#Unwritten Black People Rules

[blackgirlslivingwell]

Black Community Etiquette Lesson - Do You Think This Is Low-Class Behavior?

This is just a quick video about low-class behavior. According to the internet, if you do these things, you're low-class. And it doesn't matter how much money you have or don't have. Some of the richest people are low-class.

[criibibi]

Synopsis: After losing so much, Spider-woman learns to just keep moving. Only for her to end up somewhere far from home. Her first agenda is figuring out where she is, and how to get back. The only problem is that she ended up somewhere fictional (to her). Playing hero with Batman was not in her bingo cards this year. Hopefully she will be able to make it back home before she catches unwanted attention.

Masterlist: Prev; Next;

Chapter 2 - Spider Luck

Morning came quickly despite the shitty sleep you received that night. The constant tossing and turning, the constant fear and anxiety of getting caught or broken into, really you couldn’t catch a break. 

Despite that, you did get some sleep, even if the sum total was like three hours. Still, it’s not like the nightmares would have let you sleep regardless. All your failures would consume your thoughts and drown you, reminding you of your losses. 

Sure you moved on, but it’s not like you had forgotten. Uncle Ben’s wisdom, Aunt May’s lessons, and Peter Parker’s kindness. You vowed to honor and cherish those memories, but here you are, in another fucking world, with a high possibility of you breaking some laws just to get out.

Desperate people do crazy shit, and you aren’t that sane to begin with.

Luckily this motel has a shower and you plan to use it. Making sure to clean yourself with what you have (unfortunate) and pick up the necessities that you desperately need. 

Taking your time (since you paid for it) you get yourself ready, making sure your mask, gloves and (stolen) wallet are secured inside the hoodie’s pockets. Suite nice and tucked underneath the turtleneck and leggings. First order of business is shoes. Maybe that should have been your first mission yesterday- oops. 

You definitely should have followed the young spiderlings example and fight crime with shoes. Well if you ever meet them again, you will…

When you meet them again. You will. You have to. No matter the cost.

And then your stomach rumbled. “Great! Time for cheap food. Wonder if that knockoff Wack-Donld place is open. 

Oh that’s a nice plan. But you forgot one thing, genius. Where is it? How would you know where it is? You can’t even map it since you also don’t have a phone. 

About to unlock the door, you realized something. It already was unlocked… “Hmm…” Well, it was good that you webbed the door then.

“Fuck.” Leaving the motel keys at the front, you skedaddled your way back into the streets, looking for either a bodega or a shoe store. In order to keep yourself somewhat sane, you start softly humming music you recall Miles shared with you.

After some time of walking around aimlessly (you avoided asking others for directions, gods know gothamites unwritten rule is to mind your fucking business), you found a thrift store.

Guess what you realized while browsing for shoes. If you buy and fight crime with shoes, and (as of right now) are your only pair, you will get found out. So crocs it is!

Black ones, because white gets dirty too damn easily.

Finding your size and other clothing necessities, face-mask, a backpack and a portable sewing kit, you were good to go and all for a cheap price! God you love thrift stores. You used to go to as many and as often as you could with Peter. Ya had a bad spending habit and Peter certainly never discouraged you. He was your terrible financial buddy.

Not now! You can’t reminisce right now, not until you found a way home. Asking the cashier for directions while also subtly declining their phone number (your excuse is that your phone got stolen) you made it to a corner store. Hurray!

Making sure to stock up on snacks, since- let’s be real, this will be your food source for a while, (no income, remember, silly) you stand in line to pay before your spider sense goes off.

Behind you. There’s a man, hoodie on, looking down, covering their face, hands buried inside their pockets. You’re betting it’s either a gun or a knife. 

“Don’t move or I’ll shoot.” Oh, it’s a gun. How original.

The cashier seemed to clock in to what is occurring and subtly reaches under his counter. Not subtle enough because the man behind you yelled, pulling out his gun and pointing at the back of your head.

What the fuck spider luck.

You quickly assess your surroundings, making note that there is only one exit, two normal people not including you but including the gunman, and the room feels tight and too small to do anything.

Conclusion? You’re fucked. 

“I said don’t move, hands up! Give me the money, all of it!” From the corner of your eyes you can see just how fidgety this man was. Probably trigger happy if you do something stupid.

“He-hey man, I don’t got much in here.” The cashier had his hands in the air, trembling and freaking out. 

“I don’t care, give me the money! Yours too, bitch. Now!”

How rude. “Alright, I’m going to get my wallet. Don’t shoot.” You made slow movements of reaching into your pocket for the wallet.

“Hurry up! Both of you!” The thug yelled impatiently. You could practically feel how sweaty and anxious this guy is.

You watched the employee open up the cashier and take the money out. The assailant motioned for you to place your wallet on the counter, which you do and step to the side, getting out of his way. Just as he goes to grab the money you quickly grab the wrist with the gun and twist it, making sure he dropped it before smashing his head onto said counter, money flying everywhere. 

Both you and the cashier watched the assailant fall to the ground, nose bleeding and out cold. “Um,” The cashier looked at you, spooked. “I panicked.”

Hey look at that, no shots fired baby! Ya still got it! You are a pro-fess-io-nal~!

“Hey man, no-um no sweat. You saved me.” He replies with a tremble in his voice.

“Cool, cool, I also didn’t want to get shot. How much for my stuff?” You asked, picking up the money on the floor, handing it back while placing your snacks on the counter..

“What stuff? I see nothing. Just go. I already called the cops.” Oh, so he wasn’t reaching for a gun (corner stores usually have one under the counters) but a buzzer or something? Nice, cool, great.

“Thanks buddy!” Hey man, free food is a blessing. Picking up your wallet and bag of snacks, you step over the knocked out guy, (pick pocketing any cash he had on him,) picking up the gun with your sweater sleeve and placing it at the counter. “Here, for the cops.”

“Thanks so much, again for everything. Hey, can I get a name? For the next time you come and…buy stuff.” He shot his shot.

“I appreciate it man, but I don’t give out my name like that. You know?”

And he missed.

“Ye-yeah…” He looked like a kicked puppy.

Just as you stepped out you heard the sound of a motorcycle nearby and your senses went off again.

“Stop right there, not another step.” A third party voice joins the fray.

What the fuck, spider luck?!

Instantly you recognize the vigilante in front of you but regardless you are not taking any chances today. 

Taking a step back inside the store, making sure to close the door on the guy. “Um, hey not to alarm you or anything but there is a guy with a mask standing outside.” Bringing your hands up (again) you back away from the entrance, snack bag swinging around with your movements. 

The employee nods pulled out the pistol from the counter (what the fuck, why would you grab that with your fingers my dude?) and aimed.

Well at least he doesn’t hold grudges for being rejected.

The door swung open and there stood a masked vigilante, but a familiar bat symbol on his chest caught the employee’s attention.

“Oh thank god it’s not another one.” Putting the pistol again he sighed in relief.

“Ah!” The yellow vigilante turned his focus onto you, (who backed up so much you tripped over the k.o.ed dude, fucking embarrassing) hands still in the air and snacks littering the floor.

Some professional you are. Fuck you spider luck.

“I didn’t steal anything, I swear.” God, you're embarrassed and stressed.

The vigilante ponders for a few seconds, taking in the scenario, glancing at the employee who nods and turns his attention back. “Sorry about that. Here.” He extends a hand out towards you and to not be suspicious you hesitantly take it, your body tenses on instinct, pulling away immediately.

“Thank you.” you mumbled silently cringing at your embarrassment over spilled snacks.

“What happened?” He still faced you but you knew that question was for the other party member. And even if it was for you, you’re silent.

“That dude tried to rob us and they knocked him out. Oh,” The cashier looked at his hands. “This is his.” And placed the pistol on the counter.

This looks like the perfect time to poof away so you do. Right after you pick up your snacks. Signal sees this and silently aids you. “You both aren’t hurt, right? Need medical assistance?”

No you fucking don’t.

Holding out the bag as Signal placed the last snack in you as you shook your head. “I’m a-okay. Thank you though.” And you walk out for the second time. You could still feel his eyes on you until the door closes.

And guess who shows up.

The men in blue.

“Hold it right there.” Bro, you just want to be left alone, is that so much to ask? This time instead of bringing your hands up (for a third time), you instead clutch your bag to your chest, mask down and point inside, making sure your voice matches your facial expression.

“In there, he stopped him there.” meek, timid, nervous.

It seems to have worked as the pair of policemen entered the store and you didn’t think twice and booked it (in a non suspicious manner- if you run, they might chase). Passing by a yellow motorcycle you take a glance back and see the vigilante stepping outside the store, looking somewhat bothered in the presence of the authorities. 

Sucks to suck, bud, you know that feeling very well, not your problem anymore.

