly competent. When Crocodile hired someone, he assumed they could do their job without being told how to do it. He didn’t want to have to micromanage anyone, especially grown adults. He loathed having to check in and make sure every step of a process was done correctly. He’d never had to do that with Robin, she was smart and capable. Anything he assigned her, she executed flawlessly.

But what he missed more than her competence was her chess playing ability. She was the only opponent within Baroque Works who had ever won against him. Her success rate was about 15%, which was significantly higher than anyone else Crocodile had played in years. Crocodile enjoyed winning chess matches but even more than that, he enjoyed losing them. He loved the challenge, the strategy, the simplicity, the complexity, everything about chess. And he especially loved it when he found someone who could best him.

Which made his stay with the complete idiot Buggy all the more intolerable. He and Mihawk were meeting with the Clown to determine whether a joint venture would be viable. After the absolution of the Warlord system, Crocodile had approached Mihawk for a business proposal. Crocodile had connections, money, and business acumen but didn’t like the spotlight. Mihawk had power and the reputation of the World’s Greatest Swordsman. Together, they could become unstoppable. Then, the question of the Clown arose. Buggy owed Crocodile a lot of money, Crocodile was ready to kill the Clown and be done with his foolishness completely. However, something the Clown had that neither of them did was a large loyal following. For whatever reason, the Clown’s crew were loyal to the death for their Captain. Any time the Clown docked his garish ship, he was greeted with fanfare and celebrations. There were waiting lists with hundreds of applicants, all waiting for a chance to be on Buggy’s crew. Crocodile didn’t understand why, but people were charmed by the Clown’s charisma.

Crocodile and Mihawk had been in negotiations with the Clown for a few days. It was slow going - each iteration of an alliance between the three of them had many stipulations and conditions that had to be discussed. Crocodile was fairly certain the venture would fail and he’d kill the Clown, but he kept his options open. After all, a dead Clown made no money at all. 

Crocodile was in desperate need of a good chess opponent, he felt his stress rising by the minute. Unfortunately, he knew he wasn’t going to find someone within the Clown’s ridiculous crew of idiots and low-lifes. Mihawk was a decent chess opponent, but the swordsman was rarely in the mood to play. Business dealings with the Clown left both of them irritated, and Mihawk’s outlet wasn’t chess. Each of them had their own room and office on Buggy’s ship, and Crocodile had his chess set sitting out at all times in his office, just like at home. He tried reviewing games he’d played against other opponents and playing against himself, but none of it was as entertaining as playing against another person. One morning before his meetings began, he moved a white pawn to an opening position on the board. He left for the meeting and forgot about chess for a few hours as he dealt with the Clown’s buffoonery and Mihawk’s recalcitrance. 

Returning to his office for an after lunch break, he was about to read the newspaper when he noticed someone had moved black, opposing his white pawn at e5. It had to be someone on the ship, but who? Mihawk had been with him in the meeting. Daz wasn’t a good player, he hadn’t played with Croc in years. No one from Buggy’s crew was smart enough, and Crocodile hadn’t brought anyone but Daz. Crocodile wasn’t concerned about someone infiltrating his office, but he was concerned about his growing boredom and irritation. If he didn’t find a good opponent soon, he’d probably kill the Clown before it was advisable. He decided to play the opening to the King’s Gambit, moving his pawn to f4, next to the first. Once it was time to leave for the next meeting, he knew whoever had moved the black pawn wouldn’t last more than 5 moves against him.

He was wrong. It was Crocodile who was now outclassed, outplayed, and outmaneuvered. Crocodile played delayed games against the mystery person as his meetings continued and hadn’t won a single match. Crocodile hadn’t lost this many games in decades, and he couldn’t have been happier. Crocodile returned back to his office after every meeting, eager to see his opponent’s next move. His opponent was ruthless, seeing through his plays, gambits, and traps with ease. He skewered Crocodile time and time again, to Crocodile’s delight. Every time he lost, Crocodile placed a gold coin under the black King, which was taken and the board reset the next time Crocodile returned. Crocodile wanted to know who he was playing with, but he was never able to catch the man in action, his office always empty when he returned.

Even though the negotiations were not going well, Crocodile was now having a wonderful time. He didn’t want the venture to end, he wanted to continue playing chess against his opponent. The Clown had noticed the uptick in Crocodile’s mood, asking for more ridiculous clauses in their contracts. It hadn’t helped the negotiations, but Crocodile hadn’t killed the Clown outright yet, which was saying something. Unfortunately, the time for reconciliation was coming to a close. Crocodile wanted to find out who the mystery opponent was and soon. He wanted to shake the hand of the man who had bested Crocodile so thoroughly and offer him a spot on his crew.

So Crocodile waited outside his office before his morning meeting. He wasn’t hiding, that would be childish. He was simply waiting in a concealed location to resolve an issue he was having. True, he could have waited in his office to see who the man was, but that would ruin the fun. And Crocodile hadn’t had fun in years. He would be late for the meeting, but it wasn’t going to be productive anyway, negotiations had stalled. The morning crew was coming in to clean his office - Buggy had a lot of useless staff (and a lot of overhead expenses) but Crocodile appreciated coming back to a clean office daily. He hadn’t really noticed them before, they were all part of the background for Crocodile. They were dressed like all of the other pirates who worked for the Clown - in ugly, lurid circus clothing. The various cleaners split off to their areas, with you entering his office to clean. You wiped down various surfaces, until you got to the board with Crocodile’s most recent move. You studied it for a brief moment, then picked up a black knight.

“What the fuck are you doing woman?” Crocodile recognized Daz’s voice. He must have been passing by, looking for Crocodile.

“Cleaning,” you replied, irritated by the interruption. You put the piece back down where it was previously, to Crocodile’s disappointment.

“Didn’t look like cleaning to me. Leave the Boss’s chess set alone unless you want trouble.” The maid was unconcerned by the threat, rolling her eyes at Daz’s words. 

“Game’s over anyway, doesn’t matter,” you muttered. Crocodile’s interest was piqued, was this slip of a woman his opponent? He watched you flip off Daz behind his back as he walked away. You bustled around the office, cleaning once more. As he watched, thinking you may be his opponent, he appreciated your form. You were graceful in your movements and meticulous in your work, and he found you beautiful in an unconventional way. The more Crocodile watched you, the more he realized how attractive you were. The hideous circus clothes you wore didn’t help, you had a huge orange scarf wrapped around your neck. But he saw your immense potential if you wore something less…flashy.  It didn’t take you long to finish cleaning, and before you left the room, you moved the black knight, putting Crocodile in checkmate. Crocodile ran his hand through his hair, smiling wickedly.

~~~

After his next meeting, Crocodile cleared his schedule for the rest of the day. He didn’t really care about anything the Clown had to say right now. He was far too interested in his little chess opponent to bother with anything else. He sat in a plush armchair, smoking a cigar, waiting for the time the cleaning crew came in. Around lunch time, you carried your cleaning supplies into the room. You immediately noticed Crocodile sitting in his chair and you started to back out of the room.

“Oh, sorry, I’ll come back -” 

“You’ll sit down,” Crocodile intoned, blowing billowing smoke clouds into the room. He gestured to the board in front of him. “Do you know how to play chess?” he asked. He knew you did, he was just curious what you’d say. You were a confident, aggressive chess player, and he wanted to see if that crossed over into your regular personality.

“I do, but I have to -”

“You’re dismissed from your duties for now. Sit. I won’t ask again.” You were a little nervous, but set down your cleaning supplies and sat across from him on another comfortable armchair. You perched on the end of the chair, like you were getting ready to run at a moment’s notice, fiddling with your scarf. Crocodile switched the board, you were now white.

“Go ahead. Start,” he drawled at you, blowing smoke. Your eyes flicked from the board to Crocodile, wary of the situation. Things weren’t completely genial between Crocodile and your Captain, surely you felt the tension on the ship. But you played, moving your pawn to f4. Crocodile parried, moving his pawn to e5, countering your opening. You played your turn, and by the time 15 minutes were up, Crocodile was in checkmate again. 

“Checkmate,” you said, leaning forward to stand up. Maybe you wanted to get back to work or maybe you wanted to get away from Crocodile, but neither was going to happen.

“You’re not dismissed,” Crocodile growled, steepling his hand against his hook, pleased with the match. “So, it’s you. You’re my opponent. You’re quite skilled at chess,” Crocodile observed.

“Yeah, it’s me. Do you want your coins back or something?” you replied. You were a little rough around the edges, Crocodile thought, but he could fix that. When you joined his crew, he’d work on your social skills outside of the chess board.

“No, you may keep them, you won them. I would like to make a proposition. I want to play chess with you tonight in the evening. Three games. If you win two out of three, you get 100,000 Beri.” Ideally, you’d play chess with him all day every day, but he would take things one step at a time. 

You narrowed your eyes, fiddling with your scarf. “What if I lose?” 

Crocodile leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs. He spread his hands magnanimously, like he was granting you a favor. “If you lose, you have to join my crew and leave the Clown.”

You pursed your lips, thinking over his deal. “200,000 Beri,” you bartered. Crocodile smiled, enjoying your evident self confidence. 

“150,000 Beri per night, 50,000 Beri bonus if you win all three rounds,” he countered. You agreed, shaking his hook with your hand. You were either self assured in your ability to win, or didn’t mind leaving the Clown. Either way, you’d be coming with him when he left.

~~~

Crocodile was down 1,000,000 Beri and no closer to getting you on his crew. He knew you were good, but he hadn’t anticipated you were that good. Crocodile loathed losing money, but in this instance, he didn’t mind handing it over night after night. He thought that playing face to face would increase his chances of winning, but that wasn’t the case. You were even sharper when playing with him in person rather than delayed over the course of hours and days. You were a good sport about winning, and you didn’t gloat. You also took the time to explain your thinking when Crocodile asked you about your thought processes. You did, however, have a crass mouth that Crocodile didn’t care for. 

“Sucks to suck,” you replied after Crocodile complained you ended a game too swiftly for his liking.

“Do not speak to your superiors that way,” Crocodile snapped. He was peevish after having lost three games in under an hour.

“If you’re my superior, why do I keep collecting your Beri?” you said impishly. Crocodile nearly smiled at your antics.

“Speaking in such a coarse manner makes you seem less intelligent than you truly are,” Crocodile stated. He hated to see you present yourself like the common boors that made up the rest of the Clown’s crew. You gave him a bored look. 

“Give me my pieces and I’ll play you again,” you said. Crocodile was interested in playing a fourth round against you but knew you were trying to change the subject. He picked up your knight he had taken and held it out to you in his hand. You reached for the piece but he closed his hand before you could retrieve it.

“Hand me my pieces, please,” he said. 

“Hand me my pieces, please, Sir Crocodile.” You rolled your eyes, but dutifully repeated the phrase. Crocodile smiled at you, and opened his hand once more. You took the knight, your fingers brushing against his palm. It was the first time you’d made physical contact with each other. Crocodile wanted more. 

You didn’t let Crocodile win or handicap yourself when you faced off, you always played to win. So when Crocodile won his first game, he was over the moon. He was certain you were tired when he’d won, you almost nodded off once during the game. Crocodile was concerned for your wellbeing, and it tarnished his feeling of victory. He was…worried.

“Is the Clown working you too hard? Why are you so tired?” Crocodile queried as you yawned into your hand.

“Someone is making me play chess at night after work,” you replied.

“Please, you’ve been making more than you’d earn in a month in under an hour,” Crocodile scoffed. The games between you didn’t take that long, the Clown must be putting undue stress on you. He’d…fix that for you. You hummed, resetting the board for the third game. Crocodile had enjoyed winning, but didn’t want to play if you weren’t at your best. “Let’s end early tonight. Go rest.”

You looked up at him, unsure of what to do. “But it’s only been two games, and I lost one. If I lose the next one -”

“It is my idea to conclude early, therefore you will not be bound to the usual rules. Go to bed.” Crocodile waved his hand, dismissing you. 

“Thank you, Crocodile,” you said softly, lingering by the door for a moment. It was the first time you’d thanked him without his prompting.

As the days went on, you seemed to enjoy Crocodile’s company a little bit, not bolting immediately after he paid you your Beri. You had a keen wit and were able to counter Crocodile’s acerbic remarks with ease. It was obvious to Crocodile early on in your conversations that you were not well read, something else Crocodile wanted to amend. Crocodile loaned you a book about ancient Wano battle theory, asking you to read it as it would improve your chess playing. You returned it the next day, saying you read the entire work. Crocodile questioned you about the contents of the book, trying to see if you had just skimmed it or were lying. But you were able to answer his questions and provide your own insight into the strategies listed.

“What did you think about the treatise on aggressive methods of battle?” Crocodile asked. He had found a lot of useful thought exercises in the book. Having read it in his youth, it had become a cornerstone for his own strategy in becoming a Warlord and businessman. 

“In chess? I don’t necessarily agree that aggression should be the foremost method of attack. Aggressive moves only work if it's balanced with knowledge of your opponent. If you don’t know who you’re dealing with, things may not work out the way you planned,” you said while moving your Queen to check Crocodile. Crocodile hummed in agreement. You were clearly intelligent, Crocodile just had to provide you with direction. He knew people were not given the same opportunities in life and was happy to supply you with some. 

