#black family structure

[bluejay-makes]

Magnanimous

[sukibenders]

Looking back at Girl Meets World, it will forever irritate me especially for how they handled/treated Angela. Oh this show really hated black women because how do you not only 1.) describe her, one of (correct me if I'm wrong) only few black and MAIN characters of the og show, as a "concept" 2.) have characters show obvious disgust at the small mention of her name 3.) depict her as a homewrecker for a new relationship that, really, shouldn't have ever happened 4.) have her old friends treat her like dirt and her old lover like she is the root of his problems, when there was nothing but positive love there 5.) reuse all the concepts from said previous love story just to elevate the new ship with a yte woman and 6.) compare her to Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest hurricanes that caused significant numbers of death, harm, misplacement, and trauma to people, largely of whom were black? Mind you, all these points I mentioned were toward the only main black character of the OG show before the spinoff, and the only, from what I can remember, black female character of the spinoff who didn't even stay long. Not even getting into the racist drama with some of the members on set, but you cannot look me in the eye and tell me that the way the show handled Angela, her story, and her relationship with the other characters + Shawn wasn't fucking disrespectful, you can't because I won't believe you.

[dwreader]

when the show slaps you in the face with something but apparently not hard enough!

[hotsugarbyglassanimals]

i feel like this site leaning heavily into the "pedophilia and incest and rape kinks are good" angle lately can be attributed to the mass expulsion of sex workers and black ppl on here ngl

[mummer]

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Random funny thing to me is when people insist that two characters are basically siblings to each other and it's so weird to ship them (because they're connected in some way through a member of their family)

And the truth is that yes they can technically be considered family (in the nuclear family way) if you want them to be, but not because they're siblings. You actually have at least a miniscule argument here and yet you've lost arguing that they're basically siblings😂

[unik0rnu]

LotML - Sceneries Collection, p2

[EU] Unikornu

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

I don't understand why TLM 2 tried so hard to emphasize and clarify how much Ariel is like her mother in terms of personality when she is, in the movie, quite frankly, written to be more like Eric in character. She was really primarily introverted, shy, awkward, tomboyish, mild-mannered and more serious, which is more like her father. I guess it was her impulsive, curious, rebellious and reckless nature that made the characters in the movie go, "Ow, she is so like her mother!", but I don't know, whenever I see Melody, I see her as closer to her dad. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who sees it this way. I don't believe for one second that NO ONE in that universe was able to notice the similarities she had with her father. C'mon, she even has his doggone smile! 😂

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

Cecio & his fathers family

Cecios' father is an old noble of Andoran, from a family who made the smart decision of backing the rebellion. Taking in his bastard son was a double edged move, on one hand, he's displaying the ideal that everyone is equal, while also displaying the pedigree & faith of their lineage by having an Aasimar son. 

His father mainly pulled this move because rumors were getting loud about how the family had not fully changed to the nation's new beliefs, and were merely paying lip service to them.

His family is made up of four, his father, the patriarch, a noble turned merchant, who does the bare minimum of lip service towards the current principles of Andoran. He's not particularly corrupt, and by the standards of the previous regime, would have been a gracious lord, but his lack of care towards what used to be the lower classes and particularly his bastard son is a stain on what would be an average merchant lord. 

The eldest son, a man who did his time in the eagle knights, and is now working his way up in the government, hoping to take over his fathers role as the one in council seat, a cold and distant man, one who failed to shed his noble air, and thus only has friends among the nobles, neutral or unpopular among most people.

The youngest son, a shirt chasing fool who is currently a squire for a suffering knight, but one can suppose that the coin makes up for it, he's completely unfit for command and will probably spend the rest of his life wasting his father's coin on cover ups and fine food and clothes

The deceased wife, Cecio's stepmother, a woman who was understandably uncomfortable with the proof of her husbands infidelity under her roof, but who took it out on the neglected child, orchestrating the stealing of his finances, leading to Celia needing to fund his training, all as his father neglected him.

The family enjoyed little change in conditions, as they used their power to gain a large share of the artifact and treasure seeking market, not to mention offering their troops to the eagle knights, meaning they have considerable power for a noble family. It seems the new family tradition is the eldest going into government, and the second eldest going into the eagle knights. 

It seems that Cecio will be the one in the eagle knights, as while all three have gone through knight training, the eldest has firmly gone into government, and the youngest is ill equipped to fight on a serious battlefield, let alone take command and rise to the position expected of him. 

So Cecio works his way up through the Eagle Knights, being sent with the knight he's a squire for to the World Wound, and Mendev. He quickly becomes a full knight, and is granted command over a small group of crusaders thanks to his diligent studying. 

He only enjoys command for a year or two, before he wakes up in Drezden on a stretcher. Only time will tell where he goes from there.

[supahstarrr]

non-black people being so condescending to black people when it comes to the discussion of aave by using the fact language evolves as a way to disregard black people being hyper-aware of how the way aave is co-opted is an extension of racism is so funny because black people are well aware of that language evolves considering aave evolves itself. "rizz", "finna", and even "gyatt" to some extent are the most recent examples of aave evolving other than the general fact that aave is so varied and dependable on the region. but what do i, a black person, know about my own dialect i guess. what do i and most other black people who grow up with the dialect and witness how its perceived to & treated by society know about the difference between language evolution and language being co-opted i guess.

