#also race played a big part in how it was enforced

[etakeh]

Well, I'm just reading about the Chamberlain–Kahn Act and boy-howdy is this something I don't recall learning about in the WWI unit in high school.

Apparently, the boys in the armed forces liked to patronize ladies of the evening, and kept coming back with STIs.

So they passed an act that provided them with more acceptable curricular activities...

Vague wording like "reasonably suspected" has never gone badly for anyone, right?

The best part is that I found out about it because apparently it's come to the attention of The Right. Which is horrifying.

Everyone was "ooh handmaid's tale" a few years back, right? Shoulda kept quiet, they were listening.

[kirwell]

OKAY, after rewatching Teen Wolf after like 10 years, and being as obsessed as I am with Transformers Prime, it's come to my attention just how wildly similar these four characters' relationships and situations are,,, and I LOVE it

This has to be one of my fav parent/child dynamics, next to "man worn down by the world accidently adopts a girl and becomes their dad" trope- aka Joel/Ellie - aka Lee/Clementine. Bonus points if the dad dies horribly.

But onto the point-

We have Melissa McCall- a divorced single mom, raising a teenage son in high-school, who is a hardworking, overworked nurse struggling to make ends meet at home.

And we have June Darby- a divorced single mom, raising a teenage son in high-school, who is a hardworking, overworked nurse struggling to make ends meet at home.

Both remain in the dark about what their sons are truly involved in, and worry about their recent behavior.

NOW, the sons.

Scott McCall- an awkward teenage boy with an average life who works a part-time job to help cover the bills at home.

Jack Darby- an awkward teenage boy with an average life who works a part-time job to help cover the bills at home.

(They also both have crushes on a girl at school that they want to impress- but unlike Sierra, Allison is actually a part of the main cast and plotline)

Both of their lives are overturned when accidentally encountering something extraordinary, and it changes them forever.

For Scott, it was being turned into a werewolf, becoming part of this secret world, and finding out who he is and rising to something he never thought possible. He becomes a leader and a True Alpha.

For Jack it was discovering an alien race marooned on Earth fighting an age-old war, becoming part of this secret world and finding out who he is and rising to something he never thought possible.

He becomes a protector and an Honorary Prime.

Both Melissa and June are introduced to the main events of the show by being put in danger and being saved by their sons. Of course they don't react to everything well at first, scared and afraid for their kids' safety, but eventually coming to terms with the importance of the roles their sons now play, supporting them and becoming healers for the teams.

The relationships between the moms and sons only grow stronger, and the love they have for each-other is always present on screen, even in times when they are at odds with each-other in difficult situations.

I just think this is so sweet. I feel like typically with shows about teenagers and crazy drama, they're fighting with their parents and don't get along at all. But Melissa and June are such great mom characters, and Scott and Jack have close bonds with them.

When Team Prime was in hiding, Jack breaks down and calls his mom, despite knowing how dangerous it would be to open that line of communication cus of the Cons hunting them. Miko and Raf didn't even consider calling their families during that time to let them know they were alive after disappearing.

Obviously, Teen Wolf had way more seasons and time to flesh out their relationships, while TFP didn't, which is a big shame. There was still so much untapped potential for TFP- especially for the humans, before it was canned.

Scott got to reunite with his estranged father (who is funnily named Rafael), and there was a lot of strife there, but eventually the trust was rebuilt between them.

I would've loved a family arc with the Darbys! The only time Jack's father is mentioned is in that one ep with June and Fowler dealing with Knock Out- and BOY I would've liked to see more of that explored upon.

Also another funny comparison I'm just now realizing...

Melissa was friends with a law enforcement character- Sheriff Stilinski, who both got involved with the supernatural elements of the show. And June became friends with a law enforcement character- William Fowler, after being exposed to the Cybertronian War. Both of these guys are awesome and loveable too. Fowler is rough around the edges, but he's easily one of the best human ally characters ever in TF.

Idk,,, i just think this comparison is neat and I had to talk about it. Jack is my favorite of the Trio kids, and anytime I can yap about him in any interesting way, I gotta!

[nat-seal-well]

Meet Marin, my one and only (and very beloved) Detective OC :)

(made with this picrew)

Marin Rose Lin

N-mancer (usually Nat, sometimes Nate—depends on the fic)

NB, AFAB. They/them

Tan skin, dark brown eyes, glasses, and wild, curly brown hair. They gave up hopes of taming it years ago and now it just does whatever it wants

5’4” and insists that they aren’t short, they’re average, thank you very much

Plus-size. They’re soft and round. It makes them a good pillow and they’re proud of it :)

Mixed-race, half Asian

Big fan of turtleneck sweaters, to hide the scar on their neck from where Murphy bit them

No combat abilities! Can’t fight to save their life. It doesn’t stop them from trying, much to N’s distress

Good with teamwork on the job, but fiercely independent outside of that

(It can be a flaw)

It started when they were a child, and had to raise themself because Rebecca was never around. They didn’t need anyone making decisions for them growing up, they don’t need anyone now. They can look after themself

(At least, that’s what they think)

Very poor relationship with Rebecca. Unless it’s job-related, they don’t want much to do with her

A little impulsive, more likely to go with gut instincts. Usually it ties in to their attempts to help in fights (and failing). N is going to have a heart attack

Speaking of which, they appreciate how much N cares, but the overprotectiveness is an ongoing issue

Bobby is an ex. They’re cordial with her, though. Most of the time

Has a cozy apartment (and room at the warehouse). Both are full of books and trinkets

Wears a ring on the middle finger of their left hand. It’s silver, a serpent biting its tail. They bought it in high school with part of their first paycheck and play with it when they need to keep their hands busy

Marin didn’t want to go into law enforcement, but it seemed like a quiet job. Employment opportunities are usually limited in small towns

They understand why the Agency works the way it does, but that doesn’t mean they like it

They have a weakness for the berry danishes at Haley’s bakery

Not a fan of coffee or tea, but they like energy drinks. The rest of UB doesn’t like that they like energy drinks

Besties with F :)

They love their little beat-up silver car. It has been affectionately named Megatron and they have one of those 3D Decepticon decals on it

F: Isn’t he like, the bad guy?

Marin: How dare you. He’s good now, he writes poetry

A, UB’s car guy™️ (gender-neutral) keeps trying to talk them into buying a vehicle that isn’t a death trap

Marin refuses

They won’t admit it, but M intimidates them. Marin also sees them as a challenge—they will be M’s friend

…Somehow.

Fun fact: Marin reads a lot of “paranormal romance” (monsterfucking) books. They’ll take that secret with them to the grave

(F already found the collection hidden under their bed)

[idkhowtopickausername]

2, 7 and 17 for utena?

Yaaay thank u for indulging me! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

2. My favorite thing about it is actually like a dozen interconnected things I really love how it critiques the idea of saving someone and the savior/saved dynamic (and how poignantly it does so) and also how it deconstructs the idea of the pure innocent victim vs. the conniving evil manipulator, and how complex and real Anthy is as a character, and how it shows that other characters perceiving her as one or the other is self-serving and contributes to her pain and denies her full humanity. I also really like how in Utena’s character arc she starts out with a goal that depends on success within the current system but is also doomed to fail both as a means of helping Anthy and as a means of being who she wants to be because success within the dueling system leads to Akio who enforces a level of conformity and complicity that goes against who she is. And the way that she really has to confront that she was complicit in hurting Anthy in a way that I rarely see ‘heroic’ characters forced to self-examine. But that despite the power of these structures and the suffering they lead to, they are neither natural nor inevitable but constructed and upheld by lies and illusions and authority and preying on people’s pain and insecurity. And the fact that Utena’s idealism wasn’t intrinsically wrong or naive, just misdirected, and they needed to let the structure crumble and walk away from it to create something new, despite how terrifying that prospect was!!! Anyway in short I think it manages to confront a lot of pain and disillusionment in a very real and nuanced and brutally honest way but still offer a form of genuine hope that doesn’t feel fake or ignorant or patronizing. Sorry that was long.

And my least favorite thing is that I think despite providing really meaningful, insightful, and gut-wrenching critiques of the sexualization of underage girls, it’s not totally exempt from doing the same thing at certain isolated moments (that would be easier to overlook if it weren’t for parts of the movie and marketing + and the fact that I’ve heard it’s sort of a problem in Ikuhara’s other works as well). And I think also, while incest plays a really important thematic role in the story and is handled really well textually, I don’t feel as confident as some other fans that the choice to focus on it was purely for reasons of criticism despite how insightful and worthwhile that criticism is (mainly because the bathtub scene with Kozue and Miki in the movie was…very weird and unnecessary imo). Additionally I think the way it handles race is not great either. In short my least favorite thing about it is that the things that bother me about it are in such close proximity to the things I think it does well and that I love about it 😞

Wow that was a long-winded response to one number.

7. Character that feels like home: Hmmm maybe Utena. Anthy is my ultimate fav but there’s something very homey about Utena and the way she chatters about things.

17. Line I quote most: I wouldn’t say I really quote anything from rgu that much (although “It’s a big mistake to think you’re the only one who can turn into a car” is pretty funny to bring up) but quotes I really love and think about a lot are:

“We’ll be living happily in the castle…but what about Himemiya?”

“Himemiya you don’t know, do you? The only time I’ve ever been really happy was when I was with you.”

“You really don’t know what’s happened do you? It doesn’t matter. By all means stay in this cozy coffin of yours and continue playing prince. But I have to go now…She isn’t gone at all. She’s just vanished from your world. Goodbye.”

Plus the whole rooftop conversation and cantarella scene. Also I think, while being perspectives that are critiqued later and don’t fully reflect the message of the show, the “in the end…all girls are like the rose bride” quote and Utena saying “I’ll become a prince and save her” in the flashback in episode 34 are incredibly powerful in context.

[thehydrocannon]

Transformers: Heart of Primus Part 1: The Characters

This is a basic rundown of how I would write a Transformers story, taking elements from all over Transformers media as well as other non-Transformers franchises. This rundown will include basic character summaries and Part 2 will be an overview of how the story would play out. This is a long one, so sit back, relax, and get ready for Transformers: The Heart of Primus!

Note: Photos used for the characters are basic representatives of what the characters would look like, not a representative of their personalities (in some cases, but we’ll get to that).

First up, the main hero team: the Autobots

Orion: Not Optimus Prime just yet, leads a smaller squad of Autobots. The sudden death of his mentor/father figure, Sentinel Prime as well as the betrayal of his brother Megatronus weigh heavy on his spark. Orion is gravely injured at the hands of Megatron. The Autobots retreat only to crash land on a distant planet. The Heart of Primus (basically the Allspark) stowed away on their ship and rejuvenated him into Optimus Prime. (At the end of the season)

Bumblebee: By far the smallest of the Autobots. Bumblebee doesn’t let this get him down, however, as much as he is teased by other bots. This often leads Bumblebee to overcompensate by volunteering for any mission set in front of him, in turn forgetting to ask for help. Bumblebee’s not just fast in motion, but also in the processor being able to come up with tactics in a fight faster than you can say Transform and Rollout!

Bulkhead: This big behemoth hails not from Cybertron, but from a distant planet known as the Trac-Tor system. When it comes to strength, he is second only to the Decepticon bruiser Lugnut. Bulkhead brought his pets, the Dinobots, with him to Cybertron after Megatron destroyed their planet in a show of power. 

Jazz: The most chill bot you’ll ever meet. Jazz really doesn’t like to fight, preferring to sit back and jam out to Cybertronian tunes. Jazz was the originator of entertainment on Cybertron when he was swatting at an insecticon buzzing around his home. The funky beats created by hitting random objects was the first instance of music on Cybertron. His combat style consists of moves that he made up to be in tune with music he plays while fighting. This has been known to annoy every Decepticon he fights, as well as some of his teammates.

Powerglide: A former Decepticon and the Autobots’ air Patrol. It crushed his spark to see the once great leader Megatronus fall to darkness and become Megatron: The Fallen. Him and fellow Decepticon Jetfire defected from the Decepticon ranks, but Jetfire was killed when the pair was fleeing from Wrath, one of Megatron’s enforcers. Powerglide is the Autobots’ chief engineer of technology and weapons. Any gadget you can think of, powerglide probably invented it. He hopes to one day somehow resurrect his brother in arms.

Now time to discuss the main team of villains: the Decepticons.

Megatron: Megatron seized control of the Decepticons from Starscream in a trial by combat, causing Starscream to take any chance possible to reclaim his place one day. Only the strong should belong on Megatron’s perfect Cybertron. Though physically weaker, he is the only Decepticon that can best Lugnut in servo-to-servo combat. The only respect Megatron gives is towards his comrades. He would gladly lay down his spark for any one of them if it meant the Decepticon cause would reign supreme. He does not believe in sacrificing his troops as a means to an end. Each Decepticon has a purpose.

Starscream: Originally the supreme commander of the Decepticons. Starscream enacted the plan to take out the ruler of Cybertron and place himself as leader. With Sentinel, Orion and Megatronus out of the way, nobody would tell Starscream which star not to drain to keep Cybertron afloat. Who cares if the star’s death would wipe out an entire race? Cybertron needs Energon!

Lugnut: A certified, purple-oiled Decepticon zealot. If you have a Decepticon badge, you are a friend to Lugnut. If you are not wearing a Decepticon badge, or worse, weaning an Autobot badge, Lugnut will either try to convert you to the Decepticon cause, or flat out annihilate you on the spot. Leaving a crater where you once stood. Depending on how he feels that day.

Wrath: Megatron’s right-hand bot, much to the dismay of Lugnut. Wrath has all the brains that Lugnut had left out of his programming. He is a master tactician and strategist when it comes to combat. If Wrath has you tagged as a target, Primus only knows how you will make it out online. 

Diesel: Who said trains needed rails? This gas-powered locomotive sure doesn’t, and his enemies sure wish he did. That claw on his roof could even slice through the hull of Trypticon given the chance. If you hear a train but don’t see any tracks, run for cover if you can find it!

So, those are all the main characters! Part 2 will be the story outline! What did you think? Leave a comment down below about things you liked or things you'd change. Stay tuned for part 2!

[lewepstein]

The Cult of the Bully

I have been watching in rapt amazement as events unfold in the  changing world of American politics.  In a few short weeks, one presidential candidate came close to being assassinated and the other withdrew from the race, ceding his candidacy to his vice president.  The first, chose an unlikely running mate while the new candidate solidified her nomination before what was predicted to be a chaotic, open convention. 

The pundits, pollsters, and political analysts will of course take these events and draw inferences, explain the underlying implications and  cautiously predict how this will all turn out.  Academic studies will be cited explaining how the connections and contradictions within and between populism, liberalism, protectionism, elitism, authoritarianism, democracy and whatever it is we call freedom will determine the outcome of this election.  

But underneath this fog of ideas and explanations are forces and energies that are harder to pin down but perhaps more basic to whatever it is that makes us human.  The notion of feeling safe and  protected is a core part of our human identity. I discussed this at length in another post about the polyvagal system.  The way that we are wired is such velcro for that which is fear-based that it is impossible to draw all of the connections and circuitous routes between our nervous systems and our political choices and preferences.   

One dominant archetype during the rise of international right-wing populism and the era of Trump that we have been witnessing is that of the bully - the elevation of bullying others and an identification with the bully as a protector, a strong man and even a savior - if you are members of the dominant majority and not one of the disenfranchised  “others.” 

Many of us can recall bullying from our childhoods, sometimes the bigger kid who took our bike, blocked our path, and seemed to exert some strange power over at least some other kids who probably felt it was safer being on the side of the bully.  But note also how the following definition of bullying so fits with the ethos and actions of Donald Trump and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party:

Bullying:  “The use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate.  One essential prerequisite is the perception of an imbalance of physical power which distinguishes bullying from conflict.  Seeking to harm, intimidate or coerce someone perceived as vulnerable”  

It is not insignificant that many school districts have programs to deal with bullying and there are rules they are obligated to enforce.  In fact, schools are in violation of Civil Rights Law of 1964 Title IV and  Title VI when and if they do not address incidents of bullying.  

