#be a network marketing pro

[theeaglestech]

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[leadvalets]

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[network-marketing-pro-ted-wrona]

Wybory

Sami #decydujemy. To nasze #wybory.

•

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[kutputli]

Louis the "Pimp": A Rebuke and Rebuttal

OK, IWTV fandom, I have been made aware that some (many) of you are genuinely not aware of some of the anti sex work implications of your statements around Louis and pimping, so -

First of all, some ground level assumptions: I am assuming we are all pro sex workers here. Which means that we all believe in the right for adults to consent to commercial sexualised labour, and to demand ethical working conditions just like any other worker. Sex work is work etc.

Now, that stance can and must coexist with the acknowledgement that sex work has both historically and currently been coerced from marginalised communities. In my part of the world, hereditary caste based sexual enslavement is an on-going atrocity, and similarly, in the United States Black enslaved people was disproportionatey victims of commercialised sexual abuse. (This is RELEVENT to Armand and Louis so it behoves everyone to inform themselves about these realities.)

What I'm saying now comes from the scholarship and testimonies of sex workers themselves, who have always been at the forefront of advocating for themselves as communities and unions. You can and should read through the publications of the Global Network of Sex Work Projects to ground yourself in these perspectives.

The idea that its ok to be a sex worker, but that a client or a pimp or a brothel owner deserves contempt, shaming or derison is an old one, associated with the dichotomy of pitable fallen women vs dispicable emasculated men (emasculated because of the patriarchal shame of a) paying for sex and b) living off of a woman's labour). This has manifested in what is known as the Nordic model (or, hypocritically, the Equality Model) of Prostitution, where sex workers themselves are deemed nominally free to practise their trade, but clients and third parties (pimps, managers, brothel owners) are criminalised. There is unambiguous peer-reviewed data showing the failure of this approach to protecting sex workers from harm, and almost every sex worker union has denounced it.

So now let's talk about this cultural and legal contempt and criminalisation of the third party, and specifically, the pimp figure. Unlike the brothel owner, the pimp is more often from a similar class and identity as the sex worker, often sharing the same living and working spaces. Pimps are often sex workers allies and collegeaues. They provide an interface between the client and the sex worker that can help screen them for safety and security, and the remove the additional burden of soliciting and marketing from the sex worker's labour.

And because it is important to talk about specifics, a pimp in marginalised communities of sex workers is often a brother, a father, or a lover to the sex worker who faces the same casteism, racism and classism that she does. He is often the father of the sex worker's child. In India, for example, even though prostitution itself is not criminal, any adult male living with a prostitute is assumed to be guilty of being a pimp unless he can prove otherwise, and can face imprisonment of up to 2 years with a fine. One of the demands of unionised sex workers, including those in India, has been to decriminalised pimping along with sex work, not just because pimps make it safer and easier for sex workers to get clients without having to actively solicit, but also because such criminalisation actively harms family units.

Of course, there are pimps who can be abusive and exploitative. This is true of any professional relationship, and this is also true of people in romantic and sexual relationships (like marriage). But to deem a pimp inherently as an abuser carries a lot of anti sex work and racist and classist baggage with it.

Why racist (and classist and casteist etc)? Because the men with capital were (and are) not often pimps. They are landlords and investors, who ran brothels and saloons and massage parlours and dance bars and other sites where sexual labour was commercialised. To denigrate a man for being a pimp as somehow worse than being the owner of a sweatshop or farm is a way of jeering at the men who have not been able to buy themselves the luxury of distance from the exploitation they profit from. And the men of capital were and are, overwhelmingly, those from the dominant identity (White. Savarna. etc.)

So NOW, with all that necessary context in mind, let's talk about Louis and what it means when fandom firstly calls him a pimp, and then second sneers at him for his perceived behavior as one.

You know who first calls Louis a pimp?

Daniel Molloy, a white man being the brash, confrontational journalist that he has the luxury of being.

Louis accurately describes his profession managing and operating a diversified portfolio of entireprises. This translates to investing his family's sizeable trust into real estate (he owns 8 out of 24 buildings on Liberty Street) and running establishments that make money from selling liquor, organised gambling and sex work. Just as not many Black men would have been in a position of power to make a profit from a sugar plantation as Louis' great grandfather did, not many Black men would have had the capital (and the business acumen) to own and operate a series of businesses that included sex work. Infact we see him collecting his profits from a white man who was closer to the pimp role - Finn.

Reducing this to calling him a pimp is the first of many racist microaggressions we will watch Daniel make. As someone who indulged in some kind of sex work himself, one might say some of Daniel's hostility is self-loathing. Nonetheless, there is a racialised element in his contempt towards both Louis and Armand that, I would theorise, comes from the distinction made between a white, educated man choosing to recreationally whore himself for drugs, and a Black man who earned a living from other people's sex work, or a Brown man who is perceived as a rent boy.

We then get to the idea of denigrating Louis' pimp-like behavior. First of all, let's look at Louis as the employer and manager of sex workers. Everything we have seen about him shows him to be courteous, considerate, and professional. His guilt at the entire situation of how sex work operates aside (and we can agree that it must have been exploitative and even abusive in general, and that he was complicit in such a system, as any capitalist is) - MOST importantly, we never see Louis doing the thing that patriarchy really resents a pimp for - sampling the goods for free. We never see him use his power over the sex workers he employs to get favours.

In fact he makes it clear that he visits Miss Lily precisely because she is part of a different establishment, and that both of them being Black in a majority white situation places them on a more equal footing. Watching Louis with Miss Lily, both is how he is with her sexually as well as socially, gives you the clearest evidence of how he behaves around sex workers he is having a relationship with. (Contrast that to Lestat, who buys her time and body as an act of one-upmanship with no concern for her preference, and then who kills her out of jealousy.)

So - Was Louis a pimp? No. Was Louis an abusive pimp? Also No.

Then why does the fandom continue to deploy this term in relationship to him?

It's racism, your honour. (The answer is almost always racism.)

To unpack this, lets jump forward from the 1910s where, again I remind you - very very few Black men in the United States were in any position to operate as fashionable brother owners with wealth to spare.

We now move to the 1980s, when one (but not the only!) sub-genre of rap was evolving - gangsta rap. In this sub-genre, Black musical artists like Too Short and Ice T were creating and more pertinently making accessible to white America, the signifier of the Black pimp figure. This drew from 1960s Black culture-making around West Coast pimps like Iceberg Slim, but also from an older storytelling tradition that linked the figure of the pimp with the archetype of the trickster. I'm not going to cite the wealth of literature you can find that theorises this, (nor defensively provide the mass of nuanced critique that Black feminists have offered) because the limited point I wish to make is -

When white America began enjoying (and appropriating) rap and hip-hop culture, one of the tropes it started perpetuating with the shallowest of understanding of its origins, was that of the specifically Black pimp. A figure who displayed wealth, but without (white-signifying) class, who was sexually active in a racialised hypermasculine way, but both a threat to women and contemptibly a leech off them.

THIS is the pimp archetype that is being evoked when fandom talks about Louis's 'pimp'ness.

It is racist. It is ahistorical and canonically unfactual.

It is also needlessly contemptuous of the sex workers (labourers and third parties alike) who are part of the community here on tumblr, so often praised as one of the spaces that is friendly to them.

Maybe think about all of that the next time you choose to use the word 'pimp'.

[menonlywrestling]

San Francisco 1960-1985. Part 2

The Lion Lounge was the worlds longest running all male strip club. It was in SF, open seven days a week, and between 1960 and 1985 was owned and run by partners Eddie Jones and Raymond O'Hare.

Eddie and Ray were huge pro wrestling nerds and actually met at a pro show in 1950, so when they bought the Lion Lounge they knew they wanted to feature live underground pro wrestling shows. There was an underserved market of pro fans who preferred their wrestling more 'intimate', and they planned to serve it. And then some.