As if feeling your eyes on him he turns his face towards you, your eyes meeting a mask. Oh fuck! You felt your hair stand up. Holding his gaze for a few seconds before turning away (any other abrupt movement would definitely make you look suspicious) you continue on your way.

Forcing yourself to not tense up and fight the urge to shiver at his cold gaze you round the corner and you feel somewhat safer again. But it’s a false sense of security, because you know you’re slowly losing your mind.

Hopefully you won’t run into him or any of the other bats.

-

Duke Thomas was patrolling his territory, the Narrows, when he got a notification.

“Signal, there’s a robbing occurring five blocks from your location. The corner store Convenience. Know it?” Oracle’s voice spoke through the comms.

“I know my way. I’m checking it out now.”

“Checking the cameras- there are only three people inside. The assailant, a civilian, and an employee.”

“Got it-”

“Oh wait. Huh, well look at that.” Disbelief could be heard through the comms.

“What is it?” Did things escalate too fast?

“The civi knocked the guy out. Basically one move.” Color Oracle impressed.

“I’m here, anything else I should know about?”

“I’m scanning what I can see of their face, but I’m coming up blank. I’ll let you know if anything.”

Duke didn’t reply, instead as he pulled up he saw someone coming out of the store. “Stop right there, not another step.”

He watched the figure (gender unidentifiable with the oversized hoodie) freeze before making eye contact with him-er his visor. Despite the hood being down, he could not see their face completely with their mask, only their eyes and hair. Just a normal civilian, who apparently knocked out a guy with a gun.

Then silence and no movement.

Until the civilian backed away, closing the store door.

Stunned for a moment, Duke could hear Oracles snort through the comms. “Think they’re scared?”

“From what, me? They took down a guy with a guy and I scared them?” 

“Careful, gun pointed straight at you inside.” warned Oracle.

He moves towards the front door, pushing it open to see the civilian from earlier backing away still, hands up before turning his attention to the employee with a gun. “Oh thank god it’s not another one.”

“Ah!” A yelp caught his attention and it seems the civi tripped on the knocked out guy he just noticed. They immediately spoke, catching his eyes,“I didn’t steal anything, I swear.” 

Duke holds in a snort before glancing at the employee who nods in confirmation before he focuses on the fallen person. He calmly walks towards them, taking note of their discomfort and reaches his hand out. “Sorry about that. Here.” 

Despite his covered eyes somewhat obscuring his vision, he couldn’t will them away from this stranger’s visible face. 

Duke watched their hesitation but placed their hands in his, and he swore he felt a spark that sent shivers down his spine. How curious. He pulled them up, noting just how light they felt in his hold.

“Thank you.” Their voice was soft, but audible.

They quickly pulled their hand away, the warmth gone. His hand held its place for a couple of seconds before he let it fall to his side. “What happened?” He still faced the civilian, both unmoving. He already knew what occurred, Oracle told him everything, but he wanted to hear them talk more.

Only the employee replied. He took note of their lack of eye contact. 

“That dude tried to rob us and they knocked him out. Oh,” Duke glanced as the cashier placed the gun on the counter. He’ll leave that for the cops to pick up if they don’t get here before he leaves. “This is his.”

His attention is once again stolen as the civilian in front of him kneels to pick up their half empty bag. Standing above them, he notes the tips of their ears are red, how cute.

“You good there, romeo? You kinda have a staring problem.” Oracle’s voice snapped him out of his trance.

Duke cleared his mind (he hoped he didn’t look weird or creepy, yikes) before leaning down as well and helped pick up the tossed chip bags.

Though he did take his time, just to squeeze a bit more time with this civilian that he has yet to identify. “You both aren’t hurt, right? Need medical assistance?” He mostly directed this question to them than the cashier behind him. He wonders if Oracle figured out this civilian's name. 

Placing the last snack inside the plastic bag he watches them straighten up before shaking their head. “I’m a-okay. Thank you though.” His eyes couldn’t seem to leave their figure as he watched them walk out the door.

“Cops outside, Signal.” Oracle once again breaks his attention. 

“Got it.” Duke turns his attention to the guy on the floor, sitting him up as two officers enter the store. One takes the guy off his hands while the other questions the employee, taking the gun.

A slight restless feeling took over him and he made his way outside, the one carrying the passed out guy following. Duke quickly takes notice of eyes watching him and he turns to see the complete unmasked civilian from earlier. 

This time, he really felt like he had a staring problem. He drinks up their appearance like water. Their nose, lips, face shape, everything. He didn’t know how to explain it, but he really couldn’t look away this time. Everything around him suddenly felt silent. He felt his body shiver.

Such a pretty face, this civilian caught his breath regardless. He’s not one to lose himself by a pretty face but it seems this one was an exception. He felt mesmerized, entranced, and tongue-tied. Something about this person had a strong lock on him, and he couldn’t help but feel somewhat excited then put off. It felt like a very tight leash, and he doesn’t mind one bit.

Three seconds. Ever since he caught their gaze, they made eye-contact (despite him wearing a mask) before she looked away and left, turning the corner. (Their features look pretty feminine so he’s going with her). 

“Anything Oracle?” He mumbled, still a bit lost.

“No dice. How strange…”

Bummer. He mounts his ride and drives off to finish the rest of his patrol. He’s tempted to drive in the direction the civilian went to, but he wills himself to not do that. God it’s like he’s down bad. Really bad.

Hopefully he gets to see you soon, it seems you’re staying in the Narrows which increases his chances to see you. As much as he curses himself internally, he hopes he can save you next time something dangerous happens again.

Something formed in the pit of his stomach, and he doesn’t know if it’s desire or obsession.

Regardless, he embraces this feeling whole heartedly.

Prev; Next;

I struggled really hard, like REALLY hard. Duke is new to me (i only learned of him because of the webtoon) Now I'm reading issues he has been in and I don't know his character well but there is a SEVERE lack of Duke fics and I made it everyone's problem. So now he's down bad.

Updates are random and spars, no update schedule and don't plan to make one. This is my hobby not my obligation.

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

[Alternate Text:

Alabama supreme court rules frozen embryos are ‘children’

Court allows two wrongful death suits against fertility clinic to proceed while decision could impact people seeking IVF.]

absolutely horrifying news coming out of alabama.

the whole article is a terrifying but worthwhile read, but i wanna highlight two passages from it which are just absolutely fucking horrifying.

[Alternate Text:

Alabama supreme court justice Jay Mitchell wrote that embryos are indeed protected under the state’s existing law: “The central question presented in these consolidated appeals, which involve the death of embryos kept in a cryogenic nursery, is whether the act contains an unwritten exception to that rule for extrauterine children – that is, unborn children who are located outside of a biological uterus at the time they are killed,” he wrote. “Under existing black-letter law, the answer to that question is no: the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location.”]

[Alternate Text:

The Alabama supreme court’s ruling repeatedly references God and the sanctity of life, citing the Bible and biblical scholars including Petrus van Mastricht, Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. Chief Justice Thomas Parker wrote: “Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself … this is true of unborn human life no less than it is of all other human life – that even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”]

[melodymunson]

Rockstar Eddie Munson x fem reader head canons (feat Steve Harrington)

Adult content ahead. Only 18+ no minors

(This is my first time posting a fic for the Stranger Things fandom on tumblr. Reblogs and feedback/comments are much appreciated.)

ao3 link for the fic

Corroded Coffin had fans everywhere and people who knew and loved heavy metal became lifelong fans.

Eddie loved to crowd surf, stage dive at any show, and even get into the pit. He was well known by concert promoters and club owners/staff alike.

The first time you saw Eddie play live he connected with you instantly and when it came time to meet the fans he made sure to ask you backstage. Out of all the groupies or fans he could've chosen he picked you.

When Corroded Coffin was the headliner he would put 110% into his performances and you would be sure to take pictures of him and CC because they were the best live band you had ever seen.

Once you got on Eddie's tour bus with your VIP all-access pass he played some unwritten songs and covers for you.

You of course bought all of the band's merch and loved all their designs.

Your job for the band was to help run the soundchecks and sell the band's merch and of course, get big tips from some of the fans.

You loved Eddie for so many reasons and him being a rockstar was just a small part of it. When he was onstage you loved to see his energy as a frontman and lead guitarist.

Most tour dinners were nothing special mainly fast food or easy and fast microwaveable food from the local grocery stores. Sometimes though Eddie took you out to dinner and it was romantic.

Eventually, you and Eddie decided to get matching tattoos of a coffin and his band's logo on your right shoulders.

Neither of you were heavy drinkers but wouldn't turn down free drinks and shots. Eddie's favorite drinks were whiskey and vodka but he loved the occasional beer.

Corroded Coffin toured with some amazing bands including Autopsy, Carnivore, WASP, and Napalm Death.

When you were watching shows with him he would either crowd surf or get into the pit. On occasion, he would hold you during the slow rock ballads.