One essential characteristic of bullies is that they do not believe that they have to play by the rules.  The notion of flipping a coin and saying,  “heads I win, tails you lose,” - the core of election denialism and  the Republican Party’s “Big Lie” about the “stolen” 2020 election and any future election is simply Bullying 101.  

The ways that nations seem to fall under the domination of bullies and turn them into deities is a question that seems to defy rational explanation.  But it is certainly not a new phenomenon. The fact that eighty years ago, Germany, arguably the most culturally and technologically advanced nation in Europe fell under the spell of Adolf Hitler and the NAZI party - another bully cult with genocide as its core principle - is a reality that we continue to reckon with.

Like Donald Trump, Hitler stirred up his base with themes of  “national humiliation” and grievance to go after the “vermin” who opposed him, setting up death camps for his scapegoats and his enemies.  Other more contemporary “strongman” regimes like Victor Orban’s Hungarian “experiment,” is the model for many in the Republican Party. It is a regime in which he bullied the democratic institutions like a free press, independent judiciary and legislature and bent them to his will.  

Getting back to America, we know that we are a nation in trouble when we elevate a bully to the highest position of power and can predict that roughly half of our citizens will vote for him in this election, as they have in the past two.  A society that shamelessly promotes the types of character flaws that Trump’s minions and The Republican Party tolerate cannot look their children in the eye and expect them to build the type of character that:

                                   Speaks the truth

                                   Respects differences

                                   Does not demean or bully others

                                   Plays by the rules

                                   Knows how to lose gracefully

I truly hope that the “spell” of Trump and the dark energy of his bully cult is, if not broken, then diminished by the rising energy and spirit of a united Democratic Party, imperfect though it is, but led by a nominee with solid values and respect for the rights and freedoms of others.   

[cyarskaren52]

Trayvon Martin.

The Paul young man in Kansas City.

Trauma we relive way too often.

Thinking about Sandra Bland too. The policing of Black bodies is overwhelming.

Ron desatanist this is the Florida you want and don’t you dare say otherwise!

HOMELATESTCULTUREENTERTAINMENTBEAUTY/STYLEAWARDS SEASON 2023

RACE MATTERS

Woman in Fla Was Fatally Shot by Her Neighbor, But the Shooter Walked Free. Why?

This will anger you: Ajike “AJ” Owens was shot and killed by her neighbor who was allegedly yelling racial slurs at her and threatened her children.

By

Kalyn Womack

Published3 hours ago

Comments (17)

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How does a woman get shot and killed and her shooter is still on the loose? Residents of Ocala, Florida are asking the same question in the killing of a Black woman who was gunned down by her neighbor Friday. According to NBC News, the incident was the result of an ongoing feud.

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Ajike “AJ” Owens’ children were playing in a fieldnear an apartment complex when suddenly, a white woman came from the area and began yelling racial slurs at them, according to an account from attorney Benjamin Crump. One of the children accidentally left behind their iPad which the woman seized. When the child went to retrieve it, the woman allegedly threw the device both hitting the boy and cracking the screen. The woman also allegedly threw a pair of roller skates at the children as well. 

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Naturally, the children went back home to tell their mother what happened. Owens then walked over to the neighbor’s door to speak to her about the incident but things took a fatal turn.

“She knocked on the door, and at that point, the woman allegedly shot through the door, hitting AJ, who later died from her injuries,” Crump said in the statement.

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Read more from NBC News:

At a news conference Monday, Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods did not confirm or reject Crump’s account, telling reporters he was not “going to stand here and tell you what they’re putting out there is inaccurate. It’s just I don’t know yet.” Here’s what the sheriff said he does know: - There had been a long-standing “neighborhood feud” between the shooter and Owens about her children. - The children may have been hit by an unspecified object. “Was something thrown at them? Yes, but not directly at them of what we’re being told now,” Woods said. “It just unfortunately may have hit them.” He added: “The children are a big part of answering a lot our questions.” - When Owens came to the shooter’s door, there was a heated exchange. Owens was shot through the door. - At least two of Owens’ four children may have witnessed the shooting, which occurred about 9 p.m.

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Because Florida is a good ol’ “stand your ground” state, law enforcement must determine whether Owens posed an imminent threat or was simply acting as a mother trying to get to the bottom of an attack on her children. While they dilly dally on that decision, they are not authorized to make an arrest, the Sheriff Woods said. 

Well... they made an arrest when Andrew Lester shot 16-year-old Ralph Yarl from behind his front door - the same manner Owens was shot - despite Lester’s self-defense claim that he was frightened by the teen. 

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“A closed, locked door. The door never opened. My daughter, my grandchildren’s mother, was shot and killed with her 9-year-old son standing next to her. She had no weapon. She posed no imminent threat to anyone,” Owens’ mother, Pamela Dias, said via NBC. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0221GBwwquPMbu6X7jpLb1TBsK8dyzwxzempQ4thD1EMkKSwkpXspW6GDJ87tdeRzGl&id=26423400230&mibextid=ncKXMA

Sent from my iPhone

[gallusrostromegalus]

Hello, I love you. It is such a blessing to have readers like you.

1. The Postmaster-General pun came to me at like 3 AM and I was delighted at how well it explained both Yamamoto's competence at running an executive organization, but not a government and how a guy with no clan backing rallied an army and funds- Yamamoto got attacked as a postman by the clans, lost his patience, very literally went postal, and convinced his fellow postmen to join him.

Tsubaki is his first and only, and his deepest regret is fucking that up. Not just because she was the only person he ever experienced romantic love for, but in more practical terms, she was his co-commander, chief diplomat, sounding board and tbh did her honest half of the work founding and running soul society.

2. The Shihoin cat shape-shifting is an inherited trait- the Shihoin are cat people like Komamura is a wolf-person, but they all got cursed for poor behavior and largely lost the ability to use their cat forms and powers. The forbidden Kido Chika experimented with is them essentially prying up loose corners of the curse to get some of their abilities back. It's forbidden because it's a great way to piss off the Gods.

3. Kinroku is like if Capone had gotten operation paperclipped, and was instead consulted for his expertise in running a criminal organization to make the FBI better at enforcing the law. Kinroku is a man who knows what side his bread is buttered on, and makes the third division an incredible force against corruption. Honestly, he drafted most of the laws soul society operates under which is part of the reason it functioned as well as it did for so long. Definitely Yamamoto's beat hire.

4. Chigiri and Yachiru were friends before either of them got arrested because combat people need good medics and early medical research needed access to a lot of corpses to study. They've been friends for a long, long time.

5. Danjiro is 100% a have a beer and chill and very sympathetic to the poor kinda guy, and his big achievement as captain was getting major roads built all the way into the outermost districts, partly so the Gotei-13 could deploy At Speed and deal with warlords and hollows and wildfires etc. But once in place, the roads also served to level the economic playing field for a lot of the outer districts, opened up trade and really improved the overall quality of life for most people.

6. SHE SURE FUCKIN' DID. The Kuchiki hate to admit it, but the legendary speed and power of the Kuchiki captains all comes from her. She was such a robust and lively person she more or less saved the clan from genetic meltdown for almost a millennium.

7. Nobotsuna is a Kido master but more importantly, despite appearances he's quite a gentle soul and almost never gets truly angry or alarmed by other people's antics, so he's the IDEAL guy to have a chief psychopomp in a place where sometimes there are powerful and angry souls in line. Nobotsuna is such a weirdo he can match anyone's energy and then walk them back down, and he's such a goof he can make even the most frightened souls giggle.

8. Batsu'unsai however, was very much the administrative arm of the Kido Union and her skills as a financier ported over directly. She was also Not Above using her cleavage to distract people into signing on to agreements that were not necessarily in their best interests. I sorta ship her, Uhin and Nobotsuna in a poly triangle.

9. Entetsu takes a little while to come out of his shell properly, but the thing about him is that Entetsu used to be a travelling folk singer/handyman/rover and He Knows A Guy. Anything you might need done, he knows someone who is an expert at it, because he's travelled so much and met so many people and impressed them with his staunch ethics and beautiful voice that he can call them up and have them here tomorrow to fix this. He was the one to introduce Tsubaki to the rest of the dirty dozen, because he'd met her at the races last year, and she clearly knows How To Organize Things.

10. Otogawa does seem like a strange choice for any sort of commander given his terrible impulse control but: note that he invented a negative pressure pump. He's actually a genius but has the benign and near-sighted worldveiw of a lightly concussed duckling. A very Leonard of Quirm kinda guy, if you've ever read discworld. Otogawa got to be in charge of monitoring the living world because he was the guy who developed the first stable and reliable portals to and from the living world, as well as the technology to track the appearance of hollows when they emerge from the appendix dimension Las Noches is in.

11. Unohana is... A major natural disaster in her own right, yes, but she's not stupid. She's quite smart but uneducated and has ADHD so a moment of boredom can turn into a black depression in minutes so she's THRILLED to have the structure of marching orders and Yamamoto constantly giving her new things to play with.

To answer a timeline question someone else had: she had severely damaged her left lung in battle (possibly against Askin?), which is how the authorities were able to catch her in the first place. Chigiri is largely able to heal it... But listen Girl. If something happens to your left lung again, we're going to have to remove the whole thing and that'll fuck up your ability to fight so LEARN TO BLOCK.

And she does! She also learns how to read and command and do her own first aid and get pickier about her opponents and it goes really well until about a century later, when she's getting bored and is out quelling bandit activity in North 80 and unexpectedly gets into the fight of her life...

12. Uhin and Kinroku rapidly become friends through the shared commiserating of "I wouldn't be a gangster if the government actually worked". Also, every army ever in history steals each other's supplies. It's a good way to keep costs down AND fuck up your enemies. Amateurs think tactics, but wars are won and lost on Logistics. Uhin also was the co-commander of Danjiro's roadways project, and quite the gastronome, and passed the tradition of "good food, and lots of it" down to other 12th division captains, though this sometimes manifests in strange ways.

13. Actually I was thinking Sakahone smote that clan for trafficking, but I like your idea of "death cult" too- no reason it can't be both! Sakahone is a Kido guy first and foremost, and between his ridiculous power and the way he keeps failing to die means many of the others suspected that he was some kind of minor god that decided to get married and take up farming. Sakahone manages to live for an appallingly long time, all the way to his 2,222nd birthday before deciding he'd had enough and ended the short war with the Quincy in the 1800's by handing the post to his lieutenant, Jushiro Ukitake, and then exploding. Despite having two captains that look like they're on the verge of death, the 13th actually has some of the lowest employee turnover.

So, how exactly was the Gotei 13 formed in AEIWAM?

(The original gotei-13 captains might have canon genders but I'm going off vibes tbh.) (Here's a collection of Kubo's art of the original 13 so you can see what everyone looks like)

-----

It had started with the Clans.

Actually, it had started when Shigekuni Yamamoto was mugged for the fourth time in as many days, by agents of The Great Noble Houses, trying to influence the tide of their endless petty wars. You could hardly blame him for reacting as he did, somewhat literally blowing up with rage, and upon his return to his home office, rallying his fellow distraught men into a fighting force to stand up to the clans.

It had been quite a popular manuver for him, with the equally distraught and downtrodden citizens of the central rukongai threw their support behind him in short order. He was already well-known to them, and respected for his work. In a few short years, his meager forces had grown to rival the clans in power.

Then the Quincies had invaded the Spirit World, lead by some horrible creature known as Yhwach, seemingly Hell-Bent on conquest- which is where all of them would end up if The Archery Bastards kept shooting everything that moved and upended the balance between the worlds.

Now-General Shigekuni Yamamoto, the unfortunate bastard to whom the task of defending the largest city in the Spirit world from invasion had fallen, needed some muscle.

Why me, of all people? Surely there were others more qualified? He wondered, staring at the latest round of reports from the meager handful of his men that remained. Or perhaps everyone smart enough to actually do this is also smart enough to realize it was a lost cause and had thrown their lot in with one of the Noble Houses, and I am on a fool's errand.

Even just a handful of warriors with sufficient strength could break the leading edge of the Quincy line, and let the small army that remained slip behind them in to cut the Quincies off from their supply lines. It was just that breaking the wall of archers required at least a dozen of him.

"Word from lieutenant Sasakibe!" Shouted one of his soldiers, sprinting in the door and thrusting a letter at him. "Sorry sir I just remembered how important it was that you heard from him as soon as possible."

"You did as I asked." Yamamoto nodded, opening the letter. He had needed to stay- both to recover from his injuries and because if the Quincy got much closer, using Ryujin jakka to create a wall of fire around the city might be the only way to hold them off- and he had tasked Chojiro Sasakibe, his Longest and Dearest friend, with finding him the strongest warriors in Soul Society.

He took the scroll and opened it, reading the neat but excitably slanted handwriting within-

Dearest Shigekuni,

I am relieved to report I have found a dozen extremely powerful warriors per your request! I went on a hunch a friend of mine had, and found a concentration of MANY powerful warriors that would be willing to aid our cause, but twelve among them are particularly standout candidates. Given the rapid advance of the Quincy Army, I have included a teleportation spell to their location at the end of this scroll so you may meet them immediately.

"Incredible!" Yamamoto laughed. "Is there nothing this man cannot do?"

I do beg of you though- Please, reserve your judgement of them until you have seen their capacity.

"Ah." Yamamoto sighed. "...of course there's a catch."

Their circumstances are... complex, and this has made many of them rough and peculiar to speak to, but I swear we will not find better warriors, at least not before the Quincy advance reaches Seireitei.

I await your arrival, Chojiro

Yamamoto unfurled the scroll a bit more to see the edge of the teleportation spell that would activate when exposed to sunlight. "Sir?" asked the young soldier.

"It seems Sasakibe was successful in finding me the assistance we need, but they are apparently a queer lot." Yamamoto rumbled, thinking. "There is a teleportation spell- How close did you say the Advance was?"

"Not more than a week out, sir."

"Hopefully less than two hours then." he grunted, standing up and carrying the scroll to the courtyard of the building he operated from- it was a place used to the many comings and goings of a large and complex organization, though the little Shrine to the God of Messages and messengers had been somewhat neglected of late. Yamamoto took a moment to sweep the leaves out of the shrine and bowed to the statue within, thanking it for delivering Sasakibe's message and asking for help delivering him to his friend.

"Any orders while you're away, Sir?" The soldier asked.

"Someone clean out that shrine and make it a proper offering. The last thing we need is for communications to go down." The General nodded.

"Yes Sir!" the soldier saluted.

Yamamoto unfurled the scroll and with a flash, vanished from the courtyard.

---

With the same flash, he appeared somewhere... foggy.

"Shigekuni?" a familiarly crisp voice asked somewhere in the ether.

"Chojiro?" Yamamoto called back, and the vague shape that might have been a rock in front of him stood up, arms open. He laughed, and embraced his friend. "Good job! How did you find them so fast?"

Sasakibe's warm smile suddenly stiffened into a grimace. "...Promise you will not be angry?"

"Chojiro?" Yamamoto frowned.

"See, I was asking my friends- only the most trusted of them, I swear- how to even go about finding warriors with everything scattered to the wind of late, and well- One of them suggested that only things that are powerful are widely feared, so look where fearsome things are to find powerful ones."

Yamamoto squinted at his friend, then around them at the dense fog, the strange rocky cliff beside them, and the distant sound of angry voices.

"Chojiro." Yamamoto asked, hands on his shoulders. "Where are we?"

Sasakibe pointed up behind Yamamoto where characters had been carved into the stone cliff.