[webfactor]

Wikipedia editors push offensive language to delegitimize some Native American Tribes

Article Text As Follows:

Wikipedia editors push offensive language to delegitimize some Native American Tribes

By Sherry Robinson

Special to The Independent

ALBUQUERQUE — When Lily Gladstone won a Golden Globe and Oscar nomination for her role in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the public recognized a Native American actress. But to Wikipedia readers, she is an American actress whose father was Blackfeet and Nez Perce and whose mother was white.

Three long-time editors at the online encyclopedia argued that even though Gladstone grew up on the Blackfeet reservation, she couldn’t be called Native American unless she was an enrolled member of the tribe. When Gladstone’s uncle weighed in to say she was enrolled, they dismissed his comments. She is still, in Wikipedia’s view, “an American actress.”

In recent years, outside of a national debate in Indian Country over fake tribes, a handful of Wikipedia editors have been deciding who is Native American and who isn’t.

Look behind the curtain of the sprawling site and you will find a network of 265,000 volunteer editors writing and editing within a Wiki universe that has its own rules, language, police and courts but no traditional hierarchy.

Wikipedia’s structure allows likeminded editors to work together, but it also permits editors with a bias to advance their agenda. The site has drawn criticism from media and academics for slanted articles on Blacks and Jews. Wikipedia documents its own systemic bias in an article by that name and attributes the problem to too few minority editors. The typical editor, it says, is a white male.

By Wikipedia's definition, the only real tribes are federally recognized; editors of Native American material denigrate state-recognized and unrecognized tribes and seem preoccupied with revealing fake Indians.

The fakes are out there, and they’re a problem. But there’s a big difference between people who invented a Native ancestry and people who have a long, documented heritage.

For this story, aggrieved tribal members didn’t identify themselves because they fear the site’s size and power – it reaches 1.8 billion devices a month – and some editors’ vindictiveness.

Behind the curtain

Wikipedia is transparent about its process. Click on “talk” at the top of each article and you find the (sometimes endless) debates among editors about an article and see the site’s rules in action.

Editors are anonymous because the Wikipedia Foundation has a strong commitment to privacy, says a spokesperson. However, readers don’t know what expertise editors have or whether they’re Native American.

Editors select their subject matter. With experience they can rise in the pecking order until they gain authority to reverse or eliminate the edits of others. They quote the site’s often arcane rules in Wiki-Speak to anyone who disagrees. While Wikipedia espouses objectivity, neutrality and civility, discussions can take the low road.

On Lily Gladstone’s talk page, a newish editor, user name Tsideh (Apache for bird), asked, “What are your sources supporting the idea that Native Americans are only those who are enrolled in a US recognized tribe?”

A Wiki editor, user name ARoseWolf, answered: “A notable subject can make a claim… but you must have that respective tribal nation’s acceptance as verification through enrollment."

Gladstone’s uncle wrote: “I’m a primary source for Ms. Gladstone’s tribal heritage. Her father is my brother. Through our father, we are both enrolled in the Blackfeet Tribe in the USA,” he wrote. “Our mother is enrolled Nez Perce. So Ms. Gladstone is a direct descendant of both Blackfeet and Nez Perce.”

ARoseWolf shot him down. “We can not use primary sources to verify such information and, you, as a claimed family member have a WP:COI which means we need an independent source.”

WP:COI is the Wikipedia rule on confl ict of interest. Wikipedia forbids primary sources, and yet they’re the gold standard for journalists and academics.

Tsideh challenged the position that only enrollment in a recognized tribe “entitles somebody to claim to be a Native American” as an unfounded, minority point of view that Wiki editors didn’t support with a citation or explanation.

ARoseWolf and others chastised Tsideh for violating Wiki rules on bullying, false accusations and arguing Wiki policy. Tsideh countered that Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t have to prove he was an Italian American, but Lily Gladstone had to prove she was a Native American.

As the back and forth continued, ARoseWolf slammed a new editor who "just happened to find this discussion,” a dig that implies one party enlisted another to join the debate. That too is a Wiki violation.

Bohemian Baltimore, another regular, insisted, “If she’s not enrolled, she may be a descendant, but she’s not a Native American.”

Who is Native American?

Terry Campbell, a Navajo born in Tuba City, Arizona, who lives out of state, has been studying Wikipedia for five months, after friends complained about poor treatment in trying to edit Wiki pages.

One friend wanted to add some facts to an article about a tribe. “These changes were rejected by a handful of editors who cited other Wikipedia pages as sources,” he said, “and I thought that was very, very odd.”

A friend citing sources that prove her tribe survived the Indian wars and received state recognition ran up against Wikipedia guidelines on determining Native American identities that were largely crafted by two editors, user names CorbieVreccan and Yuchitown. Wiki editors used the guidelines to reclassify dozens of state-recognized tribes as “heritage organizations” and removed “Native American” from biographies of prominent tribal members or, worse, called them a "self-identified Native American.”

The implication, Campbell explained, is that the tribe no longer exists and that its members are suspect or even “Pretendians.” Wikipedia has a page for that too.