In the main bar upstairs is where the strippers would work, however it was downstairs where the best action happened, if you were a pro wrestling fan. Only accessible by 'downstairs' club members, the basement was a dark, cozy affair, with room for around 40 members. There was a small bar at the back of the room and a pro wrestling ring in the middle of the room.

Things started off slow, as they gradually introduced the wrestling shows. The lounge had always been a strip joint, so that element kept the dollars coming in. They put on some small invite only shows, hoping to build up a following through word of mouth. It worked, and within six months there were wrestling shows every night, with a waiting list for membership. They also built up a network of wrestlers of all sizes, ages and styles, who'd come and wrestle every week. Other wrestlers who were in town for a few days or weeks would come down and wrestle too. It was a great way to make some extra cash, especially if you caught the eye of wealthy member. SF was a destination for a lot of people escaping their shitty small towns/relationships/lives etc, who wanted a new start. If they could wrestle they could try out. Eddie and Ray really looked after all their wrestlers, particularly the younger ones, or the ones down on their luck. Helping them find places to stay or get jobs, or medical attention and provide them with wrestling gear. Younger wrestlers who didn't cut it in the ring were often employed as bar/waiting staff or busboys etc. The older wrestlers would often be employed as bouncers. Some wrestlers came and went, others stayed over 20 years, in various roles. Lifelong friendships were made, tag teams formed, relationships blossomed along with flings, rivalries, fall outs, affairs and jealousies.

Friday and Saturday nights were dedicated to sex wrestling, featuring more defined, clean cut looking types. The wrestling was real, but the sex/gimmick was the focus on these nights, with oil, rip and strip, mud wrestling etc. Sometimes the guys would just wrestle naked.

The 'proper' pro action happened on the other nights. There was usually 3 matches per night, with a sex round after each bout, where the winner fucked the loser. If the match was a draw then the audience would decide who topped who.

Mondays was always the newcomers night, where the younger wrestlers would face off. It was vital to do well here to try and bump yourself up the card, get yourself more matches in the coming weeks and months, and most importantly gain fans, who'd want to come and see you every time you wrestled.

Tuesdays was for the more established younger wrestlers, while Wednesdays was the night for the members who liked to watch a mix of older vs younger fights (bear vs cub was popular) and dad/son vs dad/son tag matches.

Thursdays and Sundays were the nights for the popular big boys and Lion Lounge championship title holders. These were the nights to see some really incredible singles and tag matches with the most popular men. Always a mix of tough technical matches and all out bloody brutal brawls. There would always be at least one chain match on a Sunday. V popular with the leather/S&M crowd.

Outside, the venue would have photos in display cases (taken in a small studio at the top of the building by Eddie) showing that weeks performers. On one side of the entrance would be the strippers, the other side would be the wrestlers.

The images here are of some of the wrestlers over the years.

[waitmyturtles]

THE MORNING AFTER: ONLY FRIENDS, EPISODE 12 -- WHEN ONLY FRIENDS GOT 2GETHER-ED

TRIGGER WARNING: EVERYONE'S UP FOR CRITICISM HERE, JOJO AND TEAM, FORCEBOOK, FIRSTKHAO, ALL OF THEM. Read at your peril.

Well. Big deep breaths. I spent a lot of time on a show that had been marketed as not-a-BL, that ended as a BL. As a mom with not that much time to spend on watching and writing on dramas that were marketed incorrectly, I am feeling some kinda way (fucking pissed off).

So many people had amazing takes yesterday, on both sides of the aisle, regarding how the show ended (pro-ending here, anti-ending here, here, here, here, here, and here, and my dear friends @neuroticbookworm and @lurkingshan did heavy lifting on reblogs yesterday, so stroll on over to their blogs for more).

I want to set up a constellation of points to touch upon before I get into the meat of this post.

1) I referred quite a bit to my review of Theory of Love throughout my watch of Only Friends. In that review, I meditate on how the majority of the general global public judges sex, and casual sex, and people who have sex and/or casual sex. Generally speaking -- even in countries that makes as progressive art on sex and sexuality as Thailand and the United States -- that's a rule of thumb that I can rely on. Sex is judged by the majority of the global public.

2) I hate to say it. I cannot believe this happened. But I was right about monogamy being an ultimate theme in Only Friends. Not just a theme, fam. A theme by which people judged others for having open, casual, and consensual sex. Queer sex. Queer sex that is so very often had outside of the constraints of a monogamous relationship.

There was a reason why that holiday party was populated by couples, except for Boston, and Boston had to grovel to them in apology for their friendship. In Only Friends: monogamy wins, and casual queer sex loses.

3) Unfortunately, in part though an analysis of Cheum inside of last week that I accidentally started (ha), I see that points 1 and 2 come together to have created a fabric and framework of judgement that Only Friends ended on.

The last paragraph in this excellent post by @benkaaoi notes that the assumption by a large portion of the OF fandom that the creative choices that were made to end this series were designed to save the sanctity -- economic and otherwise -- of the shipped pairs of ForceBook and FirstKhao. This rings true to me.

Most of the BL shows that I've watched this year are older shows, through my Old GMMTV Challenge, in which I've been studying the changes over time that GMMTV and other Thai networks, have made towards their editorial choices, attitudes, and risks in producing BLs. I included Only Friends on this syllabus to note the show's impact as a kind of zeitgeist measure of how much heat and literary controversy GMMTV could take in airing increasingly progressive queer media -- even though Only Friends wasn't originally intended to be a BL.

To the theory that Only Friends needed to save the ships... and to another theory that the ships needed to be saved in the most moralistically judgmental way that I could have ever imagined (I was actually blown away by how heavy-handed this messaging was) -- I look to the ending of 2gether.

The majority general reaction to the ending of 2gether from within the existing BL fandom in 2020, was one of guffawed incredulousness. BrightWin/SarawatTine did not kiss in the first season of 2gether. It took Aof Noppharnach to come in to make Still 2gether to indicate that these two young men may have been at least vaguely sexual with each other throughout the course of their fictional relationship.

Yet, 2gether was a massive success. Many theorize it was because 2gether was the first big BL to air during the start of the COVID pandemic, and new BL fans had time to be at home and watch shows. But I posit in my 2gether/Still 2gether review that 2gether was also successful PRECISELY BECAUSE IT LACKED SEX (and by sex here, I mean plain old kissin').

As I stated earlier: sex is judged by the majority of the global public. With BrightWin NOT kissing, new fans who may have been implicitly and/or explicitly turned off by physical depictions of queer love could glom comfortably onto 2gether, and watch a BL without the "threat" of physical depictions of two men expressing their love to each other.

Subsequently, BrightWin gained massive social media followings, 2gether made GMMTV buckets of money, and GMMTV went -- well, hot diggity.

Many of us had impressions of Only Friends as...something else than it ended up being. Early on, Jojo Tichakorn, for instance, cited an early non-GMMTV, non-BL show, Gay OK Bangkok, that he and Aof Noppharnach worked on in 2016 and 2017, as being referential to Only Friends. Gay OK Bangkok centered on a group of queer friends, mostly cisgender men with Jennie Panhan in the mix, as they lived their lives and dated away in Bangkok.

I'll tell ya, GOKB didn't end the way Only Friends did, and I'll get into that more in a bit. I believe @benkaaoi, @lurkingshan, and others are absolutely right that the ultimate moralization on casual sex that this show depicted -- and how Only Friends punished Boston for his casual sex -- was an economic decision designed to reflect on the sanctity of monogamy that shipped couples like ForceBook and FirstKhao can sell back to their fans, fans that may have actually flocked to GMMTV shows from 2gether, and that demand a fantasy of devoted monogamy from both fictional characters and professional actors who are actually only just doing fan service to earn their livings. GMMTV has known for a long time how to make money, and money the network doth has made from Only Friends, and from shipping their ships around the world to service the growing fandom.

Casual sex in fiction, casual sex that breaks up the ships.... fucks that economic shit all up.

