#Migration Amendment

[never-quite-buried]

Nope now it’s at the point that i’m shocked that people off tt don’t know what’s going down. I have no reach but i’ll sum it up anyway.

SCOTUS is hearing on the constitutionality of the ban as tiktok and creators are arguing that it is a violation of our first amendment rights to free speech, freedom of the press and freedom to assemble.

SCOTUS: tiktok bad, big security concern because china bad!

Tiktok lawyers: if china is such a concern why are you singling us out? Why not SHEIN or temu which collect far more information and are less transparent with their users?

SCOTUS (out loud): well you see we don’t like how users are communicating with each other, it’s making them more anti-american and china could disseminate pro china propaganda (get it? They literally said they do not like how we Speak or how we Assemble. Independent journalists reach their audience on tt meaning they have Press they want to suppress)

Tiktok users: this is fucking bullshit i don’t want to lose this community what should we do? We don’t want to go to meta or x because they both lobbied congress to ban tiktok (free market capitalism amirite? Paying off your local congressmen to suppress the competition is totally what the free market is about) but nothing else is like TikTok

A few users: what about xiaohongshu? It’s the Chinese version of tiktok (not quite, douyin is the chinese tiktok but it’s primarily for younger users so xiaohongshu was chosen)

16 hours later:

Tiktok as a community has chosen to collectively migrate TO a chinese owned app that is purely in Chinese out of utter spite and contempt for meta/x and the gov that is backing them.

My fyp is a mix of “i would rather mail memes to my friends than ever return to instagram reels” and “i will xerox my data to xi jinping myself i do not care i share my ss# with 5 other people anyway” and “im just getting ready for my day with my chinese made coffee maker and my Chinese made blowdryer and my chinese made clothing and listening to a podcast on my chinese made phone and get in my car running on chinese manufactured microchips but logging into a chinese social media? Too much for our gov!” etc.

So the government was scared that tiktok was creating a sense of class consciousness and tried to kill it but by doing so they sent us all to xiaohongshu. And now? Oh it’s adorable seeing this gov-manufactured divide be crossed in such a way.

This is adorable and so not what they were expecting. Im sure they were expecting a reluctant return to reels and shorts to fill the void but tiktokers said fuck that, we will forge connections across the world. Who you tell me is my enemy i will make my friend. That’s pretty damn cool.

[leepacey]

i watched the livestream of trump signing executive orders and answering questions from the press. here are some of the big ones + other things mentioned today:

trump declared a national emergency at the southern border + is getting the US military more involved in stopping "invasions including mass migration"

no one can declare asylum in the US

all existing appointments for people wanting to legally become US citizens are canceled

birthright citizenship (aka the 14th amendment) is now gone

ICE sweeps beginning "soon," not specifying when (though there are rumors it's starting tomorrow in sanctuary cities such as chicago)

mexican cartels are now designated "foreign terrorist organizations" and trump is not opposed to US troops entering mexico to eliminate them

he restored the death penalty for "crimes committed by illegal aliens"

biden had signed an executive order attempting to stop cops from using chokeholds or doing no-knock warrants. trump just revoked that order

25% tariffs on canada and mexico begin on feb 1 2025 — expect a lot of produce imported from mexico to get more expensive soon

tariffs on china will begin soon, not specified when

trump said he intends to take back the panama canal, did not specify when or how

january 6 insurrectionists are to be immediately released/pardoned

he pardoned the leader of the proud boys

tiktok has a 90 day extension, during which the US gov will try to buy 50% of tiktok. trump said he no longer cares that china is "spying on our young people," but he wants to buy half of tiktok so the US government "can police it a little bit, or a lot." if tiktok will not sell, it will be banned in the US again.

he claims the people of greenland want to become part of the US

he says the gulf of mexico is now to be called the "gulf of america" + denali is now to be called "mount mckinley"

alaska is to be mined and become the US' main source for fossil fuels

the green new deal and "electric vehicle" (green energy) mandates are over

the US has withdrawn from the paris climate agreement

the US has withdrawn from the world health organization

reproductiverights.gov is already gone

the US now "only recognizes two genders, male and female"

trans women prisoners are to be housed in male prisons; gender affirming care for prisoners is gone

self-identification for gender on passports, government IDs, and social security cards is gone

all federal employees are required to work in the office five days a week, no more working from home

trump said the US is going to "pursue our manifest destiny into the stars" and plant a US flag on mars

sources on what executive orders were signed: one two three

and lastly, some things that happened during the inauguration:

the pastor who blessed the inauguration during the swearing in ceremony has already announced a new meme coin/cryptocurrency

trump did not put his hand on the bible + there are rumors the pope is going to say trump is the antichrist

the wealthiest people on the planet — the CEOs of twitter/tesla, amazon, google, meta, and even the CEO of tiktok — who own almost all communication platforms used by westerners — stood directly behind trump as he was sworn in

elon musk, the wealthiest person alive, who has been given his own vaguely-defined US government agency, did a nazi salute on stage at the presidential podium. neo-nazis are already celebrating

[fatehbaz]

was thinking about this

To be in "public", you must be a consumer or a laborer.

About control of peoples' movement in space/place. Since the beginning.

"Vagrancy" of 1830s-onward Britain, people criminalized for being outside without being a laborer.

Breaking laws resulted in being sentenced to coerced debtor/convict labor. Coinciding with the 1830-ish climax of the Industrial Revolution and the land enclosure acts (factory labor, poverty, etc., increase), the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 establishes full-time police institution(s) in London. The "Workhouse Act" aka "Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834" forced poor people to work for a minimum number of hours every day. The Irish Constabulary of 1837 sets up a national policing force and the County Police Act of 1839 allows justices of the peace across England to establish policing institutions in their counties (New York City gets a police department in 1844). The major expansion of the "Vagrancy Act" of 1838 made "joblessness" a crime and enhanced its punishment. (Coincidentally, the law's date of royal assent was 27 July 1838, just 5 days before the British government was scheduled to allow fuller emancipation of its technical legal abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean on 1 August 1838.)