The same group has shaped many articles on Native subjects. Campbell said he combed through references and found they were misrepresented, taken out of context, sourced from far-right academics, or unreliable.

“The scope of this issue is huge,” Campbell said. “It permeates all the Native articles I checked.”

Campbell recognized talking points from what he called a far-right movement in Indian Country intent on erasing state-recognized and unrecognized tribes. (New Mexico has no state-recognized tribes and six unrecognized groups or tribes.)

Some Native Americans and Anglos, he said, believe that Indigenous people outside the circle of federal recognition should be considered non-Native. They also want to prevent members of the disenfranchised groups from selling their art, receiving ancestral remains, accessing disaster relief or re-establishing their homeland.

Outside Indian Country, it’s not generally known that U.S. Indigenous groups live within a caste system based on government recognition, with 574 federally recognized tribes on top, dozens of state-recognized tribes second, and several hundred unrecognized tribes last.

In 2021, Yuchitown wrote, “The overwhelming majority of ‘List of unrecognized tribes in the United States’ are completely illegitimate.”

There are many reasons why groups aren’t recognized. Some avoided the reservation. Some lost their recognition during the termination era. Some were broken up and scattered during the Indian Wars. Some went underground, practicing their culture secretly while passing as Hispanic. Many simply stayed put.

When Wikipedia editors claim that “Native American” is a political status conferred by the U.S. government, that an individual can only be called a “descendent” until their tribe is recognized, they push this narrative, Campbell said. It’s a contradiction of federal Indian law and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, “As a general principle, an Indian is a person who is of some degree Indian blood and is recognized as an Indian by a Tribe and/or the United States. No single federal or tribal criterion establishes a person’s identity as an Indian. Government agencies use differing criteria to determine eligibility for programs and services. Tribes also have varying eligibility criteria for membership.”

Extreme points of view

Campbell has contributed to a lengthy report, as yet unpublished, that identifies biased editors. They include Yuchitown, CorbieVreccan, ARoseWolf, Indigenous girl and Bohemian Baltimore.

“It was like a tree with many interconnecting branches that had been created over time by the same small group of people pushing extreme points of view,” Campbell said.

Initially the group made changes slowly, he said, “but they started pursuing their agenda aggressively after November, when state-recognized tribes retained their voting rights in the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). Essentially, after the movement to delegitimize state-recognized tribes failed officially, the key players doubled down on altering and controlling the flow of information about Native Americans through Wikipedia.”

Campbell observed widespread violations of Wikipedia standards: “I found evidence that they blatantly misquoted and misrepresented sources to push extremist political beliefs; teamed up to manipulate the consensus system by voting in blocks; exploited Wikipedia rules, such as conflict of interest, to block outside editors from making changes to Native-related pages; excessively cited opinion pieces from fringe political figures, including those accused of racism and anti-semitism; blocked the use of legitimate primary and secondary sources that contradict their extremists beliefs, which violates Wikipedia’s rule against information suppression; posted originally researched, politically motivated essays instead of well-sourced articles; and harassed and defamed Native American tribes and living Native American people.”

Reacting in February to an early draft of the report posted on Google, the editors were incensed that anybody would voice complaints “off-Wiki.” ARoseWolf wrote that “we have been attacked, threatened with legal action and had misinformation/ false claims spread against us.” She and Yuchitown denied being part of a conspiracy against tribes or organizations and said they were just following Wiki rules. Yuchitown accused critics of being “meat puppets” of a person who objected to some Native content and enlisted others to back them up. In WikiSpeak this is meat puppetry.

“Volunteers on Wikipedia vigilantly defend against information that does not meet the site’s requirements,” the Wikipedia spokeswoman wrote. “These volunteers regularly review a feed of real-time edits to quickly address problematic changes; bots spot and revert many common forms of negative behavior on the site; and volunteer administrators (trusted Wikipedia volunteers with advanced permissions to protect Wikipedia) further investigate and address negative behavior. When a user repeatedly violates Wikipedia policies, Wikipedia administrators can take disciplinary action and block them from further editing.”

Inaccurate and insulting

In 2006, Wikipedia established the WikiProject Indigenous Peoples of North America to improve its Native-related content of 14,000 articles and more than 37,000 pages.

Recently, a hot topic on the project’s talk page was a proposal to change a category name from “unrecognized tribes” to “organizations that self-identify.”

On April 15 Melissa Harding Ferretti, chairwoman of the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe in Massachusetts, wrote, “The proposed renaming of the category on Wikipedia is not only inaccurate… but also insulting.”

Ferretti is one of the few Natives to take on Wiki editors openly.

Herring Pond was originally listed with other Wampanoag tribes. In 2022 Yuchitown stripped “state-recognized” from the page, even though the state Commission of Indian Affairs regularly engages with them. Last year Yuchitown created a separate page for Herring Pond. Wiki editors resisted attempts to make changes or corrections.

After Wikipedia called Herring Pond a “cultural heritage group" and a nonprofi t that "claims" to descend from Wampanoags, Ferretti wrote in a Wiki discussion, “There is no claim, it’s a fact! Might I add, nonprofit status was imposed upon Tribal nations in the ‘90s because we didn’t have our federal recognition yet.”