He may have had a bad boy image to the rest of the world but he was more than a rockstar to you and you understood him completely and he loved how down-to-earth you were.

What started as you being a groupie soon turned into a relationship. It was spontaneous and he was the best mix of gentleman and rockstar.

When guys would look at you he was very protective and made sure to leave his mark and let them know you were his girl only. He would mark you up with hickeys or kiss you and hold you close to him.

You got an "I'm with the band the rules don't apply to me" shirt you would wear to some of the band's shows. He of course got an "I'm in the band the rules don't apply to me shirt" he often wore during some of his shows.

Most of your wardrobe consisted of black clothes and ripped jeans, Corroded Coffin shirts, metal tee shirts, and low-cut tops and fishnets along with platform boots. Spiked jewelry, chokers especially, and spiked bras are also a turn-on for him. Eddie would especially love it when you wore all black and when you chose to pair fishnets, a corset, a leather jacket, and heels together- he almost couldn't resist the urge to rip your clothes off.

He usually pairs a Hellfire Club shirt with cutoff and ripped denim jeans together as well as a denim jacket and Converse chucks or Vans tennis shoes but he always looks good.

He wasn't too much into cover songs but on occasion, the band would be known to cover Metallica and Black Sabbath.

For their headline Halloween hometown show you cosplayed Elvira and he loved it. Eddie went as the devil complete with mask, pitchfork, and cloak.

Neither of you have a particular preference for the type of fan/groupie to hook up with but most of the fans wore dark lipstick and were goth/alternative with low-cut black clothes. He was a sucker for women with pretty eyes though.

So many women threw themselves at both of you and took their tops off at his shows but this was just the normal every-night rockstar occurrence. Bras and underwear thrown at him on the stage happened at every show.

Sex on the tour bus was wild. Whether it be with just Eddie, other girls, men, or couples, you still had a wild and crazy time.

One of your favorite partners was Steve. Even though he was a jock he loved going to Eddies shows and supporting him and he loved to see you. After a few drinks and a joint or two, you and Steddie were fucking in the back of the bus in every position.

All the times you fucked other people together were one-night stands. The important thing was that Eddie was yours and all the sex you had with other people was protected.

He got off on seeing you go down on another woman and please her. For his birthday you let him watch and film you fucking 3 other women. He loved it and came so hard just by jacking off to it.

Being with Eddie and other women on the bus you would either fuck on the couches or in the back room and you could pretty much get them to do whatever you wanted. Being with a rockstar came with its privileges after all.

Sometimes you would just have groupies on the tour bus to suck Eddie off and film them as they did so. They were always willing and eager to please and the whole time Eddie would look right into the camera and smile.

Leather, whips, and bondage were some of Eddie's favorite things as well as pegging and you were willing to oblige and sometimes you were even his dominatrix.

Some of the concerts you attended as VIP because of his rockstar status were Ozzy, Judas Priest, Metallica, ACDC, and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts.

In the recording studio, it was quite the experience especially when he laid down the vocals. He even had you do guest vocals on the album by recording your moans as he fingered and fucked you.

Most of the time you get a chill and relaxed day off just to go do something fun like paintball, play some Dungeons & dragons, go hiking in abandoned places, go to the roller skating rink or the arcade.

Most days after the shows he takes you to the local bar or strip club/burlesque club and tip the dancers very well, have a few drinks, and bring a girl or two back to the bus.

Dustin and the rest of his gang including Will and Eleven go to the local shows and ones that are all ages of course to see Corroded Coffin and Eddie even gives them a special shoutout and side stage access/VIP treatment.

For a while, he had been thinking about getting another guitarist and he decided to hire you. The gift that he presented when you were going to get asked to be in his band was a Fender electric guitar that was purple. He had been teaching you for a while and giving you lessons and would teach you more.

What you saw as most fitting for his next birthday would be a new electric guitar and you got one for him custom-made with his initials and it was blue. He of course loved it and told you it was the best present anyone had ever gotten him.

For his first big band photoshoot, he made sure you went with him and he posed with you scantily clad but very tasteful. You both had your guitars and posed together.

Once Corroded Coffin had made it big you and Eddie got a place of your own. For so long he wanted to be able to move out of the trailer park so he did and you got a nice place that was decorated with so many rock n roll posters, a King sized bed, silk and satin sheets, and curtains/drapery, a music room, a sex room, and even a small custom recording studio.

The new place was missing something and you decided you wanted to get a pet to adopt so you sat Eddie down and talked it over and it wasn't difficult to convince him to get one. Later that week you went to a cat and dog rescue shelter and found the cutest cat that was a tabby.

When you were on tour either Steve and Robin or Dustin would take care of the cat and you and Eddie made sure to bring home lots of toys when you got back.

Once Eddie's band got their big break and finally played a bigger venue and as headliner, he decided to propose to you onstage.

After being newly engaged to Eddie he had a chance to be in a music documentary and brought you along with him for being his biggest muse.

Being with Eddie and in a touring band was what was the best thing for you now and whatever came next you would be ready for it.

tagging @corneliuswatkins @keeryatmosphere @chrrymunson @xxhellfirebunnyxx @bimbobaggins69 @reidsbtch @babygorewhore @inourtownofhawkins @lokis-army-77 @imyourdaninow @ali-r3n @harringtonfan4 @koskeepsake @munson-mjstan @bunnsandroses @take-everything-you-can @eddiemunsons-missingnipple @steveslittlesunflower @emsgoodthinkin @jadeylovesmarvelxo @lofaewrites @zestychili @s6raphic @probablyin-bed @corrodedcorpses @dollalicia @hopsgirl

lemme know if you want to be added/removed

[spurious]

I mean

@audioletter ALSO made this perfect moodboard so. Let’s go.

Simple math, the truth cannot be fractioned

Rodney has always known that some things are simple, and some things are not. Simple doesn't always mean easy, but it does mean that there's a logic, a set of rules, a schematic he can hang on to if he starts to lose his way.

Physics is simple, playing the piano is simple, caring for a cat is simple, rewiring circuits is simple. Other people do not seem to think these things are simple, but Rodney knows this; knows that they are, if you can see.

Then there are the things that are not simple, the things that other people seem to grow angrier and angrier about as it becomes more and more apparent how not simple these things are for Rodney.

Human bodies, for example, are not simple, no matter how closely he tries to study, tracing anatomical diagrams like the drawings of wiring he's seen in the engineer's notebooks he saves his allowance to buy at Radio Shack. Rodney tries to understand how it all works together, but it's so messy, so filled with points of failure, that he can't, can't understand it and can't understand why no one else seems to be as horrified as he is to be trapped in an uncontrollable mass of meat and water and electrical impulses firing-misfiring, he knows, when he watches Jeannie having her first seizure, like something out of a horror movie.

Even more confusing and arcane are the unwritten, unseen rules, lines, connections between and around each person Rodney meets. He tries, at first: hopes that sharing his interests will bring connection, but in response he gets scorn, gets labels inked onto him over and over until they become true, become real, become a cloak to wrap around himself in protection: know-it-all, pompous, rude.

Rodney clings to simplicity, clings to the black and white that he can understand, knowing and accepting that maybe it's narrowed his world a little, but it's better than the alternative. He's certain of this, certain of the simplicity of his life until he steps through the stargate for the first time and life fractals out around him: simply un-simple, more than he ever expected to find, right in front of him the moment he lifts his head.

[holofizz]

More music I associate with these characters because I can't help it! Brace yourself it's still somehow a large list. I'm incapable of keeping my music playlists short, this is no different.