---

"Vagrancy" of 1860s-onward United States, people criminalized for being outside while Black.

Widespread emancipation after slavery abolition in 1865 rapidly followed by the outlawing of loitering which de facto outlawed existing as Black in public. Inability to afford fines results in being sentenced to forced labor by working on chain gangs or prisons farms, some built atop plantations.

---

"Vagrancy" of 1870s-onward across empires, people criminalized for being outside while being "foreign" and also being poor generally.

Especially from 1880-ish to 1918-ish, this was an age of widespread mass movement of peoples due to the land dispossession, poverty, and famine induced by global colonial extraction and "market expansion" (Scramble for Africa, US "American West", nation-building, conquering "frontiers"), as agricultural "revolutions" of imperial monoculture cash crop extraction resulted in ecological degradation, and as major imperial infrastructure building projects required a lot of vulnerable "mobile" labor. This coincides with and is facilitated by new railroad networks and telegraphs, leading to imperial implementation or expansion of identity documents, strict work contracts, passports, immigration surveillance, and border checkpoints.

All of this in just a few short years: In 1877, British administrators in India develop what would become the Henry Classification System of taking and keeping fingerprints for use in binding colonial Indians to legal contracts. That same year during the 1877 Great Railroad Strike, and in response to white anxiety about Black residents coming to the city during Great Migration, Chicago's policing institutions exponentially expand surveillance and pioneer "intelligence card" registers for tracking labor union organizing and Black movement, as Chicago's experiments become adopted by US military and expanded nationwide, later used by US forces monitoring dissent in colonial Philippines and Cuba. Japan based its 1880 Penal Code anti-vagrancy statutes on French models, and introduced "koseki" register to track poor/vagrant domestic citizens as Tokyo's Governor Matsuda segregates classes, and the nation introduces "modern police forces". In 1882, the United States passes the Chinese Exclusion Act. In 1884, the Ottoman government enacts major "Passport Nizamnamesi" legislation requiring passports. In 1885, the racist expulsion of the "Tacoma riot".

Punished for being Algerian in France. Punished for being Chinese in San Francisco. Punished for being Korean in Japan. Punished for crossing Ottoman borders without correct paperwork. Arrested for whatever, then sent to do convict labor. A poor person in the Punjab, starving during a catastrophic famine, might be coerced into a work contract by British authorities. They will have to travel, shipped off to build a railroad. But now they have to work. Now they are bound. They will be punished for being Punjabi and trying to walk away from Britain's tea plantations in Assam or Britain's rubber plantations in Malaya.

Mobility and confinement, the empire manipulates each.

---

"Vagrancy" amidst all of this, people also criminalized for being outside while "unsightly" and merely even superficially appearing to be poor. San Francisco introduced the notorious "ugly law" in 1867, making it illegal for "any person, who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, to expose himself or herself to public view". Today, if you walk into a building looking a little "weird" (poor, Black, ill, disabled, etc.), you are given seething spiteful glares and asked to leave. De facto criminalized for simply going for a stroll without downloading the coffee shop's exclusive menu app.

Too ill, too poor, too exhausted, too indebted to move, you are trapped. Physical barriers (borders), legal barriers (identity documents), financial barriers (debt). "Vagrancy" everywhere in the United States, a combination of all of the above. "Vagrancy" since at least early nineteenth century Europe. About the control of movement through and access to space/place. Concretizing and weaponizing caste, corralling people, anchoring them in place, extracting their wealth and labor.

You are permitted to exist only as a paying customer or an employee.

[moonstruckme]

hiii I'm just here resubmitting my request<3 so maybe r was in a fire (a small or large one, u decide), james was called and when he finds out it was her he gets sooo worried and she goes to the hospital or something? thank u!!

Thanks for requesting my love!

cw: fire, paramedics/ambulance, symptoms of smoke inhalation

firefighter!James x fem!reader ♡ 1.1k words

James starts to stand you up when the ambulance turns onto your block. 

“Jamie, don’t bother them.” You feel a cough building in your chest, but you repress it. “I’m f—fine.” It escapes on the last syllable, and you can barely look at your boyfriend as he raises his eyebrows at you, incredulous.

“Humor me,” he says simply. 

You let him pull you up this time, and he presses a kiss into your hair even though you smell like pollution. James has stripped out of his bulky jacket, but the heavy pants still hang from suspenders wrapped around his black t-shirt. The fabric swishes against your leg as you make your way over to the ambulance. 

“We need oxygen,” he says without prelude, though not unkindly, nodding at the paramedic that gets out first in greeting. 

As if to punctuate this, your throat pinches warningly, and you let out a couple of meager coughs. James’ arm contracts around your waist. 

The paramedic seems to trust his authority, nodding for her partner to get something ready in the back while she walks over to you. 

“Look here please,” she says. 

You obey, flinching slightly when she points a pen light in your eyes. James’ hand migrates up to your shoulder, rubbing lightly. 

“Any dizziness?” 

“No,” you say, coughing a bit. 

She clicks her light off. “Nausea or vomiting?” 

“No.” 

“Headache?” 

“No.” 

James cuts a look your way. “Sweetheart,” he says softly. 

“I did have a headache,” you amend, “but it went away.” 

“Chest pain?” 

“A little,” you admit. 

“Shortness of breath?” 

“I don’t…” You look to James, then feel stupid. It’s not like he knows. “I don’t think so?” 

“Coughing?” 

“Yes,” James says emphatically. 

The paramedic gives him a funny look, then asks you, “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” you confirm. A little cough works its way out of your lungs as if to prove it. 