GMMTV has taught us our lesson, a lesson that we had already learned from the no-kissing rule of 2gether. Loose lips shall not sink ships at this network. And I think we lost a chance for a big and progressively artistic zeitgeist that GMMTV could have taken risks on, if it had the courage to risk depicting something truly novel.

I want to note quickly another framework that I dug into while I was watching this show. I sent a flare to @lurkingshan before I started watching the episode that I was going to, in part, watch this last episode from my personal Asian lens. I wanted to ask myself, as I was watching this disaster -- is there anything happening here that strikes my heart with fear and doom as an Asian?

Indeed, yes. I didn't expect it, but there was a dialogue on individualism vs. collectivism.

Boston. My dear, sweet Boston. Boston, named after a city so very distant from Bangkok.

Boston was punished by his group of friends because he didn't adhere to the rules of the group. His individualistic actions and preferences -- his preferences to "roll alone," as Nick stated, would not work in the frameworks of either monogamy with Nick and/or the group dynamics of the hostel crew.

The link I linked above is an amazing answer to an inquiry I posed to dear @absolutebl last year about how Asian social collectivist paradigms are depicted in BLs. In that question-and-answer dialogue, I asked ABL Sensei about the motif of queer revelations in BLs, and how seemingly straight characters respond in kind to being approached with a proposition to a queer dalliance and/or relationship. Generally speaking, the Asian collectivist mindset is to at least attempt to respond in kind to those kinds of propositions, as one's behavioral habits are designed to be responsive to others instinctually, as opposed to only servicing oneself. To only service oneself is not only seen as selfish, but also as disturbing to the general flow of public existence among one's societies. To respond in kind means that you will not cause potentially disturbing angst to another individual or group. (Collectivism explains why Asian countries performed much better with mask mandates during the pandemic than we in the States did.)

So -- Boston filming Ray, Boston sleeping with Top, created waves in the friend group. He was so severely punished for it.

And the show iterates, and repeats, Nick's preference that Boston move forward alone in Boston's life, because of Boston's tendencies to make decisions that suit himself. As an Asian-American, I mutter to myself: god forbid.

Nick will not commit to Boston -- and yet, will also condemn Boston for making his own decisions outside of the specter of a monogamy that does not exist between Nick and Boston, and that Boston will still get judged for, as referenced in the Sand/Nick conversation depicted above.

In other words: if Boston makes a decision for himself? That's punishable. Because it might hurt someone else's feelings -- a someone else that actually hasn't committed to Boston, and/or allowed Boston to commit himself to.

This group caught Boston in a moralistic and collectivist catch-22, the likes of which I just would have never expected from Jojo and team, even if the creative team faced the economic pressures of the GMMTV bigwigs. I'm sorry to state that I am beyond disappointed in this condemnation of individualism, sending Boston alone, judged, and friendless, off to New York City to live in, what, the immoral boundaries of Chelsea? Homey, get a fucking SWEET-ASS PAD, and FUCK THESE LOSERS, leave 'em BEHIND in your cloud of airplane gas emissions. See you at the La Quinta rooftop bar on 32nd Street, friendo.

Only Friends could have ended so much better. And I understand that in the Only Friends novel, published AFTER the script was finished, that it did end somewhat better for Boston (cc @jinitak, reporting from Thailand, thank you for this heads-up about the novel!).

So. Any-fucking-way. Do y'all know how Gay OK Bangkok ended?

Of many lovely endings for the various GOKB characters, an older main character, Aof, was dating a much younger character, Big. (CC to @neuroticbookworm for our quick convo on this last night.)

Aof was sex-averse. Big wanted lots of sex. Big slept with a lot of people. He loved Aof. Aof couldn't handle Big having sex with other people, and they broke up. It was a lovingly handled break-up, written just gorgeously by Aof Noppharnach.

After their break-up, I thought Big would disappear from the show. Instead. Instead! Nong Big, the little brother to the core group of queer friends that centered GOKB, was welcomed back with open arms. Arm, Pom, Sathang (played by an effervescent Jennie Panhan), and others toasted to Big, telling him he would always be family, no matter if him and his ex, Aof, had broken up. In the queer circles of friends that I'm a part of, exes are not as commonly excommunicated as they are in straight circles.

Only Friends could have been this. Something, a little something, like this.

Instead, Only Friends punished a friend for acting outside of the rules of their group.

Boston was punished because.... because Only Friends had to end up being a BL. For the sake of the moolah, for the sake of collectivism, for the sake of the shippers who'll buy tickets around the world to see ForceBook and FirstKhao perform fan service on stage.

I just didn't think that the show would be so brutal, on so many levels, in the end, to people who want to have casual sex. I don't think any of us expected this. But, it's over, it's done, and the piece has been said -- GMMTV said, no casual sex today, and here's how we actually feel about it.

I'll see you over on Gagaoolala for Playboyy. Deuces, OF.

(It was an absolute pleasure writing meta with the Ephemerality Squad -- onto the next one! @lurkingshan @neuroticbookworm @ranchthoughts @twig-tea @slayerkitty @thatgirl4815 @distant-screaming @clara-maybe-ontheroad)

[bonefall]

Don’t know if this is the right place to ask, but could you talk more about zoos? I’ve seen many people say that zoos are inherently exploitative and that we should instead focus on advocating for wildlife preserves, etc., but I’m not sure what to think of that. You seem to know a lot about wildlife protection, so what’s your opinion on this?

There are folks faaaar better than myself to talk about the issues of zoos specifically and I'll try to toss in some sources so you can go and learn more, but let me try and explain my mindset here.

Summary of my opinion on this: BOTH of these things can be poorly managed, and I broadly support both. They should exist in tandem. I am pro-accredited zoo and am extremely sensitive towards misinformation. I also do think the best place for animals to be is in their natural environment, but nature "preserves" aren't inherently perfect. They can also be prone to the capitalist (and colonialist) pressures that less informed people believe they're somehow immune to.

Because of the goal of my project being to make the setting of WC accurate to Northwestern England, my research is based on UK laws, ecology, and conservation programs.

On Zoos

On Nature Reserves

An Aside on Fortress Conservation

On Zoos

The legal definition of a Zoo in the UK (because that is what BB's ecological education is based around), as defined by the Zoo Licensing Act of 1981 (ZLA), is a "place where wild animals are kept for exhibition to the public," excluding circuses and pet shops (which are covered by different laws.)

This applies equally to private, for-profit zoos, as well as zoos run by wildlife charities and conservation organizations. Profit does not define a zoo. If there's a place trying to tell you it's not a zoo but a "sanctuary" or a "wildlife park," but you can still go visit and see captive wild animals, even if it's totally free, it's a marketing trick. Legally that is still a zoo in the UK.

(for fellow Americans; OUR definition is broader, more patchwork because we are 50 little countries in a trenchcoat, and can include collections of animals not displayed to the public.)

That said, there's a HUGE difference between Chester Zoo, run by the North of England Zoological Society, which personally holds the studbooks for maintaining the genetic diversity of 10 endangered species, has 134 captive breeding projects, cultivates 265 threatened plant species, and sends its members as consultants to United Nations conferences on climate change, and Sam Tiddles' Personal Zebra Pit.

Sam Tiddles' Personal Zebra Pit ONLY has to worry about the UK government. There's another standard zoos can hold themselves to if they want to get serious about conservation like Chester Zoo; Accreditation. There are two major zoo organizations in the UK, BIAZA and EAZA.

(Americans may wonder about AZA; that's ours. AZA, EAZA, and BIAZA are all members of the World Association of Aquariums and Zoos, or WAZA, but they are all individual organizations.)

A zoo going for EAZA's "accreditation" has to undergo an entire year of evaluation to make sure they fit the strict standards, and renewal is ongoing. You don't just earn it once. You have to keep your animal welfare up-to-date and in compliance or you will lose it.

The benefit of joining with an accredited org is that it puts the zoo into a huge network of other organizations. They work together for various conservation efforts.