Crawford Tillinghast

Home Sweet Home - Arkavello

Love Me Dead - Ludo

Undisclosed Desires - Muse

Sticks and Stones - The Pierces

The Beginning Of The Twist - The Futureheads

The Waters Rising - Oceans of Slumber

Anton Mordrid

Rule #9 Child of the Stars - Fish in a birdcage

Impermanence - Major Parkinson

(The) Coffee Song - The Toxhards

Will I Find My Home Acoustic - Juniper Vale

Photo Voltaire Acoustic - Julien-K, The Birthday Massacre

Just Like Heaven - The Cure

John Reilly

The Drunk - Kiltro

Destroy Everything You Touch - Unwoman

Better Man - Pearl Jam

Eros - Viza

Neon Sunrise - I Am Giant

The Hands Are the Hardest

Herbert West

Murder Death - De Staat

Girl Anachronism - The dresden dolls

The Knack - Mother Mother

Wait - The Dear Hunter

Almost Human - Aurelio Voltaire

Dismantled - Nekonomicon, Kylee Brielle

Daniel Cain

Gloria - The Dear Hunter

(I Always Kill) The Things I Love

Lovefool - The Cardigans

Cemetery Breeding - Black Mountain

Push Me to the Floor - The Parlotones

Angeleyes - ABBA

Jonathan

For the Departed - Shayfer James

Serpentine - Anders Manga

Heard Somebody Cry - Oingo Boingo

The Killing Moon - Echo & the Bunnymen

Kiss Me You Animal - Burn The Ballroom

I/Me/Myself - Will Wood

Weyoun

Venus Ambassador - Bryan Scary

Stress - Jim's Big Ego

I'm A Princess - Bill Wurtz

The Other Me - Frost

Viva La Vida - Coldplay

Monkey Tree - Mother Mother

Kevin Burkhoff

Somebody's Home - Spock's Beard

Fractions - Juniper Vale

Create Myself - Gary Hesketh

Unwell - Matchbox Twenty

Voice in My Throat - Pearl and the Beard

Unwritten (acoustic) - Natasha Bedingfield

Milton Dammers

Devil's Plaything - Liv Sin

A Lifetime in the Service of Darkness - Ashbury Heights

Fill The Void - Oingo Boingo

People Are Strange - Johnny Hollow

¡Aikido! (Neurotic / Erotic) - Will Wood and the Tapeworms

Lecher Bitch - Genitoturers

50557

Blackest Eyes - Porcupine Tree

Can't Change Me - Chris Cornell

Laplace's Angel (Hurt people? Hurt People!) - Will Wood

The Mind Electric - Miracle Musical

Good For Your Soul - Oingo Boingo

Prosthetic - Haken

edit: fuck it, I put it all in it's own playlist.

[tani-b-art]

Marketability is whiteness.

To me, it isn’t about who is marketable or more marketable.

In this white-run world, marketable=white. That’s it. And whoever holds the reigns on control will always look out for their own.

No matter if the sport league’s (WNBA) majority demographic is Black (~70%) and those Black women are over-proficient & having historical seasons consistently.

Currently, there’s not 1 Black player with a shoe deal but 3 white players have deals and only 1 of those 3 has a championship on their resume. Only this year we can officially say that A’ja Wilson has changed that. Literally only a week ago does this change this fact.

I don’t even feel it’s the unwritten rule anymore of Black people have to be twice or ten times better (or work harder) as their white peers. We’ve excelled in that and it’s been proven time and time again with numbers, titles, rings, gold medals, record-setting, awards and all the accolades to show.

From athletes to recording artists and all other professions (in careers and entertainment. everyday civilians and celebs). We witnessed it with Serena Williams, Beyoncé and many others. Being at the top and performing at and beyond the top level and exceeding as a Black woman doesn’t translate to successfully getting recognized with tangibles despite that being what merit is.

It’s just the simple fact that white girls and white women are the(ir) (visible) preference and the(ir) standard. It’s not about “desirability” or “pretty privilege” (which is another topic because that’s subjective, absurd and steeped in racism. another topic) as even some are now attempting to insert. When all else fails and when skills and talent can’t be compared, move the goalposts or resort to some other irrelevant assessments. Because attempts to try to factor in stats and the stats then disprove their argument, then what else can be an excuse? The only privilege it is is white privilege.

Black exceptionality, winners, first-placers and over-performers will be on the same level as white mediocrity, losers, second-placers, and under-performers. Sadly it’s the reality.

[kaelio]

Full article:

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has cost it dearly on many fronts, but especially when it comes to casualties. Since the first days of the war, the invaders have been bleeding manpower. Plugging those holes became one of the tasks of the Wagner Group, the mercenary company with close ties to the Russian state. Its founder, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s close ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, began to actively and sometimes forcibly recruit from the country’s prisons, offering convicts the chance of freedom in return for service. The Russian army has gone on to follow that model itself.  

With those recruitments have come a whole series of subcultural notions that are shaping the lives of soldiers and the conduct of the war—but which are often ignored or overlooked by Western analysts. The power of Russia’s criminal culture, known as the “thieves’ world,” is not new. Prigozhin himself, like a surprising number of players in Putin’s world, is a former convict—because the men who profited most in the chaos of the 1990s were very often outright criminals. But the invasion of Ukraine has made these notions even more prominent, and understanding them all the more important.

On April 9, Prigozhin’s press service posted a response on Telegram to a question about the state of prison recruitment that had been sent to the Glas Naroda (Voice of the People) news site—one of the many parts of his media empire. In response, Prigozhin had some harsh criticism toward how prisoners are treated by the state authorities: “There are rumors of roosters, downcast and resentful prisoners fighting together with ordinary prisoners, which violates their [the prisoners’] internal laws, so-called unspoken rules, in a flagrant way. Everyone knows that Russia has been living by these rules, by a certain way of life for centuries, and therefore it seems to me that such situations are absolutely unacceptable.”

From the outside, Prigozhin’s statement seems incomprehensible. But in the world of Russia’s prison culture, where brutally imposed caste systems govern life and death, his statement makes perfect sense. The thieves’ culture is a set of rules, modes of action, and a strict social hierarchy that regulates everyday life among those in the criminal underground. It is especially focused on organizing the life of inmates in the many prisons and camps, known as “zones,” of Russia and other former Soviet countries. While traces of it existed even under the tsars, the system was largely forged in the vast gulags of the Soviet Union, the network of camps that formed almost a separate country inside Soviet borders.

The thieves’ culture gets its name from the ruling class, the “lawful thieves” who enforce the thieves’ law—an unwritten set of rules called ponyatiya, literally translated as “concepts” or “notions.” These rules include positive recommendations on how a “proper criminal” should act, harsh prohibitions on various actions with corresponding punishments, as well as a basis for how the social hierarchy in prisons should be organized. All this is described in jargon that, even for ordinary Russians, is hard to understand. For instance, the prisons themselves are measured on a scale from blackness to redness—those prisons where everyday life is mostly organized by the criminal authorities are called “black,” and the prisons where the unspoken rules and thieves’ culture are being actively suppressed and everyday life is in the control of the prison administration are considered “red.” Very few prisons are entirely one way or the other, of course, so arguments about whether a particular institution is red or black are commonplace—and baffling to outsiders.

The unspoken rules enforce a harsh hierarchy, one that serves the interests of the men on top—and sometimes of authorities who see it as a way to help keep prisoners under control. There are four basic groups of prisoners, known as “suits,” as if they were a deck of cards. This is essentially a caste system; it is extremely hard to move up, extremely easy to move down, and fear of degradation governs every social interaction. Of course, each suit, like any caste system, has many detailed subdivisions, branches, and complex substructures, but at the basic level, they are the following: blatniye (thieves), muzhiki (men), kozliy (billy goats), and petukhi (roosters).

Blatniye are the criminal authorities. They are career criminals—thieves and those who have chosen to embrace the rules and live by them full time. They are few in number but hold a lot of power and influence. Among them, the lawful thieves or thieves-in-law are a special subcategory, the equivalent of a mafia don or a yakuza elder. Their word is literally law in the criminal underworld—and they are bound only to the ponyatiya themselves, which they also have the power to change in specially organized gatherings.

Men and billy goats make up the “middle class” of this hierarchy. Men are those who just want to serve their terms with no fuss, but who are also informed about these prison laws, who pay respects to the notions, listen to the blatniye, and most importantly, do not cooperate in any way or form with the prison administration, even when it comes to, say, kitchen or library duties.

Billy goats are inmates who participate in formal prison structures, and are willing to work with the prison authorities but also pay some respect to the criminal ones. The people who run the black market inside a prison, who can get you cigarettes, drugs, gaming consoles, or whatever else, are also in the billy goat caste—but they’re obviously left alone and respected as long as they pay their tax into the common pool for the blatniye to use as they please. There is a subsection of those people, called “activists,” who are lower in the hierarchy and try to hide their position. Those are the billy goats who actively try to cooperate with the administration for extra benefits, which often are more than just being released on parole. In black prisons they’re hated like snitches are in U.S. prisons, whereas in extremely red ones, they often take positions that a blatniye would take otherwise.

The lowest caste, and the one that every prisoner fears degradation to, are the roosters, also known as the “offended,” the “pederasts,” or the “downcast.” That is a position to which it is extremely easy to fall down to, but one that you can never climb up from. They’re forced to do all the worst jobs—such as cleaning the cell’s latrine, washing everyone’s underwear—because no, your average Russian prison does not have any washing machines—and often serving as sexual slaves. They also get the worst sleeping spots in the cell, usually next to the latrine.

A rooster is untouchable outside of sex. One is not allowed to share anything with a rooster except as a payment for services—not only is it taboo to touch them, but also anything that they have touched, as that instantly moves one to their caste. Their kitchenware is explicitly marked as such, for one, and whenever transferring cells, they’re supposed to publicly announce their suit status and move in with “their own” accordingly. There is also an extensive list of other infractions that can instantly move one into this caste, far too long for me to list here. Many of those are linked to a toxic sense of masculinity. Gay and transgender prisoners are automatically placed among the roosters, but so are those who foolishly admit to having given oral sex to a woman—an act that, as among the ancient Romans or the modern Italian mafia, is seen as fundamentally impure.