Her tribe has a well-documented history. “We still have care and custody of our sacred places, burial grounds and our 1838 Meetinghouse, one of three built for the Tribe after the arrival of the colonizers. Our continuous presence and stewardship of these lands are recognized by historical records, deeds and treaties.”

Ferretti wrote that tribes without federal recognition already face significant hurdles to gain recognition, "and being labeled as 'self-identified' can add to these challenges by casting doubt on our legitimacy.” Mislabeling unrecognized tribes “can lead to the spread of hate, misinformation and further marginalization.”

Some Wiki editors agreed. One wrote that “there are strong negative connotations to saying someone who is Native 'self identifies,' because the inference is that they are Native in name only or falsely claiming to be Native. A change like this will impact countless articles…” Bohemian Baltimore, ARoseWolf and Yuchitown insisted there were no negative connotations. They opposed calling an unrecognized group a tribe because it legitimized groups with unverified claims. ARoseWolf said, “If they had proof of their connection to the original people they would have gotten federal recognition.”

This is a frequent refrain among the insiders, who apparently think the application process is a slam dunk instead of the long, difficult, expensive journey it is.

Yuchitown noted that “all of the editors who actively contribute to and improve Native American topics on Wikipedia have voted to support the renaming.” It’s a remarkable declaration that he and his allies act in concert.

The insiders took even stronger action against Lipan Apaches in Texas.

Late in 2022, Yuchitown changed the entry of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas to say that NCAI recognizes the tribe as state-recognized but the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) does not. In fact, NCSL took down its web page listing federal and state-recognized tribes because it couldn’t verify the accuracy.

In boilerplate that appears on all the Texas unrecognized tribes’ websites, Yuchitown said Texas has no legal mechanism to recognize tribes, citing an online article that in turn cites the discredited NCSL web page.

In 2022, a tribal member and Yuchitown fought back and forth, reversing each other’s edits. In WikiSpeak, it was edit warring. The tribal member informed Yuchitown that the NCSL page he quoted no longer existed. CorbieVreccan told the member she was up against “two experienced editors,” and Yuchitown accused her of conflict of interest and edit warring. His fellow travelers demanded to know if she had an official position with the tribe. She didn’t.

ARoseWolf wrote, “As Wikipedia is not a state or government-controlled entity it can make up its own rules for what content is allowed on its platform.”

The Wikimedia spokeswoman says that in some extreme cases the foundation relies on a trust and safety team that will investigate and may also take action.

Campbell wrote in the report that many Native American communities and people “have been targeted by the small group of propagandists in this complaint… And the thousands of people who make these communities have been slandered and assaulted on Wikipedia through the actions of these propagandists.”

Link to the original article:

[superiorsturgeon]

out of curiosity, why do you like sturgeons so much?

A chance to info dump about my favorite fish…?!

I grew up in the Great Lakes area of North America, where fishing is pretty popular but everyone knows that fish populations aren’t anything like “the good old days” when people took out huge numbers of fish while messing up their spawning sites. I got pretty into fishing when I found out that I could catch bluegill in the surrounding farm ponds, and once in a while my family took me to an isolated fishing cabin for vacation, but for years I never encountered a wild fish bigger than a kilogram or two.

BUT THEN…

I found out about sturgeon! They were HUGE fish that had once lived in the rivers and lakes all around my home, and better yet, fish almost exactly like modern sturgeon had existed all the way back in the Cretaceous period alongside the dinosaurs, and they STILL EXIST TODAY!!! The fact that small numbers of these huge dinosaur fish still existed made them seem almost like a real-life lake monster/cryptid, except that we had proof of their existence!

Furthermore, there’s just nothing else like them. Sturgeon get big. Like, REALLY big. The record for the largest sturgeon was almost 11 meters/24 feet long, which is colossal for freshwater animals. They have armor plates of bone running down their sides, and at the same time they don’t have bony skeletons. They also have a crazy mouth structure, which allows them to actually pop their jaws out like a tube and suck up food. And on top of all of this, the adults are absolute tanks. I’ve seen skin nearly 8mm thick, and it’s so tough that people make leather out of it, and they occasionally lose fins or even entire gill plates and just keep on swimming! (I found out about that last one when I tried to wrestle a big female out of a river and my hand went straight into her gills. She didn’t seem that bothered by it!)

For a long time I filed sturgeon along with Alligator Gar, Giant Mekong catfish, and Yangtze paddlefish as a semi-legendary fish that may still exist, but I was never going to see except possibly in an aquarium, until I enrolled in graduate school. For those unfamiliar with grad school in the US, it typically involves both high-level classes as well as an independent research project the student designs and carries out with help from an experienced professor. When my mentor asked what kind of thing I wanted to study, I tossed out “sturgeon” as one such possibility, expecting to hear that I would probably have to limit myself to more common/accessible species.

I was blown away when she said “Actually, I think I know a guy…”

For the next several years, I got to ride along collecting wild adult sturgeon, gathering eggs, and raising the baby fish in a lab and in a hatchery. I was holding something that I had thought of as a semi-mythical lake/river monster in my own hands! I got to see a river choked with giants as big as 2 meters long, and I got to hold a 5-centimeters mottled baby whose armored scutes were still sharp and possessed the little arrowhead shape and big black pectoral fins that remind me of Mickey Mouse ears! In the video below you can even see a little heartbeat! (Don’t worry, this little guy was returned to the tank soon after to recover from his anesthesia!)