James looks a bit chastised. He rubs your back, touch both firm and comforting. 

She gives you both a smile. “Come sit back here, please.” 

You follow her into the back of the ambulance, perching awkwardly on the gurney in the middle.

“It seems like you have relatively mild symptoms of smoke inhalation,” she tells you. Her partner passes her a mask, and she holds it over your face for a few seconds before letting you do it yourself. Her fingers press to your wrist. “Your eyes are irritated, but it’s a good sign that your headache went away already. There’s probably not much more we can do other than give you oxygen. Your other symptoms should ease on their own.” 

You nod your understanding, relieved even if you’d been the one saying you didn’t need any help. With James, it’s typically best if only one of you shows your worry at a time. And he’s plenty worried enough for both of you right now. 

You glance over at him, standing outside with his arms crossed. It’s doing crazy things to his biceps, and you think that usually he’d grin if he caught you checking him out like this but now he looks like he might start tapping his foot impatiently. You feel guilty for getting him in such a tizzy. 

The paramedic finishes with your pulse and follows your gaze. “That your boyfriend?” she asks. 

Your breath fogs the mask. “Mhm.” 

“He seems fairly rattled,” she notes. “I supposed it’s probably not typical to get called to a fire at your girlfriend’s place, though.”

“Yeah,” you sigh. 

You’d already been sitting out on the lawn when James’ crew had arrived, the fire already put out and your front door left open. Smoke rolled out of it in one thick, relentless wave. You still have no idea how a fire that couldn’t have been burning more than fifteen minutes had created so much. You suppose James could tell you if you asked him later. 

The others had run inside, but James had gone straight to you. His chief wanted to confirm with you that there was no one else in the home (there wasn’t) and that you’d gotten out quickly (you didn’t have a great answer for that one). Like pulling teeth, it came out that you’d fallen asleep with dinner in the oven, and it was only by coincidence that someone had called your phone and the ringing woke you up. You’d turned off the oven and dumped cupfuls of water on your flaming dinner until it went out, but the smoke had spread throughout your home and your neighbor had already called emergency services. 

This led to you having to admit you hadn’t replaced the batteries in your smoke detector, which had led to a fervent lecture from your boyfriend that you doubt you’ve heard the end of. It was only the arrival of the ambulance that had distracted him. 

The paramedic sitting next to you jerks her chin toward James. That’s all it takes to get his attention, since he’s watching you like you’re going to float away if he doesn’t keep a close eye on things. 

“You can come up here,” she tells him. 

James clambers up quickly, giving her a terse smile at half his usual wattage as she moves to let him take her place next to you. 

“Hey, angel.” He takes the mask from you, holding it to your face himself. His other hand slides down the inside of your forearm and interlocks its fingers with yours. “Is she okay?” he asks the paramedic you’d spoken to. 

“Her symptoms are minor,” she assures him. “I wanna keep her on oxygen for ten minutes or so before checking her levels, but she’ll be fine.” 

James nods in thanks, but his sigh ghosts over the shell of your ear when he leans his brow against the side of your head. The paramedics conveniently find other things to do, and you’re grateful for it. 

“I’m sorry,” you tell him quietly. 

“I think you should stay at my place tonight,” he says, matching your tone, “if that’s alright with you.” 

“Yeah,” you laugh a little. It provokes your lungs, and a cough follows. 

James winces. Kisses your cheek softly. 

“Yeah,” you try again. “That sounds good, thank you.” 

“The next time you set foot in your place, I’m going with you and installing new smoke detectors.” 

Now you wince. “Fair enough.” 

“And I don’t think you should ever cook or nap again.” 

“That seems a bit far.” 

“I dunno, I think I’m being reasonable.” He kisses your cheek again, lingering this time. “I’d prefer to wrap you in some sort of fireproofed bubble wrap, but I think this is a compromise we can both live with, no?” 

You smile, and you can’t tell if your chest hurts because of your smokey lungs or the raw quality to James’ teasing, but it helps when he smiles back. 

“What if,” you say, “you cook, and I nap. Would that satisfy you?” 

He mulls this over for a second. “For now,” he decides. “I think I’d still like to work on fire-proofing some bubble wrap in the meantime, though.”

[fjorn-the-skald]

Setting the Stage for the VIKING AGE, ft. the MIGRATION PERIOD - A History Raid with Fjorn the Skald

Today we’re raiding the Migration Period (dates vary, but 400-600 CE is the gist) to show how it set the stage for the Viking Age. It’s just a brief overview, but we talk about how the ‘fall’ of the Roman Empire was a bit more complicated than most assume, how catastrophic eruptions a world away triggered a “real” Ragnarok, and how that mess enabled the North to reshape itself into what would, eventually, give way to the Vikings.

Key Timestamps:

0:10 - “A longue durée” and what that means for history

1:00 - “Barbarians” (aka the fall of Rome and migrations form the north)

3:48 - The “real” Ragnarok (environmental catastrophe)

As a reminder, this video only covers ~400-550 CE. We’ll plunder the other half of pre-Viking Age history, 550-750 CE, next time.

As always, if something is wrong, misrepresented, or lacking in this video, please let me know in the comments! I’ll amend whatever I can through careful research and consideration.