The only interactions allowed between higher-caste prisoners and roosters are purchasing sexual services from them, raping them (my personal sources say that this was completely acceptable up until approximately 2010, but that currently, although it won’t make you a rooster, it is considered to be a minor infraction with a material fine attached to it), and beating them up—but only with kicks or using improvised weapons, as even the touch of a punch is still considered taboo. It might seem bizarre that a man who rapes another man is not seen as impure, but his victim is—but it harks back to a sense of sexual dominance found in prison cultures and reactionary machismo worldwide. A rooster’s status is truly miserable. It’s driven many people to suicide and made people so miserable that they used to rebel and intentionally touch blatniye inmates as a last attempt of revenge—sure, they would be instantly killed by other inmates, but the prisoner who previously belonged to the higher caste would instantly be a rooster inside the prison system and out, and would never be able to move upwards in the hierarchy.

These notions, especially the revulsion against LGBTQ people, are powerful in Russian mainstream culture as well. Take the ex-liberal, now extremely pro-war and pro-Putin Russian journalist Anton Krasovsky, who was thrown out of the Donbas under threats of violence because he’s also openly gay. He’s the kind of gay man who agrees with the Kremlin’s stance of “traditional values” and believes that “gay cure” procedures should be mandatory, but nonetheless, he reported that he’s received messages that he’s not welcome there although he completely supports the Russian side in the war. Those messages included people stating he couldn’t even dig trenches, because the shovels he used would have to be burnt afterward.

In his post on Telegram, then, Prigozhin was making it clear that there was no redemption from prison caste even when fighting for the nation—and that the caste mixing was an active threat to morale. It might seem bizarre to stick to such prejudices given Russia’s dire need for manpower, but the laws of the underworld can’t be cast aside that easily.

This isn’t Prigozhin’s only extolment of the virtues of the thieves’ law. In a leaked video from the Feb. 21 this year, where he’s giving a recruitment speech to inmates, he explains the “working conditions” in the Wagner Group. He notes, “We need criminal talent. I did 10 years myself before becoming a hero of Russia,” letting the potential recruits know that Wagner Group is being run according to the thieves’ law. “We don’t take any kind of the offended, the downcast, and so on—we respect all the unwritten rules.” Prigozhin says that those who are in prison for drugs are “taken care of.” Violence, on the other hand, puts you on the top of the hierarchy. The desirable charges are murder, grievous bodily harm, robbery, and armed robbery. He especially notes that “If you beat up  the administration or the cops, that’s even better.”

In another cruel example, Wagner Group recruits who are suffering from HIV, hepatitis, and other hard-to-cure illnesses, who have been enticed with the promise of a cure should they survive, are made to wear specific wristbands that mark them as “impure” in an attempt to not “taint” others. And, as reported by Ukrainska Pravda, “according to the [Ukrainian] intelligence, the fighters are becoming angry about this situation. Russian medics are known to routinely refuse to treat injured [soldiers] with hepatitis or HIV.”

None of this makes for good soldiers, and it’s already having serious consequences in Russian society. Organized violence is both physically and mentally demanding. A sense of camaraderie among the soldiers and respect, or at least obedience, for officers is vital. The Wagner Group operates on a different culture—one where such mutual respect and military tradition does not exist, and obeying formal superiors is literally taboo for the highest castes of prisoners. Nor can the dead be respected—after all, they might be roosters. Because of these prison laws and hierarchy, soldiers in the Wagner Group are not encouraged to bond; instead, they’re treated as expendable and sent as a human wave into the  “meat grinder.”

Extreme violence—like the shocking sledgehammer execution of a Wagner recruit who tried to defect to Ukraine—is used to keep soldiers in check. As Prigozhin commented about that event: “A dog’s death for a dog.” And while this does keep the prisoner recruits under some control and can achieve limited results, it also has made the Wagner Group tactically inflexible and predictable. Once Ukrainian defenders of Bakhmut understood that these blunt, straightforward assaults were the only thing that Wagner forces would ever do, the Ukrainians adapted and improved, eventually negating the costly gains that Prigozhin’s private army had made.

The normalization of prison culture may be contributing to the brutalization of the Russian army and its war crimes in Ukraine—but it’s also affecting the home front. Many of the prisoner recruits return home with a full pardon after serving out the six months they’re contracted for, often having served a tiny fraction of their sentence. Wagner specifically looked for violent criminals—who usually have long sentences. Already, the crimes of these returning Wagner soldiers are piling up, and analysts and Russian opposition politicians, such as Mikhail Khodorkosky, are warning against the return of the violence of the 1990s, when crime soared. Lawful thieves, prison laws, and ponyatiya in general are surging again, as the country is once again criminalizing itself to the point of gang wars, but this time, with military-grade armaments. Yet the Western press has largely missed most of this. The reports of Prigozhin’s comments, such as this UPI wire, entirely skipped it over. The lede simply states: “Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia’s Wagner Group, said Sunday that the mercenary group “acted honestly” by hiring prisoners to fight in Ukraine as he branded the convicts “heroes.”

In an April 10 report from the Institute for the Study of War, the ponyatiya are entirely ignored. Instead, it mentions only “Prigozhin insinuated that the Russian MoD [Ministry of Defense] would treat convicts worse than Wagner treated them to further advertise recruitment into Wagner and discredit the MoD’s recruitment efforts. The insinuation seems odd given that Wagner reportedly used convicts in human wave attacks that cost thousands of them their lives.” That misses the point entirely. Prigozhin isn’t talking about regular treatment, but about the deeply embedded caste notions—and under those, being degraded to a rooster is far worse than death.

While Prigozhin frequently uses the language of thieves , Putin avoids explicitly stating the rules, but nevertheless hints that he sticks to them himself. Putin was a KGB agent, of the organization that jailed many “thieves” back in Soviet days, and never a convict himself. However, he has long-standing ties to Russian organized crime—most notably through the Cooperative Ozero, which was founded as a dacha cooperative in November 1996 by Putin and his friends and has since grown to a powerful group, bonding together oligarchs and more conventional criminal activities.

Putin’s emphasis on supposedly traditional Russian values also implicitly includes the laws of the prison—especially when it comes to macho behavior and sexual purity. The Russian state’s homophobia can’t be understood without recognizing the sadism of a caste system that sees raping men as normal but loving them as degrading. Maxim Katz, a prominent Russian opposition journalist and politician currently living in Israel, told me that the ponyatiya are important to understand Putin and the Russian political elite in general. But he said  that “it is not the criminal authorities’ notions of the Russian prison that reign in the Russian security services, but their ersatz version.

Chekists, especially retired Chekists [a term for former KGB officers such as Putin, referring to the old Soviet secret police service], like to copy the style of behavior of high-ranking criminals. But for these criminals themselves, the Chekists are second-rate people, frankly not even people. The moment an employee of the ‘office’—current or former—is taken to a detention facility, he is immediately relegated to a lower caste and never gets beyond the latrine.

“Putin’s criminal behavior is more the case of a boy from an educated family trying to imitate the behavior of school bullies—but never quite becoming one of them. The Russian criminal world distinguishes between the blatniye and the ‘trash’ very clearly; the trash can try all they want to mimic this world, but they will always be subhuman to it, and their rhetoric is cheap cosplay, not true adherence to ‘the notions,’ since the notion is to kill them on the spot.” Putin may only be playing at the rules, but the criminal world takes them very seriously. So too should Western analysts striving to understand the actions of Russian troops, especially Wagner’s, in Ukraine, and the kind of culture that will become even more prominent back in Moscow and St. Petersburg when they return from the war.    

Kristaps Andrejsons is a journalist in Latvia and the creator of The Eastern Border podcast on the USSR and modern Eastern European politics.