To that end, Crocodile was now taking an interest in your formal education. He loaned you book after book, and you read them all, sharing your opinions and thoughts on the titles. You had interesting ideas, and Crocodile found himself sharing his own with you. You tended to like mysteries and fiction novels, but read anything Crocodile lent you. You picked up and assimilated new information easily and had unique ideas, things Crocodile would never have thought about on his own. Crocodile found himself sharing his favorite books with you, just to see what you would say.

He appreciated your personality outside of the chess board the more you spent time together. Crocodile tended to make people nervous, it was practically a pastime for him. However, after your initial encounter, you weren’t tense around him at all. You didn’t mince words, you said what was on your mind, even if you knew it would annoy him. You were honest, as far as he could tell, and generally well liked among your crew. He appreciated your looks, but that was secondary to your personality, a first for Crocodile. He even started to appreciate your circus outfits, always completed by a large scarf, no matter the weather. Even without your chess skill, he would have liked to bring you onto his crew. He was going to broach the subject tonight and ask you formally to leave the Clown. He knew you would agree. He was the better choice by a long shot. Crocodile had more money, more power, more influence than the Clown would ever have. He was smarter, stronger, and richer, there was no way you’d want to stay with a second-rate loser like the Clown. 

~

“Checkmate,” you said, moving a rook into place. You smiled at Crocodile, as he ran a hand through his hair. “By the way, that’s your tell.” Crocodile’s eyes snapped to yours. 

“What are you talking about? I have no tell,” Crocodile snarled. You smiled again. Anyone else would shortly have been drained of life, but Crocodile found you endearing. Cute, even. 

“It’s good to know your own tells,” you continued, undeterred by Crocodile’s outburst. “You run your hand through your hair when you are blindsided. If you can sense something is coming, you don’t. But if you are surprised, well, that’s your tell.” Crocodile paused, no one had shared that with him before. But perhaps no one had surprised him as frequently as you. 

“Speaking of surprises, I have something I’d like to ask you,” Crocodile drawled, lighting a new cigar. You were already preparing to leave after the completion of the third game. That was another thing, Crocodile found himself wanting to spend more time with you outside of your matches. Having you on his crew would help with that as well. You sat back down, watching Crocodile calmly, waiting for him to continue. “I’d like you to join my crew.”

“No.”

You declined instantly and decisively. Crocodile ran a hand through his hair, scowling.

[potterandpromises]

Season 4 premiere liveblog!

Are those home movies of the actors?

Typical Sazz!! (I know from the reviews they won't find her body right away but I'm still waiting for it)

Mabel I know it's conveniently dark but you should know what blood looks like by now

Howard's walking a new dog in the intro!

Mabel crashing at Oliver's is such a parallel to Oliver crashing at Mabel's in season 1

Oliver's really milking it!

I like that they're addressing that Howard's had at least eight cats, seemingly one at a time (seven Evelyns and one Barbra.)

Mabel I can think of a place for you to live

At this point they need the buddy system

Okay, per my last post, I think it might be "Todd Shettinger, EVP International." No glasses yet but look at that hairline! Also, he's giving me killer vibes.

Oh Brothers, I really did call that siblings theme.

Mabel's like yeah I'm gonna stay homeless

Zach Galifianakis is a highlight

Eugene Levy is like dark palette Charles

Also per my last post--there's that guy in background with the glasses, but he hasn't said anything so I don't know why he'd be [redacted for spoilers.]

THEY DID GET SCOTT BAKULA!!!

To be honest, those three have got to stop having drinks together. Doesn't go well.

If I had a nickel for every time this show's made a joke about joint/bone replacement I'd have two nickels.

So the initial clues up on the murder board are form Sazz herself, or someone who put them in her apartment.

This is like the opposite of Poppy trying to frame them in season 2.

This is darrrk for this show

There is something poetic though, about Charles holding Sazz in his hands. Something about her having been his stunt double and protecting him all these years, and having acquired that metal for/because of him.

[romanoffsbish]

A Harsh Lesson to Learn

Pervy Professors!WandaNat x Fem!Reader

Darcy x F!R (Brief interaction)

Warnings: Insecure R, Mentions of Blackmail, Gaslighting.

Smut: Spanking(R/Specialty paddle), Strap (R—N), Oral (R—W). Mommy (W), Daddy (N), Degradation.

18+ | Minors DNI

3,925 Words

As Natasha went to fill out the board to map out today's joint lesson with none other than Professor Maximoff—her wife, and close colleague she froze in place at the sound of laughter. Normally the affairs of her students before class began didn't bother her, but since it'd been a week since you last chose to attend she was intrigued, but more so she was furious.

Turning around only made her ten times as such, the sight of you with your hand on the bicep of Darcy Lewis—the campus 'fuckboy,' with your head thrown back as you forced out a laugh at one of her lame jokes was a sight meant to be nonexistent. Not only was she mad that you even dared taunt them with another, but you were also breaking one of their core rules by showing up in such a reserved outfit. They didn't make you go out shopping for all of those low cut crop tops, and mini skirts for you to wear a turtle neck and slacks to their class.

———

Natasha and Wanda were strategic when selecting you to be their precious girl all those years ago when you decidedly chose Russian to meet your university language requirement. It'd been a decision based on a whim, your friend who was a second year advised you to do it because the professor was hot, and the other languages offered were "boring," and "basic." You were sold the moment she said hot, and accompanied her words with the evidence.

As that first semester drew closer to the end you found your school girl fantasy of sleeping with your professor was far more based in reality when she bent you over her desk during your 'mandatory' meeting about your future in her department. With your mind in a haze, she'd actually managed to convince you—an Economics major, to minor in Russian studies.

Which is how you found yourself stuck in this dreadful hybrid class with the women. Wanda taught Russian Literature, while Natasha taught every language course offered, and the university allowed them to combine courses. Every Monday you would go to Russian 4, where Natasha taught that weeks vocabulary. On Wednesday's you'd review the literature that corresponded well with Natasha's lessons piece by piece with Wanda. Then come Friday you'd spend three hours being taunted by the both of them as they connected their lessons, then gave a corresponding quiz or assignment.

These beautiful women who managed to rock your world on a regular basis, while also being absolute nightmares to deal with have trapped you in their intricate web of thought out lies. For two years now they'd promised to take you on a proper date, to show you their whispered words during sex were true, but they always found a way to evade your requests, and it usually ended with them fucking you senseless enough to momentarily forget your woes.

They had every intention to take you out, but then they received an anonymous photo of the three of you leaving class together. Innocent in nature, but the sender clearly had an eye for subtext because the "😉" attached wasn't an accident. If they were to take you out now they run the risk of losing their jobs, which to them wasn't even the main concern; if you were to all be outed you'd be bumped from the university.

Funny enough, your relationship isn't even a forbidden one, it's highly frowned upon sure, but with the proper paperwork submitted, and the lack of campus based fraternization—like taking a class, it can be done without penalty. However, the women never wanted to tell their employer—the university, of their private business, and now it's too late to try. Leaving them in a position where they have to keep you in the shadows of their life instead of showing you off to the world like they truly wanted to.

Because, if they could do that, then that bitch Darcy wouldn't be leaning in to kiss your cheek, and you wouldn't be giggling, humoring the girl, but really doing it as you stared back at your perverse professor who was staring daggers into your classmates head., "Ladies, take your seats, this isn't the proper space for such delinquent behaviors, or have you confused my class for the likes of Mr. Stark's?"

Darcy, suave as could be took her seat, but in doing so she brought you down with her, and the involuntary whimper you let out drew the redheads attention back to you immediately. The brunette beneath you was packing, that much was obvious to her, and it enraged her to see her obvious intentions personified. Judging by the look on your face you were shocked, but she could also see the clear regret in your eyes.

Firstly, you'd only planned to tease the women you adored, because you loved them far too much to step out on them, but as they'd been throwing you to the side for so long you felt they needed to remember you had options. That you wouldn't wait around forever for them to treat you like their partner, and not just a set of holes to fill. Secondly, you were only lazily flirting with Darcy, this wasn't meant to get to such places, and now she's got it in her head that she'll be having her way with you tonight, and that just isn't the case.

Especially not when Wanda walks in to see the tense situation., "Miss Lewis, you're dismissed, maybe come Monday you'll return with sense.," the girl scoffed, but quickly fixed her face once on the end of Wanda's glare, the head tilt adding the extra touch of intimidation needed., "Come on Y/N.," Darcy murmured while lifting the both of you up, but a hand gripped you by the forearm and spun you from the girls hold.

"Please, don't tell me you forgot how to listen, I only dismissed you.," Wanda chillingly relays, her hand subtly tightened around your arm causing you to wince as fingernails dug into the skin through the sleeve of your shirt., "Miss Y/L/N here has already missed a weeks worth of content, plus I saw how you pulled her down, and her face was nothing short of stunned.," the brunette, for the sake of professionalism, held back her smirk at Darcy's fallen features.

Darcy stormed off out of the classroom, and as soon as she was out you saw Natasha heading towards the door with a paper in her hand. You gulped as soon as she taped it to the outside of the classroom, following it up by pulling the curtains, and locking the door tightly shut., "Miss. Romanoff, wh-what are you doing?," you feigned cluelessness, but the mask slipped once Wanda's hand collided with your face, and you groaned when your knees hit the floor.

"Cute stunt you tried to pull kotenok.," Nat chuckled darkly, you knew better than to lift your gaze from the floor, but you were more than intrigued by the sounds of shuffling., "Didn't think we'd embarrass you, hm?," you chuckled dangerously., "I knew you would."

Wanda's fingers curled around your chin, harshly digging into the flesh as she lifted your mischievous gaze up to hers., "Oh?," she smiled down at you devilishly., "The whore was testing us, and it seems she underestimated us Natty."

A loud whirring noise came from your left, you tried to shift to see it but Wanda's grip never relented, the hairs on your entire body stood as the fear of the unknown descended over you., "What a silly little thing she is Wands.," she entered your eye line as she spoke and your body desperately tried to back away upon seeing her smirk, but she held you tightly by your shoulder while passionately kissing her wife for an unnecessarily long period of time.

"She must've been desperate to be ruined.," the redhead carelessly lifted you by your shoulder, then spun you around and slammed your front to the desk. Surveying your clothes she once again found herself enraged at the modesty., "Breaking all our rules.," she growled, using her ungodly strength she tore your turtle neck in half, tossing the fabric in her hands away as the front of it fell off your shoulders., "Better."

"Would be even better if these were gone too.," Wanda grimaced, her distaste for your brown slacks clear as day., "They're hideous, and have no business hiding our precious cunt from us."

Natasha wordlessly agreed with her, and rather aggressively showed as such by wrapping her hands around the sides of the fabric, yanking it down and ensuring that her sharp nails dug into the skin harshly enough to draw blood.

It was moments like these that confused you the most, because a huge part of you found this painfully arousing; the way they spoke of you like you were nothing more than an avenue to their pleasure turned you on immeasurably. The other part of you found it disheartening, as if all their whispered reassurances of love go down the drain with their heartless actions.

"Now listen up brat.," Wanda seethed, her hand was quick to yank your face up to meet hers by the roots of your hair. You gulped too once meeting her fiery gaze, anger and hurt prevalent., "It's about time you finally received a punishment for your recent behaviors."

The loud whirring was back, a sickening smile gracing Wanda's face as it sounds behind you., "Daddy had these custom made.," she giggles, but the humor is more so daunting as you feel a cooled leather against the back of your thighs.

"If you behave, this will be quick, and painful.," she smirks when your eyes widen., "Misbehave and the process will be tedious, and twice as painful.," and with a wink she was forcing your head back down and standing back upright.

"Thirty sound good to you moya lyubov'?," Natasha loudly asked her wife as she hovered above your ass, the leather pressed firmly against your thigh as she leaned into you.

"Thirty could work, but only if the results are deep enough.," you whimpered at the vaguely aired out words, the leather now stuck between Wanda's body and your thigh telling you this isn't the taunting, and spanking you're used to.

Natasha and Wanda shared a sloppy kiss, your body trembled with need as their lips smacked loudly, leaving you to crave a similar affection., "None of that, you knew what you were doing.," Natasha growled, their hands harshly yanked your thighs apart so you couldn't alleviate the ache in your core., "Don't forget to count and thank your mommy and daddy for each smack; mommy will be the odd hits, I'll be the even."

With a contrasting touch Wanda's hand softly ran across the swell of your ass, her fingers dipping down and teasing your entrance just enough to get you to squirm in desperation., "Maybe if you can fucking listen to the rules you'll get your pretty little pussy attended to.," she chuckled when you whined., "Hush now."

Natasha nodded at her wife, they'd decided to wait a second, leaving you in suspense for the first hit. Your body lurched at the harshness, and you cried out at the abrasive feel of the whip, it was like nothing you'd ever felt before; you couldn't place if it was pleasurable or not.

"One, thank you mommy.," you managed to get the words out, and as a reward you were met with another, much harsher smack that brought you to tears., "Two, thank you daddy."

