#Linea Speciale

[pier-carlo-universe]

Sciopero del Trasporto Pubblico Locale: I Servizi Minimi Garantiti a Casale Monferrato l’8 Novembre 2024

Informazioni e dettagli sui servizi di trasporto pubblico disponibili durante la giornata di sciopero nazionale

Informazioni e dettagli sui servizi di trasporto pubblico disponibili durante la giornata di sciopero nazionale Sciopero Nazionale del Trasporto Pubblico: I Servizi Essenziali a Casale Monferrato In occasione dello sciopero nazionale del trasporto pubblico indetto per venerdì 8 novembre 2024, l’Azienda Multiservizi Casalese (AMC) ha comunicato l’elenco dei servizi minimi garantiti per i…

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PRIMA PAGINA Il Dubbio di Oggi mercoledì, 02 luglio 2025

[gravid-transluna]

Two Birthdays

words: 4111

content: lactation, milking, clothing birth, birth denial, fpreg

Part One

A birthday is a special day. Her friend’s twenty-first should have been Mari’s only focus. However, Mari had been distracted the entire day as they spent time at the resort’s expansive pool and spa. It hadn’t been so bad at first. Her friend’s mom, Noemi, was nearly a week overdue with her second child, and though she had started the day in modest clothes—a maternity sundress draping her huge, full swell, navel protruding starkly, pressing downward from her middle—, the afternoon sun had continued to shine down on them, forcing Noemi to shed her dress, pulling it up her belly and over her head.

Mari’s face had flushed and she’d turned away, ashamed and furious at herself for her own thoughts, but she’d already seen the nakedness of Noemi’s belly, taut at the seams and painfully overdue, hanging low over her hips and melting into her otherwise small, slim frame. Sweat had shimmered, bright, on the stretched, striped skin. A dark linea nigra ran down her middle to her navel. Her belly button was hard and round like a stone. Underneath, she only wore a white two-piece bikini, and her breasts, once small and subtle, hung swollen in her top, nipples and areolae visible.

Mari’s heart wouldn’t stop fluttering every time Noemi lifted her slender hands to cup her swell, or when she rose from the sunbathing to reapply sunscreen and Mari saw her from the back; though she still tried to step with her usual grace and poise, her gait was wide, baby obviously dropped between her narrow hips, reducing her to a waddle.

It was a very uncomfortable day to be a lesbian with a fetish that especially appealed on an older woman.

This wasn’t the worst of it, though.

Mari first noticed it when Noemi reached across the table for her drink.

“Excuse me,” she said.

“Of course!” Mari squeaked.

Then Noemi’s face changed. Her reaching hand flew to her belly, and Mari followed it to see visible tensing, muscles clenched on either side, misshapen around her huge baby.

“Oh!” she said. There was something in her face now. Surprise, but also a slight urgency.

“Ms. Noemi?” Mari asked. “Are—are you okay?”

“Mm,” Noemi said, and took her glass. “I’m fine. Thank you, Mari.”

This happened multiple times throughout the day, and every time she saw that mound tense then sag, muscles relaxing, Mari’s pussy pounded badly, pulsing.

She stayed in the shade, sipping nothing but cold water with ice while her friend and the others ordered drinks at the pool bar.

After about another hour of this, Mari couldn’t take it. She left and walked to the restrooms and found a stall. Inside it she immediately yanked her bikini bottom down her legs and pressed her fingers to her clit. Her pussy throbbed for release, dripping and clenching. She began to masturbate standing over the toilet, imagining closing her lips around one of Noemi’s stiff, milk-heavy nipples.

Fuck, she thought. Fuck, fuck. Her pussy began to pulsate under her slick fingers. Her thighs shook as she came.

“Shit,” Mari said aloud, then she wiped herself down and pulled her bikini bottom back up and exited the stall, washing the slick from her hands in the sink.

Suddenly the restroom door was flung open. Mari jumped guiltily, then her eyes widened in shock as Noemi raced past her, not even noticing her at the sink, bowed over her low belly, a hand clamped to her crotch. She ran into the handicap stall and slammed the door shut. It was quiet for a moment. Then—

“Ohhhhhh.”

A muted, breathless moan and a loud splashing sound.

Mari stood frozen. She heard a small gasping from the other side of the stall door, and approached hesitantly. She rapped a timid knuckle on the door and the gasps stopped.

“U-um, Ms. Noemi? Are you okay?”

There was silence. Then, “Yes, just some Braxton Hicks contractions. I’m sorry if I startled you, Mari.”

Noemi’s voice sounded strained, so uncharacteristic of her usually soft, modulated tone.

Mari hesitated. “Are you sure? Do you need any help?”

More silence. The stall door unlocked from the inside. Mari pushed it open and her heart thumped in her chest at the sight inside.

Noemi was standing over the toilet, thighs wide apart, knees slightly bent. Her bikini bottom and legs were soaked with fluids. Her belly, somehow, appeared to hang even lower, navel pointed almost to the floor now with weight and fullness. Her face was sweaty, cheeks flushed, short dark hair clinging damply to her forehead.

“Oh my god, Ms. Noemi,” Mari said. “Your water broke, didn’t it?”

Noemi’s face tightened and she pressed her lips together, nodding and closing her eyes. She clutched reflexively at the orb between her thighs as it flexed, hardening, muscles like iron. Her brow wrinkled and she grunted as though she couldn’t stand the pressure anymore.

“Mari,” she gasped. “I need you to step out, please. I’m—I think I need to—relieve myself.”

Mari shook her head. “I think it’s the baby! Are you feeling like pushing?”

“Ughh.” Noemi’s eyes were squeezed shut. “Yes. I need to push.”

“Oh my—“ Mari trailed off. “We’ve gotta call you an ambulance.”

Suddenly the contraction released Noemi. Her belly slackened. She collapsed onto the toilet seat, thighs spread wide to accommodate her massive stomach. She panted, chest heaving.

“No,” she said. “It will ruin the party.”

“But—“

“Please.” Noemi’s eyes softened, and Mari perceived her desperation clearly. “You’re one of my daughter’s more mature friends. I don’t want to embarrass her or cause a scene, and I need your help.”

Mari gulped. “What can I do?”

Noemi sighed. “Thank you. I just need to last until the party is over.”

The restroom door opened and someone walked in.

“Ms. Noemi? Are you in there?” The voice was a little slurred, tipsy from afternoon drinking.

Noemi composed herself and raised her voice. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“O-o-okay. Haven’t popped yet, have you?”

Noemi managed a weak laugh. “Holding it in.”

For now, Mari thought.

They waited until they heard the door close. Then Noemi said, “Could you—I need you to—” was she—blushing? “I can’t go back out covered in my waters.”

“O-oh,” Mari said, and she was suddenly aware of the distinct odor coming off of Noemi, the scent of her fluids, fecund and thick, the musk of a woman close to birthing. Noemi stood as Mari grabbed a wad of toilet paper and began to dab her formerly lean thighs, thickened over the course of her pregnancy.

“And–” She was really blushing now, Mari marveled. “I’d do it myself but–I can no longer reach around my stomach.”

Happy to. Mari drew her fingers around Noemi’s hips, noting the slight intake of breath as her thumbs brushed swollen underbelly. She hooked her bikini bottom and exposed her fleshy pregnancy pussy, damp and swampy, and the odor was stronger now. Mari breathed.

Then, “you have to close your legs.”

“Mm, trying.” Noemi struggled, the baby lodged in her pelvis making it almost impossible to pinch her knees shut. Her eyes widened. “Oh no…”

Her belly hitched and went hard. Her knees immediately buckled, thighs wide again.

“I need to push,” she said. She groaned as she began to bear down. The sides of her belly sucked in with the force of her pushing.

“No! Ms. Noemi, you have to hold it in, remember?” Mari said.

“Hnnnnfgh,” Noemi groaned. She tried to resist. “Hooh-hooh, god. I need to push.”

Mari, not knowing how to help, planted her palms on Noemi’s belly and rubbed the hot, furious skin. It burned under her palms, fevered. She could feel the desperate convulsions of Noemi’s strong internal muscles as they worked to expel her baby against her efforts.

“Oh,” Noemi grunted.

“Sorry!”

“No! No–ouugh–please. Don’t stop.”

Noemi closed her eyes and raised her chin, swaying back and forth as Mari stroked the tight, oblong surface. Experimentally, she flicked her thumb across Noemi’s bulging navel, and Noemi shivered.

The contraction ended, leaving Noemi worn and restless, her baby’s head burrowed deeper into her birth canal, fuller even, than she’d been before her labor. Mari removed her hands from Noemi’s belly, and Noemi appeared embarrassed, almost bashful.

“I wish–hah–you didn’t have to see me like this, much less care for me in such a compromising–ugh–condition. Modesty is hard enough to maintain when it comes to pregnancy.”

“You’re beautiful,” Mari said honestly.

Startled and disarmed, Noemi looked at her. It could have been the heat flush, or she could have been blushing again.

Part Two

They exited the restroom together and for the next hour, Noemi mingled near the pool bar, a drink in hand, and endured the powerful, relentless contractions. Mari stood beside her, and the first time another contraction struck she saw Noemi double over, muscles banding her belly, legs widening instinctively.

“Oh,” she whispered. “OH. I’m pushinnng-hnnngh.”

“No, you’re not,” Mari hissed back. “You can do this.” She placed a covert hand on Noemi’s curved back, massaging it gently, already accustomed to touching Noemi’s exposed, laboring body.