[worth-this-and-more]

Do think Faye and natasia knew about Erebus being the shadow king. I would like see more about warlocks and more dragons do think still exist and maybe like have humans forms I do think Mariah has more family

[spoilers for legendborn and bloodmarked, read at your own caution ;)] hehe happy to see ya again anon!!

i am not really sure because i feel like the shadow king killed erebus recently?? like after he found out his descendant has infiltrated the order so I think it came after that. and I really think bree is the only one who figured out that "the hunter", "the great devourer" and "the shadow king" are the same because before that the ancestors didn't really have time to share experiences, they just warned the next kin about the dangers of using too much root. and it wasn't until valec revealed the bloodmark on bree that anyone ever saw exactly why there's a root furnace, so yeah I don't think they knew exactly but given natasia's connection to the shadow king she might've thought about it but there's really no big reason how or why she would think so at all. even if the description does match the shadow king she could've pondered upon the possibility maybe. but like now, in oathbound, after sel was left with natasia I think she will now connect the two and two together??

omggg yesss dragons dragons dragonssss and ofc warlocks, the one we met at the crossroads bar had a very dramatic scene and I feel like he's definitely gonna keep a grudge with bree. maybe the word has spread about a certain black girl with a guy who looks like he's dressed for Halloween, whose hobby is to strip warlocks or their powers. maybe bree's gonna face some resistance, because in the oathbound excerpt the shadow king took her to a cambion and he was not pretty welcoming at all, warlocks might have the same response. the dragonsss i have a feeling that our dragon king is going to kill the shadow king, in the fourth book obviously there's no way this ends in oathbound, but even before that we might get a dragon scene because comon that scene was just gloriousss

i do think the shadow king must also have a form he shapeshift to as animals for easy mobility or something. it could potentially be a dragon but i don't see much possibility of it because like arthur was called pendragon and bree's a dragon so there's that, shadow king is called the hunter and shit so dragons might be a possibility but not the only one. if the shadow king does have a form i feel like crow or raven is the most obvious one but it could also lean more towards . . . owls. more specifically, eagle owl?? (see why i said that hehe) but yeah given the ongoing theory that shadow king could be sel and valec's dad, i feel like his form could be an own. an eagle owl. and I'm excited to see it ngl. like he can already shapeshift into people he kills (I'm curious to the mechanism of this too, like why does he have to kill them?? is it to like take their souls and tie them in a unfair deal or like there are no two persons accidentally at the same time or is there an unwritten rule and that you gotta kill the person to shapeshift into them?? can merlins do that too, since they're already shapeshifting into animals, but like they're said to only have one animal to shapeshift so it seems kinda hard. nvm) so his animal form could have more choices or it could just be one, easy to shift into and good to transport or spy.

mariah's family could play a role in oathbound if bree yk like meets up with her sometime, like maybe halfway through the book. her rootcrafter family would definitely be one way to introduce us more to bree's rootcrafting abilities and their uses because hey it has healing abilities, and bree has unlimited root furnace, do you see what I see?? she's basically indestructible with healing if she learns to properly wield her rootcrafting powers. it's a possibility and I hope its introduced more because like on one hand it'd be difficult to manage maintaining aether constructs and healing your wounds but on the other hand can you imagine the shock William would get when he sees bree just casually holding up her shield and her mage flame healing the slash on her side. haha just amazinggg and we've already seen mage flame cleaning up the shadowborn gunk off her hands (graveyard scene, legendborn) so yeah the possibilities could be explored. and also, free immunity from that healing forever, like yk alice mesmer resisting abilities?? she gained them after being healed by bree's root I feel like this could be done more, as like a line of defense for everyone on team bree so they can't be interrogated or soemthing.

i kinda went off the rails here lmaoo but okay imma stop now bbyee

[whitesinhistory]

On August 3, 1919, several days of racial violence targeting Black communities in Chicago, Illinois, came to an end after intervention by the National Guard. After five days of gunfire, beatings, and burnings, 23 African Americans and 15 white people had been killed, 537 people injured, and 1,000 African American families left homeless.

During the Great Migration, Chicago was a popular destination for many Black people leaving the South in search of economic opportunity and a refuge from racial terror lynching. From 1910 to 1920, the city’s Black population swelled from 44,000 to 109,000 people. The new arrivals joined thousands of white immigrants also relocating to Chicago in search of work. Many Black newcomers settled on Chicago's South Side, in neighborhoods adjacent to communities of European immigrants, close to plentiful industrial jobs. 

Although African American people had fled the Southern brand of racial violence, once in Chicago they still faced racial animosity and discrimination that created challenging living conditions like overcrowded housing, inequality at work, police brutality, and segregation by custom rather than law.

In the second decade of the 20th century, segregation in Chicago was not as legally regulated as in Southern cities, but unwritten rules restricted Black people from many neighborhoods, workplaces, and "public" areas—including beaches. On July 27, 1919, a Black youth named Eugene Williams drowned at a Chicago beach after a white man struck him with a rock for drifting to the “white” side of Lake Michigan. When police refused to arrest the man who had thrown the rock, Black witnesses protested; white mobs responded with widespread violence that lasted five days.

Over that terrifying period, white mobs attacked Black people on sight, set fire to more than 30 properties on Chicago’s South Side, and even attempted to attack Provident Hospital—which served mostly Black patients. Six thousand National Guard troops were called in to quell the unrest, and many Black people left Chicago after the terrifying experience.

Though state officials announced a plan to investigate and punish all parties responsible for violence and destruction of property during the unrest, many more Black people were arrested than white. The subsequent grand jury proceedings resulted in the indictment of primarily Black defendants. Later testifying before a commission investigating the roots of the Chicago violence, the Cook County district attorney admitted this was due to bias in his department of white officers.

"There is no doubt that a great many police officers were grossly unfair in making arrests," he said in 1922. "They shut their eyes to offenses committed by white men while they were very vigorous in getting all the colored men they could get."

[captainsparklefingers]

I would like to draw attention, if I may, to the following line from today's section of Dracula, and why I find it funny on a few different levels:

"...That he be all in black, except that he have a hat of straw which suit not him or the time..."

Obviously, this is in reference to Dracula and his appearance as he makes his quick escape from London. I find it funny for a few reasons. First, and the most obvious, is that Drac is just wearing his typical attire, but with a straw hat, and it's so absurd to picture this guy all in black with this big straw hat to keep out the sun that just clashes with everything else about him.

The second reason is that it 'suits not the time'. Straw hats, during the time when men wearing hats was always done, were the hat of summer. You wore them during the summer season and when it passed September 15th, it was considered socially unacceptable to wear a straw hat anymore (at least in the US, I'm not sure about Europe). Think 'no white after labor day' but with hats.

So, Dracula is wearing this hat that looks silly on him because it doesn't suit him at all, and on top of that, he's breaking one of the unwritten rules of men's fashion. He just looks like a big ole goober on several levels, and I just really like the idea that in his panic to get out, he picked a hat to protect him from the sun (for some reason, it's not like the sun does harm to him, it just depowers him as previously established, but whatever), but instead of picking something that would help him blend in as a Normal Human Man™, he picked the one thing that makes him stand out and more memorable.

Plus, he's lucky that the worst that was done was people remarking that he looked like an idiot with his completely unsuitable hat. Those fashion laws were serious business! There was a whole riot in the 20s in New York because of straw hats (yes, really). Read the Wikipedia article about the Straw Hat Riot of 1922, listen to the Dollop episode about the riot...and then picture rapscallions trying to knock Dracula's already stupid looking hat off his head and smash it underfoot because he was wearing a straw hat in October, like an idiot.

[teecupangel]

Seeing so many animal Desmond tropes and I can't believe no one suggested the hooded pitohui. Some people thought pitohui!Desmond was being dumb when he didn't fly away but jokes on them when most people became paralyzed, some died, but no one believed it to be Desmond's fault except the Assassins he hangs around.

If the name sounds familiar, you might have heard of the hooded pitohui from this tumblr post.

As hooded pitohuis are mostly known for having black and orange plumage, just imagine Desmond to be more on the black and Assassin red plumage.

For this one, Desmond’s toxicity is a special case in the sense that he can amplify or weaken the poison he emits as there is some Isu Bullshit involved but in general…

We all know hooded pitohuis are toxic but Assassins (and Templars) before modern day didn’t so…

Altaïr: Definitely felt the numbness and the burning sensation when he handled Desmond for the first time. Instead of going “Oh, this is bad”, he definitely did experiments with Desmond which includes getting samples of Desmond’s feathers from various parts of his body and checking where the numbness originates from. Would definitely rub Desmond on his throwing knives and blades. Would absolutely get some poor crusader or guard to lick Desmond just to see how bad Desmond’s poison can get. (Desmond agrees to all of these ‘experiments’ because Altaïr also gives the best berries and shares his own food to Desmond)

Ezio: Didn’t know Desmond was poisonous until Leonardo told him. Leonardo also did experiments with Desmond and the poison blade is based on Desmond’s poison (thanks to Altaïr’s experiments). Definitely licked his hand after touching Desmond because Leonardo told him to.

Ratonhnhaké:ton: Learned Desmond is poisonous after observing him sitting on Haytham’s shoulder and rubbing his bird body against Haytham’s cheek. Also… Haytham was immobilized for hours. Hard not to understand that Desmond was poisonous after that. Doesn’t make Desmond poison his weapons nor ask for any poisoned feathers. On the other hand, Desmond makes a good hunting companion who can easily numb their prey enough that Ratonhnhaké:ton can take them down. They have a relationship similar to a wolf and a corvid. Absolutely never tried to lick his hands after touching Desmond, who the hell does that???

