#V Union

[voxyldy]

12.28.2023

🎊 For Taehyung’s birthday celebrations in Seoul, we’ve arranged a TaeTae photozone event with display ADs in Yongsan by HYBE Headquarters for visitors to enjoy all day & night from December 28th into the New Year! Tag us in your memorable pics & look out for VDAY pins on site 💜

Collab with @BTSV_Support_Kr

* Since it’s an official advertisement approved by the local government, any damage to the sculpture is legally punishable.

Source: VGlobalUnion / HYBE

[da-birb-writes-sometimes]

Feelings Thawed

Character; Cater Diamond

Content; Fluff, gender-neutral reader, pining, ice skating (to various degrees of success)

Word Count; 650+

Author's Note; This is a present/thank you to my mutual @i-like-forgs. I hope you enjoy this ice skating scene with Cater, and that you get to skate soon!

As a reminder, do not put my work — or others for that matter — into AI as it steals. Link to Masterlist

The brisk wind bit at your nose, and you pulled up your scarf, trying to keep away the offending wind. Around you it was a winter wonderland, all made possible in the temperate conditions thanks to Cater, who was filming you skating around on the frozen pond’s surface.

“You know,” you hollered, making sure that you caught his attention, “you should join me! It’s fun!” You came to a stop by the pond’s edge, where Cater was standing with a large thermos.

Cater just shot you a wink, handing you the thermos. “This is for you though, silly!” 

He was deflecting, you could tell; behind that bright and cheery smile that he always seemed to wear around others, you knew when there was something off with Cater. You accepted the thermos though, and took a sip of the spicy apple cider, still piping hot.

You gave him a look and pulled lightly on his coat sleeve. “Yes, but it’s more fun with others, come on Cater!” You stepped back onto the ice, and slowly skated near him, waiting with an eager smile.

He looked at you, and then back at the ice, but he stayed standing in the light snow, shooting you that smile. “But I can’t take photos if I’m out there with you!” He scratched at the back of his neck.

Liar. “Cater,” you looped back around and stepped onto the bank, balancing on your skates, “do you not know how to skate?”

Cater’s smile turned sheepish, and his ‘ahahaha, looks like my gig is up’ chuckle made its appearance. He had been found out. “Never got the chance to,” he hid his face slightly in his scarf, either to keep the cold at bay or to hide that his cheeks were turning pink. “So I’d just slow ya down.”

You took his hand into yours, “Well, I could teach you if you wanted. Just a warning though, you’re gonna fall on your butt a lot, might get a few bruises.”

Cater looked down at your entwined hands. Mittens and gloves separated your skin from touching one another, but Cater could swear that he could feel the sensation nonetheless through the layers of fabric.

“You would? Even if I pull you down with me?” 

The last question wasn’t just about the ice skating; Cater didn’t want to force you to do anything that you didn’t want to… and that included being his friend. His heart seemed to whisper stronger emotions though, but he didn’t want to ruin what the two of you had.

You walked him out to the ice, and the both of you swiftly fell down on the ice, hard. But you just laughed and got right back up again, “Well, we did just fall. There isn’t anything scary about falling down; yes it stings and might leave a gnarly bruise, but in order to move forward we have to fall and get back up. So yes, is what I guess I’m saying.”

Cater looked up at you, the sun illuminating you and the snow glittered behind you. You were holding your hand out again, waiting for him. And Cater took your hand. 

It took him a while to get the hang of it, and he fell down quite a bit, but every time he fell down you helped him back up. And by the time that the sun was setting in the west, the both of you were cold, and both were going to wake up tomorrow with some bruises. It was fun though, which is all that mattered… but that whisper in Cater’s heart was by now singing, and maybe he would listen to it, but for now, he was happy with how the way things were, and he wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, especially with how much you had smiled today. Your smile and knowing that you had fun with him was enough.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Tags; @eynnwwyjth, @ithseem, @krenenbaker, @silvers-numberonefan, @twistwonderlanddevotee, @xxoomiii

[pencilscratchins]

i have reached the part of the steddie hyperfixation where i make them domesticated men in their 50s. having a blast! (twitter) [ID in ALT text]

[pearwaldorf]

When speed cameras are doing the ticketing, the proportion of tickets issued to Black and white drivers aligns closely with their respective share of roadway users. With human enforcement, in contrast, police officers stop Black drivers at a rate that far outstrips their presence on the road. For instance, on roads where half of drivers are Black, Black drivers receive approximately 54% of automated camera citations. However, they make up about 70% of police stops. On roadways where half of the drivers are white, white drivers account for around half of automated citations – and less than 20% of police stops.