Noemi straightened, and painstakingly closed her legs as much as she could, attempting to hold her baby firm in her canal. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Her grunts diminished into effortful pants.

“That’s it, Ms. Noemi,” Mari said. “I don’t think anybody noticed.”

“Good,” Noemi moaned under her breath. “Good. I’m feeling like pushing all the time now, even when the contraction’s gone. There’s so much pressure, right between my legs.”

Another contraction that hour had Noemi leaning heavily on Mari for support, her obtrusive belly pushing into Mari’s own flat tummy, making Mari wonder at the sensation of such a packed, heavy womb. She could feel the steely stretched muscles rippling against her. The skin contact moved heat from Mari’s stomach to between her legs, and again her pussy was beating, quick and warm like a pulse. She worried that she was leaking through her bikini bottom now, dizzied by arousal. Then Noemi moaned in her ear, arms wrapped around her shoulders, and Mari felt a wetness drip down her inner thigh.

“Aye, go get your mom!”

“Should she be drinking in that state?”

Luckily, everyone was too drunk at this point to think much about it.

Contractions were gripping Noemi mercilessly now, with barely any pause or respite, and she was barely holding on every time, fighting her body, her deep primal instinct to bear down against the baby in her canal. Every time Mari anchored her, caressing her hard belly, urging her gently, just hang on a little while longer. The last contraction left Noemi senseless with pain and need, foggy-headed. Her legs were permanently spread now, stance ridiculously wide.

“Oh, dear…” she breathed, and Mari followed her gaze to her front. Two wet spots had formed in her bikini top, nipples standing straight through the fabric.

“Ms. Noemi,” Mari said, summoning her courage. She looked Noemi in the eye. “Let me help you.”

Noemi let herself be led to the restrooms again, barely able to put one foot in front of the other, everything about her so full and aching.

“You don’t need to come in with me,” she said. “I can, ah, expel the milk on my own.”

“Don’t worry, Ms. Noemi,” Mari said. “I promised I’d take care of you.”

Noemi was blushing hard now, appearing almost drunk in her labored state. She allowed Mari to sit her down on the toilet. Mari gently teased the white bikini top from her breasts, and Noemi shivered, curling her toes at just the light brush of fabric against her sensitive nipples. Her dark areolas spread over her breasts, and around them blue veins ran through soft, tan skin. Her nipples jutted stiffly, heavy and laden, beaded at the tips with milk.

Mari set the flat of her hand against one and marveled as more milk beaded at the surface and then began to drip down the swell of Noemi’s breast and onto the long shelf of her belly. Noemi hissed, a sharp intake of air.

“Okay?”

Noemi nodded, unable to speak. Keep going.

“You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this,” Mari said. She sat on Noemi’s lap and clamped her mouth around her nipple, cupping her other breast in her hand. Milk spurted from both breasts in tiny forceful streams. Noemi clapped a hand over her mouth to contain a sharp noise of pleasure and release, her back arching, other hand raised, opening and closing in the air. Mari suckled, feeling Noemi squirm under her, and lowered her free hand between her own legs, strumming her clit. Suddenly Noemi’s belly went hard again and she threw back her head to moan loudly, and Mari couldn’t tell whether from ecstasy or agony or a thrilling mixture of both.

“Oh, oh—Mari, please don’t—don’t stop. Fuck.”

Mari continued to suckle and the hand groping Noemi’s breast slid to her swell instead, tracing her linea nigra. There was no give to the surface, drum-tight, and Mari could feel Noemi’s belly seize violently, driving her baby down in a deep, involuntary push. Noemi’s moan lowered, guttural with sudden pushing, and Mari instantly took her lips away from Noemi’s breast. The milk stream diminished to dribble, her breasts not even close to being drained. Noemi squirmed at the sudden lapse.

“No pushing, remember?” Mari had settled well into a dominant role, playing out her ultimate fantasy, Noemi utterly receptive, responding to her every demand.

She breathed, slowly, and her hard belly relaxed somewhat.

“Good,” Mari said.

Noemi shuddered. “Yes, just—please. Continue.”

Mari smiled and said something she’d always wanted to say to Noemi: “Good girl.” The faint marks in the corners of her mouth, the maturity in her maternal hips, the refined elegance of her fingers—it was all subversive.

“I’ve never—never been called that by anyone,” Noemi panted. “Especially not someone no twenty years my junior.”

Mari bent her head again and Noemi’s lips tightened in preparation. She latched back onto her nipple, milk gushing into her mouth, and began to thumb Noemi’s stony pointed navel, her entire belly an erogenous zone at this point, her navel the sensory peak. Noemi nearly shrieked, delirious, and beneath her thighs Mari felt her hips bucking, building not only toward delivery now, but a climax. Mari continued to masturbate herself furiously, working her mouth at the same time, sinking her teeth lightly into Noemi’s breast, just enough to leave light, red marks. Noemi’s thighs began to quake with tremors and Mari’s pussy squeezed tight, clit bared—she gasped against Noemi’s soft chest at the same time that Noemi’s lips parted in a perfect O. Then they both trembled through watery orgasms.

Noemi looked at her with glassy eyes, hazy. She leaned in, lips soft and open and receptive for a kiss—then stopped, delicate features twisting into a grimace, and released a thunderous groan, lifting her bottom off the toilet seat with the force of her pushing. Her eyes went wide. Mari could tell something had changed. She was feeling something, deep inside of herself.

She tried to articulate the sensation. “Guh—the baby, it’s—mmmm, it’s right between—the baby’s in my vagina!”

Mari looked at her. She was desperate, out of control, her face flushed and beaded with sweat, moist short hair clinging to her forehead. Her contracting belly, lower than ever.

Mari leaned forward and rammed a kiss onto her lips, and made her taste her own milk.

Part Three

Mari rose from Noemi’s lap. Her tortured spasming belly hung so low at this point that even when she raised herself from the toilet seat Mari still couldn’t see her pussy, just the creases where her extreme underbelly sank into the flesh of her hips, and the tiny white string of her bikini bottom wrapping them, dragged by the heavy downward sag. Noemi was already trying to push again, nothing else in her mind except the baby now coming out of her. Legs planted wide, firmly squatted. It didn’t seem like she could even straighten up at this point, so heavy and low with the head. She grunted loudly, frantic in her efforts to pull her bikini bottom down her thighs and alleviate the immense pressure in her bottom. Sweat poured from her slick skin. She was obviously in the final stages of labor, and like she had been twenty-one years ago, she was consumed by the need to birth her baby.

Mari stood, watching in the sticky panties she’d just masturbated herself hard in, pussy still convulsing. She could see the light red teeth marks ringing Noemi’s areola. She had marked her. Noemi was hers. And yet, she wasn’t paying any mind to the girl who had suckled her to orgasm. Her only focus was pushing her baby out into her bikini, and once she did that she would become a mother again. Mari felt insecure, possessive. Would things return to the way they had been before? Noemi never noticing her, never giving her the attention she had craved. Suddenly, Mari reached for Noemi’s fingers at the hem of her bikini.

“Ms. Noemi.” Her voice was a firm reprimand. “I thought you wanted me to help you. I can’t help you if you push your baby out right now.”

Noemi could barely talk at this point. “Have—to—PUSH.” Mari still felt that awe, seeing such an articulate, modest woman reduced to animalistic instinct. She groaned, bearing down more, and her groan tightened as the baby was driven deeper into her bottom.

Mari circled her, tracing her fingers lightly from Noemi’s contraction-wracked torpedo belly to her curving bent back. Standing behind her now, she took Noemi’s delicate wrists in her hands and moved them away from the bikini bottom. Then she bent to see Noemi’s squatted thighs and bottom, and between her cheeks the wetted white bikini was beginning to tent outward. Mari gently rolled the bikini down to Noemi’s widespread knees. The pregnancy pussy she had just seen hours ago was now unrecognizably swollen and bulged with a startlingly huge head, yet her lips had barely parted. Mari wasn’t even sure if Noemi could birth something so big. Between Noemi’s thighs she could see her brown hanging belly harden again, the contractions now relentless, forcing Noemi into constant pushing.

As she watched, Noemi’s pussy bulged more and reddened. Her lips slowly began to part, distending—until Mari clapped her hand over the head. Noemi’s hot pussy strained against her palm, but Mari didn’t permit the head to progress any further. She heard Noemi’s strangled sob of frustration.

“It’s okay,” Mari cooed. “If you can’t hold it in, I can for you.”

Gently, she slipped the bikini bottom back up Noemi’s thighs and pulled it firmly over her hips, wedging the baby tight in her pussy. It yielded a little, but certainly not enough for Noemi to deliver the head. Noemi gasped at the feeling of the fabric against her sensitive, tender opening.

Mari then redid Noemi’s top, tying it in the back.

“There,” she appraised Noemi, trembling and gasping, filled completely with her baby. “I think you’re ready to go back out. People are probably getting suspicious of us.”

“Okay,” Noemi closed her eyes. “Just a little longer.”

“That’s it, Ms. Noemi!” Mari’s eyes lit up. “Hold it in for me.”

It was evening now. A lot of people had deserted, and those who stayed were trashed, too inebriated to notice Mari step out with Noemi in tow. They didn’t notice that Noemi only walked in a squatted position now, knees bent, legs far apart. They didn’t notice the sweat beading her forehead, or the flush of her cheeks. They didn’t notice her hanging belly, constantly constricting with contractions and hard unceasing pushes. And they certainly didn’t notice the conspicuous bulge straining her bikini bottom, dripping fluids from between her thighs.