Sadly, I didn’t find anything super groundbreaking in my research, but my experience DID land me a job working in sturgeon aquaculture! If you’ve ever had caviar that wasn’t poached, it probably came from a sturgeon farm, and if you want to see a lot of big fish up close, this is a good place to do it! I probably personally handled more individual sturgeon than there are wild fish in several sturgeon species. In addition, while the wild broodstock I mentioned above might reach 2 meters and over 50kg, the sturgeon I dealt with at the farm would easily double that, and there were a LOT of them! I got to see sturgeon behavior that had never been recorded in field guides, and even a few crazy one-in-a-million mutations like the infamous “ghost” sturgeon!

I even got the opportunity to cook my own sturgeon meat (Yeah, I basically turned into the Touden siblings from Dungeon Meshi except for sturgeon instead of RPG monsters). I got pretty good at making smoked sturgeon, but the meat is also good on the grill or baked, and people have been cooking them in various ways for centuries.

My favorite part of the job was physically wrestling the big fish! Sturgeon are easier to grab than other fish with the right know-how, but a human-sized fish often has its own plans for the day and won’t always cooperate. I was pretty good at moving the adults by the time I left that job, but it was still a wild rodeo every time!

Even more exciting was how we spawned each new generation of sturgeon. In the wild, they form massive spawning runs in big rivers that in the past would be enough to tip small boats, but in a lab or farm we have to use other means. I’ll spare you the details, but I am one of a small number of people who have surgically extracted eggs from a live sturgeon and sutured them back up to swim another day.

The tldr of this essay is that sturgeon are a big, crazy-unique fish that have been around a long time, and I’ve spent a lot of my career handling and working with them. There’s just nothing like them for a fish nerd and they’re damn cool!

(Clip art not mine, I think @sturgeonposting drew or shared it!)

[captainadwen]

Damian Wayne vs the World

Sixteen year old Damian Wayne is on the hunt for a younger sibling. Being more discerning than Bruce 'child collector' Wayne, Damian's firm criteria for Batman's latest adoption problem includes but is not limited to: black haired, blue-eyed, tolerable humor, not evil, and most importantly - younger than Damian.

Lucky for him, fourteen year old newbie vigilante Danny Fenton is the perfect fit. Now, to fulfill his end of their deal, Damian must defeat the evil government organization hunting Danny in order to gain a baby brother.

Or, @livinghalfway your post made my brain go !! but in such a different way I figured it was better to make a separate post, hope you don't mind/enjoy still

~~

Damian Wayne re-entered Tim Drake's life like a gnat revealing itself in a closed bedroom space. Tim was in t-shirt and a boxers, maneuvering ramen into his mouth with one hand and scribbling out an epiphany on a murder case with another, when Damian's demonic dulcet voice echoed down from the ceiling. "Drake," said Damian, judgemental, "You live like this?"

Tim nearly choked on his ramen, because the day Damian doesn't attempt to murder him - however doubtfully accidental this incident might be - is the day Darkseid decides to be friends with the Justice League. "Fucking knock," Tim coughed out. "And get out. No one invited you in."

"Put better traps if you don't want me here," said Damian, dropping from the ceiling where he'd crawled in on wall-clamps.

"This is my apartment," said Tim. "It's called courtesy."

Damian sniffed. He padded around to Tim's desk and frowns at his cases, then said, with no further lead up, "I need your assistance."

"No," said Tim.

"You did not even listen to my request."

"Don't need to," said Tim. "Answer's still no. Door is that way. Bye."

"Father says mutually assisting each other is beneficial," said Damian.

"Father," said Tim sarcastically, "blamed me for you exploding a glitter bomb in the batcave two weeks ago."

"That is your fault for not being able to provide evidence to the contrary in an appropriately efficient manner," said Damian. He squinted down at Tim. "And he apologized. Eventually."

"I would not have glittered the batcomputer," said Tim. "Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to backup those servers? No, because you don't like tech work, you just profit off it."

"Blaming me for Father's mistake," said Damian, "Most mature of you. But we must put our differences aside. I have selected a new family member and I need you to dismantle a government organization."

That drew Tim up short. He blinked down at his ramen as though it might explain Damian's words to him, but the ramen remained disappointingly uninformative. "Repeat that," said Tim, gesturing with his chopsticks. "Slower, and with more detail."

Damian pulled out his phone and sent him an email. Silence surrounded them in the brief moment it took Tim to set aside his chopsticks and open the email. The subject line was titled 'New Baby Brother', which birthed all sorts of horrifying nightmares of Damian Part 2: Demon Child Boogaloo. The teen in the inserted picture, however, was reassuringly not in possession of Damian's bone structure.

He did have black hair and blue eyes. "Who am I looking at?" asked Tim.

"Daniel Fenton," said Damian. "He is fourteen years old, enjoys puns, and has recently awakened 'ghost powers' that allow him to transform into the vigilante Phantom to fight other ghosts."