There are DOZENS of species that were prevented from going extinct, and are being reintroduced back to their habitats, because of the work done by zoos. The scimitar-horned oryx, takhi, California condor, the Galapagos tortoise, etc. Some of these WERE extinct in the wild and wouldn't BE here if it hadn't been for zoos!

The San Diego zoo is preventing the last remaining hawaiian crows from embracing oblivion right now, a species for which SO LITTLE of its wild behavior is known they had to write the book on caring for them, and Chester zoo worked in tandem with the Uganda Wildlife Authority to provide tech and funding towards breakthroughs in surveying wild pangolins.

Don't get me wrong;

MOST zoos are not accredited,

nor is accreditation is REQUIRED to make a good zoo,

nor does it automatically PROVE nothing bad has happened in the zoo,

There are a lot more Sam Tiddles' Personal Zebra Pits than there are Chester Zoos.

That's worth talking about! We SHOULD be having conversations on things like,

Is it appropriate to keep and breed difficult, social megafauna, like elephants or cetaceans? What does the data say? Are there any circumstances where that would be okay, IF the data does confirm we can never provide enough space or stimulation to perfectly meet those species' needs?

How can we improve animal welfare for private zoos? Should we tighten up regulations on who can start or run one (yes)? Are there enough inspectors (no)?

Do those smaller zoos meaningfully contribute to better conservation? How do we know if they are properly educating their visitors? Can we prove this one way or the other?

Who watches the watchmen? Accreditation societies hold themselves accountable. Do these organizations truly have enough transparency?

(I don't agree with Born Free's ultimate conclusion that we should "phase out" zoos, but you should always understand the opposing arguments)

But bottom line of my opinion is; Good zoos are deeply important, and they have a tangible benefit to wildlife conservation. Anyone who tries to tell you that "zoos are inherently unethical" either knows very little about zoos or real conservation work, or... is hiding some deeper, more batshit take, like "having wild animals in any kind of captivity is unlawful imprisonment."

(you'll also get a lot more work done in regulating the exotic animal trade in the UK if you go after private owners, btw. zoos have nothing to do with how lax those laws are.)

Anyway I'm a funny cat blog about battle kitties, and the stuff I do for BB is to educate about the ecosystem of Northern England. If you want to know more about zoos, debunking misconceptions, and critiques from someone with more personal experience, go talk to @why-animals-do-the-thing!

Keep in mind though, again, they talk about American zoos, where this post was written with the UK in mind.

(and even then, England specifically. ALL UK members and also the Isle of Man have differences in their laws.)

(If anyone has other zoo education tumblr blogs in mind, especially if they are European, lmk and I'll edit this post)

On Nature Reserves

Remember how broad the legal definition of a zoo actually was? Same thing over here. A "nature reserve" in the UK is a broad, unofficial generic term for several things. It doesn't inherently involve statutory protection, either, meaning there's some situations where there's no laws to hold anyone accountable for damage

These are the "nature reserve" types relevant to my project; (NOTE: Ramsar sites, SACs, and SPAs are EU-related and honestly, I do not know how Brexit has effected them, if at all, so I won't be explaining something I don't understand.)

Local Wildlife Site (LWS) Selected via scientific survey and managed locally, connecting wildlife habitats together and keeping nature close to home. VERY important... and yet, incredibly prone to destruction because there aren't good reporting processes in place. Whenever a report comes out every few years, the Wildlife Trust says it often only gets data for 15% of all their registered sites, and 12% get destroyed in that timeframe.

Local Nature Reserve (LNR) A site that can be declared by a district or county council, if proven to have geographic, educational, biodiversity, or recreational value. The local authority manages this, BUT, the landowner can remain in control of the property and "lease" it out (and boy oh boy, landowners do some RIDICULOUS things)

National Nature Reserve (NNR) This is probably closest to what you think of when someone says "nature reserve." Designated by Natural England to protect significant habitat ranges and geographic formations, but still usually operates in tandem with private land owners who must get consent if they want to do something potentially damaging to the NNR.

Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) (pronounced Triple S-I) A conservation designation for a particular place, assessed and defined by Natural England for its biological or geographic significance. SSSIs are protected areas, and often become the basis for NNRs, LNRs, Ramsar sites, SACs, SPAs, etc.

So you probably noticed that 3/4 of those needed to have the private ownership problem mentioned right in the summary, and it doesn't end there. Even fully government-managed NNRs and SSSIs work with the private sectors of forestry, tourism, and recreation.

We live under Capitalism; EVERYTHING has a profit motive, not just zoos.

I brushed over some of those factors in my Moorland Research Notes and DESPERATELY tried to stay succinct with them, but it was hard. The things that can happen to skirt around the UK's laws protecting wildlife could make an entire season of Monty Python sketches.

Protestors can angrily oppose felling silver birch (a "weed" in this context which can change the ecosystem) because it made a hike less 'pretty' and they don't understand heath management.

Management can be reluctant to ban dogs and horses for fear of backlash, even as they turn heath to sward before our eyes.

Reserves can be owned by Count Bloodsnurt who thinks crashing through the forest with a pack of dogs to exhaust an animal to death is a profitable traditional British passtime.

Or you can literally just pretend that you accidentally chased a deer for several hours and then killed it while innocently sending your baying hounds down a trail. (NOTE: I am pro-hunting, but not pro-animal cruelty.)

The Forestry Commission can slobber enthusiastically while replacing endangered wildlife habitats with non-native, invasive sitka spruce plantations, pretending most trees are equal while conveniently prioritizing profitable timber species.

I have STORIES to tell about the absolute Looney Tunes bullshit that's going on between conservationists and rich assholes who want to sell grouse hunting access, but I'll leave it at this fascinating tidbit about air guns and mannequins which are "totally, absolutely there for no nefarious reason at all, certainly not to prevent marsh harriers from nesting in an area where they also keep winding up mysteriously killed in illegal snares, no no no"

BUT. Since Nature Reserve isn't a hard defined legal concept, and any organization could get involved in local conservation in the UK, and just about anyone or anything could own one... IT'S CHESTER ZOO WITH THE STEEL CHAIR!!

They received a grant in 2021 to restore habitat to a stretch of 10 miles extending outside of their borders, working with TONS of other entities such as local government and conservation charities in the process. There's now 6,000 square meters of restored meadow, an orchard, new ponds, and maintained reedbeds, because of them.

It isn't just Chester Zoo, either. It's all over the UK. Durrel Wildlife, which runs Jersey Zoo, just acquired 18,500 acres to rewild in Perthshire. Citizen Zoo is working with the Beaver Trust to bring beavers back to London and is always looking for volunteers to help with their river projects, and the Edinburgh Zoo is equipped with gene labs being used to monitor and analyze the remaining populations of non-hybrid Scottish Wildcats.

The point being,

Nature preserves have problems too. They are not magical fairy kingdoms that you put up a fence around and then declare you Saved Nature Hooray! They need to be protected. They need to be continuously assessed. They are prone to capitalist pressures just like everything else on this hell planet. Go talk to my boy Karl he'll give you a hug about it.

"Nature Preserves" are NOT an "alternative" to zoos and vice versa. They do not do the same thing. A zoo is a center of education and wildlife research which displays exotic animals. A nature preserve is a parcel of native ecosystem. We need LOTS of nature preserves and we need them well-managed ASAP.

We could never just "replace" zoos with nature preserves, and we're nowhere near the amount of protected ecosystem space to start thinking of scaling back animals in captivity. Until King Arthur comes out of hibernation to save Britain, that's the world we live in.

An Aside

My project and my research is based on the isle of Great Britain. The more I learn about the ecosystems that are naturally found there, the more venomously I reject the old lie, "humans are a blight."

YOU are an animal. You're a big one, too. You know what the role of big animals in an ecosystem are? Change. Elephants knock over trees, wolves alter the course of rivers, bison fertilize the plains from coast-to-coast. In Great Britain, that's what hominids have done for 900,000 years, their populations ebbing and flowing with every ice age.