Nobody assumed such a composed woman would be bent under the thumb of a girl twenty years younger than her, crowning into her bikini right there at the poolside.

Noemi staggered to a wicker pool chair, and slowly lowered herself with Mari’s help, only to yelp and cringe away when her bulged bottom made contact with the seat.

“Here—“ Mari said. “Try to sit back instead.”

Noemi sat with her back arched, legs open to the poolside, so that the head rested in her pussy without being crammed between her and the chair. She was already pushing, her knuckles white, gripping the arm rests so hard, Mari thought they might snap in her grasp. Her toes curled. Liquid pattered the deck beneath the chair, a puddle spreading under her. The head parted her more. She seemed unable to spread her legs wide enough, grunting and pushing and stretching. Even when she paused, it no longer slid back in, kept her lips taut and spread.

She pushed. The head no longer moved. The fabric trapped it snugly. She pushed again. Hard. Nothing. She pushed and pushed, caught in endless contractions and pushes. Mari heard her name panted, again and again, as she circled the head over the fabric with light fingers. Satisfaction stirred her.

Noemi was hers.

Finally, Noemi clambered heavily from her seat. She dropped into a deep squat on the deck and threw her head back, interrupting her silent pushes with a strained moan as she bore down once again, pained for leverage, obeying her instinctual need for a position change despite her unyielding clothes. Mari heard her joints pop; her forty-something body was at its limit.

It was time. They both sensed it.

Mari leaned in. Her breath shivered Noemi’s ear. “Are you ready, Noemi?” she whispered, forgoing the “Ms” title for the first time.

Noemi nodded. Once.

Mari paused. “Are you sure?”

Noemi nodded vigorously as she heaved with another push.

“Come on, then.”

The party was over. Nobody was left except for Noemi’s daughter, who had been laying passed out in a reclining chair since noon.

The pool water was cool on Mari’s skin as she waded down the steps. She discarded her bikini as she went, and the cold pricked up her bare nipples. Noemi breathed a deep sigh as she waded in herself. The water enveloped her thighs, her heavy submerging belly, and finally her splayed breasts as she sank. Mari swam up behind her and hugged her around the circumference of her gravid belly. She pressed herself to the curve of Noemi’s back, naked skin touching as they drifted for a second. Only a second, though. Soon it was over and Noemi was placing her head back, into Mari’s shoulder, and pushing. Mari’s hands traveled to Noemi’s bikini bottom and—

“Push for me,” she breathed, and pulled it down.

Noemi shouted loudly and groaned her baby into Mari’s hand. Her vaginal lips stretched, forming an angry fervent oval around the massive head. She groaned, forceful in her efforts. Her thighs gaped open in the water. Her pussy was a slick, round, red circle now, straining and slipping around the head. Her groans were almost inhuman, overwhelmed with need and desire and basic instinct. Mari felt the head inch out with Noemi’s powerful pushes, and admired its size and width. This was coming from Noemi, coming through her, creaking her aged bones and spreading her in a way she hadn’t been since her youth.

Her belly raised and then dropped with a final push, the drawn muscles of her uterus convulsing, and she shrieked. The head reached its widest point. Eyes, nose, ears, she opened around each feature. For a moment her lips whitened, pale around the head. Then a pop, a burst, a release. Noemi shuddered. Her legs jerked in the water and opaque amniotic fluids spilled from her.

“Uggghhh.”

“You did it,” Mari said. She marveled at Noemi’s motherly drive as she caressed the head hanging from Noemi’s pussy. “Just the shoulders now.”

“Ohhhh,” Noemi brought her hand between her legs, holding Mari’s as they both cupped the head. “My baby,” she panted. “My baby….”

“Let’s meet her together,” Mari whispered.

Noemi arched in the pool, belly and breasts and upturned nipples raising above the water. With a sweet, quiet groan, she gave birth into Mari’s waiting hands.

Noemi sat beside the pool on the reclining chair, her stomach sagging in her lap, ruined by a dark linea nigra. Her short hair plastered her forehead. Her attention was on the baby suckling at her milky breast. She looked up when Mari trotted to her with spare towels, and smiled tiredly.

Mari leaned down and wrapped her in the towel, and kissed her on the cheek.

“So,” Noemi said. “How do we tell my other daughter?”

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

💖 Sapphic Books Out May 2025

🩷 Good afternoon, bookish bats. By now, you know that sweet, sapphic romance books have a special place in my heart. Here are only a few of the amazing sapphic books that hit shelves in May 2025. Please correct me if there are mistakes.

❓ What was the last sapphic book you read?

💖 Two Weddings and a Funeral by Claudia Parr 🩷 The Vengeance by Emma Newman 💖 All-Nighter by Cecilia Vinesse 🩷 Dream On, Ramona Riley by Ashley Herring Blake 💖 Everyone Sux But You by K. Wroten 🩷 Out of Step, Into You by Ciera Burch 💖 The Thrill of the Chase by Kathryn Nolan 🩷 Love in Focus by Lyla Lee 💖 Learning to Fall by Peach Morris

💖 Discovering Gold by Sam Ledel 🩷 Emma by the Sea by Sarah Levine 💖 Sometimes the Girl by Jennifer Mason-Black 🩷 Get Real, Chloe Torres by Crystal Maldonado 💖 Time After Time by Mikki Daughtry 🩷 Kiss Me, Maybe by Gabriella Gamez 💖 A Sharp Endless Need by Marisa Crane 🩷 Love Languages by James Albon 💖 Motherlover by Lindsay Ishihiro

💖 One Measure of Love by Annie McDonald 🩷 There’s a Badge for That by Relly Moring 💖 All’s Fair in Love and Field Hockey 🩷 Goodbye, Hello by Heather K O’Malley 💖 Strange Girls by Sarvat Hasin 🩷 Wife by Charlotte Mendelson 💖 To Please Her by Elena Abbott 🩷 Waist Deep by Linea Maja Ernst 💖 Those Who Burn the Brightest by Kayla Morton

💖 Summer Girls by Jennifer Dugan 🩷 Blood and Flame by Brendan Corbett 💖 Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang 🩷 Dream a Little Dream by Melissa Brayden 💖 The Incandescent by Emily Tesh 🩷 Grand Slam Romance: Farewell to Babes by Ollie Hicks & Emma Oosterhous 💖 Gay the Pray Away by Natalie Naudus 🩷 Give My Love to Berlin by Katherine Bryant 💖 The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling

[dassandre-00qpidsarrow]

Gemma Sinclair - Introduction Post

Name:  Redacted

Alias:  Gemma (Gem) Sinclair Occupation: Undercover MI6 Operative - Barista; Caffeine Purveyor to the Needy of London

Once a highly skilled MI6 Senior Intelligence Officer who was flirting with becoming a Double-O, Gemma Sinclair lost most of her vision during an accident on a mission stateside.  Putting to M the argument that she still had something to offer the service that had already spent so much on developing her skills, Gem suggested she become an “Echo,” one of MI6’s in plain sight spies who are in a position to overhear all manner of conversation, but whose presence is largely ignored: restaurant servers, taxi drivers, hair stylists, baristas, and the like.  All fully vetted and trained MI6 intelligence agents, Echoes serve in key locales around the world, even on home soil.

It had taken some time relearning to “see” and adapting her espionage skills accordingly, but it was decided that Gem would reopen the coffee cart she had owned prior to being recruited years earlier.  It had been insanely popular then; Gem’s skills with her La Marzocco Linea Classic espresso machine had brought people from all over London to her queue-- politicians, embassy mission personnel, and the PAs of top international corporate and banking executives, among them.  All of them desperate for that buzz of caffeine; all of them equally lax when it came to keeping their mouths shut on their mobiles as they waited for their flat whites, cappuccinos, and cortados with oat milk and vanilla syrup.  That Gem’s baked goods were equally lucious had brought even bigger queues, one that included her eventual recruiter who couldn’t get enough of her triple-chocolate fudge brownies and almond croissants.

Age: 33

Special Skills:  Nicknamed “The Coffee Whisperer” by her more devoted customers, she has been called instinctively gifted when it comes to brewing the bean.  In her fully sighted days, she was able to “read” a new customer’s order in their eyes before they actually voiced it.  Now she senses it in their mien and tone as they wait in her queue.  Sometimes the coffee drink the customer is given might not be what they ordered but, rather, what they need.  No one has ever complained.  Well, not after the first sip, at any rate.  

Gem’s hearing has always been extremely acute, but even more so now, and she is able to keep track of multiple conversations going on around her cart, even as she talks with the customers, and makes their drinks.  Her intelligence gathering skills are the highest among the Echoes -- Gem is ever amused at how people seem to think that because she is mostly blind, she must be deaf, too -- and the increasing popularity of her cart has M considering releasing funding for Gem to have the part time help of a junior agent during peak hours.  In the last six months alone, Gem has passed along key intelligence that ultimately led to several successful missions in the protection of King and Country. 

Gem is fluent in several languages -- Russian, Spanish, French, and Portuguese -- and conversational in three others (Mandarin Chinese, Farsi, and Tagalog), not that her customers have any idea she is multilingual.  She always chats with them in her native Scots brogue -- Gaelic being her first language even before she learnt English -- which she’d had to tame down when she’d become an agent.  