"Is he also an orphan with a tragic backstory?"

"No," said Damian, and Tim relaxed. "But that will not be an issue. We can share custody if they cannot be removed from the picture."

"Jesus H, kid."

"I am joking, of course," said Damian blandly. "Murder is wrong."

"Ha ha," said Tim. "If he has parents already he's not joining our menagerie."

"He will," said Damian, with a smug upwards tilt of his lips. "He and I have a deal."

"So you're coercing him in addition to stalking him. Anything else you want to share with the class?"

Damian considered this query with a serious frown, which was how Tim knew this was not a flight of fancy or a very early midlife crisis (although with their lifestyle and Damian already having died before...).

"He has," said Damian after a moment, "a rogue that calls himself 'The Master of all Technology' and is a technopath." This was clearly meant to be of interest to Tim, and not to be a stereotype, but it kind of was.

"Great." Tim turned his attention back to the email the demon child sent him. He scanned through it quickly. There was apparently a secret and evil government organization dedicated to the investigation and extermination of 'ghosts' and other paranormal creatures in the world. Their latest efforts were focused on the town of Amity Park, Illinois, which was 'infested with ectoplasmic pests'. Their words, not Damian's. (It was specified in the email.)

"Okay," Tim drummed his fingers against his desk. "Before I help you defeat this secret evil government organization so that," he opened the email attachment with a contract on it and squinted at the legalese, "this poor newbie teen you've harassed into signing this joins the family in exchange."

"I did not harass him," Damian huffed. "It was a gentleman's agreement."

"Does he know that?"

"I am not a politician, Drake. I thoroughly explained the terms and legalities before presenting any contract. Now ask your question."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because," said Damian, tone implying 'you are stupid and haven't noticed something obvious, idiot'. "Father has begun saying he misses the noise around the manor and looking wistfully at old pictures."

"We still live there though?" said Tim. Damian looked flatly at him. "Sometimes."

"If you lived there frequently enough," said Damian, "you would already know Father is having...empty nest syndrome." Damian sounded disgusted. "I refuse to tolerate whatever inadequate and incompetent child he will find."

"So instead you found an incompetent and inadequate child for him?"

"Don't be stupid, Drake," said Damian. "I would not have chosen someone inadequate. Daniel is merely lacking formal training. Father can rectify this. It will keep him occupied for at least the next two to four years, which gives me enough time to find another black-haired, blue-eyed, tolerable child I approve of to be his successor and my second younger sibling." Damian paused. "Or until one of you procreates and gives him a grandchild."

"You're really serious about this," Tim whispered in horrified awe.

"I am serious about everything I do," said Damian. "Now, you will help me defeat this evil government organization so that our new sibling joins us."

"Okay," said Tim, but his mind snagged on a minor, throwaway detail, so utterly in odds with Damian 'Demonic Jealous Child' Al Ghul it surely came from another person - "Did you just call this kid your successor?"

[oddbookreport]

ALSO no fucking city could exist without rural farm communities, which produce, ya know, Food? It's possible to grow supplemental crops inside city limits but there has never been a food independent urban area, not even when people were relocating to the city after having been farmers and had all the necessary skills.

Native agriculture was incredibly advanced, and a lot of those skills were actively or accidentally destroyed by colonists looking to starve out native populations. Early Europeans in north America rode through orchards spaced widely enough to ride a horse at full gallop and thought that they had rediscovered the garden of eden because white supremacy made it impossible for them to conceptualize that the natives had planted and tended those orchards over generations. Things like the Chinampas in Mexico City literally turned desert lakes into some of the most productive, highest quality soil on earth, capable of growing practically anything. Once the Chinampas fed the entire city: Now the lake is running dry and barely a square mile of chinampas are left.

The culprits are the greatest travesties in modern land use. Commercial monoculture farming and suburbanization, which are working together to destroy soil quality, indigenous communities, municipal governments, and local ecosystems.

First, large commercial farms strip the topsoil ecology of particular nutrients by planting the same crop over and over again, which repeatedly drains all of specific chemicals from the soil. They can usually afford to buy up their neighbors' rival farms because they're flooding the market with cheap produce, driving down their ecologically responsible competitor's revenue in the process and forcing them out of business. Leaving the fields fallow or intentionally planting things like clover for grazing animals could restore the topsoil, but that doesn't make money. You know what does? Selling the land to developers to put in soulless car dependent levitttowns that the DOT is obliged to build roads to at 6 million per mile even if the property taxes don't cover a quarter of that.

Once the land is stripped of its ecological productivity, it is sold to white flighters trying to "get out of the city because it's no place to raise a kid" who then pollute the cities with noise and smog and cars on every street, while bulldozing low income housing for highways and parking garages while having the gall to complain that the city is too expensive even though it's their lifestyle that's causing it.

Many of the farmers who become internally displaced or homeless are black or indigenous, as are many of the people living in low income neighborhoods that become highways, but whether they are or not is only part of the point: Overwhelmingly white suburbanites have their incredibly wasteful lifestyle paid for by both urban and rural people, even as the suburbs are "rich" and rural and dense urban areas are "poor."