Each hit was methodically executed, the ridges of the leather would only take to the unmarred skin if the hit was made in the same precise spot on your butt cheek every time. Normally the women would oscillate the whip between handlers, painting your backside in a gorgeous array of slashes, without any need for control. This time however required precision to ensure the word etched into your backside rose up.

They laughed with every cry that emerged from your throat, there was immense joy taken in your pain here, a punishment that fit the crime.

"Twenty-one, th-thank you mommy.," you pitifully hiccuped, and the women almost felt bad enough to stop, but the memory of Darcy's lips on you flashed through the redheads mind and the paddle came down with a sickening echo., "Twenty-two, thank you daddy.," you sobbed uncontrollably as the pain spread through your body., "I-I'm sorry, please stop..."

"Aww, we know you are baby.," Wanda gently kissed your cheek to offer you a fleeting sense of comfort., "But that's not how this works, take your punishment and stop whining."

"Twenty-nine.," you barely managed to grit out., "Ah-ah.," Wanda tutted, and you softly whispered your faux gratitude, the wives shared a smile, deciding to let you off for it., "Thirty, thank you daddy.," your body wracked with violent sobs as relief flooded your mind.

It was over, thirty painful paddling's later and your backside was no longer under attack, or so you thought, because the women shared a sick set of smiles that you couldn't see before they were rearing their arms back in sync., "3, 2, 1.," your body tensed at their cryptic countdown, then it jerked so violently forward that your abdomen met the desk, effectively knocking the wind from your lungs, and leaving you gasping.

Natasha and Wanda stepped away from your sides, smiles gracing their faces at your whines of dissatisfaction. Even with their perverse ministrations you still craved to have them close, and that delighted them beyond belief. They'd been worried they were losing you, but you just remedied their hearts greatest fears.

While you basically hyperventilated against the desk the women ogled your backside, watching in real time as their hard work slowly came to fruition. The welting process was already well underway, and it made them feel rather giddy.

Once your breathing returned to a normal enough state they returned to your side, both of them laid soft kisses to your exposed hips, and their hearts fluttered when your body relaxed.

"Pay close attention now, say the letter that I'm tracing.," Wanda softly murmured, but it was a false sense of serenity because as soon as her finger lightly trailed over the irritated skin of your ass you were a whimpering disaster., "Stay still.," she commanded through gritted teeth then began to trace over the welting skin.

"What is it baby?," you whimpered., "B"

"Good girl, so smart and so pretty.," she coo'd, then her finger slipped over to the next letter., "R.," she hummed in satisfaction, then she harshly squeezed the raw ass cheek, making your body lurch away and for you to cry out.

"Daddy's turn...," she smirked as you tensed.

Natasha wasn't nearly as nice, whereas Wanda simply used the pads of her fingers, Natasha grazed her nail over the torn up skin., "A.," she smirked devilishly at your pained response.

"Mhm.," her finger moved to the last letter, she drug it across, then down ever so slowly, making you cry with every bit of pressure she would suddenly inflict upon your skin., "T."

"Yes, and what does that spell, hm?," Wanda asked in a condescending manner, the couple chuckling softly from behind as you struggled tremendously to use your voice., "Brat..."

"Look at that Natty, she missed a week of school but she still manages to use her brain."

"All hope isn't lost.," Natasha taunts, then in an unexpected move she lifts you off the desk until your back is flush to her front, you groaned as your ass rubbed against her skirt's fabric, but a squeak of need followed when her strap was pressing into your backside just the same.

"You did so good for us kotenok.," her lips nip at the thin skin of your jaw., "You ready for a reward?," she smirked against your neck as your head bobbed above hers., "Words baby."

"Yes daddy, I-I'm ready, please...," she gripped your hips even tighter as a wave of arousal ran through her at your breathless begging., "Shh.," Wanda pressed her lips to yours., "No need to beg us now love, we'll take good care of you."

"You always do.," your soft muttering only made them more desperate to please you, the brunette dropped to her knees, using her hand she guided her wife's strap to your entrance then as Natasha entered you from behind her tongue teasingly licked at your spasming clit.

Their pace was slow, a stark contrast to their earlier ministrations, in this moment they wanted to make you tremble, to remind you that nobody else could ever love you so well. Nobody would ever know every precise angle that made you scream for more as your body racked in a sort of silent plead for it to stop.

"Are you sorry kotenok?," Natasha grunted as she thrusted a fair bit harsher into you, the leather of her top dragging over the throbbing welts on your ass, making you moan brokenly., "I'm very sorry daddy, please forgive me.," your hand fell into Wanda's hair as she began to speak into you, causing the build up within you to reach a blinding level., "'m sorry mommy, I-I love you so much, please forgive—Oh."

Wanda cut your pleading off with a harsh suck to your clit that paired with her wife's thrust., "Let go brat, it's now or never.," the redhead threatened from behind, her voice thick with rasp telling you she was on the verge of bliss herself. Something about that knowledge, and the sight of Wanda rutting against her hand as she ate you out alongside her wife sent you head first into your earth shattering orgasm.

Screams of pleasure tore from your throat, but were quickly muffled behind Natasha's hand. Your slick soon drenched Wanda's lower face, and the maroon strap between Natasha's legs, leaving the woman in awe. Natasha bit into your shoulder not even a second later as the coil within her snapped, her rutting into you only ever increased as she desperately chased that high. Wanda's ministrations never ended either as she chased her own, so as she moaned against your sensitive clit upon her own release you were thrown head first into a second one.

Natasha slowed her thrusts down as your body began to tremble uncontrollably, the second wave crashing over you thrice as hard, and it showed in the way that your slick now covered Wanda's breasts, and ran down Nat's thighs.

"Fucking hell detka, you made quite a mess.," Wanda panted as she gazed up at your face, your eyes were the type of hazy they preferred. You were always so pliant when they fucked you dumb enough, and that was today's plan.

To make you forget why you were mad in the first place, so that they can spend all weekend long reacquainting themselves with your body. Then come next weekend, if you were their good girl again they'd drive you two towns over, and treat you like the princess you are.

"What a shame detka.," Natasha breaks the silence with a pout to feign sympathy., "Had you not acted out like this all week, you'd be able to sit, and we wouldn't have had to cancel the dinner reservations at Benihana tonight."

"I-I can sit.," you tried, but whimpered just as soon as Wanda slid the tight, red leather skirt over your bare ass, it barely reached mid thigh, and you were beyond mortified at the thought of your fellow students seeing your nudity.

Natasha chuckled as her hands slid beneath your skirt just to prove your words wrong, she kneaded at the sensitive flesh, then pressed her lips to yours to catch your groans, they were this perfect balance between pained and pleasurable that left the women desperate to get you back home to destroy you further.

"No need to lie detka.," Wanda giggled from behind you, she swatted her lovers hands away from you, then in a show of genuine affection she cleaned the welting skin, then afterwards she gently applied a numbing cream to the skin, and you thanked her with soft moans.

"Feel nice detka?," she lowered your skirt, then placed a few kisses to your shoulder blades., "Mhm, thank you mommy, I love you."

“We love you too detka.,” she whispered, then softly tilted your face to the side so she could kiss you with feeling., “More than you know.,” Natasha added, her lips quick to take Wanda’s place as you naturally returned to look at her.

Your panties had been drenched, and therefore stuffed into Natasha's briefcase with a glare to hedge off your weak protests, because in the end their twisted obsession with you aroused you plenty more than it ever frustrated you.

That being said, normally you would put up a fuss for the sake of being a brat, but Natasha's eyes lit up when she saw the fight in you hardly existed., "Good girl.," she beamed, then pecked your lips with genuine affection. These marks that now adorned your once smooth skin were like badges of honor really, painful as they were you morbidly cherished them.

"Keep acting like this and we'll be able to make that dinner happen soon detka.," Wanda said from behind, sandwiching you between her and her wife once again., "We swear to it."

"No more excuses, you'll be ours to show off."

Natasha held your face to her chest, allowing you the moment to cry out all of your pent up feelings. The couple lightly swayed you, and whispered the sweetest of assurances to you, and pressed their lips to your skin in the hopes of comforting you as you let it all out.

"Head to your next class moya lyubov'.," you whimper at the command, your legs felt heavy, and the idea of sitting in one of those hard plastic desk chairs felt daunting, but you knew better than to argue with the brunette, so you savored her parting kiss, and turned back to Natasha when Wanda's warmth left you.

Natasha too kisses you rather passionately., "We'll be at home waiting for you detka, this was our only class today, don’t be late.,” she slapped your ass, laughing maniacally as you groaned and glared at her retreating form.

“Leave that attitude behind detka, we have an arsenal of new toys back at home, don’t give mommy and daddy a reason to punish you.,” she winked at you, then left through the door as her wife had just done seconds prior.

“These women are going to be the death of me…,” you whispered in faux annoyance, then after waiting an appropriate amount of time you left the classroom with a prominent limp, and a festering need in the pit of your stomach.

Natasha and Wanda still weren't going to come clean to the university, no, because that would discredit all of your hard work thus far in your minor studies, and they'd have to miss seeing your sweet face in their classes going forward.

Instead they chose to use their free time this week, that normally would've been devoted to doting on you, to find that Darcy was not only the one blackmailing the three of you, but that she was also regularly sleeping with an advisor. This is more than enough evidence to ensure your relationship stays under wraps for good.

———

[newlacesleeves]

(my local restaurant had "cobra kai ribs" on their menu and @russolaw said "Ck au where daniel goes to a restaurant and sees this cause Johnny is the owner" and i went "omg wait that could be something" and wrote exactly that immediately after)

The place has an average rating of 2.5 stars which should have been the first red flag. Daniel would never consider himself a "foodie" out loud but he does go through the Yelp and Google reviews thoroughly before deciding whether or not to actually order from some place new. And the reviews for Johnny's BBQ (shortened just like that too, no time to spell out the full name, Daniel guesses) are a mixed bag: "the owner is a total asshole but the food's worth it" "make sure you go in on a night the owner is there!! he's sooooo funny (and really hot)! GET THE RIBS!!" "honestly it's a miracle the place is open and they can serve food to the public. no way this joint has passed a health inspection. ribs are 🔥 though."

There's no menu available and the website is just a giant crude drawing of an eagle with a chicken wing in its talons on a garishly red background with the open hours and address. No phone number, no link to DoorDash or UberEats. Just the address to a strip mall in Reseda that Daniel drives to with a sort of morbid curiosity and an empty stomach. Sam had told him about the place initially. One of her friends from school started working there and brought in these infamous ribs for everyone to try. Sam hasn't stopped talking about them since.

The restaurant is fairly nondescript from the outside. A true hole-in-the-wall that makes it indistinguishable from the other shop windows it's sandwiched between. The parking lot is half-full and Daniel wonders how many people are here for the barbecue joint.

Most people, it turns out.

There's a line that wraps around the counter and two tables, both of which are occupied. Everyone else is eating with their elbows on the counter, covered in sauce and smacking their lips delightfully with each bite. There's no menu board behind the counter but there is a giant poster of Iron Eagle.

The line moves quick, the skinny kid taking orders at the front looks like he's in way over his head as he shouts out orders to the cook behind him. Daniel can hear the sizzle of meat on a grill and it smells amazing in here. Like a backyard party in the summertime, all smoked meats and hot grills and sweet and tangy barbecue and his mouth is waterning thinking about it.

He gets up to the counter and the poor kid has beads of sweat coming off of his forehead that he wipes hastily with the back of his hand. He shoots Daniel a shaky smile.

"Hi welcome to Johnny's barbecue what can I get you," he gets out in a rush of a single breath.

"Never been here before," Daniel says. "Is there a menu I could look at."

The kid nods emphatically and pulls out a piece of paper that's smeared in sauce stained fingerprints. Daniel takes it gingerly (he now understands that one review about not passing a health inspection) and reads through it. It's your standard fare with some creative liberty taken on the names. Wings with "Thunderstruck" sauce. "White Snake" Drum Sticks.

And there at the bottom of the page, Daniel sees two words that make his eyes bulge and his heart begin to race.

Cobra Kai Ribs

The kid at the counter must see Daniel's face and mistake his terror for awe because he leans over and grins, pointing a saucey finger at the words.

"Oh yeah, you're gonna wanna try those," he says, beaming. "That's Sensei's specialty."

Sensei? Daniel thinks and before he can think to ask a single question he hears from the window -- "Miguel! Quit yapping and start slinging these orders before they get cold!"

Daniel's eyes travel to the source of the sound and there in the window behind an apron covered in barbecue sauce, is Johnny Lawrence. Same bright blue eyes, though there are added fine lines etched into the skin that borders them. Golden locks kept out of his face (and, hopefully, out of the food) by that familiar black karate headband.

He looks. Good. Really good. That review about his looks wasn't lying.

Johnny doesn't see him, eyes trained on Miguel who is mumbling "yes, Sensei, I'm on it" and running to the window to call out orders by their number as customers swarm the counter. Daniel keeps watching him, content to peer through the little window and watch his high school bully get to work on flipping a rack of ribs over with a pair of tongs. The way his white t-shirt, stained and dirtied even with the aporn over it, clings to his body. A body that time has been very, very good to it seems.

Miguel comes back to Daniel with that same exhausted smile and asks, "So? Any thoughts?"