The Nest Of Maggots

"Chojiro."

"Yes, sir?"

"This is a prison."

"Yes, sir."

"This is a prison for the kind of filth that even the most bitterly factious clans agree is a danger to have wandering around. The kind that they already tried and failed to weaponize against each other. This is a prison for Monsters."

"...Yes, sir." Sasakibe sighed. "-But, is is not monsters we need?"

Yamamoto was silent for a time, thinking of the swathes of pointless destruction- salted fields and burnt villages- of the senseless loss of life- slaughtering soldier and civilian alike down to the last man, woman and child- of the cruel and twisted powers of the chosen favorites of Yhwach.

"Monsters to fight monsters." He shook his head. "What is this world coming to?" Yamamoto sighed.

Sasakibe looked away, unable to meet his friend's gaze. "Still, beggars can't be choosers." Yamamoto nodded. "Show them to me."

--- All twelve "Most Dangerous" of The Nest's prisoners had been herded together into something approximating a straight line in the middle of the rocky cavern that housed the prisoners here, though some of them were already beginning to meander, and one woman near the end of the line had, rather rudely, decided to remain seated in Yamamoto's presence. The lineup was... less than impressive. Two of the women looked like they belonged on pinup posters rather than death row. One of the men looked like a washed-up Sumo, another like an ashtray that had been cursed to roam the afterlife as a human. On one end of the line was an ancient and decrepit old man, and on the other was a- Yamamoto wasn't actually sure if they were a man or a woman, but in another life, they had definitely been a cat.

"These are the most powerful fighters in the Spirit World?"  He muttered to Chojiro.

"These are the most still-alive-est fighters in the Spirit World." Chojiro clarified.

"...Fuck it. " Yamamoto sighed under his breath, before stepping forward and addressing them properly.

"I am General Shigekuni Yamamoto of The Seireitei. I don't know how long you've been in this hole-" Yamamoto paused, sensing that something was off.

None of the Prisoners were looking at him. In fact, the all seemed very dedicated to looking everywhere but at him. Some were inspecting the stalactites, others were examining the grit on the cave floor, or staring into the metaphysical abyss somewhere just over his shoulder, and one man had pulled his very silly straw hat down in front of his face.

"-Alright, what the hell is going on?" Yamamoto growled.

There was a general unenthusiastic sort of shuffling and a distinct lack of answers.

"Remember everyone!" The man next to the cat-in-human-form spoke up while examining his fingernails. He looked more like an accountant than someone who belonged on Death Row, but the others perked up and paid attention. "-We are not to speak to any guards of visitors until our representative arrives and has given us permission to do so." The others nodded and resumed looking anywhere but at Yamamoto.

"...Representative?" Sasakibe lightly growled at a guard, whose complexion went from 'ashen' to 'deathly'.

"They um. Well. They've gotten rather close to one of the other prisoners, but she's no good in a fight, so we left her-" The Guard sputtered under Sasakibe's withering glare.

"-Miss Tsubaki was waiting at the Primary gate last I saw her." continued the man who looked like an accountant and that Yamamoto was becoming increasingly sure was armed, despite allegedly having been searched and denied any tools in his confinement. "...I say to no-one in particular." He added.

There was a moment of silence.

Yamamoto struck the tired-looking, gray-haired young woman beside the accountant, sending her stumbling back, but the accountant and the sturdily-built blonde man beside her stepped in to catch her, the rest of the line snapping to attention, eyes fixed on him with utter rage.

"Now that I have your attention-" Yamamoto started again, the gray-haired woman coughing as the sturdy blonde helped her back to her feet. "-As I was saying, the Spirit World is being invaded, and you're all being conscripted to-"

"Yachiru!" Snapped a young woman behind them.

Yamamoto turned to glare at the interloper, but instead found that the gaunt-looking woman that had remained seated had somehow apparently teleported and tackled Sasakibe to the wall behind them, one arm pressed to his throat, slowly choking him. Apparently-Yachiru's other hand had put some substantial holes in his abdomen and she paused from where she was about to stark licking Sasakibe's blood off her fingers to look at who had spoken.

"Don't eat that! You don't know where it's been!" Said a waifish young woman in threadbare prisoner's robes who could not have been taller than 4'10". She was quite striking, with large, dark eyes, sharp cheekbones, and a long aquiline nose. She took Yachiru's bloodied hand and dragged her back to the group. Yamamoto tried to keep his pace even as he walked over to check on Sasakibe, who immediately sat up and waved him off.

"...Thirsty." Grunted Yachiru- She might also have been beautiful, with her pale, round face and smooth black hair, were it not for the haunted, carnivorous look in her eye and her apparently literal bloodthirst. She stopped halfway back to the group to give a wet, hacking cough that made Yamamoto's skin crawl, and spat out a gob of bloody phlegm on the floor.

"You'll feel better when you get Minazuki back." the young woman reassured her, helping Yachiru sit back down, the others taking seats on the stone floor as well, in two neat lines behind her, the Human Cat behind one shoulder, the Accountant behind the other. "Is everyone else alright?"

"Kinroku definitely did not tell the guards to go get you." announced the man from behind his straw hat. "Also the mean old man hit Chigiri."

"I understand. Do you need assistance, Chigiri?

"The Old Goat has a sucker-punch like a rocket but I'll live." grunted Chigri, rubbing her abdomen and waving her hand interrogatively at Yachiru, who shrugged in reply.

"Despicable Behavior, hitting a medic." the human ashtray sniffed disapprovingly. Yamamoto could feel the Reiatsu of the group now, previously held in check, now starting to unfurl and growl and snarl at him.

"You BASTARDS-!" Yamamoto snarled, lunging towards the young woman, who instinctively made a fist in front of her chest, grabbed it with her other hand, and swung her whole body around, slamming her elbow into his eye socket and nose, and he stumbled, falling to his knees. It wasn't that hard a hit, not compared to what he was used to, but there was genuine killing intent behind it, much like the heel she struck into the side of his head, knocking him over the rest of the way in surprise. Miss Tsubaki's large, dark eyes were full of rage as she glared down at him, grinding his head into the floor under her toes. "Ah." He said, finally recognizing her from images in the intermittent news bulletins. Tsubaki was a middle daughter of one of the most powerful of the Noble Houses who had suddenly vanished from public view the year before. The rumor was that she had been imprisoned by her father for dangerous activities like 'Going Places' and 'Writing Letters' or even 'Having Opinions'. It was apparently true, but if she'd managed to organize the dirtiest dozen of the Maggot's Nest, he was beginning to understand her father's choice of internment. "Miss Tsunayashiro, I presume."

"I am her, and I am here in my capacity as their Union Representative. This means you do not talk to them. You talk to me." She lightly snarled, removing her surprisingly sharp-heeled foot from his temple and sitting seiza in front of the group. "Now what is it that you have brought us here to discuss?"

"Your friends are getting conscripted." he glared, slowly getting up and standing to address her. Returning the blow to a civilan, no matter who her family was or how hard she hit, was beneath either of their dignity, but a little looming was alright.

"We're getting hired." She corrected him. "With proper contracts and compensation."

"Shut up or else." He snarled, reconsidering the value of his dignity.

"...Or else what, exactly?" She asked.

Yamamoto bristled, and slowly drew his sword. Tsunayashiro's gaze flicked to the blade, following it's gleam as he brought it up to her throat, tipping her chin up with the point. "-Or you will all die right here." Tsubaki closed her eyes, sighed deeply and opened them again, gaze fixed on his. He could feel her pulse through Ryujin Jakka's blade.

...Steady as a rock.

"Alright." She spoke evenly. "Strike me down."

Yamamoto blinked.

"We are already on Death Row, General." She explained slowly as though speaking to an idiot. "None of us have families to speak of, or to speak to, for you to threaten. We're already cold and barely allowed to sleep and starving and in constant pain from broken bones or missing organs or untreated injuries. We are all already doomed to die or suffer gross abasement. You, however-"

She slowly stood up, neck sliding a bit on Ryujin Jakka's blade, drawing a trickle of blood.

"-I've been in here for the better part of a year, I believe, but news trickles in. Guards leave to replace soldiers fallen on the battlefield. Rations dwindle as farmland is overrun or destroyed. Political prisoners are freed and returned home as more popular heirs and scions are killed. You, General Shigekuini Yamamoto, need help with this war, and need it badly, to come here for it." Tsubaki continued, stepping forward and pressing a bit more into the blade, the trickle running more strongly, down her throat and into the folds of her thin Yukakta, staining the fabric bright red.

"So go on. Strike us down." She spoke softly. "Spare us the Humiliation of a Public execution or the horrors of a lobotomy, and doom yourself."

Yamamoto, quite possibly for the first time in his life, hesitated.

"If you cannot do that, sit down and negotiate like a civilized person." She said. The blood stained her entire breast now, but she did not flinch or waver.

Slowly, glaring and refusing to break eye contact, he withdrew his blade, wiped it down and sheathed it. Teeth gritted and heart unexpectedly racing, he sat. Lady Tsunayashiro followed, head still held high, though that may have been so Chigiri could lean forward and press a pad of torn robe to her throat, stemming the bleeding as she bandaged it, muttering curses.

"We're being invaded by an army of mutant humans called "Quincy" who can shoot arrows made of pure reishi, which can obliterate a soul entirely. They're lead by some monster called Yhwach, who seems hell-bent on conquering the entirety of the Living and Spirit worlds, and is apparently capable of killing small gods and Kami." Yamamoto explained, trying to stress the depth of the situation. He'd never been in a labor negotiation before, and was hoping they'd be more reasonable if he made an emotional appeal. "Kill enough of the archery bastards and live, and I'll have all your crimes pardoned."

"What a shame, what a shame." clucked the old man at the far end of the lines. "You young people just don't know how to handle things..."

"Hmmm..." The person who was definitely at least spiritually a cat pursed their lips. "Oh, uh- Chika Shihon." the bowed their head. "-It's a good start, but I'm gonna need a hell of a payday, seeing as nobody will hire an ex-criminal, even a pardoned one, and about forty more people need to die before my family will consider taking me back in."

"As well as some form of protection from political reprisals, or there won't be an opportunity to spend any of that payday." said Kinroku the Accountant, rubbing his nose like he was going to push up a pair of glasses he wasn't wearing.

"Paying criminals? Surely, you can't be serious!" Sasakibe scoffed.

"I am serious, and my name is Tsubaki, not Shirley." The representative quietly smirked at him. "Well, General? What price are you willing to offer for the salvation of all of Soul Society?"

"I want to see some proof before we talk price." Yamamoto glared at the Death Row From The Dumpster before him.

"Fair enough." Nodded Tsubaki, turning her head to address the group. "After me, who would you all say is the weakest fighter?"

The group considered this for a moment.

"Strongest is easy, its Yachiru, even with the missing lung." waved the pinup girl with the eyepatch and pigtails.

"Give Uhin some credit!" Protested the other pinup girl with the tits that were individually larger than her head.

"That's sweet of you to say Batsu-" Uhin the Giant in the back row laughed, patting the second girl's head. "-But also holy shit, no. Yachiru could disembowel me and strangle me with my own intestines before I could get off the mark! No offense little man, but I think it's Furuoki." He said, patting the straw hat of the man in front of him.

"Really?" Tits McGee pondered. "I was going to say Nobutsuna."

"I was gonna say me too." announced the human ashtray with a rough and reedy voice. "I hate fighting." "Yeah, but you hit like a fuckin' rockslide. Yeah, it's Furuoki." Agreed eyepatch.

"Mr. Otogawa-" Tsubaki addressed Furuoki the hat man. "-It's rather dark in here, would you please let in some light?"

Furuoki blinked at her, confused.

"Show the old man you can punch a hole in the ceiling." Yachiru translated for him, wetly.

"Okay!" Furuoki chirped happily, getting up and walking a few feet away.

"MORE!" yelled the group.

"Over by the guard tower!" Encouraged the large and rather jolly looking man, save for how he seemed to have lost both his lips and most of the front of his mouth, but had only bothered to replace his missing teeth with gold ones, giving him a permanent lipless grin.

Furuoki walked over towards the guard tower until the guards approached him and told him to back up, paced a bit until he found a suitable middle ground, and squinted up at the ceiling.

"Sir-" Sighed the head guard walking towards Furuoki as frowned at the ceiling. "Sir that's half a mile of solid rock and twelve different magical wards above you. It's not gonna work."

Furuoki instead dropped down on one knee, aimed, and-

A dazzling blue-green light and a noise like the roaring fires of Hell Itself erupted from his fist as he punched up towards the ceiling, vaporizing the stone above him and making all 12 wards chime and tinkle like glass as he broke through them. As the mushroom cloud of dust dispersed, sunlight began to filter in through the hole, at least 100 feet in diameter. The top third of the Guard tower seemed to have evaporated as well, and the guards were scrambling to try to control the panic.

"Is that enough?" Furuoki called.

"...Is it, General?" miss Tsubaki asked.

"...Ten Thousand Kan?" Yamamoto tried.

"That's fine dear, please come sit back down." Tsubaki waved.

"I am surprised, general." She smiled at Yamamoto in a way that reminded him uncomfortably of they way the post office cat would smile at the mice. "Ten Thousand Kan annually per individual is a very reasonable offer."

"A one-time payment of Ten thousand Kan to be split between the group." he growled.

"No." She shook he head. "You're offering us annual salaries, individually."

"The hell I am."

"Then we will enjoy watching the collapse of civilization through the new Skylight Furuoki made us." She replied, unconcerned. "You may have noticed, General, that there is a war on, and this is an exceptionally safe and secure place to be. Make it worth leaving."

"-Two minutes ago this was a frozen hellhole you were all starving in." he glared.

"Ah, but the view and property value has improved substantially in the last two minutes!" She smiled, unconcerned with his complaints. "There is no punishment you could mete out that is worse than remaining here, General, but you are not an advancing army of superhuman mutants, and there are MANY things the Quincy can do to us that are worse than remaining here. You are in a most unenviable position."

Yamamoto grimaced. "You're sure this is the best there is?" he muttered to Sasakibe.

"We could also try swearing loyalty to one noble house and hoping the other four don't try to kill us before the Quincy do." Sasakibe grunted, hand over the puncture wounds in his guts. "I don't like it either. but I like our other options even less."

Yamamoto sighed. "...Five thousand Kan Annually per individual."

"Ten thousand." replied Tsubaki.

"Seven thousand."

"Ten thousand."

"That's not how this is supposed to go." Yamamoto grumbled.

"And yet, this is how it's going." She smirked. "There is also the matter of the political protections!"

"DAMMIT!"

---

Half an hour later, terms had been reached.

Full pardons, Ten Thousand Kan, annually per individual (plus expenses), and political protections in the form of employing them as commanding officers on the condition that they "-Don't get killed, and prove you're smarter than a sack of hammers and at least half as useful."

"No for real, I'll forgive the old man the gut punch, lemme do something so you're not bleedin' all over my contract?" Chigiri sighed, watching Sasakibe write up the contracts.

"I'll trust my body to keep my guts on the right side of my skin over someone's dirty socks." he sighed. "Or do you have something else on hand?"

"Minazuki." Muttered Yachiru, leaning heavily on Chigiri.

"Oh right! I keep forgetting she does the fish thing." Chigiri perked up. "Yeah tell the guards to go get her sword, it turns into a... fuckin' whatsit, the big flat fish? Turns into one of those that can heal anything."

"Again, I trust my own faculties over any sort of Healing Halibut." Chojiro groaned.

"Stingray." Yachiru muttered, wheezing a bit. "Minazuki is a stingray."

"Alright, back in line everyone- I need you all to confirm your identities and what crimes you need pardoned, and to sign your contracts." Sasakibe sighed, standing up with the contracts and handing the first to Yamamoto.