Best Friend:  Gem’s best friend is her yellow Labrador Retriever, Bumble.  He helps keep an eye on Gem as she’s busy keeping an eye out on The Commonwealth.  Always at her side, Bumble is a trained service dog with highly protective instincts.  Everyone who comes to Gem’s cart knows that Bumble is as goofily loving as his name suggests, but that he is there to assist Gem in whatever she needs.  Though technically owned by MI6, as they paid for him and his training, Bumble is the best thing to happen to Gem, and she loves him dearly.  Yes, even when he steals her socks or wakes her up in the middle of the night with a sneak attack, slobbery kiss on the mouth.  Ugh!

Other Friends:  Mac, a cryptographer from Q-Branch is easily her most frequent customer.  Though he’s often fetching coffee and brownies for his boss, The Quartermaster, the man never leaves empty handed for himself.  She can always tell what kind of day he’s having once she senses him in the queue, and on good days has a hot white chocolate mocha ready for him.  Otherwise, she passes him an Ethiopian dark to match his mood, and she always keeps a chocolate cream-filled fairy cake and a cruller in reserve for him. 

They’ve struck up a good friendship over the years.  He always remembers to bring a treat for Bumble, and because he never knew her when she was sighted -- he didn’t start with Six until a year after her accident -- he always chats with her without the undertone of pity that frequently tinges the conversations she has with people she knew “before.”  Though she never quite knows when he’ll appear, Mac always does.  Without fail.  He’s just as desperate for his caffeine fix as the rest of Six is, after all.  

Only once did he not show, and it had worried Gem to the point that she had her Six appointed driver (a story in and of itself) drive her to Q-Branch headquarters (the back entrance, of course) when she packed up for the day.  Gem was directed to Medical where she found a doctor stitching up the back of his head.   An overly nervous newbie intern hadn’t been paying attention to where he was going, was running through the twisting corridors of the Churchill tunnels to catch up with the rest of the intro tour, and crashed into Mac, sending him into one of the stone walls where he cracked his head, knocking him unconscious.  Mac got free coffees and baked goods for a fortnight after that incident; the first week was on the newbie, the second was on Gemma.

Coffee Cart’s Name:  Buzz & Bark.  The double meaning of “Buzz” in this case being the buzz of caffeine along with the buzz of intelligence-worthy gossip.  The “Bark”, of course, is for her beloved Bumble.

Lives In:  A converted warehouse in Pimlico owned by MI6.  While not huge, it provides Gemma with not only a comfortable space for her and Bumble to live in but it houses a small commercial kitchen in which she bakes the goods for her cart.  It’s perfect for the two of them, but Gem admits to getting a tad lonely.

Favourite Food:  She’s a slave for anything in rice paper be it a fresh Vietnamese spring roll or sashimi wraps.

Least Favourite Food:  Hobnob biscuits.  No.  Just … no.

Vices:  Audiobooks.  She has several thousand in her library and likes to listen to them as she bakes.  This can get a bit awkward for her neighbours when she forgets to turn down the volume on the romance titles and the sex scenes get going.  She’s particularly fond of male LGBTQ+ titles, and they get S T E A M Y!   She also has a penchant for American iced sweet tea, which she always drinks in private.  The gasps of horror from others simply too much to contend with.  Bumble, of course, doesn’t give a shite.

Contends with Boredom:  By reading cookbooks and baking books.  Gem can still see a little bit via a pinhole’s worth of vision in her left eye, and is ever so grateful for it.  She binge watches British Bake Off and whatever the latest crime show is. Snuggling with Bumble.  He’s bloody brilliant at it.

Deals with Frustration:  By going to the shooting range at MI6, and with the Quartermaster’s assistance, blows the absolute shite out of the targets.  Q makes sure no one else is on the range, and lets Gem have at it -- safely, of course.  It’s highly therapeutic.

Other Tidbits:  Even though she is tasked as an Echo, Gem is still a senior intelligence officer on assignment; therefore, she still gets operational support from MI6.  In addition to Bumble and the warehouse, this also means weaponry and gadgets from Q-Branch.  All of which have been specially modified for her disability.  Whilst it is not safe for her to use a firearm in public, Gem is highly skilled with a knife, and is always armed with one.  A panic button has been installed, and cleverly hidden, in her coffee cart should she be attacked, and the sunglasses she wears have been modified by Q-Branch technology, enhancing that pinhole of vision she retained after the accident.

Why Will She Be at JellyfishCon?  Why else?  To serve coffee to the caffeine-needy and to gather intelligence.  You never know who’s going to show up.  Especially among the mystery writers downstairs.  Always shady, that group is.

[neon-kazoo]

Muscles, Bones, and Joints (of the lower leg)

Villain entered the house with the grace of a ghost, feet light as feathers as they glided down the hall to where a soft glow crept out from a doorframe on the left. The hero was, as expected, inside, and seemed to be hard at work.

They sat hunched at a desk, flattened capri sun packet discarded to the side, papers strewn across the rest of the surface with a laptop planted square on top of it all.

From the looks of it, Hero had at least fifteen tabs open, and the poor little laptop fan was working overtime trying not to set fire to the physical notes below it.

A pair of oversized glasses sat slid down on their nose, lenses slightly yellowed. Their hair was a scraggly mess, clip lopsided and hair falling as if they had forgotten they had put in a clip at all.

Last time Villain had seen Hero, they had threatened to not-so-carefully deposit them into the air from a great height with no safety net. Villain hadn’t thought they would take the threat serious enough to hunker down like this, though.

Entranced in a stress-induced panic, Hero spoke to themselves like Villain had already lifted a gun to their head.

“The piriformis thinks it’s so special with its silly little spinal nerves…”

Villain took the opportunity to creep a little closer, as the hero was in no state to notice any disturbance around them.

“Femoral,” they recited, slightly feverishly, “Sartorius, cause females love Jacob. They also love pecs, pectineus. And wrecking things, rectus femoris. And…vast things. The vastuses.”

They shook their head, as if that might cause the information to solidify in their mind.

“Tibial. That’s Tibialis posterior, gastrocnemius, soleus, iliopsoas, and the flexors.”

Their eyes had closed as they attempted to reach deep into their brain for the information.

“Actually, the iliopsoas is innervated by the femoral nerve.”

Hero yelped, spinning around in their chair to come face to face with none other than Villain, their previously-closed eyes blown wide.

“You also forgot the plantaris,” Villain noted.

“I said that!”

“No, you really didn’t.” Villain tilted their head, eyes drawn to the crumpled chip bags that had fallen short of the trash can against the wall.

Hero scoffed, “Next, you’re gonna tell me the linea aspera is on the posterior side of the tibia.”

From the look on Villain’s face, Hero guessed they weren’t doing so hot in the bone department either.

A dull thud accompanied the smacking of Hero’s head against the desk. The villain took the opportunity to circle the table, now standing directly in front of the hero’s bent over form.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to help me study?” Hero mumbled through lips they had slightly lifted from the desk.

“How about I stab you, and you tell me which muscle I hit?” Villain offered, with all the sincerity of a well-armed home invader.

Hero let their head fall back down again, unimpressed by the blade-twirling going on between the villain’s fingers.

“I’m going to failllllll,” they groaned against the paper and wood.

Villain sheathed their daggers and sighed.

“Look at it this way,” the villain comforted mocked with an exaggerated eye roll, “you still have your future as a hero.”

Hero slowly raised their head, fire in their gaze as they threatened, “I am going to hit your extended knee laterally, causing an unhappy triad injury, tearing your medial collateral ligament, and with it damaging your medial meniscus and anterior cruciate ligament so your knee will never feel stable again.”

“That’s the spirit,” Villain chuckled, planting themselves on the desk and turning to face the face the hero with one knee resting on the edge of the wood. They showed a smile that was sure to drive them mad, if they weren’t already there.

“If you ever want to extend your knee again, you and your rectus femoris should get out of my house.”

“But I’m having so much fun,” Villain pouted.

Hero hung their head before assembling their signature law-enforcing hero face.

“Breaking and entering is a crime,” they reminded, “just like it’s a crime that the biceps femoris is in the leg and not the arm.”

Villain, as amused as ever, didn’t move a muscle. At least, none of the muscles Hero could name.

“So are you leaving or not?” They asked impatiently. “I have a practical to study for.”

“Does the gluteus medius insert on the greater trochanter of the femur?”

Hero stared in silence for a moment.

“Does the offer to throw me off a cliff still stand?”

“Only if you can tell me the muscles I would need to use to perform that movement.”

Hero screamed, knowing full well they had only gotten as far as reviewing the legs.

[pettirosso1959]

Marcello Veneziani è il più grande intellettuale politico e culturale che oggi l'Italia ha, il CDX dovrebbe prendere spunto dai suoi scritti.

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

LA MALAITALIA INCLUDE I GIUDICI E LA SINISTRA

È passato inosservato un libro che fa la storia di Tangentopoli, scritto da un inviato speciale de la Repubblica che per tanti anni seguì in prima linea Mani pulite e si trovò tempestato di querele. Sto parlando di Enzo Cirillo, autore di un libro uscito da poco: “Mani pulite. Fu vera gloria?” edito da Gangemi col sottotitolo “perché non è mai morta la prima repubblica e perché l’Italia rischia”.