And Daniel says, "Yeah. I'll get an order of the ribs to go."

"One order of Cobra Kai Ribs, coming right up!"

And god dammit, Daniel thinks when he takes his first bite. They are really fucking good.

At least now he has an excuse to come back.

[badolmen]

Maybe Next Time

Inspired by @reds-skull's Revenant AU - please go check out their art its so goddamn cool.

He feels alive.

Which is a frighteningly alien sensation.

At first, Soap kept the caution of a living man, as though the next blast would kill him for good this time. The first suicide mission he bears with a grin – who else but him could survive it? It’s practically his obligation to die in the stead of soldiers who have no guarantee of getting up again.

The second suicide mission, the third, the fourth…he lost count of the times he felt shrapnel bite his bones and fire sear through his flesh. He bears it with a grin and a joke that no one laughs at – who else but him could survive it? He is a Revenant after all. It’s what he’s still here for.

Isn’t it?

Because if that’s all he lives for, to die for men who see him as a cheap flesh alternative to bomb robots, a tool to be used, bloodied, cleaned, then used again…

Then why does this mission make him feel alive?

In all his time with the SAS, Soap never met another Revenant. They are rare, and thus closely guarded. This one – only called “Ghost,” with not a picture in his file – doesn’t even have a description of his abilities. All Soap can glean from the single page file is that he’s a Lieutenant of a taskforce – the 141. Who they are and what they do is a mystery to him, but it’s not like he’s being recruited.

This is a joint mission, acquiring intel for the 141. He’s on loan, his abilities coveted for this mission given its circumstances. Who the hell guards intel with explosives? (Someone who would rather destroy it than let it fall into enemy hands.) The nature of the intel is kept from him, but he doesn’t mind. This is the most he’s known about a mission outside of ‘there’s a bomb’ in a long time.

He tries not to get his hopes up; this job is the same suicide mission he’s done a thousand times before. Infiltrate, locate intel, disarm or detonate the explosives, crawl back with whatever is left. But this time, he isn’t alone.

And that’s as terrifying as it is thrilling.

He feels alive for the first time since he died.

--

Soap decides he likes Ghost, even if the feelings aren’t mutual. The Sargeant’s attempt at levity during on-boarding is met with a muttered curse. (“Save you a seat, LT.” Ironic considering this is a two man mission and most of the helo is unoccupied.) The two review their mission brief on the flight to the drop location: three buildings to clear, intel in two. Enemy presence is shockingly low, but that’s to be expected considering they don’t know what’s coming. Besides, who needs soldiers when you have enough explosives to level a city block?

Drop off goes off without a hitch and immediately any expectations for a standard mission (as standard as Soap knows it) is chased away. Ghost uses the comms actively, almost to the point where Soap wonders for a moment if there are normal soldiers on this mission that he doesn’t know about. But he’s making call outs for Soap, letting Soap know when he clears a sniper, muttering what one might construe to be praise when Soap cleans out an entire level of a building while Ghost picked off the patrols.

“For an explosives expert you’re one hell of a shot.”

“Aye, glad to see I’m not too rusty. Used to clean up like this back in the day; why do you think they call me Soap?”

“Perhaps you need some.”

“Was that a joke LT?”

A flashbang catches the Sargent off guard, a quick curse and crack shot clearing the final enemy.

“Keep it tactical, MacTavish.” The words sting, but the faintest shimmer of amusement that crackles over the comm static has Soap sweeping to the second floor with a grin.

“Movin’ up, second floor Bravo-7.”

“Solid copy. I’m moving to building C.”

“Copy. Let me know if you need me.” To die for you the mission.

The sudden lack of response is almost deafening.

Soap knows when he isn’t wanted.

He knows well the pointed silence on comms, the curt order to keep it tactical when he tries to joke with the others on a mission. He has a keen eye for cold shoulders and stolen glances. The others on a mission know what he’s there to do. They know he will be torn apart, bloodied and burned so that their mission is successful. Something between a sacrificial lamb and Frankenstein’s monster. Something that isn’t spoken to, either out of pity or of fear.

There’s the rank difference, sure, but they’re from separate operations, so even if Soap is only a Sargent, the usual power dynamics aren’t at play. Part of him wants to indulge, to push and grab at whatever scraps of humanity he can get from the guy. Part of him is too scared there isn’t any left, not for him.

There is only grim silence as he takes down the final two enemies on the second floor. No intel on the second floor. Sweeping the first reveals a basement hatch, and Soap can feel his heart sink with every step into that dank cellar. The air is thick with the tang of gunpowder and practically humming with primed charges.

Soap suddenly feels out of place, creeping slowly, smoke grenade highlighting trip lines that he follows to disengage explosives. Most missions didn’t care how messy things got, so long as no one but him and the enemy got hurt. Going loud was less an option and more a standard he had gotten a bit too comfortable with. Here, taking it slow, focusing on every breath and movement, Soap is alive. There is a heady rush of adrenaline in his blood as he cuts wires and pries primed mechanisms to safety.

Between clearing tangos with a voice in his ear and setting aside disarmed charges, Soap is holding that bittersweet nostalgia of Before with both hands. Because if he fucks this up, it’s going to hurt. A lot.

Not to mention Ghost would see his fuck up. Soap isn’t sure why that idea bothers him so much, but he has a job to do, so he pushes it aside to focus on the frankly overcompensating amount of explosives.

(What was this, some comic book supervillain storage lair?)

(Well, maybe it kind of is – his own fingers are aflame, sparking against the metal housings of the laser projectors. What was that character called again? The human torch? Soap can’t remember if he merely burst into flames or exploded –)

Focus, MacTavish.

He’s half tempted to comm Ghost, just to see if the other will answer, just to see if he will be ignored. He can’t hear gunfire or explosions here in the cellar, but Soap assumes Ghost is having a bit more excitement than he is right now, taking care of tedious and boring bomb disarming.

He hisses, holding a housing too-tight in his palm as the metal warms and warps against his powers. He nearly dropped the red hot shell right on top of a charge. He needs to focus. This isn’t a loud mission and Reapers knew if Ghost realizes he would have to drag what was left of Soap back to base if things went tits up. The last thing they need is a Revenant falling into enemy hands.

(How would they use him? There’s no point killing such a powerful asset. Would he still be a glorified one-man bomb squad? Or would they put his powers to more sinister use -?)

Fucking focus, MacTavish. Ghost has probably finished clearing the other two buildings while you’re down here faffing about.

There are boots on the stairs. His hands are full of primed explosives.

“Freeze!” His heart sinks, the fire at his fingertips licking against the charges in hand. “Hands up, slowly.”

“Easy boys…” Soap hums, not moving his hands. If he drops the charge it will go off. If he raises his hands the tangos will see his fire and shoot for fear of him accidentally setting off the charge. Better to draw this out and maximize the casualties.

They filter into the cramped basement, weapons aimed at his head and flashlights sweeping the disarmed charges on the floor. Four tangos. Someone must have reported their earlier kills – no other reason for a full patrol unit to be walking around weapons primed.

Ghost is definitely having more fun than Soap is at the moment.

“Let’s be reasonable –”

“Shut up.” The order is punctuated with the muzzle of a rifle pressed under Soap’s chin. The adrenaline kicks in, thrill and terror mixing in crystallized euphoria. He could die here. Again, for good this time. His conditional immortality did not include point blank bullets to the face.

His Reaper wouldn’t be too happy about that.

The memory of fluttering insects and light so bright it burned and why he was sent back is like swallowing sun-warmed honey, sweet but cloying. He will not die here. It will hurt. But he’ll live. He always does.

“Bravo-2 how copy?” Ghost’s voice is sharp as it crackles from his radio. Before the tangos around him can use their own comms, Soap takes a step back, hands burning hot against the fragile charge as he pulls it to his chest. The swansong of igniting thermite and roaring fire is all he hears before the world around him is torn to shreds.

--

His Reaper hovers nearby, a buzz under his skin, buffering him against fire and shrapnel and rubble. If he doesn’t look too closely, he can see them in the cinders and smoke. Warm, golden insects the same color and temperature as the fire sparking at his fingertips. They flutter past, carried on the fumes and swirling air currents, fading out of view as his vision darkens.

Soap’s consciousness rises and falls like a weak tide, a few seconds of painful clarity defeated as blood loss and agony blur his thoughts and catch in his blood filled lungs. For so long it is awfully quiet. He can feel the slick of blood from burst eardrums running down his neck, but soon enough he can hear his gargled breathing and knows they’ve heal.

He can hear footsteps, or at least, he thinks they are footsteps. A voice – no, probably not a voice. Why would they be calling to him? They’re probably talking to someone else. They will pick him up when the mission is done. However long that took.

Christ, he is so fucking tired – he can feel his Reaper’s power surging through his body, coalescing around what he knows to be a bad puncture wound too adrenaline numbed to be felt. He just needs to clear it, at least enough to start healing, because replacing all of this blood is going to take weeks at this point.

Hands. Right, he has hands, he just needs to –

Feeling rushes back into his blood like a tidal wave, a full body shudder as his nerves burn back to life. His eyes snap open, burning in the smoke and welling with tears.

Steamin’ Jesus, he is going to be sick. And even though he hopes to pass out again, he knows he won’t.

Soap thought he would get used to it by now, the almost-death, the not-death he died when his heart stopped beating but his soul couldn’t leave. Dying the first time had been easy, practically painless. It’s the coming back that seems to get worse with every mission.

The strangled sound in his throat seems to garner some attention, footsteps echoing in the shadows – are his eyes still getting reconnected to his briefly deceased brain or is the smoke still that heavy?

“Ghost?” The name is garbled, croaking from his spasming throat. He can’t seem to get enough air, one lung collapsed and the other fighting remember how to breathe. His vision tunnels, a skull mask hovering in the near distance. It has to be Ghost – or maybe Soap is dead-dead this time, and death happens to have a sick sense of humor.

“Soap? Johnny where – oh fuckin’ hell.”

Soap writhes, trying to push himself off the rebar stake through his chest. He’s holding up the operation – Ghost probably needs him to take care of some other explosives –

He can’t fucking heal like this.

“Could – could use a – a – a hand here, LT.” Soap forces the words through gritted teeth. No use being a whiny cunt when it’s his own damn fault for taking so long with the charges.

“How can I help?”

Soap wants to laugh – he almost does, the muscles in his abdomen clenching and making the rebar impaling him burn hotter than any thermite. The whimper that crawls up his throat in response is strangled into a growl.

“Gettin’ me off this fuckin’ spike would be nice.” The frustration in his chipped voice is undercut by an apologetic warble as his breathing hitches. “Please, I cannae – I can’t heal like this.” He swallows back another mouthful of blood, the pressure of Ghost’s hands on his shoulders gentle compared to the fracturing agony pulsing from his injuries.

Part of him is glad there isn’t a countdown, the blinding pain forcing a pathetic whine from the back of his throat while he clamps his jaw shut hard enough for it to ache. The world fades gray, his vision blacking out as he feels Ghost set him down, a slab of cold concrete to his back. His Reaper’s power flushes into the gaping wound, a sob shuddering through him as he feels a bloom of healing fire flush through the injury.

He just needs to get his breathing under control; he needs to get it under control faster before Ghost – is Ghost already pissed at him? He’s at the very least annoyed – he sounded annoyed on the comms – his own comms were probably broken in the explosion. Fuckin’ hell he just got them replaced…

Christ, focus, MacTavish – quit being a little bitch and breathe and get up and –

“How long do you need?”

Soap cracks his eyes open, vision still spotted with stars but he focuses on the mask in front of him. Those coal brown eyes are...warm. Ghost is crouching in front of him, still waiting for his blood starved brain to string together a coherent response.

“Just – just a few more...a few more breaths. Dinnae worry I –” He winces, something in his chest snapping. He can feel bone fragments wriggling free from mangled flesh, piecing back together ribs. It takes a few quick breaths for him to work through the pain enough to continue speaking. “I’m fine. Not that bad – had worse. Really.”

Ghost doesn’t look convinced, but he turns to sit next to MacTavish, rifle across his lap.

“Take your time. Don’t have to worry about tangos for now.”

Soap finds himself staring and he can’t quite look away for fear that he is, actually, dead-dead and death just happens to have a sick sense of humor. But Ghost doesn’t fade away or explode into a swarm of golden butterflies dancing with the acidic warmth of his Reaper’s disappointment. Ghost just sits there, close enough to brush shoulders with as he scans the rubble around them.

Soap’s thoughts are swirling; he’s desperate to push his luck and lean against that steady presence, and frustrated that he is too distracted to focus on getting his breathing back. If this was a normal mission they would need him on his feet by now – if he wasn’t diffusing bombs, someone who could actually die, dead-dead, would be.

It’s almost a relief when Ghost rises to his feet, stalking across the crater’s debris. Almost. A selfish part of Soap wants to reach out and grab him back, just to know he’s still there.

“We – we can get going. Sorry for holding this up.” Soap pitches forward to follow, shaking hands braced against the ground with a groan as his vision swims. He needs to get up, follow Ghost, get to exfil, get back to base, and sleep for a fucking week.