[exactlymaximumgarden]

900 with schlatt pleasee

900. you're not the only one i know - the sundays (link to req info here)

you'd managed fine on your own. you'd been able to make it just fine without anyone having to hold your hand. where was the harm in that?

that's probably why you'd initially handled the breakup with schlatt so much better than you thought you would. outwardly, anyway. yeah, it was an amicable split. he had to focus on his career and whatnot, yadda yadda. despite that, you couldn't rid yourself of the nagging thoughts that screamed at you. he'd been doing just fine with you, why do you suddenly have to be removed from the picture? what's changed his mind?

no sooner did these questions pop into your mind until long after the breakup actually happened. by that point, there was no point in revisiting them. what's done was done. there wasn't any reason for you to keep mulling over it.

schlatt is not the only man you know. plenty more fish in the sea. you'd find someone better eventually. that someone came into your life far sooner than expected.

charlie, despite being a content creator himself, was the complete opposite of schlatt. bubblier. more excitable. whatever affections you gave him, he returned tenfold. he was almost too good to be true.

part of you knew it was wrong. you were aware charlie and schlatt knew each other quite well, but as far as you could tell, the pair hadn't interacted in some time. and deep down, you yourself were unsure if charlie was what you were truly looking for or if he just happened to waltz into your life at the right moment.

you'd managed fine on your own, yet schlatt had left a void within you that was increasing with every day of his absence, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore.

still, you stayed silent, continuing to accept charlie's adoration with a feigned smile and a pit in your stomach as the thought of you admitting the truth to him pervaded your every waking moment with him.

you stayed silent then and you stay silent now as you stand beside charlie at this streamer event you honestly couldn't care less about.

schlatt is here. you know he is. you've caught glances of him throughout the duration of the night, but only now has he seen you. you know he has. you can feel his eyes boring into you as you stand beside charlie.

you can't help it. you sneak a glance out of the corner of your eye. schlatt's expression looks strained, as if he's seriously debating coming up to you and saying something.

but you're far too proud to talk to him anyway.

you can't explain what comes over you in that moment, but you purposely make a show of sliding your hand into your chattering boyfriend's, nestling your head against his shoulder.

this feels so unnatural. with schlatt, it would've felt as easy as breathing.

you see out of the corner of your eye that something in schlatt's face drops. he looks crestfallen. confused. after all, the two of you have been no contact since you split. what the hell has he missed since then?

he doesn't want to find out. not anymore. he does a rudimentary scan of the room before quickly migrating over to where mizkif, cyr, esfand, emiru, and other members of the otk crowd gather in a bustling amoeba of people. you note how taken aback and almost hurt he looks, and your heart sinks.

you're far too proud to talk to him still, yet where you thought your flashy show of affection to charlie would fill you with a smug sense of satisfaction, you're only left with a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. as far as you're concerned, all you've accomplished now is digging yourself into a deeper hole.

you'd managed fine on your own, but now, the isolation has garnered a new weight to it. at this rate, any attempts at amending the situation may as well be futile.

but you have to remind yourself once more, just as you always have. schlatt's not the only one you know. and as you peer up at charlie, who is completely oblivious to your inner turmoil, you intend to do everything in your power to keep it that way.

[kheprriverse]

I’ve been very busy so here are some sketches to show that I’m not dead :)

There’s also this post on kofi that has MORE wyvern related sketches and a couple wip animations available for members.

I promise all of this is related to one another and I will post more about it on kofi. I had the sudden urge to really dig into one of my all time dreams, which is to make a game that takes place in Tailnrr. I don’t plan on completely disappearing as my motivation goes in and out a lot anyways and I do wanna continue my loz stuff as well. I’m just gonna be learning how to do that in the background while working on concept art since I know it’ll be a long time coming, especially when it comes to my level of focus (which is already super sporadic).

Below is gonna be a summary of each image to explain what they are/are for. It’s gonna be a lot of nonsense for anyone unfamiliar with my main storyverse (which is most people probably).

First image is Alijhe, Titan Fa’llan’s first daughter who moved to the main continent to seek amends with the oujack and help her younger brother (Da’rien) out with his hunting and research guild after the crash of Venture caused the fauna in the area to become more skittish and aggressive. After it’s all settled she decides to move south into the Rak’our region where she founds the Wyvern’s Perch, a research and rescue base to check on and study the katsuryn that had escaped a century before and migrated south. [map on my kofi]

Second image is a base I made for myself when designing wyverns (specifically the Katsuryn). This one is Kovul who will make a special appearance as a rare wyvern since he’s (mostly) not wild. He's the companion of Vi'Dnnyr, Rak'our's leader.

Third is another special wyvern (whose rename is still pending). She’s the oldest living relative of the wyverns at the moment, being as close to their ancient ancestor as possible. She’s incredibly old but also incredibly nice. She’s the wyvern companion of Lai’Norys, the lijia in charge of the central most region, Ketsuynn, and effectively Da’rien’s boss.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Nick Visser at HuffPost:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested more than 500 people on Thursday, including during a raid on a worksite in New Jersey that a local official called an “egregious act” that violated the Fourth Amendment. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said ICE officials detained undocumented residents as well as citizens during a raid on a business, without producing a warrant. One of the people detained, Baraka said, was a U.S. military veteran “who suffered the indignity of having the legitimacy of his military documentation questioned.” “This egregious act is in plain violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees ‘the right of the people be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures…’” the mayor said in a statement. “Newark will not stand by idly while people are being unlawfully terrorized.” [...] The agency wrote it arrested 538 people and detained 373. It’s unclear where those arrests took place. President Donald Trump had foreshadowed an overhaul of the nation’s immigration system and quickly moved to sign a raft of executive orders targeting migration along the southern border with Mexico. The Pentagon is sending 1,500 active-duty troops to the border to bolster those already there to support the U.S. Border Patrol. And the White House recently canceled travel for thousands of refugees that had already been approved to come to the country.

Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar,” has also promised to carry out the president’s pledge to begin the largest mass deportation event in U.S. history from the first day of the new administration. The White House threatened this week to take legal action against any officials who resist enforcement efforts, although many Democratic mayors and governors have said they will not assist ICE agents.

ICE’s nationwide raids that led to over 500 arrests and nearly 400 detentions are a calamitous disgrace. Add this to the reasons why ICE needs abolished.