Ma come, il libro di una firma di Repubblica contro la corruzione che passa in silenzio? Si, perché sostiene tre tesi non proprio in linea col mainstream. La prima è che Tangentopoli coinvolse appieno la sinistra, anche se fu risparmiata nelle inchieste giudiziarie e mediatiche. La seconda è che la magistratura non era la parte sana che indagava la parte malata delle istituzioni, ma era pienamente dentro quel potere e lottava per la supremazia. La terza è che la corruzione non fu sradicata affatto ma ha continuato imperterrita anche dopo Mani Pulite.

Percorro in grandi linee le tesi di Cirillo. Per cominciare, la corruzione che passava dal ministero dei lavori pubblici (e dei favori privati) arricchiva tutti, “rubavano tutti”; e la corruzione politica fece da volano al salto di qualità di Mafia, Camorra e ‘Ndrangheta e alla loro longa manus nella pubblica amministrazione.

Il libro si apre con una citazione di Luciano Violante: “Noi magistrati eravamo pronti a prendere il potere in Italia. Dopo Tangentopoli aspettavamo il passaggio del testimone”. Lo stesso Violante, passato dalla toga al Pds, sposta le aspettative di ricambio dal piano giudiziario al piano politico e afferma: “Aspettavamo, noi del Pci-Pds che la mela cadesse. Puntavamo sui benefici di mani pulite”, non cogliendo quel che invece Bettino Craxi aveva ben colto: la disgregazione dei partiti trascinerà e delegittimerà tutti. Infatti arrivò il Cavaliere outsider con le opposizioni non coinvolte in Mani pulite, vale a dire l’Msi e la Lega, più i sopravvissuti del pentapartito non assorbiti dalla sinistra.

Oltre le spartizioni trasversali, Cirillo cita anche altre pagine del malaffare che coinvolsero imprenditori sotto l’ombrello protettivo della sinistra. È il caso di Carlo De Benedetti, all’epoca editore de la Repubblica, “finito nel grande proscenio della corruzione che flagellava l’Italia” e sentito a San Vittore da Tonino Di Pietro. Ne nacque pure un’intervista di Giampaolo Pansa all’editore che aveva ammesso di aver pagato tangenti. La difesa dell’editore-finanziere fu che se avesse provato a rivelare il sistema delle tangenti “mi avrebbero distrutto”; dunque per sopravvivere meglio l’omertà e la partecipazione al gioco… L’intervista è dura ma chi ne esce bene è l’intervistatore, Pansa, non certo l’intervistato, e il suo gruppo.

È pure il caso dei Benetton, legati al Pd e al gruppo L’Espresso, e della tragedia del ponte Morandi, con 43 morti, dopo più di vent’anni di gestione della società autostrade con profitti per decine di miliardi. Cirillo si addentra nella vicenda e nella manutenzione mancata del ponte, col finale salvacondotto firmato dal governo giallo-rosso. A la Repubblica di De Benedetti, si affianca l’Unità, ancora organo del Pci, poi Pds, “un giornale – scrive Cirillo – indispensabile e utile per disarticolare il dissenso e distruggere professionalmente e umanamente i nemici, in ossequio alle verità inoppugnabili del Bottegone, ma se necessario anche randello mediatico per amici poco ortodossi e alleati riluttanti o troppo autonomi per accettare la leadership culturale e politica del Pci”.

C’è poi il capitolo dei “faccendieri falce e martello”: “la lunga strada del business tra consulenze, voti di scambio, mazzette, appalti miliardari e occupazione dei posti di comando e gestione nasce e si sviluppa, a sinistra, a partire dagli anni ottanta”. Ovvero, faccio notare, da quando si chiuse il generoso rubinetto sovietico, le mediazioni sull’export-import con l’est, gli aiuti di Mosca. Ma per dirla in sintesi con il titolo di un capitolo: “Corruzione. Il Pci-Pds era parte del sistema”.

“Si inizia con le cooperative emiliane per finire a D’Alema, Renzi ed Emiliano, il presidente della Regione Puglia…passando per Carrai e il suicidio-omicidio di Davide Rossi del Monte dei Paschi di Siena. Matteo Renzi è il più fantasioso. D’Alema il più grezzo e arrogante”. Eccoli, “i piazzisti d’Arabia”: altro che rottamazione e discontinuità, siamo in piena continuità. Sorse un conflitto tra la linea di d’Alema che difendeva (come Craxi) il primato della politica e la linea giustizialista di Violante. Al pool di Mani pulite, commenta Cirillo “mancò il coraggio di sedersi sulle macerie di un sistema dove anche i magistrati avevano giocato la loro partita sporca”. Chi non era di sinistra è finito in galera per traffico d’influenza, collusioni, voti di scambio e via dicendo. A sinistra, invece l’hanno fatta franca quasi tutti.

Il libro si conclude senza happy end, anzi: l’Italia del Malaffare non fu affatto sgominata con Mani Pulite ma prosegue ancora, con la sinistra ancora coprotagonista. “Il sistema della tangenti si spezza ma non crolla” dopo le inchieste giudiziarie. Molti gli episodi recenti citati.

Perché ho ripreso questa ricostruzione di Tangentopoli? Perché per capire il presente dobbiamo capire meglio il passato che lo ha prodotto. E per capire le tensioni odierne tra politica e magistratura di oggi dobbiamo tornare alle tensioni di ieri e ai moventi, che non sono cambiati. Serve conoscere quella storia per capire il ruolo di potere della sinistra anche oggi, nell’epoca Meloni. Tangentopoli non fu una guerra tra i corrotti e gli onesti, tra guardie e ladri, ma un conflitto di poteri, anzi una contesa per la supremazia in Italia; quasi un derby. Poi, certo, ci sono da distinguere gradi e livelli diversi di corruzione e responsabilità.

Faccio notare che la sinistra nel nostro Paese ha giocato su due tavoli, anzi tra un tavolo e sottobanco: da un verso partecipava alla spartizione del potere e dei vantaggi derivati dal malaffare e dall’altro portava all’incasso la sua posizione di partito moralizzatore e anti-corrotti, ergendosi al ruolo di giudice in un processo in cui avrebbe dovuto essere coimputata. La vera accusa da rivolgere sul piano storico e politico alla sinistra non è dunque solo di aver partecipato al malaffare, ma di aver giocato due parti in commedia, ossia una partita doppia, ambigua, succhiando sia i benefici pratici del malaffare che i benefici etici contro il malaffare. Con una mano rubava e con l’altra puntava l’indice accusatore.

La Magistratura e i suoi alleati in alto loco non hanno combattuto una battaglia nel nome della giustizia contro l’illegalità, ma una guerra per l’egemonia giudiziaria, interna al Palazzo. Lo confermò Giovanni Pellegrino, esponente dei dem e all’epoca presidente della commissione autorizzazioni a procedere e poi della commissione stragi. La molla di Mani pulite, dichiarò, fu il primato del potere giudiziario, “in contrasto col disegno costituzionale”. E su Tangentopoli: “Apparentemente il mio partito non prendeva soldi, però nella cordata vincitrice di ogni appalto c’era sempre una cooperativa rossa con una percentuale dei lavori dal 10 al 15%”.

Non so se davvero, come sostiene Cirillo, sia ancora vivo come allora il malaffare ma so che anche oggi non siamo dotati di anticorpi per fronteggiare il malaffare: ossia forti motivazioni politiche e ideali, rigorosi criteri di selezione e rotazione della classe dirigente, basati sulla capacità e sulla qualità e non sull’affiliazione servile; la lungimiranza di chi sa vedere oltre il “particulare” e oltre il presente, alla storia e a quel che lasciamo in eredità a chi verrà dopo. Senza questi tre fattori, la politica è ancora esposta al malaffare, a destra come a sinistra.

Marcello Veneziani.

[thegianpieromennitipolis]

ARTISTI CONTEMPORANEI - di Gianpiero Menniti

LA PITTRICE DEL MARE

Ha ricevuto in dono i colori del mare, il profumo della salsedine, il vento che accarezza l'acqua e rende tersa la linea impossibile dell'orizzonte in attesa.

E il suono dell'onda, antico richiamo, perenne invocazione.

Si tratta di Vittoria Suriano, vibonese, artista nascosta, pittrice rimasta fin qui nell'ombra, portatrice di queste qualità dello spirito.

Le sue opere, dipinte su ogni supporto come a dichiarare l'esigenza di fissare in immagine la grazia di sentimenti limpidi, sono grida che squarciano l'inebriante solitudine del "grande mare" vissuto dalla riva di una baia, tra i sassi e la sabbia che offrono un saldo confine, mentre il blu dilaga stemperando ogni altro colore.

È il mare vissuto come espressione di sé: non un rapporto tra soggetto e oggetto ma "relazione" inscindibile che plasma l'osservatore in un'incessante mutevolezza.

Così, i dipinti di Vittoria Suriano sono riflessi lirici che transitano oltre la sua percezione per divenire il suo modo d'essere, il suo carattere, il suo interpretare il mondo: l'anima riesce in lei a diventare rifugio.

Anima che, nella sua unicità, possiede il mare.

Poichè solo chi lo senta nel baratro dei propri sensi può raccontarlo nel linguaggio speciale dell'arte, lasciandone traccia tra strati di pennellate intense, intrise di autentica passione.

Sovviene un'espressione di Jorge Luis Borges:

«Il mare è un antico idioma che non riesco a decifrare».