Edward: It is an unwritten rule not to shoot down seabirds in ships and some, like Edward, practice the whole ‘do not shoot birds EVER’ tradition that some sailors/pirates do. So when there’s this small black and red bird that starts flying near him, Edward just makes sure that he doesn’t shoot it. Edward never learns that Desmond is toxic. He consider the bird a sign that he was going to be lucky today, mostly believing the guards are groggy or sick because they’re still drunk. It’s only after he actually joined the Brotherhood that he learns of the poisonous bird of legends and went “Oooohhhh…”. He definitely licked his hands after touching Desmond and it was by accident and he just thought that the latest rum he drank was special.

Shay: Liam definitely dared him to lick his hand after touching Desmond. Hope told him not to do it. He absolutely did. He still sees the bird at times even after he defected but the bird never comes near him again. The only time it ever comes near is when it sits on Master Kenway’s shoulder. Shay had to help Master Kenway once more twice after being poisoned by the bird though.

Arno: The poison the Brotherhood uses is based on Desmond’s poison. They don’t normally interact though but Desmond had been kind enough to let Arno rub his blades against his feathers whenever he becomes low on poisoned ammo. No. Arno did not lick his hand after touching Desmond. He wasn’t stupid. (… he might have tried to rub his face on Desmond’s fur after Élise broke up with him but he was drunk so that shouldn’t count!)

Evie and Jacob: They both heard of the poisoned bird of legends, of course. Desmond likes to fly around them whenever they have a mission. Evie told Jacob not to lick his hand after holding Desmond. Jacob stared at Evie dead in the eye as he licked… Desmond himself. It was very traumatizing for everyone involved.

[zlobonessa]

translated; kind-of-sorta-maybe part of an unwritten sequel to this modern au where regulus and reinhard are dating and julius is coping and seething

Julius remembers: he caught the two of them at the entrance to the university one day. Even unintentionally that time: it was just morning, just before the start of the classes.

They were standing close: the toes of their shoes were almost touching. (Black sneakers, ordinary but of good quality, worn for years, and white loafers, probably bought only because of the unreasonably high price and ready to crack after the first rain, for that matter.) No one would mistake them for friends: there was no barrier of personal space between them, the space belonged to them both — and this screamed about the nature of their connection more than anything else.

Regulus said something — Julius couldn't make out the words in the din of the crowd, but no doubt something boorish, shamelessly rude, and full of smugness — and Reinhard laughed. Not at the top of his lungs, not bending over backwards from laughter — but the way people laugh from funny, but not very polite joke, sincerely, showing their teeth and squinting, turning their face away from slight embarrassment for their sense of humor.

It was unbearable to watch: maybe if Julius had opened the door to the supposedly empty lecture hall and found them there, half naked and busy, he wouldn't have felt so voyeuristic, staring at what he had no right to look at.

Perhaps that was the day — at that time, of course, he would not admit it to himself, not for anything — when the realization settled in him: there was the Reinhard that Julius could never have hoped to have.

///

So what's the secret, Julius wants to ask, glaring at the high-stretched collar of his turtleneck, and the words burn his tongue. He wants Reinhard to come back faster. He wants Reinhard to be stuck in line for exactly as long as it takes Julius to shove Regulus in the trunk of his car and drive him to the border of Vollachia.

"It's pretty indecent to stare at people like that, in my opinion. It's not that I want to subordinate everyone to the rules of upbringing with which I was raised, every family, of course, is different in this, and it would be completely inappropriate for me to interfere in this, but I assumed that such basic things are what all parents teach their children, isn't it? " Regulus squints at Julius, a smile oozing superiority on his face.

Julius wipes his lips with a napkin and puts it on the left side of the plate.

"My guardians have taught me the proper amount of etiquette lessons, don't worry," he says with restraint, suppressing the urge to add and the importance of compliance with the law. And the norms of morality. And how to be a decent person, and can you please tell me in full detail exactly how you manage not to exhaust the pathetic remnants of conscience by lecturing me about my upbringing instead of whiling away time in prison, which, I would like to remind you, would have been inevitable if Reinhard had not... If you hadn't... How did you... how?

What's the secret?

Regulus raises his eyebrows emphatically:

"The inability to see the shortcomings of one's own personality is the scourge of the majority, no matter how regrettable it may be. A person who wants to achieve something in life, other than being on in the herd, must learn to look at himself soberly, don't you think?"

Julius forces a smile:

"Of course. I will definitely take that into consideration."

There is something in Regulus's face that Julius would consider a moral struggle if he were a fool. His lips are pressed tightly, and his eyes dart: Julius waits patiently, knowing that he will not last long — and indeed, soon something ugly appears on the surface of that loathsome face, something deserving to remain at the bottom of that far more loathsome mind.

"Reinhard appreciates the ability to be honest about oneself in people, so you know," Regulus says, grinning openly, and this is indeed a malicious glee — a bit childish even, full of sincere pride. The desire to poke his success under Julius' nose: mine, mine, mine.

He knows, Julius thinks distantly. For how long? Probably for a long time. It wasn't that hard to notice, of course.

"I assure you, it never occurred to me in my life that Reinhard doesn't appreciate honesty," he says with exaggerated ease. "He knows how to pay tribute to the positive qualities in a person, that's why he is popular with people, you see. "

"People, " Regulus curls his lips uncomfortably. "Ah, people! These people where, let me remind you, everyone craves only one thing — to cover their rotten soul with their positive qualities? People who do good things in order not to be thought badly of, because all they are obsessed with in this life is the opinion of others, without whom it is unbearable for them to be alone with themselves, and with whom it becomes crystal clear to them how miserable they are? And after all, it does not occur to them that everyone around is exactly the same, no, they believe that only they are the centre of the universe, the most important, the most precious, the most, oh, the irony, disgusting! Are they? Are they? Do you think they're better? Oh, huh? You think these worthless, petty, self-obsessed freaks are better, better than me, you think, you-u-u... "

His breath catches, as if someone has squeezed his throat, and he looks at Julius with bulging and darkened eyes. And this change is so unexpected and quick — black, suffocating jealousy — that Julius feels uncomfortable in his own skin, which suddenly feels like someone else's. It suddenly seems to him that someone has planted a mirror in front of him, where his underside is reflected — rotten and sinister, disgusting in its sincerity.

"Hmm, " Julius says. He turns his gaze away, looking for Reinhard in the crowd.

[transformers-mosaic]

Transformers: Mosaic - "The Oregonian"

Originally posted on June 23rd, 2008

Story - Iván Mas Edits - Jana Illa Translation - Rafael Polanco

deviantART

wada sez: This is the first of three strips created by Iván Mas which were rejected by Mosaic editorial for whatever reason—in this case, because it has neither original artwork nor a comic-strip format. I’ve been a little unsure about what the hell to do with these rejected strips, because there’s no good place to put them; I’ve actually already shared one of the rejected strips as part of this archive, as part of the behind-the-scenes material for “Shogun”, which it appeared to have evolved into. The core stylistic idea behind “The Oregonian” would similarly evolve into another strip by Iván Mas, which is coming up in just a couple of days, so as a prelude to that strip I’ve decided to share the other rejected ones now. If you think this is giving Mas’ work undue precedence, all I’ll say is that TFNation this year I got talking to a chap about Mosaic and one of the first things he said was something like “I just remember those strips by those Spanish dudes. Those rocked.” So there. The idea here is pretty similar to that used in Dreamwave's first Generation 1 series, for an in-universe newspaper article; this one's set in Sunbow continuity, before the Transformers become public knowledge. The meteor which splits in two is in fact the Ark and the Nemesis, the Autobot and Decepticon spaceships locked in mutually-assured destruction. The loss of fuel at the oil rig is down to the Decepticons, as it's the one they raid in the very first episode of the cartoon. "I. Sam" is an anagram of "I. Mas", while the other namedrops are his usual collaborators: "Carlos O" being Carlos Oliveros, and "R. Yáñez" being Rafael Yáñez. I've no idea who "Philip Theblack" could be a nod to, though. See below for a preview and a machine translation of Mas being an absolutely massive diva in the deviantART description for this piece. Never change!

Well, this Mosaic has been rejected for being "unclassifiable" because apparently Mosaics have not been made from photos .....

That is to say, they haven’t taken photos, they have been filtered by photoshop and have been put inside squares, apparently not .....

Sure ... according to this rule of three, this is not valid, because .... is not a comic page, of course, it can not be a splash page of an open newspaper ... with some leaked pictures ... of course....

And it is not a page with a commemorative illustration with 50 robots ....... of course.

So sorry ... I can have a mosaic about the movie, a sappy one, a black and white one, a landscape one, a couple of Japanese transformers, and some other etc. .... but not one that is a photomontage, ... because of course ... as you can see I have tried, but I have tried with a justification and a style ... obviously I refuse to take photos of the dolls in pose and filter them for obvious reasons ...