"Shigekuni Yamamoto, Dereliction of duty and Mail-tampering, among other assorted sins." He said, smirking a bit at his own joke as he took the contract.

"Thank you sir." Sasakibe sighed, shuffling the pile of folders containing the files of the dozen criminals, and stepping up to the first one.

"Chika Shihon-" He read off, matching the drawn portrait to the person in front of him- Chika was a rather handsome young thing, with warm bronze skin and short, soft white hair. It was the gleam in their yellow eyes that made Sasakibe worry. "- Sentenced to lifetime imprisonment or death for staging a clan coup, twelve counts of fratricide and... dabbling in forbidden Kido?"

"Oh, like you've never had a family dinner that got out of control!" Chika huffed, indignant.

"I'm more curious about the Kido, actually." Yamamoto said, peering over his file.

Chika beamed and Sasakibe got as far as a choked "NOT HERE-!" before they vanished in a cloud of smoke. When it cleared, they were still wearing the same excited expression, but now as a small white house cat.

Sasakibe and Yamamoto stared at the cat for a moment, then at each other in a mutual expression of I can't believe we've been reduced to asking these freaks for help.

"Well, when you've got thumbs again, please read your contract, then sign and initial all the indicated areas, and swipe your blood across the bottom." Sasakibe sighed, bending over to hand the kitty their contract. "Remember, these contracts are legally and magically binding. Betray us, and die immediately."

"Next is- Kinroku Izuhara-" Sasakibe was interrupted by one of guards appearing with the confiscated personal belongings of the prisoners, including an entire bundle of swords under his arm.

"I understand not giving us our weapons until the contracts are signed and the seal is placed upon us, but may I have my glasses back?" Kinroku asked, voice crisp and arch. He was certainly the least ragged-looking of the group, his graying hair still neatly trimmed and face clean-shaven.

Yamamoto held out a hand and the guard placed the appropriate glasses in his palm. "Trade you for whatever you have that's kept you so clean-shaven it's making my mustache itch." Yamamoto glared.

Kinroku smirked, and produced a piece of bone that had been exquisitely sharpened into a razor's edge.

"This is a human bone." Yamamoto observed.

"Unfortunately, poorer quality than the bones of pigs or cattle in terms of holding an edge, but it's done it's job." Kinrku nodded.

"...This says you're on death row for ...Tax Evasion?" Sasakibe glared at the file as the blade was traded for the glasses.

"Yes. I made an unfortunate miscalculation regarding the loyalty of my men, so I am glad you are taking adequate precautions." Kinroku muttered, cleaning his glasses on his robe, holding them up to the dim sunlight filtering through the hole, and frowning, disappointed.

"Men?" Yamamoto asked. "You've had experience commanding armed forces before?"

"After a fashion." he said, signing the contract and biting into his thumb to finish the deal. "You've heard of The Vipers of the southern reaches?"

"The decentralized bandit gang that disbanded a few years back? I thought their leader had died?" Sasakibe frowned.

Kinroku smirked at him.

"...Oh, for fuckssake." Sasakibe groaned.

"Chigiri Shijima." Yamamoto read off, having already moved on. "...What the hell kind of charge is Aggravated Medical Research?"

"Can't make an emergency field medicine manual omlette without breaking a few bones. And causing a few disembowelments. And poking out a few eyes." She explained.

Yamamoto slowly arched an eyebrow at her.

"I PUT 'EM ALL BACK!" Chigiri protested. "...Eventually."

"Read. Sign. Blood." Yamamoto sighed, handing her the contract.

"For real though, your man okay? I can have those stitched in under a minute." Chigiri pointed her thumb at Sasakibe.

"That's some fast-acting painkillers." Sasakibe noted.

"What painkillers?" Chigiri asked, genuinely confused.

"...I'll take my chances with the halibut." Sasakibe winced, turning to the next man in line. "Danjiro Obana?"

"Yeah!" Grinned the sturdy-looking blonde man, all smiles and friendliness now that an agreement had been reached. "Lookin' forward to workin' with you guys!"

"...Imprisoned for cannibalism?" Sasakibe asked, horrified.

"IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!" Danjiro hollered, voice echoing around the cavern.

"How do you accidentally consume human flesh?" Yamamoto glared.

"Well- okay it wasn't an 'accident' per se, but look, that Ise Clan guy locked me in the family mausoleum to die, and understandably, I got the munches, and the coffins were fulla, eh... post-sapient jerky?" Danjiro explained. "I really don't know what he expected to happen. Really surprised when he opened up the door a month later and I gut punched his spine out though. I don't regret that one bit."

"You know? That's fair." decided Sasakibe, handing him a contract. "Read, sign, blood."

"Yessir!" Danjiro saluted happily.

"Furufoshi Saito?" Yamamoto asked the young woman with the purple pigtails and eyepatch that was next in line.

"I DID NOT 'KIDNAP' HIM, HE'S MY HUSBAND AND THEY'RE ALL A BUNCH OF PRICKS!" She roared.

Yamamoto blinked at her, then leaned over to read "Accused of Abducting and 'Deflowering' the eldest son of the Kuchiki clan' on her file. "...Care to elaborate on that?"

"I found poor Kyoga-kun half-dead on my doortstep after the battle of River Bo- he still had spears in him, the poor thing! So like a sane and reasonable person I took him in and nursed the sweet thing back to heath and- well, a beautiful man in my bed, grateful to me for saving his life and offering me his eternal love and gratitude- How could a girl resist?" She sighed, hearts in her remaining eye.

"-and since I'd carried him over the threshold into my home we were basically married already, so it wasn't wrong of me to ride him like a pony or violate his warranty like that! He loved it! He loves ME! AND I LOVE HIM! It's just that the rest of the Kuchiki clan are a bunch of snobs with no sense of romance." She sighed, melancholy, then looked up at him, chewing her lip in nervousness. "...You haven't. heard anything about him?"

Yamamoto considered her story, and the few times he'd met Kyoga Kuchiki- a delicate young man with a sense of romantic grandeur and when he'd seen the boy recently, he had been lying facedown on the floor and sobbing, in quite some distress over being separated from his beloved-

"...Daddy Bear?" Yamamoto asked, bewildered.

"MY LITTLE BABY BEAR REMEMBERS ME!" She shrieked with joy, "Is he alright? I've been so worried, he still wasn't over that septic infection and the war keeps getting closer-" She demanded, grabbing Yamamoto by his Kosode and shaking him for answers.

"-As of last month, he was distraught over your absence, but otherwise hale. The sooner the Quincy are dead, the sooner you can see him again. Read, sign, blood." Yamamoto said, detangling himself from her and putting the contract between them.

"Ah, Ever-turbulent but true runs the course of Love." sighed the charred man beside her. "Nobotsuna Shigyo, at your service." he introduced himself, bowing politely.

"I'm Batsu'unsai Katori- We were arrested and imprisoned for roughly the same incident and it may help to be introduced at the same time." Said the woman with the exceptionally large breasts beside him. "Um, I'll need my glasses back too- Oh, thank you!"

"The sight of sunlight is so strange after such time." Mused Nobotsuna. "Even before our imprisonment, the Lady Katori and I were leaders of a secret underground society!"

"It was less of a society and more of a Polycule that got out of control-" Explained Batsu'unsai. "Once I discovered by spiritual powers, I moved in with the great sage Shou Dokutsu, and began hanging out with and then dating other people with spiritual powers and they started bringing their partners to my district and pretty soon there were so many of us that the easiest way to house everyone was to start developing the extensive underground cave systems in the area."

"We manufactured many fine magical artifacts, so called ourselves The Under-Wares!" Said Nobotsuna.

"We actually called ourselves The Kido Union, because in addition to the magical tools, we formed a united labor front to keep the clans from exploiting us." She explained, and Yamamoto began to understand her interruption.

"I am the wise Loremaster of our people!" Said Nobutsuna.

"He's a stablehand." Batsu'unsai smiled.

"But the clans did not like that they were no longer able to exploit and abuse us now that we had allied in great numbers, and war came to our peaceful nation of Shou's Hole!" he said, with genuine sadness.

Yamamoto and Sasakibe looked back at Batsu'unsai.

"It actually is called Shou's Hole." she sighed. "He just wanted it so badly."

"I wore them down!" Notbotsuna grinned.

"Still, the clans did not like that they now had to pay to have magical labor done and that we would outright refuse their more barbaric requests, and eventually I think it was the Shibas that mounted an all-out assault on us. Last I heard, most of the Union made it out through the other exits from the caves, but Dokutsu-san and most of our heavy hitters stayed at the primary entrance to buy time. Nobotsuna and I were the only ones to survive the assault, and Hiraku Shiba had us thrown in here." Batsu'unsai sighed.

"Prick." Spat Nobotsuna. "Oh sure, when a head of one of the so-called 'Noble' houses goes around decapitating people and burning them alive it's considered 'honorable combat' and 'keeping the peace', but when I, a man whose family tree isn't a fucking wreath of incest, retaliates in a decidedly less lethal fashion suddenly its 'treason' and 'making up a spell called Penis Blast is a war crime'!!"

"-What kind of blast?" asked Sasakibe.

"He can demonstrate it for us on The Archery Bastards. Read, sign, blood." Yamamoto said, thrusting contracts at them.

"Entetsu Kumoi." Read off Sasakibe as they came to the bald man who was nearly as wide as he was tall, with the exposed gold teeth. Entetsu looked up from where he'd finished putting his glasses back on and arranged his hairless brows into something that indicated that he'd be smiling politely if he had lips. "Imprisoned for your participation in the riot at the Windroad House, where you..." Sasakibe frowned at the file. "-Attacked and killed one hudred fifty-seven town guards with a brick, and mounted an assault on the local Dyamo?"

"Always morally correct, hittin' cops with bricks." Nodded Entetsu. "-Specially ones comin' t' kill just because some people are out havin' a good time, doin' no harm to no-one."

"The Windroad House is a Bar in the 3rd district famous for it's ah. Exotic. Cabaret performances." Sasakibe explained to Yamamoto, who didn't get out much.

"You were. At one of these performances?' Yamamoto asked.

"Ah, nah- just gotten off the job and had nipped down to the pub across th'way for a pint when I saw the pigs kick in the door an' start dragggin' the ladies out and I thought 'well that ain't right', so I started throwin' bricks until I were on me last brick and then I hunted them down wit' that last brick until there were none left." he explained. "Then I thinks, 'well, there's only none left until more come from the station', so's I made me way up the road to the station wit' me brick and had me a little hogslaughter up there too, see?"

"...And you just. kept going?" Sasakiba asked.

"So's I did! Right up to the head hog's trough, though by then it were well early in the mornin' and I were tired an' had some dozen spears in me back and me brick had fallen apart, so's I dinna get hims haunches fer ham." Entetsu sighed.

"Persistence! Very good quality in a captain!" Grinned Yamamoto, handing him the contract. "You know what to do by now."

They turned to the rather comely young man with the straw hat. "Furuoki, was it?" Yamamoto asked, feeling something that wasn't hopeful, per se, but these were strong people, and deeply insane and they were agreeing to help him, something that made his heart race with a delirious sort of mania.

"Yes. I am Furuoki Otogawa." he nodded.

"-And you're imprisoned here for- ecological terrorism, defiling holy a holy site and creating a dangerous magical device?" Sasakibe asked.

"What?" asked Yachiru, getting back to her feet and leaning heavily on him. "You told me you were in here for Jaywalking?"

"I thought I was?" Said Furuoki, frowning and tipping his head with confusion.

"It says here you constructed a device over the Tenjo no Ganbo waterfalls to, ah- 'suck up the carp in the pool at the base of the waterfall and launch them, at speed, up and over the waterfall'." Sasakibe read off and looked up to see Furuoki staring into the distance, eyes watering.

"They wanted to get to the lake at the top so badly they were swimming up the waterfall, but they kept falling down and getting hurt!" he sobbed, overcome with emotion. "I just made a chute to safely carry them to the top and gently toss them in the lake! how is that a crime?"

"-because when a carp makes it to the top of Tenjo no Ganbo falls, IT TURNS INTO A DRAGON! YOU MADE HUNDREDS OF DRAGONS SUDDENLY APPEAR! THOUSANDS BEFORE THEY COULD DISMANTLE THE DAMN THING!!" Sasakibe shouted.

"Ohhh." Furuoki said, nodding. "-I'd wondered where all the dragons had come from. I still don't see why that's a crime though?"

"Gods help us." Groaned Yamamoto.

"Dragons tend to be. Kinda destructive." Yachiru spoke slowly, her voice still rough and hollow-sounding. " 'specially to little villages."

"Oh." Furuoki said quietly, horrified.

"Don't worry, I'll deal with them once I get my lung back and bust outta this joint." Yachiru reassured him as Sasakibe handed Furuoki his contract.

"You wont be 'busting out' of anywhere, miss-" Sasakibe suffled the papers to open her file. "-Yachiru Unohana! You're obligated to serve General Yamamoto in exchange for your freedom, seeing as you're imprisoned for- for-"

Sasakibe froze, staring at the file. "-That has to be a Mistake."

"What?" Grunted Yamamoto, sizing the woman up. According to the group, if Furuoki who could rip this heavily fortified prison open like an ant's nest was their weakest fighter, this sickly-looking woman was their strongest.

"The file says she's imprisoned for killing ten thousand people!" babbled Sasakibe.

"Oh, no, that isn't right." grunted Yachiru, and Sasakibe sighed with relief.

"-Should be closer to twelve or fifteen thousand." She clarified, and Sasakibe went white.

"Read, sign, mark with your blood at the bottom." Yamamoto sighed, thrusting the contract at her.

"Uhhh... can't." She said, staring blankly at the contract, then slowly looking up at Yamamoto.

"What do you mean 'can't'?"  he growled.

"I can't read." she said.

Sasakibe hid his face in his hands, groaning with pain, while Yamamoto turned on his heel and threw his hands in the air, silently beseeching any available Gods for help.

"You get what you pay for, General." Called Chika, having changed back into the clothes they'd arrived in- garish red-orange and black ninja garb of the Shihon clan- and tying their sword back onto their gaudy belt.

"I am paying all of you a frankly OBSCENE amount of money, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect basic literacy!" Yamamoto snapped.

"It's okay girl, I'll read it to you and then you can have Minazuki back, okay?" Chigiri volunteered, wrapping an arm around her illiterate compatriot and walking her back to some seat-height rocks.

"Let's just get this over with." Yamamoto sighed, glaring at Tsubaki, who only smiled serenely back at him. "Uhin Zenjoji?"

"Present, sir." Beamed the enormous man who looked like a professional Sumo wrestler- there was fat, lots of it, but underneath, an unsettlingly steady grace and power to his movements.

"Your file says you're imprisoned for Smuggling, Murder, Bootlegging, Murder, Trafficking, Murder, More murder and... one hundred seventy two violations of The Migratory Bird Act?"

"The only two I will dispute are the trafficking and migratory bird charges-" he said, delicately holding up two fingers. "-firstly, it's not trafficking to move refugees from the clan wars out of danger without giving the aforementioned clans a cut. I'm no pimp."

"And the birds?" Yamamoto glared, intrigued more than anything.

"A man may have his hobbies and his charitable works!" Uhin said, touching his hand to his chest in faux-impassioned speech. "I collect and breed rare and endangered birds- the world would a sadder place without their songs. So I have- well, had- an aviary up in the mountains where they could be propagated in peace." Uhin sighed.

"Huh. Something nearly bordering on sanity." said Sasakibe said, offering Uhin his contract.

"Got any of them- whatsit- the big kicky bitches?" Danjiro asked.

"Cassowaries?" Uhin asked. "But of course! Delightful little creatures."

Yamamoto decided he didn't hear that, actually, and turned his attention to the final member of the dirty dozen.