The first step is always the hardest, right? Bracing against the concrete slab, he’s able to slide to his feet, shaky legs wobbling like a newborn deer as his vision flashes white with pain.

Get up. Check.

He waits a few breaths for his vision to come back, the bloody spoke of rebar he had been impaled on the first thing he sees. His halfhearted glare shifts, Ghost’s silhouette in the distance.

Follow Ghost. Check.

He could do that. One foot in front of the other. Don’t stop moving – except Ghost has stopped moving. Soap blinks down at the warped frame of a safe. Right. He has a job to do outside of blowing himself up.

“I got it.” He bites back sob as he drops back to the ground, the pain of rubble under his knees a grounding distraction. Soap holds his fingertips to the thick wall of the safe, metal sparking red then white under the intensity of his powers. Rotating his hand slowly, he’s able to create a near perfect circle, pulling away a chunk of the molten metal to open a window to the safe’s contents.

Soap sits back on his heels, melted iron running off his fingers as his powers dim. Blood is puddling below him, the wound in his side still gushing. If only he had been able to pull himself free before Ghost showed up, just a few extra minutes to heal.

“Good work.” He looks up at Ghost, who briefly inspects the hard drive he had fished from the safe’s interior. Soap blinks up at him as Ghost straightens where he knelt, silhouetted in starlight and lingering smoke. He blames blood loss for the bloom of warmth in his chest and the giddy smile sliding onto his face. Ghost’s eyes narrow, head nodding to his injury. “You need something for that?”

Soap opens and closes his mouth, choking on whatever he was going to say and exchanging it for a shaky laugh.

“Nah, nah – it’ll be fine. Eventually. Just – just gotta get back to base and rest up.” He rises to an unsteady half kneel, breathing too hard and too fast. The world spins, his vision graying out for a few faltering breaths.

Why did he laugh? It hurt so much worse now – was it bleeding more? As his nausea passes, Soap spots Ghost fishing a medkit from his pack. He halfheartedly swats it away.

“No – no, that’s for you. I’ll heal up without anything.”

“I’m stopping the bleeding and giving you some stims. I don’t feel like carrying your ass to exfil.” Soap slumps under Ghost’s unwavering stare, dropping back to the ground like a kicked dog. Ghost isn’t his CO – hell, he isn’t even sure if Ghost can pull rank seeing as they’re from separate operations – but he isn’t going to argue. Not with that tone; he’s already a burden to the mission as it is.

“Right...right, yeah. That – yeah.” His words are slurred, accent thickening as he mutters curses to himself. Pull it together MacTavish, you’ve had worse, you’ve walked through a minefield with worse, crawled to exfil without your legs with worse.

“Bloody hell MacTavish…” Ghost’s growl is almost a whisper as he lifts the hem of Soap’s shirt, baring the gory wound. He isn’t sure what stung more – the thread of disappointment in Ghost’s voice or the hemostatic bandages now secured on either side of his torso.

“Sorry.” His apology croaks unbidden from his throat. It isn’t like an apology will speed this up.

“Choices have consequences.” Ghost huffs as he wipes his bloodied gloves on his pants. “Don’t blow yourself up next time.”

For a split second he latches onto that. ‘Next time.’ He wouldn’t mind a next time. Or maybe he would – working with Ghost is…different than being assigned to various crews as the de facto bomb robot. He isn’t sure yet if different is better. Soap hums in agreement, wincing as a stimpack bites into his shoulder and a rush of wakefulness stirs in his blood.

“I was taking too damn long. Got caught.” He shrugs, either a flush of embarrassment or some color finally warming its way onto his cheeks. “Easier to take them down with me, seeing as I’m the one that can get back up.”

“Easier than waiting for me to help?”

“I’m an impatient guy.” Soap hisses, the injury still stinging as he pushes back to his feet. “Can we go now? I’m right as rain.” He wobbles on his feet, not impressing Ghost as he holds an arm to his side, keeping pressure on the wound. Ghost heaves a sigh, starting towards exfil without another word.

Climbing out of the crater is the hard part, but Soap can bite his tongue and push through the blinding white hot agony of reaching and climbing over debris. The bandages are soaked through in minutes, seals broken by the agitating movements. He makes sure to keep behind Ghost, partly to keep the still substantial blood trail he’s leaving out of sight and out of mind.

That doesn’t mean his too-loud, hollow breathing is something the other soldier will continue to ignore.

“Do you need a break?” The question is paired with a gentle glance, so foreign to Soap after so long on the receiving end of snappy COs and stressed soldiers. He doesn’t respond, wide eyed and panting with a hand on the wall for stability. The softness in Ghost’s eyes flickers, something shadowy in their depths.

“…‘m fine.” Soap finally manages to grit out, breaking eye contact and stumbling forward. He nearly yelps when Ghost snags his right arm, powers flickering from his fingertips as the Ghost pulls the arm over his shoulder. “Careful – I’ll – my hand…”

“I’m not afraid of a little fire, MacTavish.”

The Ghost straightens, helping support Soap’s weight as the pair shamble forward. This close there’s no hiding his pained breathing, the way every other step sends stars sparking behind his eyelids as the agony ripples through him like a wave. They’re moving even slower now, the empty compound eerily silent and still save for their limping procession toward the exfil point.

“What’s got two legs and bleeds?” Soap almost doesn’t realize the question is meant for him, blinking blearily up at the Ghost.

“Me?” He isn’t sure if it’s a joke at first, blood starved brain struggling to parse the tone of the question. But Ghost glances down at him, eyes crinkled to crescents. Is he smiling?

“Half a dog.”

Soap’s bark of laughter tapers with a groan, a fresh flush of blood as his wound wept from the outburst.

“I hate dogs, but that’s fuckin’ brutal.”

“What you have against dogs?”

“Rabid bitch bit me.” Soap tilts his head up, baring the pale pink scar under his chin. A scar from when his body remembered every near-death experience. Now he’s had too many to count and nothing to show for them. “Rabies shots fuckin’ suck.”

“So I’ve heard.” Ghost’s voice rumbles like thunder, a hum of contemplation in his chest. “That before or after?” The event in reference is left unsaid, a haunting shimmer of his Reaper’s golden glow still mending his broken flesh.

“Before.” Soap bites out the word, hissing in pain as he trips, Ghost keeping him from falling flat on his face as they keep moving forward. “Since you’re learnin’ so much about me, I’ve got a question for you: what’s with the mask?”

Ghost stiffens, almost imperceptibly under Soap’s arm, but his silence as they continue walking speaks volumes. Something in Soap’s chest aches at the lack of response, aside from the still reorganizing lung tissue and rib bones. It’s too much like being ignored on comms on normal missions.

“Bet you’re ugly.” He bites his tongue hard enough to taste fresh blood the second after the words fall from his lips.

“Quite the opposite actually.” Ghost’s response is smooth, a hum of amusement loosening his tensed shoulders. What has Soap done to deserve this stranger’s good graces? He’s tempted to push, to take all he can before it inevitably blows up in his face. It isn’t like they’re going to be seeing each other anytime soon; he can risk burning a bridge built to be temporary.

“Prove it.” Soap’s voice lilts with a friendly challenge. “Take off the mask.”

“For you, MacTavish…” Ghost pauses, reaching towards his face and – playfully tapping the hard shell skull of his mask. “Not a chance. Maybe next time.”

Next time. Soap would like a next time. But as helo blades drone overhead and Ghost’s comms crackle to life with two separate COs asking for sitreps, he sighs and sags against his fellow Revenant.

Reapers knew if their teams would ever work together again, let alone have the two pair up as they had for this mission. But there’s a spark of something other than power and fire in his chest. For the first time in a very long time, he feels he has something to hope for.

Next time.

[reading-stains]

hello!!do you have skk fic recs?

Introduction

Yes, I do. I’m sorry it took so long to give you a reply, but I wanted to give you a comprehensive list and was busy preparing for my last day in high school, and then I got a job 12 hours later, and then I traveled to New York for a couple Broadway workshops. But now that today’s been dealt with, I have my wonderful notes.

So here’s the gist of it. I have three focused reviews on some of my favorite Soukoku fanfics ever, but I felt like copy pasting it would kill you a little, so I’m going to use a simplified format that echoes what I once did for two other ships years ago.

Canon Space

Here I compiled four fanfics that take place in main canon spaces (so not BEAST). While I encourage you to read, I also ask you to make sure to check the tags of the actual work for any possible triggers. Furthermore, the styles these characters are written in, and the way they are portrayed, vary from writer to writer. Some are more “canon” based than others, but they all carry the essence of this ship. And if they don’t in your eyes, then you’re just reading a great novel with Japanese names. 

i'll bleed out for you by StarshipDancer

Synopsis: After getting impaled together, basically dying in each others arms in a joint mission with the Port Mafia and the ADA, and getting brought back by Yosano, this shattered Soukoku is asked to go into hiding. In this time, things seem to start healing. But the impending call asking them to return to their positions in their groups haunts them, and when it arrives, things fall apart all over again.  

Tags: Caretaking, PTSD, A Singularly Important Rat Is Present, Canon-Divergence, Post-Port Mafia Days, Love Confession, Pet Co-Parenting, Angst

Word Count: 71,848

Notes: Rattata is the best character. I remember reading this fanfic between the airport and my flight, and when chapter four ended, I had to board the plane, with my shaking hands and quiet sniffles. Please read this one.

If you kiss me (I might let it happen) by encsiimomo

Synopsis: Chuuya’s done watching this. Dazai’s literally dating a new girl every week. He dates based on who asks him first that Monday, he breaks up with them that Sunday, and it goes on again. And again. And again. It’s driving him insane. So he does the only thing he can think of to earn himself a break – He asks to date him for that week’s cycle. Dazai’s surprised. Chuuya’s exhausted. But once the sparks fly, they’re unable to be put out. 

Tags: Canon Divergent & Kind of Canon Compliant, Dark Era, Smut, Mutual Pining, Light Angst, Silly

Word Count: 52,127

Notes: I loved this fic because it encapsulates a pretty carefree tone that isn’t associated with Dark Era. It’s pretty smutty, but it’s really lovely to read them. It’s not a reflection of what these characters canonically represent. And while it definitely stays as a loose interpretation of these characters, it keeps the essence that makes this ship so sharp and wonderful. I loved Oda’s appearances too, they made me laugh.

A Doll's House by Abyss_In_WonderLand_likes_sexy_cannibals

Summary: After coming to contact with an ability-powered artifact, Dazai and Chuuya are forced to work together to overcome the ability’s trials, and face the bubbling sentiments they keep trying so hard to ignore. 

Tags: Teamwork, Ability Loss, Poisoning, Denial of Feelings, Confessions, Light Angst

Word Count: 45,288

Notes: While definitely not a character study, this fic goes and shows how wonderfully warm a Double Black fanfic can be. You’ll giggle in some moments, be entranced in others, and it’s just fun. This is for those that aren’t scouring for the angst. This was the first fic that sunk me into a skk fanfiction hunt all throughout the winter holidays.

On Deathless Feet by AbsoluteNegation

Synopsis: Chuuya always knows the monster can get out of control, but it doesn’t get any less surprising when Arahabaki powers through him. For a while though, it’d been comforting to know Dazai could always reign it in, make it go quiet. Because he did when they recently met, when they rose through the ranks, and at the brink of their end. But after years of disconnection, and the consistent waves of betrayal, is Chuuya capable of trusting him? And is Dazai capable of letting him?

Tags: Caretaking, Controlling Arahabaki, Port Mafia, Post-Port Mafia, Mistrust, Non-Linear Storytelling

Word Count: 71,848

Notes: This story is just breathtaking. The writing style is incredibly vast and detailed, which may seem scary when described, but it flows so easily when you read it. You cannot negate AbsoluteNegation’s incredible skill. The story takes place in an event where Chuuya loses control of Arahabaki in a  Post-Port Mafia Soukoku time. But because of its non-linear style, one gets to understand their past experiences with each other in a manner that contextualizes and weighs in the events of their reunion. 

Fanon Spaces

Before I begin, I’d like to note that there are so many AUs in this fandom, that I had to really search for the canon ones in my list. So understand that if you want more of these, I DEFINITELY have more of these. Also, again, while I encourage you to read, I also ask you to make sure to check the tags of the actual work for any possible triggers. 

I’ll crown your inner child with laurel by acuteguwu

Synopsis: Chuuya has worked in a Michelin Star restaurant. So he really has no place in losing this cooking competition. But a sudden newcomer, who seemingly has no previous experience in the field, seems to want to tell him his bechamel sauce isn’t ready. And really, who does he think he is?

Tags: Chef Competition AU, Character Study, Slow Burn, Chuuya Is A Blunt Perfectionist, Dazai Is A Culinary Genius

Words: 197,090

Notes: I read this in two days, and I finished by waking up at four in the morning to finish up before going to a drag queen brunch. So really, my experience was incredible. You get to really know these characters, who are very themselves, and it’s lovely. Please read, it’s so worth it.

music for our funeral by itotypes

Synopsis: Dazai has always been lost on what exactly he wants to be. Chuuya knows exactly what he wants. Working with such incredible differences proves to be a difficult challenge, ending in at least a little bit of violence multiple times, but they make it work. Because their music sounds beautiful. Because they’re better geniuses beside the other. And maybe because once it started, they can’t seem to process this journey can ever end.