[bmpmp3]

based off this video. i think teto is a union man

[knivesandteeth]

If Garak were contemporary human he'd a bitchy queen, still a tailor and make drag couture. He used to work for the CIA, under Tain, before being officially fired during the 'Don't ask don't tell' era after he was caught having an affair with a military official's husband.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[transmutationisms]

(If you're alrght with another poorly articulated question from an obnoxious high schooler) Do you have thoughts on academics and their position in a labor framework? I know some grad students and have never been quite sure where they fit because they don't always work with "capital" in a traditional sense. Professors are odd to me because they are under university contract, but rather than get paid by the university they often get their own funding from the government. Or graduate sudents, who are often unionized, but I know a paleontology student who studies shark fossils who says he doesnt really consider what he does "making surplus value."

ok well that last person is simply confused lol. graduate students exist because the university profits from having us; it is a capitalist institution. most directly we usually work as teaching assistants or research assistants (or else pay tuition) and more indirectly, graduate programs get funding and university support because their existence contributes to a university's rankings, prestige factor, &c, which is to say its (perceived) profitability. plenty of us study things that don't produce much directly lucrative research, but this does not mean the university keeps us around for shits and giggles or some kind of laudatory interest in knowledge for its own sake. it is a capitalist institution and acts in the financial interest of its owners / beneficiaries.

anyway wrt faculty members, they are also employed by the university because it profits from them (or hopes to, anyway). i think many people get confused by tenureship; tenure is indeed fairly cushy as far as employment contracts go, but it is is still an employment contract, and most faculty are not actually tenured anyway. academics are a classic example of the 'professional-managerial class', which is not a marxian term but is a useful one for identifying those 'upper-middle class' members differentiated by their professional qualifications and status; the prestige and perceived utility of academic knowledge production is partially what makes academics an attractive target for a lot of government and NGO funding. state funding of academic research ofc has numerous functions but, and not to put too fine a point on it, a capitalist state also invests money in things because it is hoping for some kind of return on investment, eg in the form of directly profitable inventions, soft power, &c.

there are distinctions here between different academic employment statuses. an adjunct or contingent hire is paid by the university solely to teach, making their labourer status fairly straightforward. with tenured or tenure-track positions, yes there may also be money coming from outside; however, this doesn't negate the fact that the university is trying to profit from its faculty (else it wouldn't hire them). the professional-managerial class has certain characteristics of both proletariat and bourgeoisie, and there is some variation between academics as a very select few do attain the kind of household name status that can turn them into basically a personal brand. again though: the university wants to extract value from the work (both teaching and research) of academics it hires, and so do outside sources of funding for research projects. knowledge production should not be mystified or abstracted in ways that obfuscate the financial interests of involved parties; though it attains a prestige that few other commodities do, this is still a process that is embedded within the overall operating logics of capitalism.

an additional consideration wrt internal academic class politics is that many faculty use graduate students, postdocs, and even undergrads to perform or assist with their research. these arrangements vary in structure (and between disciplines) but in general, this does mean that many academics produce papers, books, &c that depend upon the labour of many people and rarely compensate these people equally to themselves. this can take the form of a more overtly employer-employee relationship between a professor and their underlings (for example, some labs are run this way) or it can be the case that it's another party (a publisher, say) who is reaping most of the surplus value squeezed from grad / undergrad / postdoc labour. in any case it is important to keep in mind that professors can and often do take on employer (ie, small capitalist) roles in relation to other employees of the university, even though the professors themselves are there because the university and other institutions pay them and profit from their labour.

i hope this is a useful start; obviously there is lots else to be said about the economics of the university and knowledge production as a capitalist process. in general when you are trying to think through this my advice would be not to let the presentation of the university as some kind of cerebral place of enlightenment confuse a materialist analysis of the flows of capital. plenty of workers and capitalists deal with commodities that are immaterial in the sense that 'knowledge' is, or are imbued with similar social meaning and value; the university deals with knowledge production but this does not make it any less an employer (ie, a capitalist institution) than any other institution operating in a capitalist context.

[une-sanz-pluis]

Philippa of England, Queen of Norway, Denmark and Sweden

Philippa of England was the youngest daughter and last child of Henry of Lancaster and Mary de Bohun, Earl and Countess of Derby, and was born on, or shortly before, 1 July 1394, when her mother died from complications in childbirth. Little is known of Philippa’s early childhood but when her father usurped the throne in 1399, becoming Henry IV, her future changed dramatically. No longer the youngest daughter of an earl, she was now a princess.

The new king almost immediately began searching for marriage alliances for his two daughters. 1401 saw Henry enter into marriage negotiations with Margrete of Denmark for Philippa to marry Margrete’s adoptive son and heir, Erik of Pomerania. Like Henry, Margrete was hoping for an alliance to strengthen her domestic position and that of the fledgling Kalmar Union of Norway, Denmark and Sweden. It wasn’t until 1405 that the marriage was formally agreed upon and in December, Philippa was proclaimed Queen of Norway, Denmark and Sweden. In August 1406, the 12-year-old Philippa sailed from England in August 1406. She married Erik at the cathedral of Lund, and her coronation soon followed. Famously, Philippa is the first documented European princess to wear white at her wedding.