Early farming created the moors and grazing sheep and cattle maintain it, hosting hundreds of specialist species. Every old-growth forest has signs of ancient coppicing and pollarding, which create havens for wildlife when well-managed. Corn cockle evolved as a mimic of wheat seeds, so farmers would plant it over and over within their fields.

This garbage idea that humans are somehow "separate" from or "above" nature is poison. It's not true ANYWHERE.

It contributes to an idea that our very presence is somehow damaging to natural spaces, and to "protect" it, we have to completely leave it alone. NO! Absolutely NOT! There are places where we have to limit harvesting and foot traffic, but humans ALWAYS lived in nature.

Even the ecosystems that this mindset comes from rejects it, but this shit doesn't JUST get applied to British people who become alienated and disconnected from their surroundings to the point where they don't know what silver birch does.

It's DEADLY for the indigenous people who protect 80% of our most important ecosystems.

It's a weapon against the Maasai people, stopped from hunting or growing crops on their own land. It's violence for 9 San hunters shot at by a helicopter with a "kill poachers on-sight" policy, as one of the world's LARGEST diamond mines operates in the same motherfucking park. The Havasupai people are kept out of the Grand Canyon that they managed for generations because they might "collect too many nuts" and starve squirrels, Dukha reindeer herders suddenly get banned from chopping wood or fishing, and watch wolves decimate their animals in the absence of their herding dogs.

It's nightmare after nightmare of human displacement in the name of "conservation."

That all ties back to that mindset. This idea that nature is pure, "pristine," and should be totally untouched. There are some starting to call it Fortress Conservation.

You can't begin to understand the criticisms of modern conservation without acknowledging that we are still living under the influence of capitalism and colonialism. Those who fixate on speaking for "animals/nature/trees who don't have a voice" often seem to have no interest in the indigenous people who do.

Listen. There's no simple answer; and the solution will vary for each region.

Again, my project is within the UK, one of the most ecologically devastated areas in the world. There are bad zoos that the law allows a pass. There are incredible zoos that are vital to conservation, in and outside of the country. There's not enough nature preserves. The best ones that exist are often exploited for profit.

I hope that my silly little blog sparks an interest in a handful of people to understand more about their own local ecosystems, and teaches folks about the unique beauty even within a place as "boring" as England.

But, my straightforward statement is that I have no patience for nonconstructive, broad zoo slander that lumps together ALL of them, and open contempt for anyone who tries to sell nature preserves like a perfect, morally superior "alternative." We need them BOTH right now, and we need to acknowledge that zoos AND preserves have legal and ethical issues that aren't openly talked about.

[olderthannetfic]

Why do some people with failed arts careers not understand that they were either not skilled enough or not lucky enough, and blame external circumstances? (e.g. recession, covid, ect)

--

Well, if you're including luck, isn't trying to go pro at art right as a pandemic hits a matter of exactly that?

I mostly left L.A. because I wanted to have a baby while there was still time, and I was also becoming more interested in writing than in editing, but the pandemic didn't exactly encourage me to stick it out either.

Skill is rarely the issue unless you mean skill at networking and marketing yourself. Mostly, to succeed at arts, people need stamina and enough savings to just keep trying for a long-ass time.

If you need money right now and nobody's helping with rent, you're probably not going to make it, while somebody with a better support system and fewer dependents will.

[mariacallous]

It's election season in Eastern Europe, and for the Kremlin -- bogged down in Ukraine and desperately in need of allies -- the stakes are higher than ever.

Moldova is holding a presidential election and referendum on October 20 that could help secure the country's future in the EU. Romania has just banned a pro-Kremlin rabble-rouser from running in its November presidential election. And the pro-Kremlin, far-right Revival party in Bulgaria is expected to win a sizable presence in parliament after upcoming elections.

So what is the Kremlin -- and its populist regional allies -- pulling from its playbook to influence the votes?

Don't Be Too Fussy About Who You Work With

Plan A, according to Anton Shekhovtsov, a Ukrainian political scientist and expert on the far right, "was always to cooperate with mainstream forces" and then corrupt them to align with Russian foreign policy interests.

In some countries, Plan A has worked, with the Kremlin maintaining good relations with politicians such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.

"The problem for Moscow," Shekhovtsov said, "is that mainstream forces are less likely than the populists to cooperate with Russia, especially after 2014 (the annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula) and even more so after February 2022 (Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine)."

That has meant increasingly falling back on Plan B. "Russia has tended to align with far-right parties," said Mitchell Orenstein, professor of Russian and East European studies at the University of Pennsylvania, "but it will also form alliances with far-left parties and even support centrist parties to some extent."

Acting pragmatically and working with the political fringes can sometimes bear fruit. For years, Revival leader Kostadin Kostadinov operated in extremist circles, once referring to Romany people as "parasites" and venomously castigating migrants. But now his party, which has opposed democratic reforms and advocated for Bulgaria's withdrawal from NATO, is tipped to finish as high as second in the October 27 parliamentary elections.

Be Careful With The Bags Of Cash

Authorities in Moldova -- which has struggled to shake off Kremlin influence and still has more than 1,000 Russian troops stationed in the breakaway region of Transdniester -- recently announced they had uncovered a scheme led by Ilan Shor, a pro-Russian fugitive accused of the country's biggest-ever bank fraud, to buy votes and disseminate false information about the EU, with more than 130,000 Moldovans receiving over $15 million in Russian cash in September alone.

Such schemes, however, are rarely discovered -- and often very hard to prove, with financial support masked by shell companies and offshore accounts. And for the Kremlin, direct financing is a risky tactic. "They are being very, very cautious," Shekhovtsov said, as "we're talking about criminal activity here because there are no taxes [and parties are] taking money from a foreign power."

A Deluge Of Disinformation

For the Kremlin, a cheaper and more efficient way of boosting its allies in Eastern Europe is to flood the market with disinformation.

In addition to Russian state outlets such as RT, "Russia has websites in different European languages that promote messages beneficial to antiestablishment, populist forces," Shekhovtsov said. "This compensates for the populists' lack of media influence in their own countries."

U.S. tech giant Meta said on October 11 that it had deleted a network of accounts aimed at Russian-speaking Moldovans, which spread pro-Russian content and ran pages masquerading as independent news outlets.

Such operations are often part of larger networks, sometimes known as "mushroom sites," which are created in bulk and on the cheap and monetize the spread of disinformation.

Mobilize Through Fear

If you buy into the disinformation, migrants are coming for your jobs, the LGBT community is coming for your children's souls, foreign-funded NGOs are plotting to topple governments, and only Russia can restore peace to fascist Ukraine.

Igor Dodon, Moldova's Moscow-backed former president, has recently warned, without any evidence, of "LGBT quotas" in state institutions if the country's pro-EU President Maia Sandu wins reelection.

And in Bulgaria, Revival is pushing for a Russian-style foreign-agent law, which would target Western NGOs. "You will be next!" party leader Kostadinov told the America for Bulgaria Foundation, the country's largest foreign donor.

In socially conservative societies, with people disillusioned with democracy and reeling from economic hardship, much of it from the COVID-19 pandemic, such emotional narratives often strike a powerful chord.

By scaremongering about threats to traditional lifestyles and sovereignty, Russia is positioning itself -- not for the first time -- as the region's potential savior.

Tailor The Message

A key part of the Kremlin's strategy is localizing its messaging. "Russia looks for any possible commonality between their approach and the parties they're supporting," Orenstein said. "In one country, they might appeal to pan-Slavism; in another, to Orthodox religious connections; and in yet another, to anti-Ukrainian sentiment."

For example, in Bulgaria, pro-Russian parties play on Soviet nostalgia and well-established narratives of Russia as a liberator from Ottoman rule. In Hungary and Slovakia, pro-Kremlin parties exploit fears about migrants and the perception that the EU is undermining national sovereignty.

In Moldova, Irina Vlah, a pro-Moscow ex-governor, has said the country's large number of Romanian passport holders is evidence of a sinister Romanian plot to take over its smaller and poorer neighbor.