Tags: No Smut, Angst, 70s, Musicians!AU, Drug Abuse, References to Child Neglect, Lowkey Pretty Violent, Emotional Cheating (w/ Main Ship)

Word Count: 67,723

Notes: Look, there’s a whole genre of Soukoku music AUs. And I could tell you to read the famous “still, still, still” by icedlightroast, or the even more famous “I Was Screaming Your Name Through The Radio” by ElectricSplatter. Which really, they’re both INCREDIBLE fics that I think you should read (IWSYNTTR literally inspired me to try and write music, which led me to do an album for a school project, so I’m not kidding when I say they’re life changing), but I also know that these are famous fanfics that you can find in almost any big skk reader thread. So disregarding the following recommendation, I try to give you fanfics I found through a long scrolling process. 

Everything or Nothing by Wellthathappened (Cataclysmic_Calamity)

Synopsis: Chuuya has never been able to experience much. So when he meets Dazai on the night of orientation, he lets himself explore. So as lips sink into his, and as he lets himself be free, Dazai lets him know how unimportant he is by walking away when kids walk in on them. Cut to a month later, they’re paired as roommates, Chuuya’s gotten what Dazai insists is a douchey boyfriend, and Dazai Osamu has to recognize it wasn’t true. It wasn’t a night’s fluke. He really, definitely isn’t straight.

Tags: College AU, Pinning, Chronic Illness, Creation & References Of Illegal Panini Rings,  Confessions, Miscommunication, Past Sexual Abuse, Bad Parenting, Cute Dates, Dazai’s Really Rich

Word Count: 264,937

Notes: I recognize I just put in my notes that there’s no major point in recommending these big fanfics, but I just read this because the person that introduced me into the fandom in the first place really loves this one. And it’s incredible. Worth every moment. I laughed a lot, and cried a lot. It’s those pieces of work that resound with you that keep you engaged. This one builds off of that.

Inseparable by milwritescausewhynot

Synopsis: Dazai and Chuuya have been joined to the hip since day one. But they’re not best friends. Or enemies. Or, worst of all, lovers. They are, however, great at pranking each other. Until one goes close to dangerous, and things begin getting complicated afterwards. 

Tags: High School AU, Pranks, Light Angst, Denial, Pining, Confessions, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Crazy Kouyou, Childhood Friends, No Smut

Word Count: 107,804

Notes: I hadn’t saved this one in my compilation, but I couldn’t not find it. This fic is so charming, and I most enjoy how the characters move through the story. You can feel the way they're in-tuned from the get go. Definitely recommend.

In Conclusion

Again, I’m sorry for such a late response. I’m literally falling asleep right now but I felt too guilty leaving this for tomorrow morning. If you have any questions, notes, or looking for something specific for your reading, we can talk about it. 

Anyways, thanks for asking! Hope you love them, and sorry for any mistakes

[princesscatherinemiddleton]

The Princess of Wales’ Year in Review: June

June 1st - The Prince and Princess of Wales were present at the Marriage of The Crown Prince of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan with Miss Rajwa Al Saif which took place at the Zahran Palace. They then attended the wedding reception June 6th - The Princess of Wales visited Windsor Family Hub. That afternoon, she received Mrs. Alice Webb (Trustee of The Royal Foundation) at Windsor Castle June 7th - The Princess of Wales, Joint Patron of the Royal Foundation and Patron of the Rugby Football Union, visited Maidenhead Rugby Football Club June 8th - The Princess of Wales, Joint Patron of the Royal Foundation, held an Early Years Meeting June 14th - The Princess of Wales, Joint Patron of the Royal Foundation, held an Early Years Meeting June 15th - The Princess of Wales, Joint Patron of the Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales, visited Riversley Park Children's Centre. Later, she received Professor Eamon McCrory (Board Member of the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood Advisory Group) at Windsor Castle June 16th - A film was released highlighting the vital role that health visitors play in the community, which includes footage of The Princess of Wales shadowing health visiting teams at Homerton Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. That evening, the Prince of Wales, Colonel of the Welsh Guards, and The Princess of Wales, Colonel of the Irish Guards, attended the Senior Colonels' Conference and Dinner at Clarence House June 17th - The Wales family joined the extended members of the British Royal Family at The King's Birthday Parade, also known as Trooping the Colour June 19th - The Princess of Wales was present when the King, accompanied by The Queen, The Prince of Wales, and others, held a Chapter of the Most Noble Order of the Garter in the Throne Room, Windsor Castle. The King later gave a Luncheon Party for the Companions of the Most Noble Order of the Garter at which The Queen, The Prince and Princess of Wales, and others were present June 20th - The Princess of Wales, Patron of the National Portrait Gallery, officially reopened the newly renovated National Portrait Gallery June 22nd - Prince George was spotted touring Eton alongside his parents June 23rd - The Prince and Princess of Wales honoured Royal Ascot with their presence June 24th - The Princess of Wales joined Roger Federer in a video for Wimbledon, focusing on the ball boys and girls June 27th - The Princess of Wales officially opened Hope Street June 28th - The Princess of Wales, Patron of the Victoria and Albert Museum, officially reopened the newly renovated Young Victoria and Albert Museum June 29th - The Princess of Wales, Joint Patron of the Royal Foundation, held an Early Years Meeting. Afterwards, she held further meetings. The Country Life cover photographed by the then-Duchess of Cambridge won the Cover of the Year title at the PPA Awards, the ‘Oscars’ of the magazine world June 30th - The Princess of Wales, Joint Patron of the Royal Foundation, received Professor Eamon McCrory (Board Member of the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood Advisory Group) at Windsor Castle

[commiepinkofag]

Liquor and Cannabis Board Pauses Enforcement of Lewd Conduct Regulations

After raiding four gay bars last week and finding nothing but a nipple and jockstraps, the Liquor and Cannabis Board has paused enforcement of its lewd conduct rules, according to a signed letter sent to state officials. The Board also paused participation in Seattle’s Joint Enforcement Team, a coalition of police, fire, and other city departments, and will reopen rule-making to amend or repeal the lewd conduct violation regulations. The Board also said it won’t issue citations for anything they saw over the weekend—including a bartender’s exposed nipple at The Cuff Complex and jockstraps seen at The Seattle Eagle—and it will review its past practices and policies, including the use of photographs as evidence.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Podcasting "How To Think About Scraping"

On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine. On October 2, I'll be in Boise to host an event with VE Schwab.

This week on my podcast, I read my recent Medium column, "How To Think About Scraping: In privacy and labor fights, copyright is a clumsy tool at best," which proposes ways to retain the benefits of scraping without the privacy and labor harms that sometimes accompany it:

https://doctorow.medium.com/how-to-think-about-scraping-2db6f69a7e3d?sk=4a1d687171de1a3f3751433bffbb5a96

What are those benefits from scraping? Well, take computational linguistics, a relatively new discipline that is producing the first accounts of how informal language works. Historically, linguists overstudied written language (because it was easy to analyze) and underanalyzed speech (because you had to record speakers and then get grad students to transcribe their dialog).

The thing is, very few of us produce formal, written work, whereas we all engage in casual dialog. But then the internet came along, and for the first time, we had a species of mass-scale, informal dialog that also written, and which was born in machine-readable form.

This ushered in a new era in linguistic study, one that is enthusiastically analyzing and codifying the rules of informal speech, the spread of vernacular, and the regional, racial and class markers of different kinds of speech:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/24/because-internet-the-new-linguistics-of-informal-english/

The people whose speech is scraped and analyzed this way are often unreachable (anonymous or pseudonymous) or impractical to reach (because there's millions of them). The linguists who study this speech will go through institutional review board approvals to make sure that as they produce aggregate accounts of speech, they don't compromise the privacy or integrity of their subjects.

Computational linguistics is an unalloyed good, and while the speakers whose words are scraped to produce the raw material that these scholars study, they probably wouldn't object, either.

But what about entities that explicitly object to being scraped? Sometimes, it's good to scrape them, too.

Since 1996, the Internet Archive has scraped every website it could find, storing snapshots of every page it found in a giant, searchable database called the Wayback Machine. Many of us have used the Wayback Machine to retrieve some long-deleted text, sound, image or video from the internet's memory hole.

For the most part, the Internet Archive limits its scraping to websites that permit it. The robots exclusion protocol (AKA robots.txt) makes it easy for webmasters to tell different kinds of crawlers whether or not they are welcome. If your site has a robots.txt file that tells the Archive's crawler to buzz off, it'll go elsewhere.

Mostly.

Since 2017, the Archive has started ignoring robots.txt files for news services; whether or not the news site wants to be crawled, the Archive crawls it and makes copies of the different versions of the articles the site publishes. That's because news sites – even the so-called "paper of record" – have a nasty habit of making sweeping edits to published material without noting it.

I'm not talking about fixing a typo or a formatting error: I'm talking about making a massive change to a piece, one that completely reverses its meaning, and pretending that it was that way all along:

https://medium.com/@brokenravioli/proof-that-the-new-york-times-isn-t-feeling-the-bern-c74e1109cdf6

This happens all the time, with major news sites from all around the world:

http://newsdiffs.org/examples/

By scraping these sites and retaining the different versions of their article, the Archive both detects and prevents journalistic malpractice. This is canonical fair use, the kind of copying that almost always involves overriding the objections of the site's proprietor. Not all adversarial scraping is good, but this sure is.

There's an argument that scraping the news-sites without permission might piss them off, but it doesn't bring them any real harm. But even when scraping harms the scrapee, it is sometimes legitimate – and necessary.

Austrian technologist Mario Zechner used the API from country's super-concentrated grocery giants to prove that they were colluding to rig prices. By assembling a longitudinal data-set, Zechner exposed the raft of dirty tricks the grocers used to rip off the people of Austria.

From shrinkflation to deceptive price-cycling that disguised price hikes as discounts:

https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@badlogic/111071627182734180

Zechner feared publishing his results at first. The companies whose thefts he'd discovered have enormous power and whole kennelsful of vicious attack-lawyers they can sic on him. But he eventually got the Austrian competition bureaucracy interested in his work, and they published a report that validated his claims and praised his work:

https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@badlogic/111071673594791946

Emboldened, Zechner open-sourced his monitoring tool, and attracted developers from other countries. Soon, they were documenting ripoffs in Germany and Slovenia, too:

https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@badlogic/111071485142332765

Zechner's on a roll, but the grocery cartel could shut him down with a keystroke, simply by blocking his API access. If they do, Zechner could switch to scraping their sites – but only if he can be protected from legal liability for nonconsensually scraping commercially sensitive data in a way that undermines the profits of a powerful corporation.

Zechner's work comes at a crucial time, as grocers around the world turn the screws on both their suppliers and their customers, disguising their greedflation as inflation. In Canada, the grocery cartel – led by the guillotine-friendly hereditary grocery monopolilst Galen Weston – pulled the most Les Mis-ass caper imaginable when they illegally conspired to rig the price of bread:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_price-fixing_in_Canada

We should scrape all of these looting bastards, even though it will harm their economic interests. We should scrape them because it will harm their economic interests. Scrape 'em and scrape 'em and scrape 'em.

Now, it's one thing to scrape text for scholarly purposes, or for journalistic accountability, or to uncover criminal corporate conspiracies. But what about scraping to train a Large Language Model?

Yes, there are socially beneficial – even vital – uses for LLMs.

Take HRDAG's work on truth and reconciliation in Colombia. The Human Rights Data Analysis Group is a tiny nonprofit that makes an outsized contribution to human rights, by using statistical methods to reveal the full scope of the human rights crimes that take place in the shadows, from East Timor to Serbia, South Africa to the USA:

https://hrdag.org/

HRDAG's latest project is its most ambitious yet. Working with partner org Dejusticia, they've just released the largest data-set in human rights history:

https://hrdag.org/jep-cev-colombia/

What's in that dataset? It's a merger and analysis of more than 100 databases of killings, child soldier recruitments and other crimes during the Colombian civil war. Using a LLM, HRDAG was able to produce an analysis of each killing in each database, estimating the probability that it appeared in more than one database, and the probability that it was carried out by a right-wing militia, by government forces, or by FARC guerrillas.

This work forms the core of ongoing Colombian Truth and Reconciliation proceedings, and has been instrumental in demonstrating that the majority of war crimes were carried out by right-wing militias who operated with the direction and knowledge of the richest, most powerful people in the country. It also showed that the majority of child soldier recruitment was carried out by these CIA-backed, US-funded militias.

This is important work, and it was carried out at a scale and with a precision that would have been impossible without an LLM. As with all of HRDAG's work, this report and the subsequent testimony draw on cutting-edge statistical techniques and skilled science communication to bring technical rigor to some of the most important justice questions in our world.

LLMs need large bodies of text to train them – text that, inevitably, is scraped. Scraping to produce LLMs isn't intrinsically harmful, and neither are LLMs. Admittedly, nonprofits using LLMs to build war crimes databases do not justify even 0.0001% of the valuations that AI hypesters ascribe to the field, but that's their problem.

Scraping is good, sometimes – even when it's done against the wishes of the scraped, even when it harms their interests, and even when it's used to train an LLM.