[mightyflamethrower]

Riots have broken out in multiple cities and towns across Great Britain, particularly over the past week. There were already protests taking place, but some of them have now turned violent. The topic driving all of this unrest is the immigration situation, particularly the illegal migrants that have been crossing the English Channel on rubber rafts and boats. Much as we've seen a backlash in the United States to violent crimes committed by illegal migrants, many Brits are clearly fed up as well. Everything seemed to come to a head last week when a series of stabbing attacks took the lives of three young children and left eight other children and two adults seriously injured. This took place in Southport, a seaside town north of Liverpool. Rumors quickly spread that the attacker was an illegal migrant, and that's when the protests turned violent. Hundreds have been arrested as a result. (AP)

Britain has been convulsed by violence for the past week as crowds spouting anti-immigrant and Islamophobic slogans clashed with police. The disturbances have been fueled by right-wing activists using social media to spread misinformation about a knife attack that killed three girls during a Taylor Swift-themed dance event. The violence, some of Britain’s worst in years, has led to hundreds of arrests as the government pledges that the rioters will feel “the full force of the law” after hurling bricks and other projectiles at police, looting shops and attacking hotels used to house asylum-seekers. As Britain’s new government struggles to quell the unrest and announces a “standing army” of specialist police to deal with rioting, here’s a look at what’s happening and why.

The liberal media has a marked tendency to try to blame nearly everything on online misinformation or disinformation, but in this case, they do seem to have a point. The attacker was described in several outlets as someone "believed to be an asylum-seeker or a Muslim immigrant." That report spread across the media quickly, inflaming tensions. But it turns out that the killer's name is Axel Muganwa Rudakubana and he was actually born in Wales in 2006, moving to Southport in 2013. His parents are reportedly legal immigrants from Rwanda. He also reportedly suffers from autism, so the stabbing attack may have been more of a mental health issue than any sort of hate crime.

Even if the deadly attack in Southport turns out to have been mischaracterized, that doesn't mean that the UK doesn't still have a serious problem with its illegal immigration situation and resultant unrest. This situation has been simmering for more than a decade and it now appears to be reaching the boiling point. There is a group over there named the English Defence League that has been operating for more than a decade, running a campaign against massive Muslim migration into the country, and they've been attracting more followers recently.

As far as the response to this situation goes, what we're seeing is a jarring juxtaposition between two different British leaders. The UK recently elected its new Labor Party Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, to replace the outgoing Conservative Party PM, Rishi Sunak. Sunak had previously vowed to stop the flow of illegals into the country by turning back the boats in the channel and deporting illegals already in the country to Rwanda. Immediately upon taking office, Starmer canceled the plan and instead vowed to take care of the problem by "working with other European nations and speeding up the removal of failed asylum-seekers."

Starmer has also vastly increased the rate of arrests... not of the migrants, of course, but of the protesters. Some of the protesters have engaged in vandalism and caused damage, with some even attacking the police, so they will need to be held accountable, but many of them are simply carrying signs and decrying both the current administration and the flood of migrants. They don't have the type of First Amendment protections we enjoy in the United States, so many of them have been sent to jail. Starmer has promised that the protesters will "feel the full force of the law" and established a "standing army" of specialist police to deal with the rioting. The entire situation is a mess, to be sure, but it's yet one more sign that massive migration and lax immigration enforcement are causing unrest far beyond America's borders. And the problem is spreading.

[shadowdaddies]

Can I request Aelin x f!reader and Aelin is very possessive over her

I'm feeling festive right now so I wrote this as a Yulemas piece with Aelin just wanting to spend time with reader more than anything

All I Want for Yulemas

Aelin x Reader fluff

Warnings: suggestive

Leaning over the bathroom counter, you carefully applied the red to your lips, festive for the Yulemas celebrations today. You smiled as Aelin padded into the bathroom, blonde hair a mess as she stood behind you, wrapping her arms around your waist. With a groan, she dramatically buried her head in your neck, mumbling against your skin. 

“I don’t want to do this today,” she whined. Turqoise eyes flicked to yours through the mirror, an all too familiar smirk gracing her lips as Aelin brushed her nose up the side of your neck. Pausing in between words, Aelin kissed a trail down your neck and shoulder. “We could...stay here...just you and me...”

Regretfully pulling away from her soft touch, you turned to face Aelin. “We have to get through temple and the ball.” Her responding groan made you giggle, amending, “okay, we have to make an appearance at the ball, at least. Queenly duties.” Aelin made a gagging sound at the title, pressing one more kiss to your cheek before moving to get dressed for the day. 

You sat in the front of temple, diligently singing along to the songs, holding back your snickering when Aelin was sure to point out the pointlessness of temple when there were no gods anymore. “It’s tradition,” you hissed, pinching her arm playfully as the both of you struggled to maintain your stoic expressions.

After temple, the crowd migrated to the ballroom for the main celebration. You joined Aelin on the dais, your queen raising a toast to the night and the official commencement of the ball. The orchestra struck up a jovial song, encouraging people from all around to rush the dance floor and take part in the merriment. Aelin gently took your hand, giving a discreet nod towards the exit.

“Come with me,” she whispered, leading you out the side door towards a winding staircase. You trailed her down a couple floors until you reached a door to the outside, the heavy wood creaking loudly as Aelin shoved it open to lead you out into the dark snowy night.

“Aelin, where are we going?” you murmured, teeth chattering as she guided you towards the line of evergreen trees at the edge of the forest. Turning towards you, Aelin winked and took off in a run as she pulled you along into the forest. 

You reached a clearing among the trees where the snow had unnaturally melted away, candles scattered around a blanket and pillows on the ground. A joyous laugh escaped you, your excitement palpable as you ran over to the warm haven, laying down on the pillows. Aelin laid down next to you, holding your hand as you both enjoyed the view of the starry sky. 