What Is The Kremlin's Endgame?

In the long term, the Kremlin's goal is to undermine the EU and NATO and pull countries in Eastern Europe back into Russia's orbit.

In the short term, it's all about Ukraine. For the Kremlin, that means blowing apart the fragile European consensus that Kyiv is deserving of military and economic support.

What the Kremlin cares about most, Orenstein says, is the "foreign policy orientation" of parties it supports in Eastern Europe -- in order to secure their backing on issues such as sanctions or the status of Crimea.

"You have some parties that [when] they began taking Russian support, they actually changed a lot of their foreign policy positions to orient them towards Russia," Orenstein said.

Crucially, though, Russia doesn't necessarily need explicit support to succeed. Sometimes sowing discord and polarizing populations can also chip away at the democracies and civil societies the Kremlin so desperately fears.

[bronzemettle]

Superhero media is pretty popular IRL. If superheroes are part of the real world in the BronzeRealms, what does that mean for the movies and games and stuff?

Some of it still exists as in-universe licensed semi-biographical media or propaganda.

There is an officially licensed X-Men comicbook published by Image Comics since 2000. It was originally based on the adventures of the original X-Men in the 60s and 70s, but it runs to this day and has fictionalized versions of many more modern events in the current generation X-Men's lives.

Similarly, Fox made X-Men movies starting in 2005 with the participation of Consulting Producer Charles Xavier. He thought both these projects would help normalize Mutants for the public to see them in a heroic light, even if executives demanded they would primarily be fighting against other "bad" Mutants for most of the movies.

Spider-Man, thanks to debuting in Pro Wrestling before he became a superhero, is a copyrighted character whose name and image are wholesale owned by someone who is not Peter Parker. Wilson Fisk bought out that wrestling company in 2006 and immediately started marketing the fuck out of Spider-Man.

Halloween costumes, lunchboxes, popsicles, a newspaper strip, multiple movie series, many cartoons (often running during the same years as other Spider-Man cartoons on different networks), musicals, theme park rides... Spider-Man is just as much of a brand in the BronzeRealms as he is in our world, and he is NOT HAPPY about it.

Marvel Comics exists as a company. It is US government propaganda. It published heavily sanitized and fluffed accounts of the at-the-time recent exploits of Captain America during World War 2, and then continued with entirely fictional stories of Commie-punching after he went into the ice.

The Justice League as an organization assists any heroes who care to do so in managing their brand. They do not partner with any one specific comicbook company, but a collection of smaller companies, Charlton Comics, Fawcett Comics (based out of Fawcett City), Wildstorm, Quality Comics, Milestone, Gold Key Comics, and National Allied Publications.

Some of these Justice League-managed brand deals have led to movies and cartoons, but not anything directly analogous to the ones we know. The 60s Adam West Batman series is culturally more or less replaced by the Fearless Ferret and Grey Ghost franchises.

After the Mortal Kombat tournament concluded in 1990, Johnny Cage got most of the earth-based participants to sign him as their Agent, allowing him to license all of their likeness rights into a fictionalized arcade game retelling the story of their adventures, which quickly became a successful video game franchise under the new NetherRealm Studios, several movies, and more.

In 2005, to go alongside the first movie, Charles Xavier approved the creation of the fighting game X-Men Vs Street Fighter. In 2008, NetherRealm Studios would make Mortal Kombat Vs Justice League, and then in 2013, a much more popular and less charitable fighting game based on real superheroes, Injustice: Gods Among Us.

These two previously unrelated projects would crash together in 2014 with Injustice Vs Capcom 3 (titled such recognizing X-Men Vs Street Fighter and Injustice 1), which later became Ultimate Injustice Vs Capcom 3.

NetherRealm would next attempt to separate from Capcom for another solo game, Injustice 2. However, now that this was becoming an undeniable franchise... the inevitable lawsuit arrived from the real world Justice League after years of being presented in game narratives as murderers, totalitarians, traitors, etc. The game was forced to release a major update renaming and reskinning the entire roster into original characters.

Capcom would return to the franchise with Injustice Vs Capcom: Infinite. Injustice 2: Monsters Never Die Edition would clean up many of the rough edges that the lawsuit-mandated updates had introduced and bring in a handful of new characters. The most recent game in the series, Injustice Vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, is a prequel that uses a retro pixel art visual style and was released in 2024.

Now we've been talking about superheroes, but the BronzeRealms is much larger than that, so let's talk about some other things that have various justifications to both exist as real things, and also be recognized as in-universe media in some way.

The Xena Scrolls, written by the Battling Bard Gavriil before she departed to Themyscira along with the rest of the Amazons, were found by Indiana Jones, and passed through various hands until they were acquired by Ted & Sam Raimi, who pitched an adaption of the scrolls as a tv franchise.

Benny Russell was a comicbook writer, artist, and sci-fi novel author in the 1940s and 1950s. Almost no-one knew it at the time, but he was psychically linked with Captain Benjamin Sisko across centuries into the future. So, when Gene Roddenberry acquired some of his unused worldbuilding notes and directly adapted them into the tv franchise Star Trek, he was unknowingly fictionalizing real future events. This same coincidence would repeat with a different collection of Benny's notes 10 years later for the series Galaxy Quest.

Now, you may wonder why, in the future, no-one starts to notice that these tv shows are coincidentally guessing a lot of real events. This is because, by an extremely convenient coincidence that most definitely wasn't assisted by the intervention of Time Agents, all historical record of the existence of the Star Trek franchise was destroyed in World War 3 and the Post-Atomic Horrors.

There are probably many other similar temporal shenanigans leading to franchises that most people reasonably assume to be fictional actually being loosely adapted from some account of real future events. There are also things like Wormhole X-Treme, a franchise that was knowingly created to obstruct the truth by presenting people trying to claim it's real as obsessive fanboys. This post is not a comprehensive list, just a grab bag of examples.

[that-left-turn]

It seems to me like norman was vocally pro caryl around season 2/3 and then became vocally anti caryl after Melissa won her Saturn awards for seasons 4 and 5 and became a main cast member.. and then became vocally pro caryl again after she got paired with ezekiel.. and then he's anti caryl after they break up and has been ever since - even more so now that he's got "his own show".

Do we have any good idea of who was behind the leah story and the connie shipbait? Even though they used both to give caryl parallels, those seem like the main obstructions in season 10 for driving caryl forward. I wasn't actively shipping them then, but I felt the show was starting to push caryl towards canon, but then when leah popped up, I was like 'oh... ok??? I guess I was wrong then, stupid me'. As for connie, I thought it was to show "it's not like that", but it was never made fully clear. I wonder what the motivations were really behind introducing those two characters as ships for daryl.

BASICS

Each character arc and the emotional arcs which involve one or more characters are laid out in pre-production, so the season is fully plotted before any scripts are written. There are zero surprises in screenwriting: each episode has a treatment, which details every scene and that's the basis used for writing the screenplay. The individual episode writers have no freedom to deviate from the plot, so it's very different from writing a novel or fanfic.

LEAH

The Leah arc was supposed to further Caryl's emotional arc, but a lot of plotlines were dropped or shortchanged in S11 because of things going on BTS. S9-10 were very deliberate and intricately plotted with a myriad of little beats throughout the seasons which were supposed to lead to a bigger picture reveal in S11, like how Daryl's facial scar factored into Caryl's relationship. If the showrunner is a good plotter, the groundwork for seasons to come is laid early, giving the audience plenty of puzzle pieces.

Unfortunately, Leah's arc was both stunted and misappropriated into a Maggie revenge plot which had zero payoff because viewers had no emotional investment in her entourage of redshirts. We don't know exactly how the Leah arc would've played out if the original vision had been followed, but it's clear from the pieces we do have that it would've led to Caryl canon so no, you weren't wrong or stupid. Leah was intended to be a foil for Carol and a catalyst for Caryl. I'm unsure of how sound this particular plot twist was, considering how easily something like that can get ruined when dealing with recalcitrant execs, but Kang is a detail-oriented writer, so as a viewer, I was willing to make a leap of faith with her.