Real cottagecore is practicing sustainable ecology and supporting your neighbors, especially when they've been fucked over by the state/prison industrial complex/white supremacy.

Now for a comment on Online Discourse, which is going to be a windfall for the "pissing on the poor" crowd I'm sure, but i'm saying it anyway:

"Cottagecore" was right about marginally more things than y'all think.

It's not much. The tradwife stuff is bad, the thoughtless idealization of "homesteading" is bad, the romanticization of an imaginary "simple life" in the Past is bad, and all of that stuff attracts fascists—and the totally unrealistic "aesthetic" is, well, annoying.

but listen.

Farming land isn't inherently more linked to colonialism than doing anything else on land, and living in a rural area isn't inherently more linked to colonialism than living in a city.

Wanting to be connected to the land you live on, wanting to grow food for yourself, wanting to experience the natural world—these are, in themselves, good things. They are very fraught if you live on stolen land. But it seems way worse to live on stolen land and try to distance yourself from that land, while it not only takes care of your every bodily need, but needs you to reciprocate.

I am honest to god really worried about how many people are either 1) wracked with guilt over wanting a rural life or 2) convinced that rural life shouldn't, like, exist.

[honey-bitch]

★⋆ Lilith in the signs⋆ ★

Lilith (black moon Lilith) is representative of Lilith, Adam's first wife in mythology. She refused to submit to Adam and therefore was cast away from heaven. She represents our shadow self what we repress and hide but is our ultimate power. Lilith in Aries - Fiercely independent, strong-willed, and refuses to be controlled -Rejects authority and thrives on personal freedom -They be insecure about their sense of self and may go to extremes to prove their identity Lilith in Taurus - Deeply sensual, drawn to physical pleasure and indulgence. -Struggles with attachment to material possessions or stability. -May resist societal expectations around beauty and self-worth. - May overindulge in luxuries and become lazy. Lilith in Gemini -A master of words, seduction through intellect, and questioning societal norms. - Can feel silenced or struggle with duality in self-expression. - Might reject conventional education or traditional ways of thinking. - This could also indicate troubles with siblings. Lilith in Cancer -Deep emotional intensity, challenging traditional family roles. - Struggles with feeling nurtured or safe, often rejecting dependence on others. -May have a complicated relationship with motherhood, family, or home life.

Lilith in Leo -A rebellious performer, naturally magnetic but refuses to conform. -Struggles with ego, validation, or the need to be recognized. -Can reject traditional ideas of success and embrace their own unique path. - Might have felt looked over and ignored, desired notoriety. Lilith in Virgo -Rejects societal pressures for perfection and order. -Can struggle with anxiety, self-criticism, or rigid expectations. -May embrace alternative healing, sexuality, or spirituality to break free from control. - Shame in cleanliness, might feel 'dirty'. Lilith in Libra - Challenges traditional relationship norms, refuses to be “owned” by a partner. -Can struggle with balancing independence and intimacy. -May use charm and beauty as a tool for rebellion. - Tendency to have forbidden thoughts and is more likely to engage in taboo relationships. Lilith in Scorpio -Embodies deep sexual power, mystery, and transformation. -Unafraid of taboo topics, death, and rebirth. -Can struggle with power struggles, obsession, or manipulation. - Deep sense of loss of power, these people crave to control and dominate. Lilith in Sagittarius -Fiercely free-spirited, rejects societal restrictions on beliefs and travel. -Struggles with commitment and being tied down. -Can be drawn to forbidden knowledge, philosophy, and spiritual rebellion. - Might feel misunderstood by family, might not resonate with religion. Lilith in Capricorn - Defies authority, corporate structures, and traditional success models. -May struggle with control issues or rejecting responsibility. -Can be a powerhouse when embracing their own rules for success. -Might have been put down for their ambition, they have the power to rise to the top and become the best Lilith in Aquarius -A true revolutionary, challenges norms and embraces eccentricity. -Struggles with feeling like an outsider or rejecting belonging. -Can be a genius when breaking boundaries in technology, art, or activism. Lilith in Pisces - Rejects religious or spiritual dogma, drawn to mystical or altered states. -Struggles with escapism, addiction, or losing themselves in dreams. -Can harness immense creative and intuitive power when grounded.

[comatosebunny09]

carpe noctem [ preface ] | sylus

— summary: whatever they have is cosmic. which is why you quietly bow out, thinking you never stood a chance. — cw: reader is not mc, assassin!reader, unrequited feelings, mentions of burned bodies, mentions of blood & injuries, jealousy, stream of conciousness, mdni — notes: shout out to @alfredosaws, @cheshireworld, and @midiplier for inspiring this! thank you for reading! here's a playlist to keep you entertained! edit: part 2 can be found here. — now playing: abracadabra - brown eyed girls

“Did you see that?!”

A smirk crooks your lips. 

You watch the source of excitement in your periphery, her mirth infectious. You pat the space between her shoulder blades, the other hand stuffed in your pocket, pride swelling in your chest. The SUV eases into focus, a sleek outline of black, haloed by the sun’s deceptively innocent glow.

“I did.”