But.

Scraping to violate peoples' privacy is very bad. Take Clearview AI, the grifty, sleazy facial recognition company that scraped billions of photos in order to train a system that they sell to cops, corporations and authoritarian governments:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/20/steal-your-face/#hoan-ton-that

Likewise: scraping to alienate creative workers' labor is very bad. Creators' bosses are ferociously committed to firing us all and replacing us with "generative AI." Like all self-declared "job creators," they constantly fantasize about destroying all of our jobs. Like all capitalists, they hate capitalism, and dream of earning rents from owning things, not from doing things.

The work these AI tools sucks, but that doesn't mean our bosses won't try to fire us and replace us with them. After all, prompting an LLM may produce bad screenplays, but at least the LLM doesn't give you lip when you order to it give you "ET, but the hero is a dog, and there's a love story in the second act and a big shootout in the climax." Studio execs already talk to screenwriters like they're LLMs.

That's true of art directors, newspaper owners, and all the other job-destroyers who can't believe that creative workers want to have a say in the work they do – and worse, get paid for it.

So how do we resolve these conundra? After all, the people who scrape in disgusting, depraved ways insist that we have to take the good with the bad. If you want accountability for newspaper sites, you have to tolerate facial recognition, too.

When critics of these companies repeat these claims, they are doing the companies' work for them. It's not true. There's no reason we couldn't permit scraping for one purpose and ban it for another.

The problem comes when you try to use copyright to manage this nuance. Copyright is a terrible tool for sorting out these uses; the limitations and exceptions to copyright (like fair use) are broad and varied, but so "fact intensive" that it's nearly impossible to say whether a use is or isn't fair before you've gone to court to defend it.

But copyright has become the de facto regulatory default for the internet. When I found someone impersonating me on a dating site and luring people out to dates, the site advised me to make a copyright claim over the profile photo – that was their only tool for dealing with this potentially dangerous behavior.

The reasons that copyright has become our default tool for solving every internet problem are complex and historically contingent, but one important point here is that copyright is alienable, which means you can bargain it away. For that reason, corporations love copyright, because it means that they can force people who have less power than the company to sign away their copyrights.

This is how we got to a place where, after 40 years of expanding copyright (scope, duration, penalties), we have an entertainment sector that's larger and more profitable than ever, even as creative workers' share of the revenues their copyrights generate has fallen, both proportionally and in real terms.

As Rebecca Giblin and I write in our book Chokepoint Capitalism, in a market with five giant publishers, four studios, three labels, two app platforms and one ebook/audiobook company, giving creative workers more copyright is like giving your bullied kid extra lunch money. The more money you give that kid, the more money the bullies will take:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

Many creative workers are suing the AI companies for copyright infringement for scraping their data and using it to train a model. If those cases go to trial, it's likely the creators will lose. The questions of whether making temporary copies or subjecting them to mathematical analysis infringe copyright are well-settled:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/ai-art-generators-and-online-image-market

I'm pretty sure that the lawyers who organized these cases know this, and they're betting that the AI companies did so much sleazy shit while scraping that they'll settle rather than go to court and have it all come out. Which is fine – I relish the thought of hundreds of millions in investor capital being transferred from these giant AI companies to creative workers. But it doesn't actually solve the problem.

Because if we do end up changing copyright law – or the daily practice of the copyright sector – to create exclusive rights over scraping and training, it's not going to get creators paid. If we give individual creators new rights to bargain with, we're just giving them new rights to bargain away. That's already happening: voice actors who record for video games are now required to start their sessions by stating that they assign the rights to use their voice to train a deepfake model:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d37za/voice-actors-sign-away-rights-to-artificial-intelligence

But that doesn't mean we have to let the hyperconcentrated entertainment sector alienate creative workers from their labor. As the WGA has shown us, creative workers aren't just LLCs with MFAs, bargaining business-to-business with corporations – they're workers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/20/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain/

Workers get a better deal with labor law, not copyright law. Copyright law can augment certain labor disputes, but just as often, it benefits corporations, not workers:

https://locusmag.com/2019/05/cory-doctorow-steering-with-the-windshield-wipers/

Likewise, the problem with Clearview AI isn't that it infringes on photographers' copyrights. If I took a thousand pictures of you and sold them to Clearview AI to train its model, no copyright infringement would take place – and you'd still be screwed. Clearview has a privacy problem, not a copyright problem.

Giving us pseudocopyrights over our faces won't stop Clearview and its competitors from destroying our lives. Creating and enforcing a federal privacy law with a private right action will. It will put Clearview and all of its competitors out of business, instantly and forever:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/01/you-should-have-right-sue-companies-violate-your-privacy

AI companies say, "You can't use copyright to fix the problems with AI without creating a lot of collateral damage." They're right. But what they fail to mention is, "You can use labor law to ban certain uses of AI without creating that collateral damage."

Facial recognition companies say, "You can't use copyright to ban scraping without creating a lot of collateral damage." They're right too – but what they don't say is, "On the other hand, a privacy law would put us out of business and leave all the good scraping intact."

Taking entertainment companies and AI vendors and facial recognition creeps at their word is helping them. It's letting them divide and conquer people who value the beneficial elements and those who can't tolerate the harms. We can have the benefits without the harms. We just have to stop thinking about labor and privacy issues as individual matters and treat them as the collective endeavors they really are:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/26/united-we-stand/

Here's a link to the podcast:

https://craphound.com/news/2023/09/24/how-to-think-about-scraping/

And here's a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive; they'll host your stuff for free, forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_450/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_450_-_How_To_Think_About_Scraping.mp3

And here's the RSS feed for my podcast:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/25/deep-scrape/#steering-with-the-windshield-wipers

Image: syvwlch (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Print_Scraper_(5856642549).jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[jewish-sideblog]

I wanted to ask whether I should believe a specific news article (I think from The Independent), that said something about Israel giving Ethiopian women birth control without their consent, in the past. I had already seen a lot of discussion about Israel supposedly forcibly sterilizing Ethiopian women. But I had also seen posts debunking that and saying it was medical negligence rather than systemic forced sterilisation. But another article said something about how some activist had a letter from the Health Ministry of Israel praising the use of said birth control. And apparently that specific birth control was given only to Ethiopian women. So, I don't know if I should believe it or not as there is a lot of misinformation going around.

Reuters, my preferred news source for situations like this, does have an article written on the subject-- but I get an error when I try to access it. If you can access it, take it at face value over anything I say here. Because I can't access Reuters, I'm deferring to reporting from Forbes, Times of Israel, and Haaretz, which all corroborate the same story.

Back in 2013, it was revealed that Ethiopian immigrants to Israel in 2005 were sterilized using Depo-Provera, which is a long-acting but not permanent form of birth control. There doesn't seem to be any doubt that this happened, that it was reviewed by Israeli medical boards, and that it is no longer happening. As you've mentioned, the issue is trying to figure out whether this was intentional sterilization or if it was medical negligence.

It seems, based on available reporting on the subject, that this was medical negligence resulting from poor communication and xenophobic tendencies. Israeli medical personnel giving the sterilization shots worked for the Joint Distribution Committee, an American-based relief organization. JDC personnel were quoted saying they used Depo-Provera because it was a commonly used birth control in Ethiopia, that communication with Ethiopian women was difficult due to language barriers, that Ethiopian women were not directly singled out, and that Israeli medical personnel feared for the safety and comfort of women who had already given birth several times. Since 2013, the Israeli government has mandated that Ethiopian women not be issued birth control unless a translator can guarantee that they understand and consent to the risks.

The head of the JDC did receive a letter of commendation from the Israeli Health Ministry, as you've mentioned. It does praise a higher level of birth control use among JDC-treated Ethiopian women than other Ethiopian women in Israel. But I think the rates of use mentioned here are important. The letter says that usually, only 5% of Ethiopian immigrants in Israel used birth control, but at the JDC, 30% of Ethiopian women used birth control. The overall birth control usage rate for other women of African descent in Israel is about 70%. It seems to me like the Israeli government was praising the increase not because they were trying to prevent the pregnancies of Ethiopian women who wanted to give birth, but because rates of birth control usage among Ethiopian women were extremely low on average. They expected women who didn't want to give birth to go on birth control at higher rates, as long as they had adequate access to birth control options.

So... kind of. It's accurate to say that Israeli medical personnel didn't engage in adequate standards of care for an immigrant population, and that failure to uphold those standards of care led to health complications and a birth rate decline among the Ethiopian immigrant community in Israel. It's an indication that the Israeli medical field has racism and xenophobia issues to overcome. Most Western medical fields have to overcome similar challenges. But I don't think it's accurate to say that the Israeli government engaged in an intentional sterilization campaign against Ethiopians. Especially considering that an American-based non-profit seems to be responsible for most of the sterilizations and that the Israeli government put a quick stop to the practice once it was publicly revealed.

[mariacallous]

The governing board of the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) will meet this week for a four day board meeting, during which it will discuss the Russian national organization’s relationship with the Kremlin — and whether to launch a formal investigation that could result in the suspension of the Russian organization’s membership.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is losing patience with the inaction of the IFRC. “We, Ukrainians, don’t have a lot of time. Every day the IFRC fails to act means one more day the organization supports the Russian aggression against my homeland. I am desperate,” said Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, in a joint interview with VSquare, Expressen (Sweden), Spiegel (Germany), Paper Trail Media (Germany), Standard (Austria) and Delfi Estonia.

Lubinets sent a formal appeal to the IFRC in mid-March after VSquare and our international partners exposed the Russian Red Cross’s (RRC) collaboration with the Putin regime in the Kremlin Leaks series. This cooperation includes supporting the Russian military and collecting donations for soldiers; cooperation in the organization of military camps for children; and entering into formal agreements with a number of organizations that have been sanctioned by the European Union, the United States and Ukraine for, among other things, their involvement in the deportation of Ukrainian children.

In the petition, Lubinets demanded that the IFRC condemn the RRC’s activities, conduct a transparent investigation, suspend their membership in the international movement for the time being and, if our revelations are true, expel the RRC from the organization. To date, the commissioner has received no response from the IFRC other than confirmation that his appeal was received. 

(The IFRC’s press service said that the organization has been in contact with Lubinets’s office since 2022, and that there will be further communication on his latest appeal when they have further information on the matter at hand.)

In the wake of the Kremlin Leaks revelations, the IFRC said it would “review” the articles’ claims, but has not yet launched a formal investigation, which – according to the organization’s own statutes – should be carried out by the Compliance and Mediation Committee. 

The IFRC has also consistently failed to respond to substantive queries from the press, but according to documents obtained through our public information requests, it held an emergency meeting at its headquarters in Geneva on March 1, four days after the first revelations were published. It was attended by, among others, representatives of the Red Cross movement’s major donors.

At the closed-door meeting, IFRC Chief of Staff Christopher Rassi pledged that the activities of the Russian Red Cross would be thoroughly investigated and that, if the matter came before the organization’s board, Russia would not be allowed to participate in deliberations. (In summer 2022, already after the full-scale invasion, Russian Red Cross President Pavel Savchuk was elected to the IFRC’s 20-member board.)

If the IFRC opens a formal investigation, RRC President Pavel Savchuk will have to step down from the IFRC board during the proceedings, according to a memo viewed by VSquare prepared by Swedish diplomats who attended the meeting. So far, the “review,”which has been ongoing for nearly six weeks, has been led by the organization’s management. According to diplomatic sources with whom we spoke, the review is now in its final stage and findings will be presented at a board meeting later this week.

The Russian Red Cross’s links with the Putin regime:

Documents leaked from the Russian presidential administration show that the Kremlin directly funds the Russian Red Cross, which was tasked with replacing the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the occupied Ukrainian territories. 

The RRC President Pavel Savchuk was, at least until the publication of our first article, a member of the leadership of the All-Russia People’s Front (ONF), a patriotic organization led by Putin and actively supportive of the war. ONF holds the registered trademark for the notorious “Z” symbol.

Pavel Savchuk has also signed cooperation agreements with the internationally sanctioned organization Defenders of the Fatherland, which supports the war in Ukraine and is led by a relative of Vladimir Putin.

The RRC cooperates with the movement “We Are Together” (often referred to in Russian as #МыВместе), which supports the war and raises money and donations, including arms and personal protection equipment, for soldiers.

In January of this year, Savchuk signed a cooperation agreement on behalf of the RRC with the Artek children’s camp in occupied Crimea. It was signed by Konstantin Fedorenko on behalf of Artek. Fedorenko is internationally sanctioned for having helped deport Ukrainian children and for having organized patriotic Russian re-education camps for them (Artek is also sanctioned). 

The RRC regularly participates in military-patriotic training courses for children. In these courses, children receive weapons and military training. Red Cross workers pose with children and weapons. 

Pavel Savchuk, on behalf of the RRC, presented a diploma to the Russian arms factory Avangard, which produces rockets used to bomb civilian targets in Ukraine, and posed for a photo with a representative of the factory. The United Aircraft Corporation, a member of the state-owned Rostec Group, which produces fighter aircraft, also received a diploma from the RRC.

At least two members of the RRC board have openly expressed support for Russia’s war against Ukraine and one of them even called Ukrainians “Nazis.”