"Hello young man!" the decrepit old man creaked cheerfully. "I am Saizo Sakahone." he was bald, liver-spotted, missing teeth and had a spine that bowed like a fishing rod with something much too large for the boat on the end of the line.

"Sakahone like the province?" asked Yamamoto, remembering the western area he'd traveled through recently.

"...In a manner of speaking, I suppose?" Saizo grinned. "Though it's rather the other way around- my lovely wife, may she rest in peace, managed to bear me no less than sixteen beautiful daughters, and they bore at least a dozen granddaughters and so on- Why, by my one thousand one hundred and eleventy-eth birthday, I had somewhere over fifty thousand descendants! So I am not so much named after the province, as the province is named after me!" he chucked.

"...by the Gods." marveled Sasakibe.

"Look, I love my sword too but at least I take it out of the scabbard sometimes." sighed Yamamoto. "What're you in for, family man?"

"O-ho! Now that was quite rash of me, I'm afraid. Yes-" Saizo nodded, rubbing his gnarled-oak hands. "-but as you say, I am a family man and there is nothing I despise so much as someone who does violence to children. No, no, nothing more vile in the world than that..."

Yamamoto felt Sasakibe go stiff beside him, and glanced over. Sasakibe tipped the file closer for his friend to read.

"-The total annihilation of the Uchimaki clan?" Yamamoto asked.

"I was born a shepherd, my boy. My people have been herding cattle over the hills of my province since there were cattle and hills to herd them over. When rot and madness like that turns up in a line- you need to cull backwards at least three generations or it'll set root and spread through your whole herd." he sighed. "What a shame, what a shame, but it had to be done, or they would have learned to turn a profit, treating children like that, and then we'd never be rid of it."

"I saw the crater. Half a mile deep and three times as wide." Said Yamamoto, mustache trembling. "I thought the wrath of the Gods themselves had descended upon them."

"Hm." Saizo nodded, jaw trembling a bit with palsy. "Hm, yes. That's what it felt like."

"Would you like to feel it again?" Yamamoto asked.

"No." Saizo shook his head, but slowly straightened up as much as he could- he must have been close to seven feet tall before the scoliosis set in- flexing his hands and rolling his neck, the power held withing that body starting to come off him in shimmering golden steam. "-but if that's what it takes for me to go home again, then I will be the tool of the Gods once more."

Yamamoto offered him the contract, and did not need to give him instructions.

Behind them, there was a quiet but extremely invasive wet noise and Yamamoto turned to see Unohana unsheath her... well, it lived in a scabbard but it was a muddy green and unusually gooey for a sword. Minazuki bubbled forth from her scabbard, trilling faintly as she solidified and formed into a mottled green cyclopean stingray, large enough to swallow a man, nuzzling at her human affectionately.

"Huh. She does seem to have an exceptionally intimate bond with her Zanpaktou..." Sasakibe noted, then flinched as Minazuki's mouth opened to reveal a fleshy interior of writhing tentacles and strange glands. Without hesitation, Unohana shed her prisoner's robe, which was apparently the and stepped inside to be swallowed with a sigh of relief.

"Very intimate!" grinned Chigiri at Sasakibe's shoulder. "My offer to stitch you up is still on the table, unless you want to develop a similarly intimate relationship with a fish."

"Never did care for seafood..." Sasakibe muttered.

"What about Tsubaki-san?" Furofushi frowned. "Where's her contract?"

"I came here for fighters." Yamamoto shook his head, turning to Tsubaki. "But you are right that The Maggot's Nest is a secure fortress in it's own right. The war is no place for a pri-"

He stopped, staring. Tsubaki had sat down and was rubbing her feet, fingers laced between her toes. She glanced up at him, then down at her feet, smirked, and sat back, wiggling her toes. "No, I agree, the front is no place for a Princess, but it is very much a place for a Diplomat, isn't it?" she asked.

Yamamoto blinked. "I have been thoroughly disinherited from any political position I may have inherited, so I am no princess." She explained, rolling her ankle with a smirk. "-and you are, if I may make an estimation based on my training as a Lady Of Society and now that all of our contracts are signed and bonded, terrible at negotiations."

Yamamoto shook himself, trying to pretend he hadn't been staring at her arches. "...I thought it went fine? Nobody lost a hand."

She smiled, and walked up beside him, lacing her arm with his and gently patting his hand. "My dear. If bookies had been allowed to lay bets on this encounter, the odds of me losing my head would have been considered a sure thing, and the odds on my being able to convince you to properly hire us and pay us, I agree, an 'obscene' amount of money so slim that anyone who took my side would now be a very rich idiot."

Yamamoto squinted at her, trying to translate that in his head.

"...You've conned me." He glared.

"Quite badly, I'm afraid." She smiled.

"You've conned me, but you can con say, that idiot that runs the Omeda clan or the obnoxious boy with the cock's comb that follows Yhwach around even worse." He tried.

Miss Tsubaki smiled, and laced her fingers with his.

"I'm going to have someone much smarter than me write up your contract." he nodded. "Sasakibe? Can you get us home in a-"

Yamamoto turned to see his friend, standing with his robe open while Chigiri knelt before him. Yamamoto blinked in bewilderment, and then realized the woman was stitching his wounds up at speed, her face close to his navel to focus on her work.

"...Hurry?" Yamamoto asked.

"Boss if I go any faster I'm gonna sew his bellybutton shut." Chirigi replied, not looking up.

"She is almost done, sir." Sasakibe winced. "Please don't interrupt her work?"

--- It took a good half hour to get everyone together to leave- clothes changed, signed out of the Maggot's nest and their custody turned over to Yamamoto, Nobotsuna trying to smuggle his "pet" Salamander out, several other prisoners saying tearful goodbyes to Tsubaki and her taking their information down 'for later', Minazuki trying to eat the salamander, and further mayhem while Sasakibe finished drawing the teleportation circle but soon they were lined up, and as the spell activated, Tsubaki gripped Yamamoto's arm rather firmly.

But in a flash, they were returned to Headquarters, Tsubaki blinking from the bright sun.

"General!" the soldier saluted. "Good to see you again! No news from the front, but we have received word the Shihon clan has made an alliance with the Fon clan as the advance approaches their homeland."

"HAH!" Shouted Chika. "Either cousin Genki pulled his head out of his ass or whatever cousin they're on now has good taste! Mingyan is a BABE and a half."

"Nice digs, very nice." Nodded Danjiro, looking around the courtyard. "...Looks really familiar for some reason. Never been to Seireitei, but I swear I've been in a building just like this?"

The other criminals looked around the courtyard, frowning and muttering about how it DID look familiar, and not at all like barracks.

There was a distressing hurgling sort of noise behind them and Minazuki spat out Yachiru Unohana, who tumbled out, nude and covered in slime. She rolled to the foot of the shrine, and sat up, blinking at the statue inside.

"Hey-" She called, voice still low and a rough but the hollow wetness had gone. "-Why's the military got a shrine to Yatagarasu?"

The others looked at the shrine and then around the building again. The orderly layout, the way the men were fit and professional but not precisely military, the extensive filing and sorting system visible through the open doors, Yamamoto's confession to Mail-tampering, the shrine to the Messenger of the Gods...

"You know, I did think it was rather strange that you were able to rally a small but apparently quite fast and very loyal army without the aid of any major clans." Tsubaki sighed. "How very industrious of you, Postmaster-General Yamamoto!"

[schraubd]

The 2022 Almost-Post Mortem

I was a bit hesitant to write my post-mortem recap today, since some very important races remain uncalled. Incredibly, both the House and Senate remain uncalled, though the GOP is favored in the former and Democrats have the slight advantage in the latter. It would be truly delightful if Catherine Cortez Masto can squeak out a win in Nevada and so make the upcoming Georgia run-off, if not moot, then slightly less high stakes. But again, things are up in the air that ought make a big difference in the overall "narrative" of the day.

Nonetheless, I think some conclusions can be fairly drawn at this point. In no particular order:

There was no red wave. It was, at best, a red trickle. And given both the underlying fundamentals  on things like inflation and the historic overperformance of the outparty in midterm elections, this is just a truly underwhelming performance for the GOP. No sugarcoating that for them.

If Trafalgar polling had any shame, they'd be shame-faced right now, but they have no shame, so they'll be fine.

In my 2018 liveblog, I wrote that "Some tough early results (and the true disappointment in Florida) has masked a pretty solid night for Democrats." This year, too, a dreadful showing in Florida set an early downer tone that wasn't reflected in the overall course of the evening. Maybe it's time we just give up the notion that Florida is a swing state?

That said, Republicans need to get out of their gulf-coastal-elite bubble and realize that what plays in Tallahassee doesn't play in the rest of the country. 

That's snark, but also serious -- for all the talk about how "Democrats are out-of-touch", it seems that the GOP also has a problem in not understanding that outside of their fever-swamp base most normal people maybe don't like the obsession with pronouns and "kitty litter" and "anti-CRT". Their ideological bubble is at this point far more impermeable, and far more greatly removed from the mainstream, than anything comparable among Democrats.

Abortion is maybe the biggest example of this, as anti-choice measures keep failing in even deep red states like Kentucky, while pro-choice enactments sail to victory in purple states like Michigan (to say nothing of blue bastions like California). Democratic organizers should make a habit of just putting abortion on the ballot in every state, and ride those coattails.

It's going to fade away almost immediately, but I cannot get over the cynical bad faith of what happened regarding baseless GOP insinuations that any votes counted after election day were inherently suspicious. On November 7, this was all one heard from GOP officials across the country, even though delays in counting are largely the product of GOP-written laws. But on November 8, when they found themselves behind on election night returns, all of the sudden folks like Kari Lake are relying on late-counted votes to save them while raising new conspiracies about stolen elections. Sickening.

Given the still powerful force of such conspiracy mongering, Democrats holding the executive branch in key swing states like Wisconsin and Michigan is a huge deal. Great job, guys.

For the most part, however, most losing MAGA candidates are conceding. Congratulations on clearing literally the lowest possible bar to set.

The GOP still should be favored to take over the House, albeit with a razor-thin majority. And that majority, in turn, seems almost wholly attributable to gerrymandering -- both Democrats unilateral disarmament in places like New York, but also truly brutal GOP gerrymanders in places like Florida. This goes beyond Rucho, though that case deserves its place in the hall of shame. The degree to which the courts bent over backwards to enable even the most nakedly unlawful districting decisions -- the absurd lawlessness of Ohio stands out, but the Supreme Court's own decision to effectively pause enforcement of the Voting Rights Act because too many Black people entering Congress qualifies as an "emergency" on the shadow docket can't be overlooked either -- is one of the great legal disgraces of my lifetime in a year full of them.

Of course, I have literally no idea how the Kevin McCarthy will corral his caucus with a tiny majority. Yes, it gives crazies like Greene and Boebert (well, maybe not Boebert ...) more power, but that's because it gives everyone in the caucus more power, which is just a recipe for chaos. Somewhere John Boehner is curling up in a comfy chair with a glass of brandy and getting ready to have a wonderful day.

My new proposal for gerrymandering in Democratic states: "trigger" laws which tie anti-gerrymandering rules to the existence of a national ban. If they're banned nationwide, the law immediately goes into effect. Until they are, legislatures have free reign. That way one creates momentum for a national gerrymandering ban while not unilaterally disarming like we saw in New York. Could it work? Hard to know -- but worth a shot.

Let's celebrate some great candidates who will be entering higher office! Among the many -- and this is obviously non-exhaustive -- include incoming Maryland Governor Wes Moore, incoming Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, incoming Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman. Also kudos to some wonderful veterans who held their seats in tough environs, including Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Virginia congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, New Jersey congressman Andy Kim, Maine Governor Janet Mills, and New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan.

Special shoutout to Tina Kotek, who overcame considerable headwinds (and the worst Carleton alum) to apparently hold the Governor's mansion in my home state of Oregon. Hopeful that Jaime McLeod-Skinner can eke out a victory in my congressional district too, though it looks like that might come down to the wire.

I also think it's important to give credit even to losing candidates who fought hard races. Tim Ryan stands out here -- not only did he force the GOP to spend badly needed resources in a state they should've had no trouble keeping, but his coattails might have pushed Democrats across the finish line in at least two House seats Republicans were favored to hold. (I hate to say it, but Lee Zeldin may have played a similar role for the GOP in New York).

I'm inclined to agree that, if Biden doesn't run in 2024, some of the emergent stars from this cycle (like Whitmer or Shapiro) are stronger picks for a presidential run than the also-rans from 2020. But I also think that Biden likely will get an approval bump off this performance -- people like being associated with winners!

On the GOP side, the best outcome (from my vantage) is Trump romping to a primary victory and humiliating DeSantis -- I think voters are sick of him. The second best outcome might be DeSantis winning narrowly over Trump and provoking a tantrum for the ages that might rip the GOP apart. DeSantis himself, as a presidential candidate, is an uncertainty -- I'm not convinced he plays well outside of Florida, but I am convinced that if he prevails over Trump the media will fall over itself to congratulate the GOP on "repudiating" Trumpism even though DeSantis is materially indistinguishable from Trump along every axis save that he's not abjectly incompetent (which, in this context, is not a plus).

The hardest thing to do is to recognize when even candidates you really like are, for whatever reason, just not going to get over the hump. This fits Charlie Crist, Beto O'Rourke, and (I'm sorry) Stacey Abrams. It's no knock on them -- seriously, it isn't -- but they're tainted goods at this point. Fortunately, Democrats have a deep bench of excellent young candidates who we can turn to next time around.

And regarding the youth -- I'm not someone who's a big fan of the perennial Democratic sport of Pelosi/Schumer sniping. I think they've both done a very good job under difficult circumstances, and deserve real credit for the successes we saw tonight and across the Biden admin more broadly. However, we do need to find room for some representatives from the younger generation to assume leadership roles. Younger voters turned out hard for the Democratic Party and deserve their seat at the table. It says something that Hakeem Jeffries, age 52, is the immediate current leadership figure springing to mind as a "young" voice -- that (and again, there's no disrespect to Jeffries here) is not good enough.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/1YJTzbo

[stereostevie]

When you think of grunge, do you picture a bunch of long-haired White guys in plaid shirts, singing about teenage angst and self-loathing? Time to expand that viewpoint. Standing above them all should be Tina Bell, a tiny Black woman with an outsized stage presence, and her band, Bam Bam. It’s only recently that the 1980s phenom has begun to be recognized as a godmother of grunge.

This modern genre’s sound was, in many ways, molded by a Black woman. The reason she is mostly unknown has everything to do with racism and misogyny. Looking back at the beginnings of grunge, with the preconception that “everybody involved” was White and/or male, means ignoring the Black woman who was standing at the front of the line.

Bam Bam was formed as a punk band in 1983 in Seattle. Bell, a petite brown-skinned spitfire with more hairstyle changes than David Bowie, sang lead vocals and wrote most of the lyrics. Her then-husband Tommy Martin was on guitars (the band’s name is an acronym of their last names: Bell And Martin), Scotty “Buttocks” Ledgerwood played bass, and Matt Cameron was on drums. Cameron would leave the band in its first year and go on to fame as the drummer for Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. But he paid homage to his beginnings by wearing a Tina Bell T-shirt in a photoshoot for Pearl Jam’s 2017 Anthology: the Complete Scores book.

“For some reason a couple of skinheads are up front, calling her [the N-word] And all of the sudden, Bell grabs a microphone stand and she starts swirling it around her head like a lasso… She swung that fuckin’ thing around her head and about the fourth time, she smashed that son of a bitch.”

Bam Bam’s sound straddled the line between punk and something so new that it didn’t have a name yet. Their music combined a driving, thrumming bass line; downtuned, sludgy guitars; thrashy, pulsing drums; melodic vocals that range from sultry to haunting to screamy; and lyrics about the existential tension of trying to exist in a world not designed for you. The band’s 1984 music video for their single “Ground Zero” is low-budget, but Bell’s charisma seeps through.