Her eyes brighten like stars shining in the inky night. She punches at the air—a reenactment of the moves she displayed during your scuffle inside the warehouse. It burns a pretty blend of orange and yellow behind, flames licking a cyan sky, smoke billowing from squealing metal. Carnage you left behind after a deal gone sour, structure and bodies turned to cinder, courtesy of one nefarious mafioso with a bomb fetish. 

She flexes her bicep, fixing you with a grin that’s all canines. “I was pretty badass, huh?”

You quirk a brow, quietly giving her props. 

A chuckle erupts from behind you both. You don’t look back. His presence is ever-looming. Imposing, towering over your shoulder, oozing smugness. 

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, kitten.” 

He says it to humble her. To keep her head from overinflating, but you don’t miss the affection surfing in the undercurrents of his voice. It always lives there when he chides her. 

You can’t blame him. She’s come a long way: Ms. Hunter. 

Initially, she feared being roped in with the lot of you. Rejected the lifestyle of doing very bad things to equally bad people. She eventually found her niche, and you unconsciously took her under your wing, treating her like something of a sibling—a friend.

You knew she wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. Sylus made that clear. Cryptic as ever, forcing her onto you, refusing to tell you everything. Only that she owed him a debt, and he brought her around to collect.

At first, you despised the arrangement. She was a thorn in your side, the bane of your existence. Her very presence threatened the hodgepodge life you constructed with your makeshift family—Luke, Kieran, Mephisto, Sylus.

She was too nice. Reckless. Too self-righteous, where you were calculative. A manipulator, a killer. Your hands dripped red while hers were delicate as orchid petals. But she had Sylus wrapped around her finger—a feat you struggled to conquer for years. The man was playing Kitty Cards and sneaking plushies into the manor, for crying out loud. Besides, you couldn’t deny how she squirmed her way through the fissures of your own heart, nestling between atriums and ventricles like she’d always belonged there. 

You found yourself quietly rooting for them—your big, bad wolf of a boss and his precious little lamb. The affection blooming between them was palpable, like datura petals drifting in an errant breeze. Though an official title never revealed itself to you, you sensed whatever bond they shared was cosmic. Something you couldn’t touch or disrupt no matter how hard you tried. So you wordlessly conceded, bowing out of a competition you constructed in your mind. 

You were content with protecting her. Showing her the ropes, knowing in the back of your mind she would one day replace you. You were slowly becoming old news, no longer the center of Sylus’ orbit. It was fitful, but it was nice to see him smile like that for a change. To see this side of him, smitten with his defenses buried beneath the rubble, and you supposed that was enough for you. 

At least this way, you could remain by his side. Fulfill your own obligations, continuing to serve him, even if it means watching the world you’ve grown so accustomed to slowly fall away from your feet. 

“You did a good job,” you say, disrupting the slurry of your thoughts, a fond hand ruffling her hair, eyes creased at the corners. 

You usher the hunter into the passenger seat of the SUV. She’s still buzzing in the aftermath of your fight as you shut the door, a chuckle roiling in your chest. You turn to ease into the backseat, but Sylus is there, wearing that customary smirk, holding the rear door open for you instead. 

“You both did well.”

The look you toss at him is suspicious. Raised brows and a sardonic curve to your lips. There’s more to his praise than he lets on, handing it out like a rare bouquet, usually reserved for her. Sylus merely shrugs, feigning innocence, his intentions shielded behind dark lenses. You ease into the chilled leather seat, the swell of noise from the fire traded for Ms. Hunter animatedly recounting the day’s events when the door shuts beside you.

You lapse into monotony, watching plumes of smoke fade in the rearview mirror as the three of you ease onto the highway. Sylus’ hand is tight on the steering wheel. Long, spindly fingers wrapped around coarse leather. His voice is bold like black coffee, warming your innards on a wintry day, as he and Ms. Hunter exchange words you can’t be bothered to follow up front. Occasionally, scarlet eyes catch yours in the mirror. It’s as if he’s keeping tabs on you, ensuring you’re still here. Like you’re poised to tuck and roll out the backseat, driven by how comfortably they speak with each other.

Physically, you’re present. Mentally, you’re drifting off. Watching power lines skate by, blurring with the skyline and mountains as the vehicle slides downhill. Maybe you’re more exhausted than you initially thought. You’d taken a hit or two in the fray earlier. Have blood speckling the ivory collar of your shirt, a scrape lining your jaw, and you’re sure you’ll have pretty splotches of blue and purple staining the corner of your mouth come tomorrow. 

Pain is usually an afterthought. You’re so used to shielding, so accustomed to recklessly throwing your body around, and the adrenaline’s ebbing, making way for the dull throb of a migraine and sleepiness dangling like sandbags from your upper lids. You lean against the door, propped on your elbow, temple roosted on swollen knuckles. You blink slowly, your heart beating steady until the scenery beyond the window makes way for darkness. You won’t be at the hotel for another hour. A little catnap won’t hurt. 

Before you fully relinquish yourself to the pretty girls of sleep, an enthusiastic voice peels through the inkiness. Static against a violet backdrop, tugging a quiet smile onto your lips. Ms. Hunter.   

“We should celebrate!”

We should, you muse, sinking below the shadowy depths of sleep, lured there by the bumping of the SUV against the road and Sylus fondly teasing the source of your envy.

masterlist | conflict