[shifting---patterns]

Wearing Time: Carpe Diem and the Artistry of Anti-Fashion (Pt. 1 / 2)

In today's article, I want to tell you something about what I consider the most important and influential artist collective in avant-garde fashion.

A collective whose artists, their labels, and their design language have impressed me so much that it has completely changed my perspective on how clothing is created, what its purpose really is, and the impact it can have.

/// Carpe Diem, an avant-garde designer collective, was founded in 1996 in Perugia, Italy, by Maurizio Altieri. There are conflicting reports on the founding year, with sources mentioning 1994, 1998, and 1999 (the latter mentioned by Maurizio Amadei of M.A+ in a podcast with Lucentement). The visionary minds, particularly Maurizio Altieri, initially specialized in leather design, working with materials such as horsehide, cowhide, and anaconda.

These materials underwent intricate hand treatments, including washing, distressing, crushing, and burial in the ground for months. Carpe Diem quickly established itself as an avant-garde trailblazer, gaining recognition for its commitment to quality and craftsmanship. Originally concentrating on shoes, the brand later expanded its offerings to include clothing.

In 2006, Carpe Diem disbanded due to its increasing mainstream popularity, paving the way for other brands to follow its innovative path. This marked the peak of Carpe Diem's fame, with celebrities like Brad Pitt seen wearing their leather shirts. The surge in investor interest eventually led to Maurizio Altieri abandoning the label.

In recent years, Carpe Diem has been acquired by a Japanese company, resulting in the reissue of some designs and the introduction of new ones. However, signs indicate that Altieri and his colleagues are no longer actively involved in the design process.

Carpe Diem's influence extends to avant-garde brands like Carol Christian Poell, Boris Bidjan Saberi, Layer-0, and others, incorporating designs such as twisted seams, dropped-crotch trousers, asymmetric plackets, and J-cut pants. The brand's collections, including L'Maltieri (knitwear), Sartoria (made-to-measure), and Linea (jackets, pants, and T-shirts), aimed to diversify offerings.

The Linea collection, utilizing a 3x3 modular system, features interchangeable and conceptually connected laser-cut jackets, cotton pants, and T-shirts.

Sartoria, a customized line derived from Linea, maintains the "arte povera" aesthetic with crumpled, washed, and treated leather. Custom items required visits to a Parisian garage for fitting and digital photography, and delivery took 60 days, utilizing leather buried in the deserts of Afghanistan.

The distinctive feature of hanging garments on meat hooks pays homage to the label's origins as a leather house. The Sartoria line has evolved into the fifth line named Anatomica, propably my favorite collection of Carpe Diem.

Now, let's introduce the creative minds behind Carpe Diem in detail: Maurizio Altieri Maurizio Altieri, the visionary founder of Carpe Diem, is a perfectionist who brings an academic background in business and law to the world of fashion. His professional journey began at Chrome Hearts, where he honed fundamental skills in craftsmanship and leather treatment. In 1996, Altieri departed from Chrome Hearts to establish Carpe Diem, driven by a philosophy to craft timeless, useful, and handmade pieces from the finest materials.

Altieri's unique approach materialized through the application of distinctive treatments and washes, setting his creations apart. Notably, Maurizio Altieri rejects traditional editorials and advertising, firmly believing that the craftsmanship and quality of his pieces should speak for themselves. This commitment to craftsmanship is vividly demonstrated through a series of collections known as the "Continues Collection," showcasing an enduring dedication to the art of craftsmanship and the creation of timeless fashion experiences. Post-Carpe Diem, Altieri embarked on various projects, including m_moriabc, active in the fashion world since 2012.

Beyond demonstrating Altieri's exceptional talent for creating memorable brand names, m_moriabc is renowned for its handmade footwear crafted through special Norwegian craftsmanship. Altieri's ambitious pursuit involves capturing the essence of time itself in his creations, symbolized by the names A, B, and C, each representing distinct lines that embody aspects of the past, present, and future.

Avantindietro, launched in 2009, stands out as another notable project, offering a minimalist response to Carpe Diem's initial collection. In a collaborative effort two years later, Altieri partnered with Alessio Zero, the Italian designer behind Layer-O, to produce a small offering of shoes made from leather buried years earlier, adding a fascinating narrative to the creations.

Altieri's current venture, the art project Vnapersona, further underscores his dedication to pushing artistic boundaries. Through these endeavors, Maurizio Altieri continues to leave an indelible mark on the fashion landscape, weaving together elements of time, craftsmanship, and innovation.

Maurizio Amadei Maurizio Amadei played a pivotal role in shaping the distinctive identity of Carpe Diem's leather products, encompassing accessories and jackets. During his tenure as a designer at Carpe Diem, Amadei demonstrated a unique exploration of human anatomy, sculpting pieces to follow the lines of the body's muscles. This innovative approach not only left an indelible mark on his designs at Carpe Diem but continued to influence his subsequent work.

Following the conclusion of Carpe Diem in 2006, Maurizio Amadei founded M.A+ as a spiritual successor to the renowned "Continues Collection." The unmistakable parallels between the two collections are evident in Amadei's inaugural M.A+ collection, where a standout piece was a large shoulder bag crafted from a single seamless piece of leather—a hallmark reminiscent of Carpe Diem. The introduction of the cross motif in this collection became the emblem of Amadei's design ethos, defining sought-after pieces like the 925 Sterling Silver Cross Belt.

M.A+ seamlessly carried forward many of the distinctive design techniques for leather while integrating cozy cotton fabrics into seamless one-piece silhouettes. Amadei's deliberate use of blunt knives for cutting and processing garment hems serves as a nod to Altieri's design philosophy. The overarching objective was to envelop the wearer in a second skin—an uncomplicated construction that is seamless yet refined.

In the present day, M.A+ stands out with flawlessly crafted garments in an array of materials such as silk and satin, garnering significant attention for their luxurious functionality. The allure extends to the patterned garments within the M.A+ collection, complementing the outstanding leather and shoe products. Amadei's design DNA is deeply rooted in principles of simplicity and minimalism, with stitches employed only when necessary. This commitment to minimalism is further emphasized by the absence of tags conveying fabric or size information—a testament to Maurizio Amadei's sophistication and meticulous attention to detail in his designs.

Simone Cecchetto Simone Cecchetto, during his tenure at Carpe Diem, brought an exceptional perspective and creative flair to the realm of shoe and accessory design. Influenced by his background in body art, Cecchetto delved into the "Second Body" project of Sartoria or Anatomica at Carpe Diem, an exploration of the concept of leather as a second skin on the human body.

His visionary approach extended to innovative ideas such as integrating chips into leather jumpsuits, enabling the tracking of digital images and movements—a seamless fusion of traditional craftsmanship with modern technological elements.

Despite Maurizio Amadei's primary responsibility for leather goods, Cecchetto collaborated directly with Altieri to optimize their products. Despite lacking formal training as a shoemaker, Cecchetto's deep passion for shaping leather led him to assume the role of footwear design at Carpe Diem, allowing him to preserve the brand's legacy in shoe design.

Following the closure of Carpe Diem, Cecchetto sought refuge at Rick Owens briefly, only to realize a misalignment with Owens' avant-garde aesthetic. This experience served as a catalyst for him to chart his own course, resulting in the establishment of his label, Augusta, later renamed A Diciannoveventitre and A1923. The name Augusta pays homage to his grandmother, embodying the brand's principles of simplicity inherited from her. A1923 revolves around the principle of Wabi-Sabi, a Japanese philosophy seeking beauty in natural irregularities.

Cecchetto's unwavering dedication is evident in the meticulous sourcing and processing of leather, compensating for his lack of formal training with experimentation and craftsmanship. A1923 stands out with its niche offerings, featuring handmade leather shoes and bags for men. The collection includes distinctive elements such as boots with double zippers and sneaker-boot hybrids, adorned with worn-out laces and intense colors. This testament to Simone Cecchetto's ability to preserve creative integrity while forging his own path underscores his continued contribution to the creation of influential and unique designs.

/// Part two is coming in a couple of days!

Davis Jahn

[donaruz]

24 MAGGIO 1961 nasceva ILARIA ALPI

"Era una giovane donna, forte e determinata, battagliera e femminista convinta".

"Soffriva di vertigini e temeva il vuoto, ma si era scelta un lavoro in cui l'elicottero è uno dei cosiddetti ferri del mestiere, aveva una autentica fobia del vuoto, una vera e proprio chefobia ma volava con tranquillità almeno apparente".

"Era una giornalista coraggiosa con la mente in Europa ed il cuore in Africa"

P.s. Così l'ha descritta sua madre.

Si diplomò al Liceo Tito Lucrezio Caro di Roma.

Grazie anche all'ottima conoscenza delle lingue (arabo, francese e inglese) ottenne le prime collaborazioni giornalistiche dal Cairo per conto di Paese Sera e de l'Unità.

Successivamente vinse una borsa di studio per essere assunta alla Rai.

Ilaria Alpi giunse per la prima volta in Somalia nel dicembre 1992 per seguire, come inviata del TG3, la missione di pace Restore Hope, coordinata e promossa dalle Nazioni Unite per porre fine alla guerra civile scoppiata nel 1991, dopo la caduta di Siad Barre. Alla missione prese parte anche l'Italia, superando in tal modo le riserve dell'inviato speciale per la Somalia, Robert B. Oakley, legate agli ambigui rapporti che il governo italiano aveva intrattenuto con Barre nel corso degli anni ottanta.