“She was fucking badass. That’s all there is to it. She was amazing as a performer. I’ve only seen one White male lead singer command the stage in a similar way that Tina Bell did, and that was Bon Scott of AC/DC,” says Om Johari, who attended Bam Bam shows as a Black teenager in the ’80s and who would go on to lead all-female AC/DC cover band Hell’s Belles.

Christina King, a Seattle scenester who was close friends with Bell from 1984 until the early ’90s, says the singer’s talent was obvious. But she believes a lot of people dismissed Bell as a gimmick.

Among those attending their shows: Future members of grunge bands like Nirvana (Kurt Cobain did a stint as a Bam Bam roadie), Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam.

“I remember one person saying to me that they didn’t get ‘the whole Black girl singer thing,’ it just didn’t fit whatever they were into,” says King. “They were too ahead of their time.”

Bam Bam came into being in an era when hundreds of underground clubs, taverns, bars, and social halls — anywhere that you could cram in a band — were within the Seattle city limits. Bam Bam played almost all of them, and often to big crowds: The Colourbox, Crocodile Lounge, Gorilla Gardens, Squid Row — just to name a few.

Among those attending their shows: Future members of history-making grunge bands like Nirvana (Kurt Cobain did a stint as a Bam Bam roadie), Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam. Not to mention all the other people, mostly White and male, who would become prime targets for music labels trying to market this new sound.

Bell “already possessed everything they were trying to attain. She had a truer rock and roll spirit than almost any of those guys in that town. Everything they tried to do, she naturally was,” says Ledgerwood, still a loyal bandmate.

One Seattle club, The Metropolis, became “like our fucking living room,” says Ledgerwood. It was also the site of an overtly racist verbal assault against Tina Bell.

“For some reason a couple of skinheads are up front, calling her [the N-word],” Ledgerwood recalls. “And all of the sudden, Bell grabs a microphone stand and she starts swirling it around her head like a lasso… She swung that fuckin’ thing around her head and about the fourth time, she smashed that son of a bitch… She nailed that fucker right in the temple of his head. Split like a melon. And the other guy next to him caught it too, they go down, and we’re like, ‘What the fuck?’”

Ledgerwood says that after going backstage for a while to regroup, Bell came back “and put out the most blistering set of our fucking career.”

This could easily be an anecdote about Bell’s power, her resilience, and willingness to fight back against oppressive forces. But it’s also a story about the cost of being a Black woman who does something that some people don’t expect or approve of.

“She’s being pulled out of her zone because somebody is acknowledging how the rest of the world can see her,” says Johari, empathizing with the star rocker. “And even to react to it by picking up a microphone and smashing someone in the face, that means that that incident cost her not only that moment it takes to get back into the song, but the whole [effects of her] action will last for weeks.

“She’ll replay that over and over and over and over again. And then the people she sees that were there when it happened, they’re gonna come up to her and they’re gonna forget everything that she’s saying, all the stuff that she had did, and they’re only going to focus on, ‘I was at that show where you knocked a dude in the head for calling you an N-word,’” Johari says. “It has nothing to do with her artistry. But it reminds her of the way in which she has to be prepared, just in case it happens again.”

King remembers Bell also felt that some of the other men in the band’s changing lineup failed to treat her as an equal partner: “She’s getting that from her own band members — what do you think audience people are like?”

A European tour in the late ’80s gained Bam Bam international fans, but ended after Bell and Martin split up, and Bell was caught in an immigration enforcement dragnet in the Netherlands.

When they returned to the Pacific Northwest, Bam Bam continued playing shows until 1990, when Bell abruptly quit as they were packing up to head to the studio in Portland, Ore.

“She had just had enough,” Ledgerwood says. “For almost eight years she had almost literally eviscerated herself for the audience.”

But that work never resulted in the national recognition they deserved.

“Grunge, whatever that means, is being identified as from your community, your colleagues, your sound that you were a participant in help shaping, and you’re not even mentioned in any of it.”

“Sometimes you need to be a little bit of an asshole to protect yourself. And Bell wasn’t much of an asshole,” Ledgerwood adds. “She was a pure-hearted person and had a really hard time believing that people couldn’t accept her over something as stupid as race.”

Bell didn’t just quit the band, she withdrew from music completely, says her son, Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker TJ Martin. Not out of resentment, he adds, but perhaps to escape the painful reminders that the music she helped pioneer was now earning other bands multimillion-dollar record contracts.

“Grunge, whatever that means, is being identified as from your community, your colleagues, your sound that you were a participant in help shaping, and you’re not even mentioned in any of it,” Martin says. “I can’t even fathom what that would feel like for it to be sort of spit back in your face with such frequency.”

Ledgerwood believes Bell died of a broken heart. But when Bell died alone in her Las Vegas apartment in 2012, the official cause of death listed was cirrhosis of the liver. She had struggled with alcohol and depression. Her son says the coroner estimated her time of death as a couple weeks before her body was discovered. She was 55 years old.

The things that could have told Tina Bell’s story in her own voice are lost. Martin arrived in Las Vegas to find that the contents of his mother’s apartment — except for a DVD player, a poster, and a chair — had been thrown away. All of her writings — lyrics, poems, diaries — along with Bam Bam music, videos, and other memorabilia — went in the trash without her family even being notified.

If you think you were in Seattle in the ’80s, in the grunge scene, and you don’t remember Tina Bell and Bam Bam, you probably weren’t really fucking there.

“I couldn’t help draw a parallel between her not being respected and seen in the first chapter of her life, as the front person of a punk band, and then even in death being disrespected and not being seen for the merits of the life she lived,” says Martin.

Bell’s death is also an indictment of the way she was written out of her own story. The way grunge’s almighty gatekeepers chose to look through her instead of at her. Grunge became the domain of alienated young White men in flannel shirts, and Tina Bell didn’t fit the narrative they were trying to sell.

“Black herstory can suffer immense amounts of erasure if somebody is not brave enough to ensure that women get counted,” Johari says.

To many of those who were part of the scene at the time, the amnesia seems intentional. Ledgerwood brings up the seminal history of Seattle’s grunge era, Everybody Loves Our Town. In it, the author refers to Bam Bam as a three-piece instrumental band mainly notable because Matt Cameron was the drummer. Tina Bell isn’t even mentioned.

“How in the hell would he have a recollection of how great Bam Bam and its drummer was, and not this unbelievably beautiful woman, this firecracker, this explosive rock and roll goddess?” Ledgerwood asks. “Even if he thought she sucked, to not remember the only Black woman on the whole fuckin’ scene is — well, it’s like that old joke about the ’60s: If you think you were in Seattle in the ’80s, in the grunge scene, and you don’t remember Tina Bell and Bam Bam, you probably weren’t really fucking there.”

You can listen to more of Bam Bam’s music on this Spotify playlist. A vinyl album with the band’s songs is coming out this year on Bric-a-Brac Records.

[sanguinifex]

Yeah, it came from a series of progressive viral misunderstandings. The real answer is the combination of sexist ideas that women were too physically fragile to do men’s sports and either die of overexertion or have their uteruses fall out if they exercised at the speed or duration that men were expected to; that they might be raped by male athletes if allowed to be in close proximity to them, or that their bodies might unfairly distract male athletes (ironically, this was a common way to cheat in horse races! Since horses are considerably less self-controlled than humans and male racehorses are usually ungelded).

Like, this is not about the fear that a woman would somehow come in first place in a professional-level mixed-gender marathon. It’s entirely about Victorian-through-1960’s gender norms and the cultural enforcement of gender segregation. The main reason women’s sports exists is that girls and women usually couldn’t successfully integrate community and school leagues, because male coaches thought women were weaker or a liability. In some cases, the gender segregation resulted in the two versions of the sport having significantly different rules as the games evolved over time, meaning that even if you wanted to integrate the games today, either you’d have to admit they’re 2 different games and make up some distinguishing euphemisms to tell them apart, or you have to make half the players learn completely new rules. Frankly, the only fair way to decide who would have to in the latter scenario is a coinflip, and you’d still have nearly everybody insisting the flip was rigged, whichever way it went. There’s also how men culturally don’t usually want to do “girl sports.” Combine the two, and that’s why (in the US), men play (American) football and women play rugby. (Meanwhile, psychopathy is the only requirement to play lacrosse. 😝)

Basically, the reason modern sports are racially integrated in America is because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There’s a lot of explicit wording and legal precedent saying that yes, it’s got to be real integration. If, say, you’re a fancy restaurant where most of the staff is black, and most of the customers are white, you can end up with a situation where, most commonly, black people are using one bathroom (the staff bathroom) and white people are using a different bathroom (the guest bathroom), but you’re not allowed to tell a black guest they have to use the staff bathroom, not to mention that anybody rich enough to eat at your restaurant just has to know at least one good lawyer.

But Title IX, which was added in 1972, is the main one dealing with gender in public education, which includes sports programs, which includes public colleges’ sports programs, which has a funnel effect for how professional leagues work. You aren’t just going to do things one way for the first 16 years of an athlete’s career and then change it up. And, to get it passed, title IX allowed separate but equal, which was still a big step up from before, when public schools weren’t required to have women’s sports at all. No one’s dared challenge the “separate but equal” part because it would almost certainly take passing another law to get the integration part if the separate but equal got struck down.

I think part of the reason gender integration is so much more resisted culturally is the math involved, plus people tend to compare others to themselves. Most white men would see a black man as more like themselves than they’d see a woman as. Also, it’s pretty easy to prove that, say, black baseball players have the same average strength as white baseball players, because that’s a matter of barbells and stopwatches. If you’re comparing the average male baseball players vs average female baseball players, you’ve got an additional height curve to work with from middle school and up, and that makes the graphs way more fuzzy and wibbly to the average math-semiliterate American. Plus a zillion other cultural things like names and forms of address being highly gendered but typically less racialized, especially given the contemporary shift towards addressing people by first name in professional settings… Basically, that’s how you end up where even the most rabid racists don’t generally balk at using a racially integrated restroom (though they might spritz the seat with sanitizer spray first), but pretty much no one will dare use an opposite gender restroom unless maybe it’s a single stall or if it’s a matter of having to choose how much dignity to part with.

where did this idea that women's sports are separate because men are afraid of women beating them come from

like in addition to the fact that some sports have an open league and a women's league (chess), it just... doesn't make sense statistically. if 80% of the people that play a sport are men, and there's no correlation with gender and ability, you would expect the champion to be a man 80% of the time!

feels like a "girl power" narrative based more in what would make for a good story than what's actually true

[keyboardink]

“truths and dares”

Kairi plays matchmaker for you, trying to set you up with everyone except herself. A game of "Truth or Dare" exposes your inexperience and your crush on her.

pairing: kairi “valkyrie” imahara x reader / media: apex legends

genre: eventual fluff / word count: 2k / rating: pg-13 / warnings: swearing and mentions of alcohol

a/n: another little friends to lovers thing with less angst. if you have any requests, feel free to shoot me an ask. if you like this, check out more of my writing here!

Kairi sat across from you, cross-legged on the rug in her apartment's living room. She took a sip of a slightly spiked drink before she asked, "Truth or dare?"

"Truth," you replied. You wanted to play it safe around her; you know how mischievous she could be. Last time you two had a sleepover like this, she almost made you borrow her jets to jump off the building. When you refused, she then promptly proceeded to do it herself, making a big show out of flying as you watched. She said she would've caught you if you had jumped, but you knew you would've turned into a mess of shaky hands and tumbling words in her arms. Just the thought of her being that close to you, of her saving you like that was enough to make your cheeks flush.

"How was your date yesterday?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

Maybe you should've picked dare.

This was the subject you had been avoiding for the last 34 hours. She asked about it every time she got the chance, and you were running out of ways to avoid the subject. Every single text from her in the past day asked you about this date, which you had only gone on because Kairi had set you up with a mystery girl. "She's a babe," Kairi had said. "You two would be amazing together. Total power couple." She said the same thing about the past four girls before.

She always tried to matchmake you with others, but little did she know the only person you wanted to go on dates with was her. You were crushing on your wingman.

You looked at the floor, suddenly interested by a chip crumb that you assumed must've dropped while you guys were snacking earlier. You didn't want to tell her that you had softly rejected this mystery girl almost as soon as you two sat down at the café. You didn't want to tell her that none of these dates were ever going to work out, because the only person you wanted to be with was her. You didn't want her to find out how inexperienced you were, how you'd never even kissed a girl before, how--

"Hello? Earth to [Y/N]?" She waved a hand in front of your face, snapping you back to the conversation. "You can't avoid it forever, you know." She spoke as if she had read your mind.

"It was fine," you said with a shrug.

"Oh, c'mon!" She kicked her leg out, lightly hitting your knee. "You've been avoiding it for days and that's all you give me? I need details!" She leaned forward, returning to the criss-cross position. She rested her chin in her hands with her elbows propped up on her knees, like she was about to watch a movie she had waited her whole life for. Her eyes glimmered with interest and intent. You shifted under her gaze, suddenly aware of how the corners of her lips were turned up, how her shirt was starting to slip down and expose more of her collarbone, how she looked at you. "Pleeease?" She whined, pouting and giving you puppy-dog eyes.

"It was nothing special. Just like all of the other dates you set me up with."

"You didn't even think she was cute?"

"She was cute, just... not my type."

"Bullshit." She leaned back, taking another sip.

"I'm serious!" Defensiveness caused your voice to crack.

"Okay, you know what? I take back my Truth for you," she said.

"You can't do that. You already asked me the question, and I answered it! So it's my turn."

"Your answer was wimpy, so that means I get a do-over."

"Kai, that's so not fair," you protested.

"Your new question is: why do you hate all the chicks I try to set you up with?"

"No." You crossed your arms over your chest. "I'm not answering that. You get one question per turn, and it's my turn to ask you."

She rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine. Shoot."

"Truth or dare?" You asked, planning your next statement like a strategic attack. If she picked dare, you'd dare her to stop setting you up with random girls, and she always picked dare.

"Truth," she said with an ounce of arrogance. Okay, maybe she didn't always pick dare. She just wanted to be difficult. Classic Kairi.

You paused for a second, rethinking your plan before speaking again. "Why do you keep trying to set me up with people?"

She drummed her fingers against her leg, thinking the answer through. Your eyes were drawn to her thighs, the way her fingers pressed against her own skin and seemed to sink in like it was a pillow, the way her shorts were riding up from her moving around. You swallowed hard and forced your attention to return to her face, hoping she hadn't noticed you staring.

"Because you're hot shit," she said. "You deserve some hot girl to have fun with, you know?"

"Why don't you focus on getting yourself a date? I don't hear anything about you finding a hot girl to have fun with." You scrutinized her answer, genuinely curious as to why her own logic didn't apply to herself.

She shook her head. "Nope, one question per turn, right?" You groaned at the rule you had so adamantly enforced a minute ago. She smiled at your annoyance. "So, my question from earlier. Why do you hate everyone I try to set you up with?"

You searched your brain for an excuse, for anything that would cloak the real reason behind it all. "I'm not good at dating," you answered. It wasn't necessarily a lie, just an attempt at hiding that you hadn't ever had a real date before.

She saw right through it.

Her eyes widened. "Oh," she whispered. "You haven't-"

"Hey, one question per turn, right?" You cut her off, the words spilling out almost frantically. Your abruptness surprised both of you.

She was still quiet from the realization. You could only hope she hadn't also put together the whole "crush" aspect of it, and that she thought this was only about your inexperience. She nodded and leaned back, going easy on you. She could tell you weren't too fond of this conversation and decided to leave it be for the moment.

"Truth or dare?" you asked, shifting your legs.