“I have a surprise,” Aelin whispered, and you whipped your head to face her in shock.

With a slight laugh, you waved an arm in gesture to the scene around you. “This isn’t the surprise?”

The soft look in Aelin’s eyes, her bright smile when she looked at you nearly made your heart burst. Silver lined your eyes as you shook your head in awe of her. “Aelin, you are too good to me. How am I supposed to give you a gift that compares to what you do for me?”

Aelin flipped over, blonde hair hanging in a curtain around her face as she hovered over you. One hand came to brush your cheek, that loving look in her eyes that would bring you to your knees had you been standing. “All I want for Yulemas is to be with you, away from responsibilities. Just to love you,” she whispered, a reverence in her tone. 

“I think I can arrange that.” Reaching up, you threaded your fingers through her long hair and pulled her down into a heated kiss. Legs wrapping around her waist instinctively, you moaned into the kiss, desperate for more of her warm touch. 

Aelin pulled away, breathless as she laughed softly against your cheek. “I haven’t shown you the real surprise yet.” She pressed a quick peck to your cheek, taking your hands to help you sit up as she moved behind you, hands wrapping around your waist. With a wave of her hand, small twinkling lights illuminated the evergreens around you, revealing small figures on the ground. You walked over to one, picking it up to see it was a wooden carving of a Terrasen pine tree. Small carvings and offerings surrounded the circle of trees, each representing something special to you. 

You couldn’t stop the tears that fell, thinking of how much time must have been devoted to creating these gifts for you. Aelin kneeled next to you, placing an arm around your shoulders. “The Little Folk made all of these for you, recognizing how special you are to me.” 

Setting down the carvings, you pulled Aelin in for a hug, holding her in your arms as if she would disappear if you let go. “Thank you, thank you all,” you whispered, to Aelin and to any Little Folk who might be listening. 

Aelin pulled back, brushing the hair that had fallen in your eyes as she wiped your tears. “Come on,” she whispered, guiding you back to the nest of pillows and blankets in the clearing. There was a small wicker basket you hadn’t noticed before, Aelin opening it to pull out a bottle of wine and - of course - chocolate truffles. 

Laughing, you settled into the pillows next to her, curling into her side as you took turns drinking from the bottle and eating chocolates. After hours of talking, whispering sweet nothings and sneaking intimate touches, Aelin drifted off to sleep - her golden hair splayed across your stomach that she used as a pillow. You stroked her hair absentmindedly, deep contentment settling in your bones as you fell asleep under the stars with her.

[pearl-kite]

Want to see some neat things about how irises grow?

Remember when I dug up and divided ALL of my irises at my parents' place a few years back? And how I ended up with 50 rhizomes, and I had bought 9 more just a bit before that?

Well, my mom wants to try to amend the soil because it's not great. Most of the irises have just been surviving, but not well enough to bloom, and everything else planted in the area struggles similarly. In order to amend the soil, though, I needed to dig them all up.

Again.

I dug up 44 rhizomes this time, which is honestly a bit better than I expected. I knew that not all of the ones I put in were going to survive, but I was still surprised by how many I just dug up today.

Anyway, the learning bit!

So irises aren't bulbs, they're rhizomes. Each year they put up leaves at one end, and over time they kind of end up migrating in that direction. If they do really well at gathering and storing energy, instead of just continuing forward, they'll fork, putting up leaves on two sides and a stalk with blooms in the center. The following year, the pattern continues, going forward from each side of that fork. If a rhizome does REALLY well, you'll end up with a bunch of forks spreading out.

The one on the left has survived, but not gone very far, and the white at the end shows that I accidentally broke some of the old rhizome off when I was digging it back up. It also happens to be a dwarf variety, so the rhizome is smaller to begin with; all my other photos are of intermediate and tall bearded irises with much larger rhizomes.

The one on the right has done well enough to grow forward for a few years, with the oldest of the rhizome at the bottom (still healthy and full of stored energy!) and the newest year's growth at the top. Looking at the rhizome itself, I'd guess that one is about 4 years (which makes sense, 'cause I think I did the splitting back in 2020).

The one on the left bloomed this year; you can see the flower stalk dried out in the center, and the new fork in the rhizome to the sides. Next year, they'll continue in those two directions, and it won't go forward from the stalk any longer.

The one on the right bloomed a few years back, and though it kept growing forward from there, it hasn't bloomed since. The other side of the fork also died off, and it's now only growing in one direction again.

Last but most certainly not least we have THIS beast. This one has bloomed the last two or three years in a row. I honestly can't tell if the guy at the bottom right is part of the same rhizome or another one I planted too close that got subsumed by this monster, because it took ten minutes to get most of the clay off and there was still more. I'll need to actually rinse it off with the hose to really see if it's all one plant or two.

But I'm 95% sure that this guy is going to bloom again next year because of those nubs down along the bottom. They were below the soil, and they're too thick to be new roots, so I'm guessing that's what future growth looks like. Honestly, this guy should probably be divided, but I also don't want to ruin the chance of it blooming next year, so I'm going to put him back in the dirt as is and maybe divide next year after blooming season.

Anyway, irises are my favorite, and I think it's intriguing how they work. I'm hoping that we can get the soil a bit more balanced and that they'll do better after replanting them, because even though I just dug up 44, we only had 4 or 5 bloom this year. They aren't thriving in the soil as-is, because for as long as they've been established we should have had more blooming than that. It was still the best year since dividing them, though.

I've brought a bunch of them over to my apartment and I'm going to try them out in containers, mostly the dwarf varieties I had. ONE of the dwarfs bloomed this year and it was gorgeous, but I'm hoping the rest will do better in new soil with some extra attention.

[samueldays]

Cuck Islanders are mad about free speech again.