Le inchieste della giornalista si sarebbero poi soffermate su un possibile traffico di armi e di rifiuti tossici che avrebbero visto, tra l'altro, la complicità dei servizi segreti italiani e di alte istituzioni italiane: Alpi avrebbe infatti scoperto un traffico internazionale di rifiuti tossici prodotti nei Paesi industrializzati e dislocati in alcuni paesi africani in cambio di tangenti e di armi scambiate coi gruppi politici locali. Nel novembre precedente l'assassinio della giornalista era stato ucciso, sempre in Somalia e in circostanze misteriose, il sottufficiale del SISMI Vincenzo Li Causi, informatore della stessa Alpi sul traffico illecito di scorie tossiche nel paese africano.

Alpi e Hrovatin furono uccisi in prossimità dell'ambasciata italiana a Mogadiscio, a pochi metri dall'hotel Hamana, nel quartiere Shibis; in particolare, in corrispondenza dell'incrocio tra via Alto Giuba e corso Somalia (nota anche come strada Jamhuriyada, corso Repubblica).

La giornalista e il suo operatore erano di ritorno da Bosaso, città del nord della Somalia: qui Ilaria Alpi aveva avuto modo di intervistare il cosiddetto sultano di Bosaso, Abdullahi Moussa Bogor, che riferì di stretti rapporti intrattenuti da alcuni funzionari italiani con il governo di Siad Barre, verso la fine degli anni ottanta. La giornalista salì poi a bordo di alcuni pescherecci, ormeggiati presso la banchina del porto di Bosaso, sospettati di essere al centro di traffici illeciti di rifiuti e di armi: si trattava di navi che inizialmente facevano capo ad una società di diritto pubblico somalo e che, dopo la caduta di Barre, erano illegittimamente divenute di proprietà personale di un imprenditore italo-somalo. Tornati a Mogadiscio, Alpi e Hrovatin non trovarono il loro autista personale, mentre si presentò Ali Abdi, che li accompagnò all'hotel Sahafi, vicino all'aeroporto, e poi all'hotel Hamana, nelle vicinanze del quale avvenne il duplice delitto. A bordo del mezzo si trovava altresì Nur Aden, con funzioni di scorta armata.

Sulla scena del crimine arrivarono subito dopo gli unici altri due giornalisti italiani presenti a Mogadiscio, Giovanni Porzio e Gabriella Simoni. Una troupe americana (un freelance che lavorava per un network americano) arrivò mentre i colleghi italiani spostavano i corpi dall'auto in cui erano stati uccisi a quella di un imprenditore italiano con cui successivamente vennero portati al Porto vecchio. Una troupe della Svizzera italiana si trovava invece all'Hotel Sahafi (dall'altra parte della linea verde) e filmò su richiesta di Gabriella Simoni - perché ci fosse un documento video - le stanze di Miran e Ilaria e gli oggetti che vennero raccolti.[6]

Ilaria Alpi venne sepolta nel Cimitero Flaminio di Roma.

La madre, Luciana Riccardi Alpi, (1933 - 12 giugno 2018) ha intrapreso, fin dal primo processo, una battaglia per cercare la verità e far cadere ogni sorta di depistaggio sull’omicidio della figlia.

Noi siamo quelli che credono ancora a queste emozioni

[pier-carlo-universe]

Sciopero del Trasporto Pubblico a Casale Monferrato: Servizi Minimi Garantiti

L'8 novembre 2024: Scuolabus e Linee Essenziali Assicurati per i Pendolari durante lo Sciopero Nazionale

L’8 novembre 2024: Scuolabus e Linee Essenziali Assicurati per i Pendolari durante lo Sciopero Nazionale Sciopero Nazionale dei Trasporti: Servizi Minimi Garantiti a Casale Monferrato In vista dello sciopero nazionale del trasporto pubblico locale indetto per venerdì 8 novembre 2024, l’Azienda Multiservizi Casalese (AMC) ha comunicato che saranno garantiti alcuni servizi essenziali per i…

[gravid-transluna]

Two Birthdays: Part One

words: 1430

content: masturbation, birth denial, fpreg

A birthday is a special day. Her friend’s twenty-first should have been Mari’s only focus. However, Mari had been distracted the entire day as they spent time at the resort’s expansive pool and spa. It hadn’t been so bad at first. Her friend’s mom, Noemi, was nearly a week overdue with her second child, and though she had started the day in modest clothes—a maternity sundress draping her huge, full swell, navel protruding starkly, pressing downward from her middle—, the afternoon sun had continued to shine down on them, forcing Noemi to shed her dress, pulling it up her belly and over her head.

Mari’s face had flushed and she’d turned away, ashamed and furious at herself for her own thoughts, but she’d already seen the nakedness of Noemi’s belly, taut at the seams and painfully overdue, hanging low over her hips and melting into her otherwise small, slim frame. Sweat had shimmered, bright, on the stretched, striped skin. A dark linea nigra ran down her middle to her navel. Her belly button was hard and round like a stone. Underneath, she only wore a white two-piece bikini, and her breasts, once small and subtle, hung swollen in her top, nipples and areolae visible.

Mari’s heart wouldn’t stop fluttering every time Noemi lifted her slender hands to cup her swell, or when she rose from the sunbathing to reapply sunscreen and Mari saw her from the back; though she still tried to step with her usual grace and poise, her gait was wide, baby obviously dropped between her narrow hips, reducing her to a waddle.

It was a very uncomfortable day to be a lesbian with a fetish that especially appealed on an older woman.

This wasn’t the worst of it, though.

Mari first noticed it when Noemi reached across the table for her drink.

“Excuse me,” she said.

“Of course!” Mari squeaked.

Then Noemi’s face changed. Her reaching hand flew to her belly, and Mari followed it to see visible tensing, muscles clenched on either side, misshapen around her huge baby.

“Oh!” she said. There was something in her face now. Surprise, but also a slight urgency.

“Ms. Noemi?” Mari asked. “Are—are you okay?”

“Mm,” Noemi said, and took her glass. “I’m fine. Thank you, Mari.”

This happened multiple times throughout the day, and every time she saw that mound tense then sag, muscles relaxing, Mari’s pussy pounded badly, pulsing.

She stayed in the shade, sipping nothing but cold water with ice while her friend and the others ordered drinks at the pool bar.

After about another hour of this, Mari couldn’t take it. She left and walked to the restrooms and found a stall. Inside it she immediately yanked her bikini bottom down her legs and pressed her fingers to her clit. Her pussy throbbed for release, dripping and clenching. She began to masturbate standing over the toilet, imagining closing her lips around one of Noemi’s stiff, milk-heavy nipples.

Fuck, she thought. Fuck, fuck. Her pussy began to pulsate under her slick fingers. Her thighs shook as she came.

“Shit,” Mari said aloud, then she wiped herself down and pulled her bikini bottom back up and exited the stall, washing the slick from her hands in the sink.

Suddenly the restroom door was flung open. Mari jumped guiltily, then her eyes widened in shock as Noemi raced past her, not even noticing her at the sink, bowed over her low belly, a hand clamped to her crotch. She ran into the handicap stall and slammed the door shut. It was quiet for a moment. Then—

“Ohhhhhh.”

A muted, breathless moan and a loud splashing sound.

Mari stood frozen. She heard a small gasping from the other side of the stall door, and approached hesitantly. She rapped a timid knuckle on the door and the gasps stopped.

“U-um, Ms. Noemi? Are you okay?”

There was silence. Then, “Yes, just some Braxton Hicks contractions. I’m sorry if I startled you, Mari.”

Noemi’s voice sounded strained, so uncharacteristic of her usually soft, modulated tone.

Mari hesitated. “Are you sure? Do you need any help?”

More silence. The stall door unlocked from the inside. Mari pushed it open and her heart thumped in her chest at the sight inside.

Noemi was standing over the toilet, thighs wide apart, knees slightly bent. Her bikini bottom and legs were soaked with fluids. Her belly, somehow, appeared to hang even lower, navel pointed almost to the floor now with weight and fullness. Her face was sweaty, cheeks flushed, short dark hair clinging damply to her forehead.

“Oh my god, Ms. Noemi,” Mari said. “Your water broke, didn’t it?”

Noemi’s face tightened and she pressed her lips together, nodding and closing her eyes. She clutched reflexively at the orb between her thighs as it flexed, hardening, muscles like iron. Her brow wrinkled and she grunted as though she couldn’t stand the pressure anymore.

“Mari,” she gasped. “I need you to step out, please. I’m—I think I need to—relieve myself.”

Mari shook her head. “I think it’s the baby! Are you feeling like pushing?”

“Ughh.” Noemi’s eyes were squeezed shut. “Yes. I need to push.”

“Oh my—“ Mari trailed off. “We’ve gotta call you an ambulance.”

Suddenly the contraction released Noemi. Her belly slackened. She collapsed onto the toilet seat, thighs spread wide to accommodate her massive stomach. She panted, chest heaving.

“No,” she said. “It will ruin the party.”

“But—“

“Please.” Noemi’s eyes softened, and Mari perceived her desperation clearly. “You’re one of my daughter’s more mature friends.  I don’t want to embarrass her or cause a scene, and I need your help.”

Mari gulped. “What can I do?”

Noemi sighed. “Thank you. I just need to last until the party is over.”

The restroom door opened and someone walked in.