SHIPBAIT

As for Connie, my guesstimate based on productions I've worked on, is that the network wanted to tease the possibility of 'something' to draw a larger share and to drag out the will-they-won't-they for Caryl (which doesn't work in today's TV). Sometimes, showrunners get notes where they have to make the best out of a situation they disagree with and Connie was never intended to be anything other than shipbait. The showrunner did her best to incorporate the studio notes into a storyline which would service the emotional arc she was actually trying to tell: Caryl thinking they aren't good enough or deserving of each other.

A good writer doesn't want to manipulate the audience. It's dishonest storytelling and it's not how you sustain and grow your viewership. You have to give clues along the way that will reward observant fans, even though the narrator might be unreliable. It's about building momentum and anticipation. If you do, a lot of the marketing will be self-driving at that point because of fan engagement.

If the Leah storyline hadn't gotten diverted, the use of Connie as a plot device in Carol's emotional arc would have been made clear. We never got any resolution to her self-loathing or the conflict between her and Daryl, and that's why there are still so many question marks surrounding the connection these two characters had to Daryl.

AUDIENCE RECEPTION

AMC has always wanted to sell the show to absolutely everyone and as long as there's a large ensemble cast, that might work to some degree, but it's not a long-term plan for sustained viewership and when the show is skimmed down to a handful of characters with the focus on two leads, it's no longer viable. The core emotional drive has to be the relationship between those two characters, no matter the nature of said relationship or whatever the external plot might be.

TBOC did everything to diminish and downplay Caryl's ties to each other and that was the biggest failing of the show. The hokey cult with its underdeveloped messianic plot and the fudged pseudoscience of the super walkers would've been forgiven and forgotten if Zabel had nailed the central message the season started out with, 'to find home is to find each other.' You don't need to be an amazing writer to write a show that people will enjoy, but you do have to respect your audience for them to stick with you in the long run.

[shoyostar]

VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL PROFILES.

SPOTLIGHT: KUROO TETSUROU HATE CLUB.

internationally regional profiles.

vacation bible school m.list. // hq. masterlist.

MISC. — (y/n) has known kuroo since childhood and kenma since middle school, but met bokuto and akaashi in uni.

SPOTLIGHTING: (Y/N)

second year systems biology student. has a philosophy of never chasing after men and instead letting them come to her. never fucks unless there’s something in it for her. has a part time job at a cafe on campus. she shares an apartment with kenma that neighbours bokuto and akaashi’s. got into utokyo on a scholarship and is really serious about her studies despite her lax attitude. has a lot of acquaintances on campus who she hangs out with sometimes but not people who she considers ‘friends’. doesn’t like getting into relationships (the emotional stuff makes her feel icky) and is pretty closed off to people except close friends.

SPOTLIGHTING: KENMA KOZUME

second year programming student. has an “alter-ego” (as he likes to call it) of being the increasingly famous faceless streamer kodzuken. a lot of rumours float around campus that he and y/n are dating (it lowkey repulses them, but it’s fun to fool people). has a horrible sleep schedule and always looks like he needs an energy drink. goes to class like once a week but is still passing with ease. took programming because of video games but is considering becoming a professional streamer or indie developer instead of going into an industry job. writes absolutely scathing, career ending game reviews on steam in his free time.

SPOTLIGHTING: KEIJI AKAASHI

second year comparative literature and japanese literature student who actually needs an energy drink. rues the day he decided to be ambitious and do a double major. chronically stressed and bokuto never shuts up about it. is around 580k yen in debt so he takes his academics extremely seriously. sometimes called a prude because he gets snarky when sex is brought up. has lost around three pairs of glasses and still doesn’t know where any of them are. has a little side groupchat with kenma and y/n where they hold study sessions and do late night snack runs together. plays solitaire with kenma at two am and their games get a little too heated for what should be considered normal.

SPOTLIGHTING: KOUTAROU BOKUTO

third year sports science major who really shouldn’t be in university to begin with. considered going pro after highschool but thought the transition would be easier if he played in uni instead of making the huge jump immediately. doesn’t really know what he’s doing in his classes so it’s a miracle he’s still in the program and is banking on his future pro career so he can slack off on his studies. works out with kuroo who keeps trying to lure him into a pyramid scheme. on the utokyo volleyball team and still gets lost around campus despite being in his third year. a loveable guy all around who has absolutely zero enemies. what he lacks in academics he makes up for in emotional wisdom.

SPOTLIGHTING: TETSUROU KUROO

third year marketing major who debates if he should’ve just taken chemistry instead because it was easier. the only one of the group who lives off campus and commutes to school (he’s always simultaneously out of the loop and in it all at once because of this). is really well known because he loves networking and is the most socially active by choice. keeps trying to get kenma into stock trading (it’s working to some degree). works out regularly with bokuto. does really sketchy shit for connections and is probably in some kind of ponzi scheme. doesn’t really stress over school because he passes with minimal studying and likes to gloat about it to akaashi who wants to strangle him at times.

reblogs are appreciated .ᐟ ໒꒰ྀི´ ˘ ` ꒱ྀིა

© property of shoyostar / thomae 2023. all rights reserved.

[menonlywrestling]

San Francisco 1960-1985. Part 3 - The Monday night boys.

The Lion Lounge was the worlds longest running all male strip club. It was in SF, open seven days a week, and between 1960 and 1985 was owned and run by partners Eddie Jones and Raymond O'Hare.

Eddie and Ray were huge pro wrestling nerds and actually met at a pro show in 1950, so when they bought the Lion Lounge they knew they wanted to feature live underground pro wrestling shows. There was an underserved market of pro fans who preferred their wrestling more 'intimate', and they planned to serve it. And then some.

In the main bar upstairs is where the strippers would work, however it was downstairs where the best action happened, if you were a pro wrestling fan. Only accessible by 'downstairs' club members, the basement was a dark, cozy affair, with room for around 40 members. There was a small bar at the back of the room and a pro wrestling ring in the middle of the room.

Things started off slow, as they gradually introduced the wrestling shows. The lounge had always been a strip joint, so that element kept the dollars coming in. They put on some small invite only shows, hoping to build up a following through word of mouth. It worked, and within six months there were wrestling shows every night, with a waiting list for membership. They also built up a network of wrestlers of all sizes, ages and styles, who'd come and wrestle every week. Other wrestlers who were in town for a few days or weeks would come down and wrestle too. It was a great way to make some extra cash, especially if you caught the eye of wealthy member. SF was a destination for a lot of people escaping their shitty small towns/relationships/lives etc, who wanted a new start. If they could wrestle they could try out. Eddie and Ray really looked after all their wrestlers, particularly the younger ones, or the ones down on their luck. Helping them find places to stay or get jobs, or medical attention and provide them with wrestling gear. Younger wrestlers who didn't cut it in the ring were often employed as bar/waiting staff or busboys etc. The older wrestlers would often be employed as bouncers. Some wrestlers came and went, others stayed over 20 years, in various roles. Lifelong friendships were made, tag teams formed, relationships blossomed along with flings, rivalries, fall outs, affairs and jealousies.

Friday and Saturday nights were dedicated to sex wrestling, featuring more defined, clean cut looking types. The wrestling was real, but the sex/gimmick was the focus on these nights, with oil, rip and strip, mud wrestling etc. Sometimes the guys would just wrestle naked.

The 'proper' pro action happened on the other nights. There was usually 3 matches per night, with a sex round after each bout, where the winner fucked the loser. If the match was a draw then the audience would decide who topped who.

Mondays was always the newcomers night, where the younger wrestlers would face off. It was vital to do well here to try and bump yourself up the card, get yourself more matches in the coming weeks and months, and most importantly gain fans, who'd want to come and see you every time you wrestled.