Musk replied to an account laying blame for the riots at the “effects of mass migration and open borders” with “civil war is inevitable”, prompting criticism from No 10. He then in turn responded to a tweet from Prime Minister Keir Starmer with “shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?”, seemingly parroting a far-right trope suggesting that officials don’t care about attacks on white victims – which is not remotely backed up by reality.

correction: which is thoroughly demonstrated by the Rotherham, Telford, and other rape rings targeting white victims.

To call this uncharted territory is the understatement of the century. The world’s richest man has bought what is still by far the most important real-time social network for news. He is not just failing to act over the far right using his site to mobilise and to radicalise one another – he is actively participating in discussions around the present unrest.

Oh no, "actively participating in discussions".

Musk has crossed the Rubicon, and the Government should make that clear. If he is fanning domestic unrest, we have laws relating to that and powers allowing it to take action. These range from travel bans, to sanctions, or possibly even criminal prosecution. Musk might be the world’s richest man, but he is still just a man. Perhaps it’s time for the UK authorities to remind him of that.

it's extraordinary what this guy thinks the UK is in a position to prosecute foreigners for.

Similarly from the BBC, which has weird page structure so the link might break:

The Director of Public Prosecutions says his teams will consider seeking the extradition from abroad of social media influencers who are playing a role in the violent disorder gripping the UK.

"playing a role in". What an open-endedly censorious and totalitarian thing to say.

Stephen Parkinson tells BBC that anybody invovled in the violence should know they will face the most severe possible criminal charges, including terrorism.

I think Stephen Parkinson should face the most severe possible criminal charges for abuse of government power in violation of the First Amendment to the American Constitution. It would be ironic punishment for a guy trying to enforce UK censorship abroad.

"We have liaison prosecutors around the globe, who've got local links with the local judiciary. We can cooperate with our international partners. "We would certainly consider extradition if we are satisfied that an offence has been committed. They must know that they are not safe and there is nowhere to hide."

ordinary dishonest bloviation, or imperialist mindset to censor the world, I wonder?

[fictionadventurer]

I’m not from the US so I don’t know much about it, but someone once told me that the civil war was fighting for two different things. The north was fighting to end slavery and the south was fighting because they didn’t want the government to be able to dictate to them what they did with their property (the only problem was that the south saw people (slaves) as property).

How much of this is correct? Or is it a simplistic view?

It's complicated. There are a lot of historical forces--social, economic, religious, political, legal, cultural--surrounding the lead-up to the Civil War, and you can take as simplistic or as detailed a lens toward it as you'd like.

Before the war, the South did want to protect their property. Slavery in the territories became such a huge issue because slave owners wanted to be able to migrate to these new territories with their property, which included slaves. The majority of the soldiers who'd fought in the Mexican-American War had been Southern--were they going to be barred from the territories that they had fought and bled to win?

Of course, the North argued that people couldn't be property, and their insistence that slavery was evil only made the South get more defensive over it. At the end of the 18th century, a lot of Southerners believed that slavery was an unfortunate evil--not an ideal situation, but not one they could realistically do anything about. (What were they supposed to do with all these free blacks, for one?) But as the South got more defensive, they started to argue that slavery was a moral good, giving these slaves much better lives than they'd have in Africa, and allowing for a white upper-class that could devote itself to civilized culture rather than the rat-race of industry in the North. Their way of life, they believed, depended upon maintaining slavery.

So the war absolutely was about slavery, but the South considered it the main issue long before the North did. Secession started pretty much as soon as Lincoln was elected, because he'd been painted as a "Black Republican" who was going to free all the slaves as soon as he came into office. In his famous "A House Divided" speech, Lincoln argued that the long history of maintaining balance between slave and free states wasn't going to be sustainable. Because Southern slave owners wanted to be able take their slaves through the whole country, and wanted to get their slaves back if they escaped to freedom, either the nation had to abolish slavery or slavery would take over the whole nation--there was no middle ground that would be acceptable to either side. Because everyone knew Lincoln considered slavery a moral wrong, the South thought this speech proof that Lincoln was going to free all the slaves, so they seceded to protect their "states' rights".

The ironic thing was that Lincoln didn't believe he could free the slaves. He was a lawyer through and through, who held the Constitution as a nearly religious document. The Constitution explicitly protected slavery, so as much as Lincoln would have liked to end slavery, he didn't believe the president had the power to do anything about it--that was up to the states. Not long after Lincoln came into office--in an attempt to bring the seceding states back-- both the House and the Senate passed a constitutional amendment that would have explicitly prevented the federal government from interfering with slavery; the war was the only reason it never went to the states for the vote to make it official.

Once the war started, the North was very clear that the purpose was not to end slavery--it was to keep the Union together. Lincoln believed that the Constitution as written did not give the states the right to secede, and that doing so was traitorous and made the Constitution meaningless. Remember, a democratic-republican government had never been attempted on such a scale before; several other similar governments had fallen in recent decades. If this American experiment was going to succeed, the nation needed to prove that an elected government could maintain power even when there was disagreement among its citizens. The war couldn't be about slavery--the North had to bring the rebel states back into the fold and then solve the slavery issue through civilized legislative and judicial measures.

So the North was very careful not to make the war about slavery early on. Early in the war, the ardent abolitionist general John C. Fremont took over Missouri, declared martial law, and issued a proclamation freeing all the slaves. Lincoln was pissed, and he immediately reversed the order. Several border states in the Union still allowed slavery; if they thought the war was about ending it, they'd join the Confederacy, and the problem would get even bigger.

That view only began to shift after the war dragged on. After so much bloodshed, could the North really be okay with going back to pre-war business as usual, with the issue that had led to secession unresolved? Black soldiers were beginning to fight for the Union and showing immense bravery--could we let them fight for freedom and then send them back to slavery?