“This is a complex matter that is being discussed at the highest level of the organization,” the IFRC press service said in response to our query. The organization’s 20-member governing board meeting starts in Geneva, Switzerland today and is set to last for four days.

“A thorough review is in process but this takes time. Our teams are still working and ensuring we have gathered the necessary information to directly address these claims,” the IFRC said.

Last week, Christopher Rassi also met with diplomats to brief them on the investigation’s progress. During a meeting with the Swedish ambassador, he described how they worked nonstop over the last several weeks on the matter while keeping the board and the president of IFRC informed. 

The IFRC does not have to look far for a precedent. Last December, the Belarusian Red Cross was suspended from the organization after it emerged that its representatives had traveled with Russian units to occupied territories in Ukraine, wearing Russia’s notorious Z symbol on their shoulders, and that its leader had spoken publicly about how they were transporting Ukrainian children to Belarus.

Dmytro Lubinets said the Red Cross’s silence so far is part of a larger pattern that began as early as 2014 during the occupation of Crimea. At that time, the RRC occupied the buildings and office space left behind by the Ukrainian Red Cross in Crimea and also took possession of Ukrainian cars and computer equipment, according to Lubinets. 

“Russia does not allow [the International Red Cross] access to Ukrainian prisoners of war. And I haven’t seen any reaction from the Red Cross during this time. They hide behind the shield of neutrality. This is crazy,” Lubinets said.

Lubinets said that, in his view, the IFRC could not conduct an independent investigation as long as a representative of the Russian organization sits on its board. “But I have not given up hope. The international Red Cross community can still show that violation of the principles of the Red Cross is not acceptable. They can prove that the IFRC is not fully under the control of the Russian Federation.”

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Biden: non compos mentis

Joe Biden Gives an Impromptu Presser, and No One Can Figure Out What He's Talking About

Gives an Impromptu Presser, and No One Can Figure Out What He's Talking About

By Bonchie 6:08 PM on October 18, 2023

CNN

President Joe Biden flew to Israel to meet with PM Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday. Whether he should have is another question. 

During a joint appearance, the American president appeared extremely fatigued, almost unable to keep his eyes open at times. He slowly read his notes, head hung low, sometimes barely audible. Things didn't get any better later when Biden decided to tell an already debunked story about being in Israel during the 1967 war. After returning to the podium to speak again, the president then announced $100 million for Gaza, money that will no doubt end up in the hands of Hamas. 

Mercifully, this was a short trip, but Biden wasn't quite done. After boarding Air Force One, he decided to give an impromptu presser. Things did not go well. 

WATCH: Pres. Biden unexpectedly addresses reporters aboard Air Force One pic.twitter.com/CxeiNEcDR3

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) October 18, 2023

I'd try to transcribe that, but I just don't have the patience. He keeps freezing up, staring blankly for uncomfortably long periods of time, and I have no idea what he is trying to say. In the beginning, he seems to be talking about school shootings but then starts talking about people who have been victimized and are seeking hope. Is he drawing some kind of comparison to the current situation between Israel and Hamas? 

In the background, you can see Secretary of State Antony Blinken looking down at the floor the entire time. I can only imagine what was going through his mind. 

I will give the president credit for one thing, though. This reporter's snotty question probably deserved this response.

"Do you think it was necessary for you to come here?"

BIDEN: "What do you think? I'll let you answer that." pic.twitter.com/c9XvKCeZ70

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 18, 2023

When asked about the Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that fell short and struck a hospital parking lot in Gaza, Biden attempted to say the right thing, but he just couldn't quite get it out. Instead, he went to his old mainstay of stopping mid-explanation to say "well, anyway." 

REPORTER: "People ... don't necessarily believe you or the Israelis ... didn't have anything to do with" the Gaza hospital blast

BIDEN: "I can understand that" pic.twitter.com/OgNbm1UpM3

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 18, 2023

Even though the reporter's question was biased, it was a softball ready to be hit out of the park. A competent president would have rattled off the litany of evidence that has been reviewed while citing the U.S. intelligence assessment that it was not Israel. Instead, Biden stumbles with his words, seeming unsure of anything that he's saying. The lack of confidence shown will only fuel conspiracy theories to the point that I'd imagine Israeli officials were thinking "Please stop helping." 

Twice, Karine Jean-Pierre jumped into the middle of Biden's answers, appearing to try to get him to end the press conference.

REPORTER: "You said you were very blunt with the Israelis on the need to get humanitarian aid to Gaza or what exactly?"

BIDEN: "On everything. Ha ha ha" pic.twitter.com/WvCHZ4VVWf

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 18, 2023

REPORTER: "What about getting people out?"

BIDEN: "The answer is we're gonna get people out, but I'm not going into any detail with you now—"

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: "Alright we gotta wrap up" pic.twitter.com/zlx5eMjqW2

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 18, 2023

Finally, Biden did decide to end things. Unfortunately, he did it at the worst possible moment.

"Are Israelis operating within the rules of war that you talked about last week?"

BIDEN: "Good talking to you all"

*walks away* pic.twitter.com/yVlUN0ljdL

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 18, 2023

If Biden were trying to whip up the pro-Hamas crowd, what would he have done differently in that situation? Once he was asked that question, he needed to answer it immediately and with conviction. To not do so was a gift to those who are attacking Israel with disinformation about how they are propagating their war against Hamas The fact that he chose that moment to walk away is just terrible optics.  

Pay close attention Biden's warning:

Israel will pay a heavy price

I was VERY blunt with Israel

they will be held accountable in ways that may seem unfair

you will lose credibility worldwide

[eretzyisrael]

by Dion J. Pierre

A professor at Cornell University who received major backlash for saying Hamas’ massacre of Israeli civilians on Oct. 7 “exhilarated” him has taken a leave of absence for the remainder of the semester, according to a new report.

Professor Russell Rickford called the Hamas terror group’s invasion of Israel from neighboring Gaza “exhilarating” and “energizing” at a pro-Palestinian rally last Sunday. He later defended his comments by arguing “the fundamentalism of Hamas mirrors that of Israeli leadership.”

Rickford later apologized for his statements, insisting that he “intended to stress grassroots African American, Jewish, and Palestinian traditions of resistance to oppression.” He apologized to “my family, my students, my colleagues, and many others,” but not to the Jewish community or Israelis — who were the chief targets of Hamas’ terror onslaught.

According to the Cornell Review, a campus newspaper, students taking Rickford’s course on post-Civil War African-American history received on Friday a note from his substitute saying, “Professor Rickford will be taking a leave of absence and I will assume teaching responsibilities for the remainder of the semester.”

The university confirmed to the student newspaper that Rickford “has requested and received approval to take a leave of absence from the university.”

Rickford’s comments, which went viral and became national news, were widely condemned across Cornell’s campus. Last week, Cornell University President Martha Pollack and Board of Trustees chair Kraig Kayser said in a joint statement that his remarks were “reprehensible,” showing “no regard whatsoever for humanity.”

The statement continued: “Any members of our community who have made such statements do not speak for Cornell; in fact, they speak in direct opposition to all we stand for at Cornell.”

Nearly 12,000 people as of this writing have signed a petition calling for Rickford to be fired from the university, whose student population is estimated to be between 20 and 25 percent Jewish.

For nearly twenty years, Rickford’s scholarship has largely focused on Black Nationalist movements, some of which have promoted antisemitic tropes. In the early 2000s, Rickford joined the “Malcolm X Project,” assisting author Manning Marable, who published his own comprehensive work on the controversial figure, in arranging interviews with Malcolm’s acquaintances. Rickford also published a biography of Betty Shabbaz, the late wife of Malcolm X before his assassination in 1965.

Malcolm’s autobiography mentions the Jewish people dozens of times, often pejoratively. “The Jew is hypersensitive” and “I worked downtown for a Jew” are among the ways in which he referred to the Jewish community. “I gave the Jew credit for being among all other whites the most active, and the most vocal financier, ‘leader’ and ‘liberal’ in the Negro civil rights movement,” he wrote. “But … I knew that the Jew played these roles for a very careful strategic reason.” Malcolm also referred to “the Jew” as “Hymie” and “these devils.”

[gone2soon-rip]

GLYNIS JOHNS (1923-Died January 4th 2024,at 100).British actress, dancer, musician and singer. In a career spanning eight decades on stage and screen, Johns appeared in more than 60 films and 30 plays. She received various accolades throughout her career, including a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Laurence Olivier Award. She is widely considered to have been one of the last surviving major stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood and classical years of British cinema.

Johns was born in Pretoria, South Africa, the daughter of Welsh actor Mervyn Johns. She appeared on stage from a young age and was typecast as a stage dancer from early adolescence, making her screen debut in South Riding (1938). She rose to prominence in the 1940s following her role as Anna in the war drama film 49th Parallel (1941), for which she won a National Board of Review Award for Best Acting, and starring roles in Miranda (1948) and Third Time Lucky (1949). Following No Highway in the Sky (1951), a joint British-American production, Johns took on increasingly more roles in the United States and elsewhere. She made her television and Broadway debuts in 1952 and took on starring roles in such films as The Sword and the Rose (1953), The Weak and the Wicked (1954), Mad About Men (1954), The Court Jester (1955), The Sundowners (1960), The Cabinet of Caligari (1962), The Chapman Report (1962), and Under Milk Wood (1972). On television, she starred in her own sitcom Glynis (1963).

Renowned for the breathy quality of her husky voice,Johns sang songs written specifically for her both on screen and stage, including "Sister Suffragette", written by the Sherman Brothers for Disney's Mary Poppins (1964), in which she played Winifred Banks and for which she received a Laurel Award, and "Send In the Clowns", composed by Stephen Sondheim for Broadway's A Little Night Music (1973), in which she originated the role of Desiree Armfeldt and for which she received a Tony Award and Drama Desk Award.Glynis Johns - Wikipedia

[via-the-ghoul]

Slasher headcanons: realistically none of these people would do this but like. What if they had Tumblr accounts

Micheal Myers

His username is literally just Micheal-Myers or some variation on it if that’s already taken

He mostly just Reblogs the occasional “Can’t wait for Halloween” “it’s November” “Can’t wait for Halloween” post.

However the actual reason he got this account was to ominously like all of Laurie’s posts

The problem is that she blocked him immediately

She doesn’t even know for sure that it was old Mikey she just thinks naming your account after the guy who destroyed her life is a dick move

And his profile pick is the mask so she knows it’s not the actor or some other guy named Micheal Myers they’re talking about

So he can’t do the ominous liking thing anymore

Freddy Krueger

He is blocked by at least 90% of Tumblr

Ok let me explain

He runs a Freddy Krueger fan account

And isn’t trying to hide the fact that he is literally Freddy Krueger

And kills people

So everyone thinks that he’s just one of the worst of the weird TCC people

The weird serial killer simp TCC people don’t like him either because whenever they post about literally any other serial killer being hot he replies with “Freddy Krueger is way better kys”

And that’s why he’s blocked by at least 90% of Tumblr

Candyman

His account is basically one of the most normal ones on this list lol

It mostly posts those dark poetry posts (you know what I’m talking about right) and old paintings.

And before you ask yes. A good amount of said art is stuff he made as Daniel

He also reblogs a good amount of other people’s art and commission posts, artists gotta support each other!

The weirdest thing about the account is that one time he posted a painting that he made as Daniel, that was like, considered lost media up to this moment

And he didn’t know

Everyone’s just like “YO HOW TF DID YOU FIND THIS” and he’s just like “wait this was lost media”

Billy Loomis and Stu Matcher

They run a joint horror movie review account

Every single review is mostly positive

They still have a clear fav tho: gorey slasher movies

Billy’s reviews are more serious while Stu jokes around a lot

Billy’s like “you know it’s really messed up what happened to Henry, and I like the twist that he isn’t actually the killer this time and it’s the less sympathetic Axel” while Stu’s like “lol stupid kids get fucked”

They’re decently popular in the horror community

The account however, becomes infamous after their deaths and the fact that they were serial killers is revealed

It becomes… really uncomfortable to look at their posts after that

Lester Sinclair

He’s the only Sinclair brother with Tumblr

His posts are mostly just talking about the progress made on the Town of Wax (leaving out the murder obviously)

Bo and Vincent are both worried that Lester’s gonna accidentally reveal their crimes at some point

Similarly to Billy and Stu’s it gets uncomfortable to look at after the truth about the Town of Wax is revealed

However, it does get people to look at the posts

They’d get like 5 notes at most beforehand

Billy Lenz

His profile pic is the Bob eye, his username is a keyboard smash, and his background’s just like static or something

He just replies to random posts with keyboard smashes

Sometimes he’ll accidentally link a website but it never means anything

It’s a huge mystery what tf is going on with blog

At one he just posts “i am going to kill you” with no tags and goes silent forever

Everyone thinks it’s some bizarre ARG that didn’t go anywhere

Amanda Young

She posts quotes from various horror media she finds cool as well as aesthetic boards for said media

It’s mostly dark poetry, horror stories, and art house Horror movies

And the occasional Jigsaw quote

She does not hide the fact that she is a Jigsaw apologist. While being a trap survivor.

People argue about whether her account is ok or not for this reason