"Dare."

You tried to think of something that would yield ridiculous results, something that would completely redirect the topic. "Show me the last thing in your search history."

"Oh, God," she laughed, pulling out her phone. She opened it to her most recent webpage and showed it to you. There was a page of results underneath the search-bar's heading which read "how to remove pasta sauce stains from blankets".

"Oh my God, Kairi!" you exclaimed, giggling.

"I was just eating on my bed! I was lazy, okay? Don't judge me."

You two shared a moment of laughter, and you let your worries and insecurities slip away for the time being. In that moment, you were just friends, laughing your asses off over a game of "truth or dare." There were no risks to be taken, no secrets to hide. Then, your giggles eventually dissolved and the truths came rushing back to you. You glanced at Kairi, who felt the nervous tension in the air, but she wasn't one to drop things completely.

"Hey," she said comfortingly, reaching over to place a hand on your leg. Your skin felt electrified upon her touch. "I'm sorry if I crossed a line, but it's okay to be inexperienced, you know. We all start somewhere. And sometimes, some of us don't go too far after our first. Some people find the love of their life right away and don't ever touch another person on the planet after that. Some of us like to have a bit more fun." She winked.

"Like you?" you asked, your voice sounding innocent and lost, like a hand stretching out for guidance.

"I used to." Her voice was casual as she leaned back on her hands. "I dunno, haven't really been feeling the fun life anymore. Kinda waiting for that special someone, you know?"

You nodded, understanding. You shared that feeling. It was part of the reason why you didn't want to go around messing with other girls, why you avoided all of the dates she set up for you. You two sat in comfortable silence, soaking in the air of the moment and listening to the cars outside.

After a minute, Kairi spoke again. "It's my turn, isn't it?"

"Mhm." You tried to conceal any leftover nerves that hadn't been calmed by her words, but the idea of her getting your last secret out of you made your heart race quicken.

"Well, truth or dare?"

"Dare," you replied. You suddenly felt somewhat courageous, but part of you also just wanted to avoid any more questions about your nonexistent love life and any possibility of revealing the crush you had on her.

She looked at you and smiled. There was a hint of something in the way her eyes sparkled, but you couldn't discern what it was. "I dare you to kiss me."

Your heart leapt into your throat. You couldn't say anything in response. She spoke up to fill the silence and ease your nerves. "You can just use it as practice for the next girl. I'll teach you how to do it, all right?"

"But I..." You tried to still your racing thoughts, but they were a carousel too fast for you to get off of. "I- I thought you were, uh, waiting?  For that special someone, right? Wasn't that what you said?"

"Yup." Her expression didn't change. Her gaze flickered down to your lips, making your heart beat even faster.

"But, Kairi, I-"

"[Y/N], you are that special someone," she said. She cupped your cheek in her palm. Your hand reached up to hers in surprise, touching it to make sure that this wasn't a dream like the ones you'd imagined this whole time. You relaxed against her touch. You felt your body slow down, soaking in her touch and every romantic bit of the moment. She could tell by the way you melted in her hands that you felt the same way about her. This wasn't going to be practice for the next girl. There wasn't even going to be a next girl. You both knew it was only about you and her.

She leaned in with a smile, your faces only inches apart. "So, are you taking the dare or  chickening out?"

You puckered and kissed her harder than you intended, causing a slight ache to start where your inner lips collided against your own teeth. You immediately pulled away, shocked and embarrassed, and mumbled out some apologies. She slid her hand down your cheek so that it was under your chin. She tilted your chin upwards, forcing you to focus on her.

"Look at me. Follow my lead, okay?"

She leaned in again, meeting you since you were now nervous to make the first move. You watched as she parted her lips slightly, allowing yours to sink in the gap between them. You parted yours as well, making the kiss sweeter and softer than just a puckered peck. She tugged gently on your cheek, pulling you towards her just enough to close any spaces between your mouths. She moved her lips against yours after a few moments, starting a second kiss without ever breaking the first. You couldn't tell where her mouth ended and yours began as they melted into one another seamlessly.

You pulled away when it got hard to breathe through your nose. She giggled at your gasp, another small sign of inexperience, and smiled at you. "How was that?" she asked.

You were breathless, both literally and figuratively. You felt like you were floating, completely in a daze after what just happened. "It was really, really good. Thank you."

She blushed at your compliment, but laughed at your innocence. "I'm honored to have been your first," she replied with pride. "You're a fast learner. Not bad at all."

Your cheeks flushed. "Oh, I don't know about that."

"Hmm, I think I'll be the judge of that," she said as she leaned in to kiss you again.

[utilitycaster]

so, question as an inexperienced DM who's never run up against this before and is looking for advice:

I've been putting together a homebrew setting for a campaign, and from the very beginning one of my players has been extremely pushy with me about it (attempted to wedge in a homebrew race of theirs, repeated attempts to horn in published races that I said were no-gos bc they wanted to minmax, ignored my explanations of specific aspects of the setting and then got mad when I said "no, that's not how this works"). it's to the point where I've asked them to leave the table if they won't play by my (extremely lax) rules, and they immediately guilt-tripped me about it for several hours, pitched a big fit when I continued to enforce things, and attempted to slander me behind my back to the other players. we managed to work through most of the issues I've already mentioned, but I'm worried about it happening again, bc this player has never let anything go in their life.

the question is, what—if anything—can I do about this? if I actually try to kick this player out of my group, they'll ruin my friendship with most of the others, but their refusal to listen and respect me as the DM is making my job way more stressful than it should be.

Hi anon, this is a tough one not because I feel it's that ambiguous a situation, but because there's no answer that works out for everything. Also, as someone who has let precious few things go in my life I do have a certain impatience with people who don't realize that there is, in fact, a time to step off.

Obviously I only have your side of things but as described this player is being completely unreasonable and pushy. I also have mentioned the NADDPod Dungeon Court episodes before, and while they are very funny one thing I appreciate about them is that the group discusses that while the DM has a huge amount of control over the story, they also are putting in tons more work. I really do think there's a certain attitude that's not universal but definitely floats around D&D playing spaces that the DM is here to as I think I said recently, build a playground for the players' OCs. They're not. They're allowed to want things and to say no to things like a homebrewed race (seriously that is uh....fucking ridiculous).

I cannot promise that this will work out, but I do know that if I saw this as another player, I'd be furious at this player. In fact I've been on the opposite side, as a player at a virtual table where slightly less pushy behavior of this type is happening, and the DM has been something of a pushover, and I've been furious at this player. I really don't know what your other players are like, but I wouldn't necessarily assume that they would end their friendship with you. I seriously wonder if this is something of a broken stair scenario in which everyone secretly wishes this player would leave but assumes everyone else likes them and doesn't want to make waves.

I'd approach this in two parts:

The first is to call for anonymous feedback (with the free online survey tool of your choosing). Keep it neutral, but ask "Is there anything that's working for you/not working for you/feedback for me or the group" and see if the other players say anything to the effect of "Yeah actually <shitty player> is making it hard to enjoy myself." Again, it's just a hunch but I would jump at the chance to say "this player is driving me up the fucking wall."

If you get a few responses of "I'm frustrated w/<shitty player>" then I think it's easy; you can in fact just kick them out, which will be tense but won't damage the other friendships to the extent you fear. And, in the unlikely but possible event that the other players do wish that you were indulging this player's bullshit more? I think it's okay to come back and let the group know that you heard their feedback, and you don't think you are at a place where you can run the game they are looking for. I get that this is deeply frustrating and going to suck but I'm of the mind that bad D&D can be worse than no D&D and this goes tenfold when you're the DM. I think it would be ok to propose that maybe the group do a bunch of one-shots and rotate, or someone else take over, or you play GM-less games.

The second path forward is if the anon survey is inconclusive - the other players don't say "oh my god please kick out <shitty player>" nor do they say "oh my god <shitty player> is right". This is frustrating. Here's how I'd handle it.

I'd start having the conversations with this player in front of everyone. This is going to be awkward. It's also really hard to keep calm when someone is being this much of an asshole and I fail at it all the time, but it is absolutely crucial. Feel free to find a third party friend if you can to have practice convos or to do a pass at your language but essentially, if this player acts up, you can stop the game and say "I'm sorry, but this is how the setting works."

You can also, if you really want to go hard but be mature about it, ask for a conversation with everyone present after a session (or if you have to cut a session short even) and say something to the effect of "<shitty player's name>, I feel as though you don't want to play the same kind of game that I'm trying to present here. That's okay, but in that case, I don't think this game is for you. I'm also very concerned that you've tried to misrepresent our conversations to the other players here. How would you like to move forward?"

Basically: do it in front of the other players not to call this person out and humiliate them, but because this person has tried to slander you when you've talked to them separately. Again: can't promise the other players will side with them but I really do think it's possible they're also frustrated by this person and just don't know how to express it.

Anyway, my point is, again, this is going to kind of suck, but I do think there are ways to do all you can preserve the friendships with the people you do like, even if it means having to end the game. The good news about DM-ing is that you can usually find a group who wants a DM, so you won't be without a game for too long if you have to stop this one. Good luck, and if you do enact any of these I would love to know how it goes (even if it goes super badly and you want to scream at me).

[silentfcknhill]

FAVORITE SHOWS IN POSTERS

Well, we’re back for another installment of this tagged meme, this time for TV shows! I also stole this from/was indirectly tagged by @jcmorrigan. My taste in shows also differs a bit from my taste in movies, as I tend to like a lot of comedy shows with not as many horror ones. I’m not into shows as much as movies overall, but there are some that I am very passionate about so I picked twenty again. So, here we go for part 2, in order:

1. Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Legend Of Korra (2005-2014)

I'm including these as one show since they take place in the same universe and tell a continuation of the same overall plot. Altogether this is probably the best piece of media to ever exist, including movies. It has so many great characters and villains especially and some of the most epic sequences, charming humor and heartwarming moments ever. I've never met a person who didn't like these shows, even people who normally don't like cartoons. My dad, who is biased against animation? He loved it. My mother? She loved it, watched it with her multiple times. My grandmother? Loved it. My ex-boyfriend? Loved it. My best friend? Loved it. I dare anyone not to, and I'm so glad it's making a resurgence since it's on Netflix for a new generation to enjoy.

2. Black Butler (2008-2014)

I never was big into anime growing up and only really started watching anime when I was like 16 and above, but this is one of the exceptions because holy shit is it ever dark and epic. I'm not sure I'd really recommend it for kids, it's more of a teens and young adults kind of anime and that's probably why it's so good, because it isn't afraid to explore dark and mature topics and do it with all of the intensity and gravitas required to do said topics justice. It has lots of great characters, and the story of demons who make deals with children who have a dark side is fun to watch play out.

3. Seinfeld (1989-1998)

My dad was a huge fan of this show so I watched it growing up since I was a toddler and it became a classic for me. I've watched thw hole show through at least 8 times, and I'll never stop because it never gets old or boring. It's also my only comfort show when I'm having a panic attack because of one time a few years ago when I was having a drug-induced psychosis episode and watching it calmed me down, so now it's like the opposite of a trigger and whenever I'm having an episode or something I watch it to bring me back to reality. For that reason it's more than a show to me, it's a medical treatment and I'm forever grateful to it.

4. The Good Place (2016-2020)

The big four shows made my Michael Schur all made it on this post (The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Office and Parks And Recreation), either in the main list of the honorable mentions, but this is my personal favorite of the four. It's so funny, quirky, relatable and basically tailor-made to suit my interests. Not only is it an entertaining and wholesome show, but I think watching it helped me come to terms with a lot of things like mortality, ethics, philosophy, religion and my relationships with other people. It gets  alot of different viewpoints across and if you're a very analytical and philosophical person like me you'll probably enjoy seeing it all play out. Not to mention, every single character is 'favorite character' material. It's rare you find a show with no filler characters in the main cast, but I genuinely can't choose who is best.

5. Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013-?)

Another of Michael Schur's shows, this one is just barely under The Good Place and to be honest it was tough to pick my favorite between the two because they're both equally funny. I know it's kind of controversial right now because of the whole law enforcement thing, but I actually think they do a good job of handling social issues in the show and remaining respectful of real-life systemic problems. As for the characters, this is another one of those shows where every single character is gold and I think that tends to be a trend among Schur's shows in general. He produces damn good comedy, and damn good characters. I can't wait to see what they bring next.

6. Rick And Morty (2013-?)

This is unfortunately one of those cases of 'great show, horrible fandom' and for that reason I don't get involved in the fandom even though I love the show. It's a shame because it really is a great show, so funny and, again, such good characters. I think it's a lot more accessible than the fandom likes to claim, so I'm hoping more people will give it a chance and not get put off by the intellectual elitism of the fandom because it does have some of the most entertaining and batshit crazy episodes ever, poking fun of some of the staples of science fiction in media while also poking fun of itself the whole time. Unlike the fandom, the show doesn't take itself seriously and that's enjoyable nowadays.

7. Orange Is The New Black (2013-2019)

While this show is a comedy, it is also a lot of other things and it's probably made me ugly-cry just as many times as it's made me laugh. Well, maybe not as often, but those few scenes (if you've watched the show then you know the ones I'm talking about) made me hysterically sob hard enough to be worth like fifty minor sads. But I didn't even mind because the show is just that good, and it makes you /feel/ something in a real way. Probably because of just how real it gets in terms of telling stories that happen all the time in the real world, sometimes with inevitably tragic endings. But these things do happen every day, and it's important to shine a light on that. It's not just representation for LGBTQ+ but also for POC, the neurodiverse, the poor, and many more. Give it a watch to broaden your perspective!

8. Big Mouth (2017-?)

This is probably the grossest show I've ever seen but by god is it ever funny. Maybe it's because I have an immature sense of humor or something, but I love this show. It definitely won't be everyone's cup of tea and I don't recommend you watch this show with anyone else around because it will get awkward. I think part of its appeal to me is that everyone I talk to who likes it considers it so relatable to their lives growing up but for someone like me who grew up on the autism and asexual spectrum and who was physically an early-bloomer by years, nothing about this show is relatable to me in any way so it makes it all the more crazy and bizarre watching how the people around me must have experienced things. Did y'all really have these experiences with puberty in middle school???

9. Dexter (2006-2013)

I recently heard that this show is coming back for a reboot soon and I'm so excited because this is my absolute favorite drama/thriller show, as evidenced by the fact that it's the highest one on the list so far that isn't a comedy. I love the idea of having a protagonist who is sort of a villain (or at least morally dubious), and the idea of a serial killer who only kills bad people is particularly satisfying for some reason. Maybe because he's the vigilante we all deserve and want in this unjust and evil world of modern times? Idk but the very premise of this show set it up for big things and aside from the ending I think it delivered consistently.

10. Once Upon A Time (2011-2018)

This show took us on some journeys, and you can't deny that. Sure, maybe it didn't always finish what it started and didn't always end in the most satisfying way, but part of its charm is that you didn't care because the experience was just so much fun. They took characters and stories that have been told to death and somehow managed to put a unique and unexpected twist on them, and that alone is admirable. Good twists, good villains, and pretty much every cliffhanger known to man will keep you hooked on binge-watching every episode.

11. RuPaul's Drag Race (2009-?)

A bit different than the other entries on my list in that it's not fiction but a reality competition show, but I couldn't leave Drag Race out because it's just so fucking iconic and perfect. Even when you disagree with the judges or can't stand a certain contestant you'll still be having a good time. It's got the personalities you love to love, the ones you love to hate, and the comedy that's completely meme-able. I mean just how much has this show contributed to pop culture and the internet? More than most of us, henny. I've watched every single season, even the international ones and all of the spinoffs. This show will probably be on for another thirty years when Ru is throwing shade from a hospital bed and I'll still be watching.