She spent the next three years at Kalmar Castle in Sweden, the first year under the guidance of Katarina Knutsdotter (the granddaughter of Saint Birgitta of Sweden), and probably owing in no small part to her youth, Philippa remained in the sidelines of rule until Margrete’s death in 1412. She retained close ties to Sweden, serving as Erik’s de facto regent there, and was the only queen of the Kalmar Union to ever achieve popularity in Sweden. Of particular note is her patronage of Vadstenna Abbey, the motherhouse of the Bridgettine Order. She often stayed there when in Sweden, was a generous patron, and petitioned the pope multiple times on the Order's behalf, even enlisting the support of her brother, Henry V of England. In 1425, Philippa donated a choir dedicated to St. Anne, where she was later buried. This may have had particular significance for Philippa, as she had no surviving children..

Philippa was deeply involved in the rule of all three kingdoms of the Kalmar Union. In 1420, demonstrating Erik’s trust in her, it was decided that she would serve as regent to his heir, Bogislaw of Pomerania, should the marriage remain childless, and her widow’s pension would effectively give her a ‘queendom’ in Sweden. In 1423, Erik went on pilgrimage and Philippa served as his regent, with all power that entailed, until his return in 1425. She also obtained the resources and support Erik needed for his war against the Hanseatic League. Indeed, it was Philippa who organised the defence of Copenhagen against the bombardment of the Hanseatic League in 1428 to great acclaim.

In late 1429, Philippa, apparently in good health, travelled to Sweden to secure further support for the war against the Hanseatic League. She was staying in Vadstena Abbey when she fell seriously ill and died on the night of 5 and 6 January 1430, possibly following a stillbirth. Philippa was remembered almost universally favourably, a reputation that was surely deserved.

Sources: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Lat. 17294), "Filippa, drottning", Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon (article by Charlotte Cederbom), Steinar Imsen, “Late Medieval Scandinavian Queenship”. Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe, Mary Anne Everett Green, Lives of the princesses of England from the Norman conquest, Vol 3.

[deebeeus]

Well, it's been a while since I photographed (a real!) one of these!

1967 Gibson Flying V in sparkling burgundy finish, with stinger. Photographed with @michaelsegui at @dlott65 & @chriswstringer8's Union Sound '24 event.

You don't see many actual Vs around. The original 1958/59 model run was under 100 units, but what most people don't realize is that the '67model is almost as rare, with only ~175 units produced. Seeing one of these in person is almost as rare an event as seeing a '58! And seeing one in (one of) Gibson's coolest custom finishes is just the icing on the cake. No wait...the stinger is the icing on the cake. No wait...just having the privilege to be in the same room as a real vintage V is the icing on the cake!

If you zoom, you can see some foolish former owner drilled this one for a stop tail, but that mod has been reversed. The finish on the back is less faded and shows more what the top would have looked like originally.

A dream guitar. I'm so lucky to have friends that keep letting me photograph their incredible instruments!

[ladyowltonspokemon]

[radiantmists]

binged both chalice of the gods and the hidden oracle in the last few days and tbh i don't care if zeus would blast me to bits, if he were real it would be on sight

[mercutio-the-velaryon]

Just because we haven't seen the complexity of Andre's background doesn't mean it's not there, yes nepo baby but also second gen supe from single parent household (?), who is Black and queer but also tackling the weight of his father's legacy. He asks too much of people, he's irresponsible and privileged and he's just as awful as everyone else is I'm sorry. When he ran from the club after slicing that girls neck it was Jordan that pulled him away and got him to leave, none of them checked on Marie after abandoning her there either, nobody was manipulating Cate into hooking up with her boyfriend's best friend. The funny thing is Andre's actions were the only fucked thing that didn't contribute to Luke dying.

The thesis is they're all fucked up, everybody's messed in the head and traumatised. There's no real satisfying way for anyone to atone because they can't. They should all forgive themselves because they're the only ones that can and because dwelling isn't going to do anything and they have a college conspiracy to solve.

[vox-anglosphere]

V-E Day in Toronto - Union flags were everywhere!

It was pandemonium from City Hall to the Toronto waterfront, with my young parents at opposite ends of the huge crowd. 8 May 1945

[liberiangyal]

josh o’connor’s slutty lil earring… paul mescal’s slutty lil earring… drew starkey’s slutty lil earring… loving the talented male actors with a slutty lil earring agenda

[pandorashearts]

roots of pacha peak game for saying poly rights in the base game & not making u mod out any penalty