Anyway, this makes me think about finishing several mosaics, a bit "experimental", that why not?

why not ... I think they could be good ... because I say ... why limit ourselves to make a simple and plain comic page ?! why not try other things that fans can be attracted to or like even more than a simple page which we lose 2 minutes to look at ? why not push boundaries and media ? .... well ... because it is not possible, because apparently there are unwritten rules and known only by a few privileged people, that being said by the way ... could make them public to know what to expect and why not ... save us the time.

So they would be "UNCLASSIFIABLE" ... but personally I think that for a long time categories should have been established for each one to be more identifiable, so I do not see why there could not be one where it says "Unclassifiable".

So it gives me the sensation that some limitations are marked, I do not understand very well because .... I suppose that it will be the best thing.

Well in short, as they command to keep your head down, this is the result.

In any case Jana and Rafa did a good job, although perhaps there are people who do not appreciate it, I imagine why, but I prefer not to say it, congratulations and thank you!

[bridgeportbritt]

SimDonia Royals and Natural Hair

Prompted by today's post, I figure it's a great time to talk about natural hair and why the SimDonia monarchy doesn't allow it. So buckle up for some SimDonia lore.

You may have noticed that although the SimDonia Royals are majority black, the black women almost never wear their curly hair in public. Especially for events and portraits and such, it's always straight hair.

There is a reason for this. But first a little background on natural hair for those who don't know.

Basically many black people have naturally curly/kiny hair. Throughout Western history, black people especially women have been discriminated against for their hair. Natural hair has been deemed unprofessional, unkept, messy, etc. This has caused many black women for centuries to turn to products like relaxers (chemically straightens hair), hot combs (like a flat iron), flat irons, wigs, etc. to achieve the straight hair that was deemed appropriate. There's some basic context for you. Now, let's get into SimDonia history.

We mainly have these two women to thank for the hair politics we see with SimDonia Royals today (note that I'm saying royals and not society as a whole. Royals run by totally different rules than regular folk).

On the left, we have SimDonia's first Queen, Queen Ophelia. While on the right, we have SimDonia's second Queen, Queen Katherine. Both Queen's by marriage.

As we can see, Queen Ophelia is white and she has naturally straight hair. Ophelia's legacy is one of the most famous and highly respected of any Queen. She was the first after all and paved the way for how tradition was set for the other royals, especially women. Basically, she became the standard for many things from etiquette to fashion and even hair. Royal women have emulated her style for years to the point where other styles are deemed prohibited.

Then you bring in Queen Katherine who had the worst legacy of any Queen since her husband abdicated from the throne. As you can see, she is black and she has naturally curly hair. She was also never afraid to wear it even in portraits and such. But since her legacy was tarnished there are things that royals don't do because of her. Some of her tiaras aren't to be worn, her jewelry, and unfortunately her curly hair.

Now of course, SimDonia royals fashion royals have never truly been set in stone. The expectations have always been unwritten until now. So, you will see it from time to time like when Diana brought the curls out on her world tour in Sulani or when Bria wore her curly hair on The Style Report during the swimwear episode. We often see Ella and Lillian wearing her curls from since rules are less strict on minors/non-senior members.

However, it is more set in stone with Diana's new rules that hair should be "still and neat" and "in place at all times" implying that curly hair is not allowed. So, we shall see where things land. More to come!

Thanks to @crownsofesha for that amazing photo of Bria and Emmitt for an event coming up!

And @storiesbyjes2g for opening up the pandora's box in my head one more time lol

[argyrocratie]

(...)

TFSR: One thing I didn’t ask. One thing about the reader is, this is a very inexpensive collection. The PDF is available online. I wonder if you could talk about the copyright issues. I know that some people, in particular under capitalist white supremacy, there’s concerns about paying, for instance, Black intellectuals and Black writers for the work that they do. Can you talk about copyrights and how that works into the either the collage or the reader?

Mutt: The cover of the book are collages from Black Autonomy, the magazine that people like Greg Jackson, JoNina Ervin, Lorenzo Ervin, were involved in. As people have uploaded those scans, I’ve printed off the magazines and made them into new collages as the cover. And in the back are some anarchists in Sudan in 2021. People have asked me this, like “Oh, would you not have rather donated X amount of money to each one of these authors?” But it’s 50 authors, and that would have meant the thing would have cost like thousands to produce, and that means no one gets to access these things. I think, especially as anarchists, we should reject this rather like, liberal approach where everyone gets paid for their work type thing. Nobody in the process of this book gets paid. I don’t make a penny off of it. Seditionist, the distribution group, all their money goes to a mutual aid fund, and then the group itself to pay for more things to print. If you see us in person, you can get the book for free.

We’re very deliberately anti-profit. For me part of what’s frustrated me for a long time was lots of content that I want to share, you have to pay loads of money to access. As well as this. Most of the content in the book is zines, and they’re already online for free. It’s kind of like an unwritten rule that nobody owns a zine. You make something like, it’s like 24 pages and the PDFs on the anarchist library. It belongs to everyone at that point. For me, I’d rather not get paid for my work. When I make a second volume of this, people were saying, “Oh, do you want to get a cut commission wise?? I’m like, nope. I don’t want any money for this stuff. Power corrupts and money does the same thing. If I got to the point where I’m gatekeeping my work behind someone having to owe me X amount of money, It’d be ridiculous. I would love to see another group print this book again and then not credit us. That’s fine. I want this stuff to be out there. Regardless of if it’s owned by somebody in some abstract way.

TFSR: Yeah. Maybe it’s mental gymnastics but the collective profit versus the individual profit, right? You want these ideas to be out there and people to be working off of them and improving on them. Just like language or just like ideas generally work in the world, you know?

Mutt: I really think knowledge should be something everybody owns and everyone’s responsible for. When you publish something, in my opinion, you’re kind of giving it away. Obviously, you know, your DMs to your friends shouldn’t get leaked to the internet. The things you deliberately don’t post online and don’t post on your blog, they belong to you, but once it goes in the public domain, that’s where it should stay. Copyright is this all encompassing, like, frankly fucking counter-insurgency force. It’s this thing where so many radical histories are locked behind, 30, 40 dollar books you can’t purchase. It’s this incredibly frustrating experience where someone’s like, “Oh, this is a great article. It only costs $8 to access” or something like that. It drives me to no end.

I wouldn’t want to work with publishers that do copyright. Like people say, “Oh, why don’t you pitch this to AK Press or PM Press?” I generally said “I’m not going to work with anybody who copyrights their work”. That’s just me. I would never want to work with anybody who did that. I can understand the motivation behind it. I get that they pay their authors, and I respect that. People who work with them, good for you. Get get your bag. I don’t respect copyright at all.

The physical books, I understand charging money for them. We live in capitalism and things cost money, but PDFs are a byproduct of making a book. It’s not extra work making a PDF. It’s the opposite. You make a PDF, they turn into a book. If I was demanding people give me, I don’t know, retina scans of themselves, this completely different thing, you know, but when you make a piece of printed media, the byproduct is its digital version, and you should just put that up free in my opinion.

(...)

Mutt: I got into anarchism for the punk scene, and I ran record labels for years. I used to work seven days a week at supermarkets so I could pay to get records pressed and I’d give them away. I was always like, “Oh, you can’t afford the $10 price? Just take the record and go home. It’s fine.” Copyright’s always is my biggest enemy. Always. Even working with artists, they’d be like, “Oh, well, I didn’t want you to press 8,000 copies. Any more, I’ll sue you. Like, all right. It’s punks, but, yeah.

TFSR: I’ve definitely known some small distros that made their money off of bootleg t-shirts and stuff like that.

Mutt: I love it. Love it. Some people in Seditionist that’s their background- the punk scene and making bootleg stuff. It’s a big thing because once you put something out like a record or a logo, it’s everybody’s at that point.

TFSR: Did you hear that Crass?

Mutt: Yeah, that’s it literally Crass. They’re so crass about it, the fact that they wrote these albums that are deliberately played badly, and they made the music that they said that they didn’t put any effort into.

TFSR: And collage all over the place.

Mutt: Yeah! Huge influence on my art style. The people from Crass did the record covers, and those massive jackets. They’re really cool. But then they reissued the records, and they take them off of YouTube, and then they charge $30 for them. When it came out it was $3. Like, three pounds. I’m like, what? What are you guys doing?

TFSR: Retired.

Mutt: That’s the thing. Washed up punks. Gotta watch out for them. They’ll come get you. I’m sure when I’m 90, I’ll be on the virtual version of The Final Straw, being like, “I’m gonna get the rights back to my PDFs.”

TFSR: Yeah, all that stuff that I stole, I’m stealing it back.

Mutt: I’m gonna go people’s houses, like “Give me my book back. You didn’t pay enough for at the time.” Oh yeah. Down with copyright,"