12. House (2004-2012)

Some people hate on this show, and I don't get it. I love House. Yes, he's an ass. That's the point. He's supposed to be unlikeable, and that's why I like him. Maybe because I always love the rude, sarcastic, misanthropic jerkass-genius characters for some reason. And I also love procedural shows, so it's a win-win. I also work in the healthcare field so it appeals to me for that reason too, because obviously the whole premise is outlandish which is what makes it funny. Of course it's not realistic for a hospital, so just enjoy the absurdity and don't get too hung up on the details of medical accuracy and professional ethics and you'll be fine.

13. The Office (2005-2013)

The third of Michael Schur's show and the last one that made the main list (sorry Parks And Rec, I love you too but there was just so many good shows to choose from and I saw you last so the nostalgia isn't as strong!) I don't think I need to hype this show up any, it's already a classic and you can't even turn around online without getting hit in the face by a dozen Office memes. You'll have to pry this show and it's relatable characters (especially Michael Scott) from my cold, dead hands.

14. All Hail King Julien/The Penguins Of Madagascar (2008-2017)

Like Avatar/Korra, I also consider this as one show for the sake of this list because it also takes place in the same universe (Madagascar, specifically) and I just couldn't choose one over the other because they're both so perfect. They're funny and I love all the characters (it cut out the weaker links of the Madagascar film series and just focuses on expanding the standout side-characters like King Julien and the penguins). It also delved into some lore, particularly the first show, and even though I didn't also agree with the directions it took (you may have seen me get salty about the ending because I cared too much), I can't deny how much I love it.

15. Bones (2005-2017)

One of the other scarce non-comedy shows on this list, it still has it's funny moments. It's also, like House, another procedural show that involves some medical stuff, but this time on a more scientific and forensic level which is even more interesting. It's nice to see a lead female with Asperger's, too. There's a lot of cop/law enforcement shows where they try to solve crimes, but this one is the best, and I'm saying that as a fan of CSI as well. Don't fight me on this, I'm right. Oh yes, it's corny, it's campy, it's cheesy, but I love every minute of it. Don't watch if you have a weak stomach though.

16. The Simpsons (1989-?)

We all grew up with this show, don't lie. It's been around longer than most people on tumblr have even been alive. Should it have ended seasons ago? Hell yes. But that doesn't take away what the first like 20 or so seasons gave us (there's a lot of argument about when the show jumped the shark, for me it wasn't until much later than the popular consensus). The characters are amazing, but the secret to the show's longevity is that they always return to status quo and there's comfort and nostalgia in that. Bart will still be in 4th grade when you're out there pushing 90. This show is persistent. This show is eternal. This show will outlive us all.

17. Ash Vs. Evil Dead (2015-2018)

Sorely underrated. This show is hilarious, gruesome and campy as hell and I love it. I don't think you necessarily have to watch the Evil Dead movies beforehand in order to get the plot of the show, although it would probably help. In my opinion this show ended way too soon and I'm hoping someday we'll get a comeback because Ash is the reluctant, self-absorbed hero we all need and it's 2020 so at this point there really might actually be a demon-zombie apocalypse and who's gonna save us then if not for the impulsive womanizer with a chainsaw for a hand?

18. Malcolm In The Middle (2000-2006)

Another show I grew up with, I don't think it gets as much credit as it deserves. It has some damn funny episodes and great characters, and it did a lot of the popular sitcom tropes before they were 'cool'. Some other great sitcoms, The Middle in particular, took a lot of influence from this show and it helped pave the way for the future of sitcoms at a time when they were about to make a comeback. If you want a good show about the real experiences of growing up, this is a much more accurate representation of the highs and lows of being an awkward tween from a dysfunctional home.

19. A Series Of Unfortunate Events (2017-2019)

Unlike most people I actually liked the movie version from the early 2000's, and I read the books growing up so I was excited when I saw there was a live action television adaptation of it on Netflix because I felt like they cancelled the movie franchise too soon. I was interested to see how new actors would handle the roles, and I was not disappointed. I wouldn't say I liked either portrayal of the characters better or worse, they both added their own twist to it and this show is a great and loyal adaptation to the books, probably because the author was so heavily involved. He knew just when to stick to the books and when to improve upon what he had done with the benefit of hindsight. This show is basically the books, but remastered.

20. Winx Club (2004-?)

Sort of an odd one out on this list, but I really love this show even as an adult and it may surprise you to learn it is still going on and the most recent season came out last year. They take big breaks sometimes in between seasons, but it's still going strong and in multiple countries. The only thing I don't like about watching this show is all the different and inconsistent dubs since the original show is Italian and each dub only goes for a couple seasons so by the time you get used to one set of voices/names for the characters oyu have to abruptly switch to another, but it's still worth it for the beautiful animation and cool characters (especially the villains!)

Honorable Mentions: 

13 Reasons Why, America's Next Top Model, American Horror Story, Arrested Development, Bates Motel, Battlestar Galactica, Black Mirror, Care Bears, Chernobyl, Courage The Cowardly Dog, Criminal, CSI, Duck Dodgers, Goosebumps, Kenny Vs. Spenny, Kim Possible, Kingdom Hospital, Lazytown, Lost, Making A Murderer, Mayday, Mindhunter, Modern Family, Monster High, Obsession: Dark Desires, Parks And Recreation, Prison Break, Project Runway, Queer As Folk, Queer Eye, Salem, Schitt's Creek, SCTV, Spongebob Squarepants, The Emperor's New School, The Good Doctor, The Haunting Of Hill House/Bly Manor, The Middle, The Pretender, The Walking Dead, The X-Files, Through The Wormhole, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Unsolved Mysteries, Yugioh

Tagging: @bullet-farmer​ and anyone else who wants to!

[tommyspeakycap]

Uncle Charlie and the Shelby sis?

omg i love this idea !!!!

I actually think that little Shelby would be quite close to Charlie so here’s a sweet blurb! (set in 1920 - so moving towards end of season 1. i also made up charlie’s war history as we don’t know much about it)

“Fucking, shitty, stupid bastard-”

“Oi!”

When you hear the sound of the voice cutting in likely to chastise you for your use of explicit choice language while you were practically beating the shit of the hay you were shovelling for the horses, you turn around to face him. He see’s that you look rather flustered, face a bit red as you blow a sigh past your lips and shove your hair back out of your face. “Sorry, uncle Charlie.”

“Mhm,” he nods his head, “And what’ve your brothers done this time eh?” You sigh again with some sort of disgruntled huff afterwards to display your clear irritation with the behaviour of who Charlie assumed would most likely be Tommy, Arthur at a push but very unlikely to be John. John annoyed you a lot, he knew, but never tended to make you genuinely angry. At least, never angry enough to switch off the sunshine and rainbows girl who sang and hummed while shovelling hay and horse shit.

“Tommy’s being a fucking idiot. Again.” You bite harshly.

“Oi!”

“Sorry, Charlie.”

He shakes his head at you with the very slightest of smiles. “And how’s that? What’s he done?” Your uncle grabs the spair shovel from where it was leaning against the barn door so as to join you in your cleaning of the stables. Charlie can sense the anger that had built in you from Tommy’s seemingly incessant enforcement of all sorts of new and more restrictive rules for the members of the family - especially you and slightly Ada - since he had started to try expand the business into the race tracks. He doubts this time will be any different from the last three times you’ve complained about him in the last week.

“Finn’s 11 and he gets to go with them to the races sometimes, but i’m nearly 17 and i can’t even step out the house without an escort when the boys aren’t in Small Heath. It’s so unfair!” You rant almost desperately. The frustration is clearly heard in your words, and Charlie was no fool to picking up on your feelings by the way you spoke and acted. Charlie very, very much understands your brothers desires to keep you safe; you’re his favourite if he’s totally honest. So he’s incredibly protective himself, he felt quite a sense of fatherly responsibility for you.

Charlie had gone to fight in France for around a year and a half. That definitely did a number on him, but he was transferred home after being shot. It was then that he was appointed a post on the home front as a farmer and some kind of war horse breeder and trainer because he was so good with animals. As a result, it had become his job to look after you during the years of the war that your brothers were away. Polly did your breakfasts and dinner and would make sure you were well looked after, but Charlie took you out to the farm during the day where he would make packed lunches. You would get to pick vegetables, train the sheep dogs, collect wool and the likes of that sort of work. He knew that since you were 12, had you stayed hanging around the factories in Small Heath, you might’ve ended up having to work in one, so brought you to work with him instead. It had brought you extremely close to your uncle.

It’s why now, it was his scrap yard you went to when Tommy and the rest of the family were getting to you. He would often find you there, felt like a sixth sense of some sort that he would just get a feeling you were there - if he hadn’t heard you shouting or singing. Most commonly your troubles were caused by or at least had some distant correlation to Tommy and something he had done. The head of the family does of course think through his decisions and what they’re impact will be, but the one mistake Thomas tends to make when he thinks abouts these impacts is what appears to always affect you.

And that is, that he looks for direct danger. He overthinks and spends nights riddled with fear that his plan will bring harm to those he loves. He fears Billy Kimber will come to try and take from Tommy what he holds most dear in retaliation if he doesn’t act exactly the right way. He fails to look at less direct impacts. He sees your protection escorts as keeping you from being harmed and sees keeping you in the house constantly as ensuring he knows that you’re safe, always. He doesn’t see you missing out on your youth or missing your friends or feeling threatening and anxious at the fact you’re always either in house arrest or practically with a fucking protection detail. He never thinks like that and Charlie knows that is what gets to you so much, because you just see that as he being malicious and not thinking about what’s best for you at all.

“Sometimes i just wish we were normal y’know?” The change in tone of your voice from red hot anger to a timid quite mumble tells Charlie that you’re hurting more than you may ever let on in words. “Just miss my life.” You lament lowly, dropping the shovel and instead opting to drop yourself down on a nearby haybale.

Charlie signs not in annoyance or anger, but in a kind of sympathetic way as he leans himself on his shovel and turns to face your direction. “I know you do, love. Think we all do these days. Missing your brother eh?” Charlie tries to ask you as softly as he can despite having a generally grumpy, grumbling voice. The question marks another change in your demeanour as he immediately notes that your shoulders slump and you begin clenching your jaw to try not to get all upset.

You just nod in response.

“Mhm,” Charlie hums, moving to sit on the hay bale next to you, “Though so.” He pulls you into his side and feels you shaking a little with a few small sniffles to tell him your were crying. It breaks his heart and he know it would shatter Tommy’s if he knew. He had known for weeks that part of your rage and irritation was a smoke screen for the painful fact that you just missed your brother. You missed being little and holding his hand, having him play games with you and look after you, spend time with you and have genuine, actual conversations that weren’t two minutes long, arguments or about business and rules. You were still young and the four years you’d spent without them, plus the trauma you’d gone through in your life, meant that you missed and relied upon them a lot more than most would. Your hurting heart just longed for your big brother to make all things right again, just like he used to.

Things were so much more complicated now than they were before, you knew that. But it didn’t stop the hurt, it only just made it more painful.

“Listen, hey, listen,” Charlie comforts, “It’s alright. I’ll have words with that brother of your eh?” He feels you nod your head. “Yes please.” You whisper, sniffling again.

A silence falls between you as it often does, a bubble created where you could feels your feelings and your uncle would do all that he could in his limited power to move whatever kind of mountains you needed moving so you could feel better again. It was damn near his very top priority that you were provided with a better childhood and better young adult-hood than what he was able to give the Tommy, Arthur and John.

But it just so happened that Charlie Strong made a promise to the woman he loved - your mother. The woman you were so very like. He felt it his duty to protect you like a daughter because that is what your mother would have wanted. He promised to look after you and in doing so he recognised what your brothers often didn’t. Your physical well-being wasn’t everything. Of the same importance he wanted, just as the rest of the family did, for you to be safe, happy and loved in an emotional sense. They did love you, all of them. So much it was painful and so much that it was enough to do you a lifetime; they just had such a bad way of showing it.

Charlie decided it was time now to give your older brothers a wake up call. It was time they learned how to love you in a way you understood. Killing for you and keeping you bubble wrap didn’t tell you they loved you, they had to show you in a true way. They had to tell you and hold you just like he had learned to do to show his care and love for you. He had to change to accommodate how you experienced love, so he did just that; he changed.

Charlie was determined and he held a level of authority with the boys he practically raised. So starting with Tommy, he was going to enforce that same change in order to make sure you knew just how fucking loved you were in that family.

And for Charlie Strong, all of the fighting, the pushing and the moving of seemingly unmovable mountains was worth in to no end when you mumbled, “I love you, uncle Charlie.” Against his shoulder while he hugged you tight.

“Yeah yeah, Shelby,” he sniggers, pressing a kiss on top of your head, “I love you too.”

[cyarskaren52]

Fq Florida! Will never go there not even for vacation. I’ll take two more months of cold Michigan winter before I step my pinky toe in Florida that gun shaped state has evil azz hews and clears who wants my black behind dead!

HOMELATESTCULTUREENTERTAINMENTBEAUTY/STYLEAWARDS SEASON 2023

RACE MATTERS

Woman in Fla Was Fatally Shot by Her Neighbor, But the Shooter Walked Free. Why?

This will anger you: Ajike “AJ” Owens was shot and killed by her neighbor who was allegedly yelling racial slurs at her and threatened her children.

By

Kalyn Womack

Published3 hours ago

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How does a woman get shot and killed and her shooter is still on the loose? Residents of Ocala, Florida are asking the same question in the killing of a Black woman who was gunned down by her neighbor Friday. According to NBC News, the incident was the result of an ongoing feud.

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Ajike “AJ” Owens’ children were playing in a fieldnear an apartment complex when suddenly, a white woman came from the area and began yelling racial slurs at them, according to an account from attorney Benjamin Crump. One of the children accidentally left behind their iPad which the woman seized. When the child went to retrieve it, the woman allegedly threw the device both hitting the boy and cracking the screen. The woman also allegedly threw a pair of roller skates at the children as well. 

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Naturally, the children went back home to tell their mother what happened. Owens then walked over to the neighbor’s door to speak to her about the incident but things took a fatal turn.

“She knocked on the door, and at that point, the woman allegedly shot through the door, hitting AJ, who later died from her injuries,” Crump said in the statement.

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Read more from NBC News:

At a news conference Monday, Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods did not confirm or reject Crump’s account, telling reporters he was not “going to stand here and tell you what they’re putting out there is inaccurate. It’s just I don’t know yet.” Here’s what the sheriff said he does know: - There had been a long-standing “neighborhood feud” between the shooter and Owens about her children. - The children may have been hit by an unspecified object. “Was something thrown at them? Yes, but not directly at them of what we’re being told now,” Woods said. “It just unfortunately may have hit them.” He added: “The children are a big part of answering a lot our questions.” - When Owens came to the shooter’s door, there was a heated exchange. Owens was shot through the door. - At least two of Owens’ four children may have witnessed the shooting, which occurred about 9 p.m.

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Because Florida is a good ol’ “stand your ground” state, law enforcement must determine whether Owens posed an imminent threat or was simply acting as a mother trying to get to the bottom of an attack on her children. While they dilly dally on that decision, they are not authorized to make an arrest, the Sheriff Woods said. 

Well... they made an arrest when Andrew Lester shot 16-year-old Ralph Yarl from behind his front door - the same manner Owens was shot - despite Lester’s self-defense claim that he was frightened by the teen. 

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“A closed, locked door. The door never opened. My daughter, my grandchildren’s mother, was shot and killed with her 9-year-old son standing next to her. She had no weapon. She posed no imminent threat to anyone,” Owens’ mother, Pamela Dias, said via NBC. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0221GBwwquPMbu6X7jpLb1TBsK8dyzwxzempQ4thD1EMkKSwkpXspW6GDJ87tdeRzGl&id=26423400230&mibextid=ncKXMA

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