“Ms. Noemi? Are you in there?” The voice was a little slurred, tipsy from afternoon drinking.

Noemi composed herself and raised her voice. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“O-o-okay. Haven’t popped yet, have you?”

Noemi managed a weak laugh. “Holding it in.”

For now, Mari thought.

They waited until they heard the door close. Then Noemi said, “Could you—I need you to—” was she—blushing? “I can’t go back out covered in my waters.”

“O-oh,” Mari said, and she was suddenly aware of the distinct odor coming off of Noemi, the scent of her fluids, fecund and thick, the musk of a woman close to birthing. Noemi stood as Mari grabbed a wad of toilet paper and began to dab her formerly lean thighs, thickened over the course of her pregnancy.

“And–” She was really blushing now, Mari marveled. “I’d do it myself but–I can no longer reach around my stomach.”

Happy to. Mari drew her fingers around Noemi’s hips, noting the slight intake of breath as her thumbs brushed swollen underbelly. She hooked her bikini bottom and exposed her fleshy pregnancy pussy, damp and swampy, and the odor was stronger now. Mari breathed.

Then, “you have to close your legs.”

“Mm, trying.” Noemi struggled, the baby lodged in her pelvis making it almost impossible to pinch her knees shut. Her eyes widened. “Oh no…”

Her belly hitched and went hard. Her knees immediately buckled, thighs wide again.

“I need to push,” she said. She groaned as she began to bear down. The sides of her belly sucked in with the force of her pushing.

“No! Ms. Noemi, you have to hold it in, remember?” Mari said.

“Hnnnnfgh,” Noemi groaned. She tried to resist. “Hooh-hooh, god. I need to push.”

Mari, not knowing how to help, planted her palms on Noemi’s belly and rubbed the hot, furious skin. It burned under her palms, fevered. She could feel the desperate convulsions of Noemi’s strong internal muscles as they worked to expel her baby against her efforts.

“Oh,” Noemi grunted.

“Sorry!”

“No! No–ouugh–please. Don’t stop.” 

Noemi closed her eyes and raised her chin, swaying back and forth as Mari stroked the tight, oblong surface. Experimentally, she flicked her thumb across Noemi’s bulging navel, and Noemi shivered.

The contraction ended, leaving Noemi worn and restless, her baby’s head burrowed deeper into her birth canal, fuller even, than she’d been before her labor. Mari removed her hands from Noemi’s belly, and Noemi appeared embarrassed, almost bashful.

“I wish–hah–you didn’t have to see me like this, much less care for me in such a compromising–ugh–condition. Modesty is hard enough to maintain when it comes to pregnancy.”

“You’re beautiful,” Mari said honestly.

Startled and disarmed, Noemi looked at her. It could have been the heat flush, or she could have been blushing again.

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

💖 Sapphic Books Out May 2025

🩷 Good afternoon, bookish bats. By now, you know that sweet, sapphic romance books have a special place in my heart. Here are only a few of the amazing sapphic books that hit shelves in May 2025. Please correct me if there are any mistakes.

❓ What was the last sapphic book you read?

💖 Two Weddings and a Funeral by Claudia Parr 🩷 The Vengeance by Emma Newman 💖 All-Nighter by Cecilia Vinesse 🩷 Dream On, Ramona Riley by Ashley Herring Blake 💖 Everyone Sux But You by K. Wroten 🩷 Out of Step, Into You by Ciera Burch 💖 The Thrill of the Chase by Kathryn Nolan 🩷 Love in Focus by Lyla Lee 💖 Learning to Fall by Peach Morris

💖 Discovering Gold by Sam Ledel 🩷 Emma by the Sea by Sarah Levine 💖 Sometimes the Girl by Jennifer Mason-Black 🩷 Get Real, Chloe Torres by Crystal Maldonado 💖 Time After Time by Mikki Daughtry 🩷 Kiss Me, Maybe by Gabriella Gamez 💖 A Sharp Endless Need by Marisa Crane 🩷 Love Languages by James Albon 💖 Motherlover by Lindsay Ishihiro

💖 One Measure of Love by Annie McDonald 🩷 There’s a Badge for That by Relly Moring 💖 All’s Fair in Love and Field Hockey 🩷 Goodbye, Hello by Heather K O’Malley 💖 Strange Girls by Sarvat Hasin 🩷 Wife by Charlotte Mendelson 💖 To Please Her by Elena Abbott 🩷 Waist Deep by Linea Maja Ernst 💖 Those Who Burn the Brightest by Kayla Morton

💖 Summer Girls by Jennifer Dugan 🩷 Blood and Flame by Brendan Corbett 💖 Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang 🩷 Dream a Little Dream by Melissa Brayden 💖 The Incandescent by Emily Tesh 🩷 Grand Slam Romance: Farewell to Babes by Ollie Hicks & Emma Oosterhous 💖 Gay the Pray Away by Natalie Naudus 🩷 Give My Love to Berlin by Katherine Bryant 💖 The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling

[paperometria]

Le parole che uno dovrebbe dire.

Me la sono appuntata come una medaglia questa frase, ma non per vanto, ma come sigillo che quello che provo mi sta guidando sulla strada giusta, non senza pericoli, non senza rischi, ma di sicuro piena di futuri ricordi per i quali vale la pena vivere.

Me ne sono accorto dalla naturalezza con cui racconto quello che mi sta accadendo, con una punta di vanità, lo ammetto, perché non si è mai visto nessuno non essere orgoglioso della propria felicità. Il mio momento felice? Quando ci vediamo, i primi minuti, mi fai quello sguardo smorfioso, ti nascondi, perché ormai è diventato il nostro gioco, il nostro linguaggio, lo fai solo con me, è come se sapessi già che adoro essere speciale per qualcuno, allora scappi via, con una espressione piena di malizia, adori che poi ti vengo vicino per sussurrarti di stringerci la mano, da lì è tutta curve e discese, e io non dico più nulla, mi nutro del tuo sguardo e dei tuoi silenzi, parliamo due lingue diverse e nessuna delle due ci è utile per sentirci davvero.

Penso di poter dire che in tutta la mia vita ho amato tanto e ricevuto forse altrettanto, ma tu sei diventata la scala per tutto, come quel caos che poi, tramite una forza potentissima, diventa un ordine perfetto, è come se vedessi tutto in modo diverso, non è una questione di più o meno, ma è come se ci fosse una nuova dimensione, una linea completamente nuova, uno spazio solo tuo.

[autolesionistra]

(...) Questo è avvenuto fino all’entrata del cosiddetto “Decreto Caivano”, convertito in legge nel mese di novembre del 2023, emanato dal governo Meloni a fronte di una dichiarata “emergenza criminale minorile” che confligge con i dati (Istat) sui minori denunciati all’autorità giudiziaria, che evidenziano un andamento oscillatorio che ha visto i numeri relativi al 2022 completamente in linea con gli anni precedenti. Nel giro di pochi mesi l’“effetto Caivano” ha produtto quasi il raddoppio delle presenze di ragazzi negli Ipm facendo esplodere quasi tutti gli Istituti. La nuova legge è intervenuta sul sistema della giustizia penale minorile italiana (che a detta di molti giuristi era tra le più avanzate d’Europa) attraverso varie misure che hanno prodotto un vero e proprio contraccolpo “carcero-centrico” in spregio alle cosiddette “pene di comunità” e alla territorializzazione dei processi educativi. Sono state aggravate le pene detentive anche per reati lievi in materia di stupefacenti e sono stati ampliati tutti i presupposti della custodia cautelare in carcere.

È deprimente perché vien da dire che in un campo delicato come questo sarebbe auspicabile che le decisioni partissero (e finissero) con riscontri oggettivi ad esempio sulle recidive per valutare gli effetti che hanno (o non hanno) certi provvedimenti. Che so, ci vorrebbe una figura di riferimento che abbia un vago polso della situazione e qualche idea sul tema. O forse c'è già ma dà risposte meno strombazzabili di buttiamo-tutti-in-carcere.

“La vera emergenza non è quella di prevedere un maggior ricorso al carcere, ma quella di potenziare le strutture, sia carcerarie che comunitarie, per renderle luoghi di efficace e reale recupero dei minorenni. È necessario chiedersi, prima di tutto, quale debba essere il fine di un periodo di carcerazione, non limitarsi al mezzo”, ha dichiarato Carla Garlatti, Autorità garante per l’infanzia e l’adolescenza, che ribadisce l’importanza di valorizzare la giustizia riparativa in ambito minorile. “È uno strumento prezioso, che incide positivamente sulla vita delle persone coinvolte, sul tasso di recidiva e si affianca alle risposte della giustizia tradizionale senza sostituirle”. (*)

Alcuni risultati li abbiamo ottenuti, ma con grande fatica. Altri non ancora, come la richiesta che ogni decisione politica venga accompagnata da una valutazione preventiva e un monitoraggio successivo rispetto all’impatto che può avere sui ragazzi. Sarebbe molto importante perché certamente sono il futuro, ma sono anche il presente e delle loro esigenze va tenuto conto adesso. (...) se vogliamo abbattere la recidiva bisogna lavorare sulla presa di coscienza di ciò che è stato fatto e sulla rieducazione. Basta guardare i risultati: non è l’aumento della pena che spinge il minorenne a non commettere il reato. (*)

[scarewulf]

Current music rotation

BIG SPECIAL / Der Blutharsch / The Veils / Linea Aspera

(+ honorable mention to Editors)