Tuesdays was for the more established younger wrestlers, while Wednesdays was the night for the members who liked to watch a mix of older vs younger fights (bear vs cub was popular) and dad/son vs dad/son tag matches.

Thursdays and Sundays were the nights for the popular big boys and Lion Lounge championship title holders. These were the nights to see some really incredible singles and tag matches with the most popular men. Always a mix of tough technical matches and all out bloody brutal brawls. There would always be at least one chain match on a Sunday. V popular with the leather/S&M crowd.

Outside, the venue would have photos in display cases (taken in a small studio at the top of the building by Eddie) showing that weeks performers. On one side of the entrance would be the strippers, the other side would be the wrestlers.

The images here are of some of the wrestlers over the years.

[vndev]

Free VFX & Consultation for NaNoRenO 2024 Jammers!

Hey everyone!  I hope you've had a great time participating in NaNoRenO this year!  I'm Nai from Make Visual Novels, though I imagine more of you know me either through our live team building events in DevTalk, or from the other jams and competitions I run.  I wanted to let you guys know that, for a limited time, I'm offering free consultations for jammers participating in NaNoRenO2024.  With those consultations, I'll also be creating VFX for your title screens to help you make a stronger first impression.

So you might be asking...

Why would I even want a consultation, Nai?

Something went really wrong and you want to know how to fix it .

Something went really right and you want to know how to take advantage of it.

You had an objective that you got close to, but couldn't quite hit it.

You want to go Pro with developing VNs, and you'd like guidance.

You feel lost in some part of the process, and need help setting goals for your circumstances.

You tasted VN Dev, you can't imagine a life without it, and you want tools, resources & opportunities.

Okay, but why you?

I've spent nearly a decade supporting and coaching visual novel developers reaching their personal and professional goals.

I've read over 500 indie visual novels.  I know what your peers are doing, and where they are succeeding and where they're struggling.

I run & judge for the largest sponsored visual novel development competition.  That 500 was a conservative estimate.

My network includes VN engine & game developers, game, book, comic & VN publishers, merchandise providers & manufacturers, marketing professionals, crowdfunding experts, professional programmers, illustrators, animators, graphic designers, VFX artists, 3D Artists(specifically modelling, texturing, rigging, and lighting) editors, pixel artists, Live2D capable artists, authors, narrative designers, translators, composers, musicians, singers, casting directors, voice actors (so many voice actors).And, probably most importantly, people who are living the experiences you're looking for.

In short: If I don't know the answer and/or can't come up with a solution to your very specific goals, I know someone who can.

I'm in.  Now what?

To be eligible for the free consultation and the VFX, you need to have a game submitted to the NaNoRenO 2024 jam page and follow its rules.

Having a list of questions to ask is a good idea.  Having goals is an even better one.  If you don't have goals, we can work on setting them.

For best results, you or a team representative should be present for the consultation.  These are conducted between 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM ET on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Message me over on Discord (discord:naidriftlin) or in DevTalk(https://discord.gg/devtalk) to set up a time and day.

Some things to keep in mind: 

Don't ask me to roast your game/be brutal.  I don't do that.  I can provide critique with suggestions and examples.

These consultations will be conducted live on https://twitch.tv/makevisualnovels.  My viewers are typically your peers and VN industry folks, and usually not exceeding 10 concurrent viewers.  A VOD recording will be provided to you to download for 30 days afterwards.

The free VFX for your title screen is eligible for those who complete the consultations.  It will be tailored to your existing title screen visuals and delivered afterwards.  I may opt to stream and record the process of making them.

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Executive summary

Since launching its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian Federation has been locked into a long and costly conflict. Russia has been diplomatically marginalized, subjected to sanctions, and shunned by most of the Western world. Many multinational companies have been forced by international pressure to shutter or sell their Russian operations, and profiting from cooperation with the Russian state is no longer considered acceptable. Russia has found itself in dire need of new allies and resources.

In this environment, the Kremlin-financed Private Military Company Wagner, or Wagner Group, has served as an increasingly important source of revenue for the Russian state. Founded in 2014 to support pro-Russian forces in Donbas, since then Wagner Group has evolved into a complex international network of private military contractors, disinformation campaign infrastruc-ture, and corporate front companies. It has deployed fighters, propaganda and disinformation campaigns, and financing as a proxy for the Russian state in numerous conflicts, from Syria and Libya to Mali, Central African Republic, and beyond

Wagner has most often been described as an independent mercenary group. This status has provided Russia with a thin veil of deniability, particularly in relation to the numerous plausible accusations of murder, rape, torture, and war crimes raised against Wagner fighters. But in reality, Wagner has always operated with the political and material backing of the Russian Federation to advance Russian state interests.

In Africa, Wagner has been deployed in a number of countries across the continent since 2017. In each country it enters, Wagner deploys military trainers, mercenary fighters, and propaganda experts to support anti-democratic regimes, drive instability, and commit human rights abuses. The mercenary group's ostensible provision of "security services" creates a framework for lucrative business contracts for the extraction of natural resources including diamonds, oil, timber, and especially gold.

This report focuses on the Kremlin's 'blood gold': Gold extracted from African countries and laundered into international markets that provides billions in revenue to the Russian state, thereby directly and indirectly financing Russia's war on Ukraine and global hybrid warfare infrastructure.

The Blood Gold Report's analysis suggests that Wagner and Russia have earned more than US$2.5 billion from blood gold since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The report focuses on the case studies of Wagner's blood gold operations in the Central African Republic, Sudan, and Mali. In each of these coun-tries, Russia profits from the blood gold trade in different ways:

In CAR, the mercenary group has been granted exclusive extractive rights for the Ndassima mine, the country's largest gold mine, in return for propping up President Touadera's authoritarian regime. Wagner's Ndassima operations are understood to produce US$290 million of gold annually, while local miners have been pushed aside or murdered by the mercenary group.

In Sudan, through control of a major refinery, Wagner has become the dominant buyer of unprocessed Sudanese gold as well as a major smuggler of processed gold. Russian military transporter flights laden with gold have been identified by Sudanese customs officials. While tracking Sudan's unreported gold market is near impossible, estimates suggest that almost Us$2 billion in gold is smuggled out of the country unreported every year, with 'the Russian Company' in prime position to take advantage.

In Mali, Wagner is paid a monthly retainer - estimated at US $10.8 million per month - to prop up a brutal military junta Meanwhile the junta is in turn dependent on a small number of Western mining companies for the revenue it needs to pay Wagner. Mining companies contributed more than 50% of all tax revenues to the Malian state for 2022. Barrick Gold Corporation, a Canadian listed company and Mali's single biggest tax contributor, paid US$206 million in the first half of 2023 alone.

The junta is increasing its financial demands on gold mining companies. Meanwhile, the four largest gold mining companies (weighted by tax contribution) continue to plan further investments in the country, despite the well-documented abuses of the military junta and growing influence of the Wagner Group.

Wagner's blood gold operations in CAR and Sudan have been subject to sanctions, and the Kremlin-backed mercenaries have developed increasingly complex smuggling routes and corporate subterfuge tactics to move blood gold out of these countries and convert this gold into cash.

In contrast, the Malian blood gold system enables Wagner to remain one degree removed from gold production. Instead, legitimate multinational mining companies convert gold into cash for the Malian military junta without triggering international sanctions.

To secure its position in a target country's political and natural resource extraction landscape, Wagner's African playbook consists of a four-pronged attack on the host country's civic institutions and civilian population - suppressing political opposition, spreading disinformation, silencing free media and terrorising civilians.

The ultimate objective of Wagner's playbook is to increase its clients' dependence on Wagner forces to stay in power, thereby securing a long-term revenue stream for the Kremlin and fostering authoritarianism and instability throughout the region as part of Russia's wider geopolitical strategy to distract and bog down the democratic West.

Since the death of Wagner's leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary group has formally come under the control of the Russian State. Yet the Kremlin's focus on Africa, and its blood gold operations, show no signs of changing.

(continue reading)

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