Ironically, Lincoln was only able to issue the Emancipation Proclamation as a war measure. He still believed the president didn't have the power to end slavery--it's why the order didn't free any slaves in the Union. But slaves were an important resource in the Confederate war effort; men were able to go off and fight because they could leave their families and farms in the care of slaves. Slaves were being used for physical labor in army camps, freeing up the white men to do the actual fighting. By freeing the slaves, Lincoln was furthering the war effort by depriving the South of a vital resource--a legitimate use of his expanded wartime powers, with the added bonus of ending a horrible system of bondage. If the South hadn't seceded, such a measure wouldn't have been legal.

By the end of the war, the North was fighting to end slavery, and the South was desperately trying to spin the narrative to prove that it had been about anything other than slavery. But no matter how you spin it, the South seceded specifically to maintain slavery, and the resulting war was the only reason it was able to end.

[gatheringbones]

[“The history of the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery looms large in contemporary trafficking conversations – often in the form of claims, subtle or not, that modern trafficking is worse than chattel slavery. Politicians and police officers meet to tell each other that ‘there are more slaves now than at any previous point in human history’; a UK former government minister insists that ‘we are facing a new slave trade, whose victims are tortured, terrified East European girls rather than Africans’. Matteo Renzi, then prime minister of Italy, wrote in 2015 that ‘human traffickers are the slave traders of the twenty-first century’. The Vatican claimed that ‘modern slavery’, specifically prostitution, is ‘worse than the slavery of those … who were taken from Africa’. A senior British police officer remarked that ‘the cotton plantations and sugar plantations of the eighteenth and nineteenth century … wouldn’t be as bad as what some victims [today] go through’.

A 2012 anti-trafficking ‘documentary’ that was screened for politicians and policymakers around the world, including in Washington, London, Edinburgh, and at the UN buildings in New York, proclaims: ‘In 1809 the cost of a slave was thirty thousand dollars. In 2009, the cost of a slave is ninety dollars.’ White people co-opting the history of chattel slavery as rhetoric is grim, not least because the term slavery names a specific legal institution created, enforced and protected by the state, which is nowhere near synonymous with contemporary ideas of trafficking. Indeed, the direct modern descendant of chattel slavery in the US is not prostitution but the prison system. Slavery was not abolished but explicitly retained in the US Constitution as punishment for crime in the Thirteenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, which states that ‘neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction’ (emphasis ours).

The Thirteenth Amendment isn’t just a vestigial hangover. In 2016, the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee released a statement condemning inmates’ treatment in the prison work system:

Overseers watch over our every move, and if we do not perform our appointed tasks to their liking, we are punished. They may have replaced the whip with pepper spray, but many of the other torments remain: isolation, restraint positions, stripping off our clothes and investigating our bodies as though we are animals.

There are more Black men in the US prison system now than were enslaved in 1850. Seeking to ‘end slavery’ through increased policing and incarceration is a bitterly ironic proposition.

White people in Britain and North America have been very successful at ducking any real reckoning with the legacies of the slave trade. Historian Nick Draper writes, ‘We privilege abolition … If you say to somebody ‘tell me about Britain and slavery’, the instinctive response of most people is Wilberforce and abolition. Those 200 years of slavery beforehand have been elided – we just haven’t wanted to think about it.’ By rhetorically intertwining modern trafficking with chattel slavery, governments and campaigners have been able to hide punitive policies targeting irregular migration behind seemingly uncomplicated righteous outrage.

Men of colour become ‘modern enslavers’ who deserve prosecution or worse. Their ‘human cargo’, figured as being transported against their will, are owed nothing more than ‘humanitarian return’, and the racist trope of border invasion is given a progressive sheen through collective shared horror at the villainy of the perpetrators. Meanwhile, in crackdowns and deportations, European governments position themselves as re-enacting and re-writing the history of anti-slavery movements to make themselves both victims and heroes. Of course, these actions by European governments do harm. For example, their policy of confiscating or destroying smuggling boats has not ‘rescued’ anyone, only induced smugglers to send migrants in less valuable – and less seaworthy – boats, leading to many more deaths. This policy continued for years, despite clear evidence that it was causing deaths. But, faced with twenty-first century ‘enslavers’, there is little need for white reflection. Instead, Renzi later wrote that European nations ‘need to free ourselves from a sense of guilt’ and reject any notion of a ‘moral duty’ to welcome arrivals. At the time of writing, the Italian government’s ‘solution’ to the migrant crisis is to pay for migrants to be incarcerated, stranded in dangerous, disease-ridden detention centres in Libya. As Robyn Maynard writes,

By hijacking the terminology of slavery, even widely referring to themselves as ‘abolitionists’, anti–sex work campaigners … in pushing for criminalization … are often undermining those most harmed by the legacy of slavery. As Black persons across the Americas are literally fighting for our lives, it is urgent to examine the actions and goals of any mostly white and conservative movement who [claim] to be the rightful inheritors of an ‘anti-slavery’ mission which aims to abolish prostitution but both ignores and indirectly facilitates brutalities waged against Black communities.

What does the fight to save people from ‘modern slavery’ look like on the ground? In 2017, police in North Yorkshire told journalists that they were fighting to rescue ‘sex slaves’ and asked members of the public to call in with tips, adding that the ‘sex slaves’ themselves ‘are prepared to do it [sell sex], they believe there is nothing wrong in it … We have just got to … educate them that they are victims of human trafficking.’ It seems fairly obvious that women who are ‘prepared to do it’ and ‘believe there is nothing wrong with it’ will not particularly benefit from being ‘educated’ about the fact that they are victims of trafficking – which in England and Wales means a forty-five-day ‘respite period’ (frequently disregarded) followed by a ‘humanitarian’ deportation.”]

molly smith, juno mac, from revolting prostitutes: the fight for sex workers’ rights, 2018